Paul Theroux - Blinding Light

He took the muscular hugs and the bantering to be reactions to his blindness. The making way, too — silence, pity, confusion, bewilderment, and head signals and hand gestures. He smiled at eliciting these reactions, and none were kinder than the president’s.

“Beautiful paintings,” Ava was saying as they left the receiving line.

No sooner had a waiter put a drink in Steadman’s hand than the president caught up with him and steered him to the other guests and introduced him. He insisted on including Steadman in every conversation—“the author of Trespassing’— and he held on to him with a gentle guiding hand. The president was being a big brother, a defender, an explainer, a benefactor, taking personal charge of him.

Twice, Steadman overheard people saying variations of “I wish my mother were alive, so I could call her and tell her where I am. She would be so proud.”

He heard voices with a clarity that kept the words in his memory, and the guests had the urgency of people trying to remember everything that was happening. They spoke in a mannered and self-conscious way, as though rehearsing what they would later report to their friends.

But with the words, the particular accents, he recognized the chief components of people — their lips, their ears and noses, their nervous hands and shuffling feet, the physicality of the guests standing in the room, the fleshy strangulatory handshakes, the way they kept patting him on the back, the fragrant iridescence of the women — was it their mascara? — the heavy faces of the men, the way they used their jaws in speaking, always aware they were conspicuous. The bulk and heft of their bumping elbows, the suggestion of sinew and fat, their long greedy arms, their impatient feet in heavy shoes. He was continually reminded of the density of their flesh, and aware of them as restless contending animals.

Although they made room for him when he moved, when he stood to talk they always seemed to be crowding him, backing him up, standing a bit too close, speaking a bit too loud, as if he were not blind but slow-witted.

Among themselves, in their odd unhesitating talk and movement, he saw the guests as wishing to be in agreement, all on the same side, all rooting for the same team, all delighted to be there in the White House. They were all in step, a great hairy hovering party, full-throated in solidarity and especially emphatic in their marveling bark-like laughter.

Steadman knew that the pretense of unanimity was a polite deception, and he felt only pity and condescension for these people. He was glad — proud, beaming, blind. But the roar of approval concerned him as much as the sweet perfume that masked the stink, for he could see it was the purest theater, the posturing and the falsehood, the insincerity, the fakery, the lies. The guests were nervous and unsure and grateful; if the president had asked, they would have agreed to anything. Ape-like, he kept thinking, and they had the moral blindness of primates too.

“We’re being summoned,” Ava said. “But I’m not sitting next to you.”

They went into the next room for dinner, Ava steering him, and then he was shown to his seat. He knew he was being watched as he was served a glass of wine and as the first course was put before him.

“Consommé,” he said, inhaling.

“That’s a ten,” the woman next to him said.

“No,” he said, feeling that she was patronizing him. “A ten for me is when it’s sashimi and I correctly guess maguro by the aroma alone.”

“Liz Barton,” the woman said. He could tell she was small and sure of herself, very young, with a confident gargly voice. “I know who you are. My father was such a fan.”

He swallowed his rebuke and said, “What do you do, Liz?”

“I’m in the attorney general’s office. Overseeing adjuncts to the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

“So I guess I’m not your first blind dinner partner,” Steadman said. “Not at all. I had the privilege of escorting Stevie Wonder when President Mandela visited.”

“I can see him now, grinning all over his face, wagging his head and shaking his beaded locks in gratitude,” Steadman said, turning to the person on his right and gesturing to Liz Barton. “This young woman insists on flattering me.”

By then the second course was being served. Steadman made small talk, realizing with disgust that this was required of him and already wishing to leave. He had shown up, he had presented himself to the president and the guests as the blind author, his picture had been taken. But he couldn’t leave, not yet, for the dinner was formal: there were toasts, affirmations of friendship between the United States and Germany, the repeated mention of a trade fair in Hannover.

“I am so sorry my wife is not here to join us. As first lady, she is on an official visit to Africa with our daughter and sends you all her good wishes.” Before the president sat down, he added, “I want to say a special word of thanks to my good friend and a great American writer, Slade Steadman.”

Snatching at his cane, Steadman rose and leaned on it and smiled, showing the room his dark glasses and his grim smile, and sensing the explosive puffs of air and flashes of light as cameras fired at him.

Coffee was served and the president offered to show the guests more of the White House: the Truman Balcony overlooking the South Lawn, the Green Room where Jefferson had dined, the smaller family dining room, and some artifacts, including a Gutenberg Bible, which had been brought from the Library of Congress in the German chancellors honor.

The crowd thinned, the women who had sat on either side of him had left, and Steadman was alone. As he wondered where Ava had gone, he felt a familiar hand massaging his shoulder and heard the president’s voice.

“Slade, I’m so glad to have you here with us. I do hope you’ll come back,” he said, and then, obviously to Ava, “Hi, there. When am I going to see you on the Vineyard, girl?”

“I hope it’s at the Wolfbeins’, Mr. President, rather than the hospital, where I usually spend my time,” Ava said.

“That’s so great, being a doctor there. I could have used you when I twisted my knee.” But when the president spoke, Steadman could tell his mind was racing, always elsewhere, on something else.

“I know your name,” the man said, another German accent.

They talked of Trespassing, all the familiar remarks — the boldness of it, the danger, the originality, how it had inspired a TV show and a clothing line. Steadman mentioned his new book and hoped that, before long, Trespassing would be forgotten and his Book of Revelation would be the topic of discussion.

But something else bothered him, for the president’s hand was still on his shoulder, and Steadman felt as he had back in the summer, that the president was a wounded man. A note of hurt and insincerity, of forced gaiety in his voice, a turbulence in his manner that appeared to be the opposite — such great poise that his equanimity could only be a pretense, the poise of someone with a secret, the grace and glibness of a man in pain, who wanted no one to know it, who hated most of all to be pitied, who never wanted his weakness, nor any of the many secrets humming in his heart, to be known.

All this time, the president and the German dinner guest were speaking — about writing, about cultural exchange, about the American Institute in Berlin. Steadman found himself saying, “Yes, of course, I would love to visit when my new book comes out.”

“You will be welcome,” the man said, and turned away to be introduced to someone else.

The president said to Steadman, “I hope you’ll join us tomorrow in the Rose Garden for the joint press conference. There’ll be a lot of journalists there who’d love to see you.”