And then, as he floats back and forth, just a few feet above her roof, but unable to enter her house even as a specter, Daniel first learns that he is not alone in the nightlife ofthe skies over Leyden.At first, he thinks he has seen an owl or some other nocturnal bird ofprey, and his second thought is that some small object has fallen from space, a meteorite, a scrap ofcosmic garbage.He turns and sees, ofall people, Derek Pabst flying rapidly, wildly due west, dressed in a pair ofdark-blue boxer shorts and a Boston Red SoxT-shirt.Derek seems not to have noticed Daniel, and though Daniel has no desire to speak to Derek, some instinct ofcamaraderie overtakes him and he calls out to his old friend.Derek, a look ofgreat anxiety on his face, turns toward the sound ofDaniel’s voice, fails to see him, and then begins to tumble head over heel, zoom-ing out toward the outskirts ofthe village like a ball oflightning.
When he turns to resume his watch over Iris’s house, she is there, facing him.She is only inches away, her nightgown streaming behind her, a look ofwonder and bewilderment on her face.
“Am I dreaming?”she asks.She starts to drift away and he catches her by the wrist, pulls her close to him.
“You’re awake.”
“I’ve had a terrible night, such a terrible, terrible night.”
“Hampton?”
“When you spend all this time with someone who cannot speak, it forces you down into yourself, but in the worst way.We’re not meant to be silent, but to him words have no meaning.So I sit there with him, and I think about you, and ifthere’s no one else around…”She stops herself, looks down.She starts to lose altitude and Daniel catches her again.She presses her lips to his palm and then places it on her breast.Her breath comes in broken pieces, as ifit must turn at right angles to escape her.“Ifthere’s no one around,”she says,“I just say what I’m thinking.I say,‘Hampton, I’m in love.I’m in love with a man who thinks I’m smart and beautiful.”
“Everyone thinks you’re smart and beautiful, Iris.”
“I stopped loving him, Daniel.Long ago.Being with someone so broken—even ifyou love them, it takes everything.How do you do it when you already stopped loving them?When you already felt trapped.When your heart is…elsewhere.He’s grotesque now.He’s frightened, he cries, and every day he gets physically stronger.But how can I leave him?”
A sudden wind comes offthe river and pushes her closer to Daniel.
“Everything in the world is telling us we don’t belong together,”he says miserably.
“Don’t you love me anymore?”
“Ofcourse I do.But it doesn’t have anything to do with that, not now.How much can love do? It’s buried.”
“I don’t feel buried.I used to, but not now.Look at me!”She spreads her arms and then raises them above her and begins to gain altitude, slowly at first, and then she soars.
“I want to see him!”Daniel shouts after her, but ifshe hears him she gives no sign ofit, she continues to rise.Unnerved, Daniel returns to his own bed.
He switches on the light on his bedside table.The lamp is shaped like a calla lily;he bought it in town, thinking that it was an iris, and that Iris would be touched by it, or at least like it.But no matter how many times she has come to this room, she seems never to notice the lamp.Nor has she mentioned the expensive brass bed he’s installed, or the five-hundred-dollar goose down comforter, or the black lacquered end tables, or the Navaho rug, or the Parisian jazz club poster, with a piano keyboard curling across it like a black-and-white woolen scarf.It all seems like a miscalculation, the fancy boudoir accoutrements.He props a pillow against the chilly brass bars ofthe bed’s headboard, picks up the book he’s been reading.He remains on his back, turns the page, and then switches to his side, propping up his head with one hand.The hand covers his right eye and the world instantly disappears.He sits bolt upright, his heart rac-ing;as soon as he removes the heel ofhis hand from his right eye the world returns.He covers the eye again.Darkness.He is blind in one eye.
[17]
Daniel is learning how to live with one sighted eye, learning to cope with the peculiar flatness ofthe world, the odd augmentation of sound, the unnerving momentary losses ofbalance, the trepidation be-fore stairways, the sense ofplunging while merely stepping offa curb, and he is even learning to live with the pervasive feeling that there is something or someone just behind him, or just to the side ofhim, a threatening presence that is out ofrange ofhis reduced arc ofvision, and that this peripheral, punishing phantom is about to pounce, grab, push, stab, or shoot him.What he is still having particular trouble with is keep-ing the secret ofhis sudden infirmity.He wants to talk about it, he wants help, he wants a little credit for how well he’s coping;concealment is against his nature, and now he must add the arrival ofthis partial blind-ness to his stockpile ofsecrets.
Finally, however, Daniel submits to a series oftests, under the aegis of Bruce McFadden.First, Bruce conducts his own examinations, and then, finding nothing amiss, he sends Daniel toWindsor Imaging, for an MRI and then a CAT scan, and when all the results are in he sits with Daniel in his office to go over them.Among the other decorations in McFadden’s office—and it’s an eccentric old space, filled with angles and oddities—are framed black-and-white photographs ofsome ofhis favorite blind musicians:Ray Charles, StevieWonder, Roland Kirk, Al Hibler, Ivory Joe Hunter, BlindWillie McTell, the Five Blind Boys ofMississippiandthe Five Blind Boys ofAlabama, together in the same photo, which makes it an artifact ofunusual distinction, and the English jazz pianist George Shearing, the one white face in the lot.
“It’s the old joke,”Bruce says, tilted back in his Swedish orthopedic chair, with its childishly bright-blue upholstery and its brilliant chrome hardware,“the one that goes,‘I’ve got good news and bad news.’”His feet are on the desk, he has knit his fingers behind his neck.“But the good news is good enough, maybe you won’t even care about the bad.There’s nothing wrong with your eye, Daniel.The retina, the cornea, the optic nerve, everything’s shipshape.In fact, you’ve got the ocular vigor ofa teenager.You don’t even need glasses.”
“Except that I can’t see,”Daniel says.
”Yes, well, that’s the bad news,”Bruce says.“We’re going to have to explore the possibility that the origin ofyour difficulty is not physical.”
“Meaning?”Daniel asks, though an instant later the question answers itself.
“Your eye is fine.Your vision will most likely come back.After your life—”
“You think mylifehas made me blind?”
“I don’t know what’s made you blind, Daniel.All I can tell you is what the tests say.And they all say your eye is healthy.”
Daniel falls silent.He hears a sound, turns toward it.The branch ofa maple tree, its leaves large as hands, blows in the breeze, scraping against the outside ofthe window.
“Guilt’s a bitch,”Bruce says.He sits forward, folds his hands, he’s coming to the end ofthe time allotted.
“I don’t feel guilty.How could I? I’ve turned a blind eye to everything.”
Bruce smiles, he looks relieved.“It may turn out to be as simple as that,”he says.
“I’mjoking,Bruce.”Daniel’s chin juts forward, he widens his eyes.“Jesus.”
“I feel sorry for you, Daniel.I really do.You’re under a lot ofpressure.”