Steadman scowled at her. Because she so seldom talked about herself, this question seemed irrelevant.
“I don’t want to make you feel guilty,” she said, “but can you imagine what your behavior did to my head?”
He still scowled and looked deaf. He was niggled by the word “behavior.”
“I have a past, too,” she said.
“That’s for you to deal with,” he said in a tone of Who wants to know? He had become grim and uninterested. He wanted to turn away from her, for all this time, in her arms, lusting for her, he had seen her as every woman he had ever loved, and she had seen him as — who? — someone else, certainly.
“Your story,” she said, “is not to be confused with mine.”
Of course, another narrative had been unspooling in her mind, utterly different from his own, one he could not share.
“Be a doctor,” he said. “Help me. Heal me. Don’t tell me about your medical history.”
Still, he was puzzled by the parallel life she must have led while collaborating on his book. Sexuality was so private, so fantasy driven, so dependent on the past. He knew what role she played for him in his blissful reveries of childhood, but what part did he play in her simultaneous recollections and rehearsals? Better not ask.
“What does it all lead to?” she said. “People will wonder.”
“Happiness,” he said. “Anyone reading my book will see that all they need to know is in their own head. That’s my message. ‘You are the source of all wisdom. Of all pleasure.’”
So he told himself he was content. He took no notice of the invitations and requests, for he kept thinking of that morning of the phone call forewarning him — a “save the date” call for November. The invitation from the White House was sent by mail, the state dinner for the German chancellor. And a handwritten note on an enclosed card: The president is looking forward to seeing you.
One night in the first week of November, Steadman was at the chessboard, waiting for Ava to come home from the hospital. She hated eating late, regarded it as unhealthy; she had stopped drinking alcohol, since she might be summoned to the emergency room; she was always too weary these days for sex. Even chess was a labor for her, a single game might take days, but at least they were able to converse over the board.
He sat lightly, studying the chess pieces in a posture of patience and concentration. He was like a diner about to finish a meal, some scraps still on his plate, a man who was rested and alert and not very hungry, perhaps saving some of his food for his friend, who was about to turn up.
Ava entered without speaking, and it was only when she sat down that she spoke. “Your move.”
“Let’s play rapid transit,” he said. “I want to finish this tonight.”
As she made her move, she said, “You’re going drugged?” resuming the conversation that had ended the previous day when they had stood up from the chessboard.
“I’m at my best when I’m blind.” He took his turn without hesitating.
“It’s the White House. Everyone will see you. They’ll know.”
“Your move.”
After her move he swiftly took her rook, swooping with his knight.
“I want everyone to know.”
She let out a howl of agony, a surrendering cry of despair, not recognizable words but a dark lament that filled Steadman with horror for its sound of suffering. It was as though a knife had been plunged into her body, but she was not a victim, she was a witness, being given a long, hideous look at certain death — his death. He was fading as she looked helplessly on, and her howl at what he said was how she would feel at the sight of him dying. He saw that for her, with his certainty about being blind, he had died in her eyes.
Just afterward her voice changed to a gasp as she spoke with a scorched throat. “How can you?”
“I have to.”
“It’s a lie. It’s a mask,” she said, her voice catching.
“Blind Slade wrote that book,” he said. “To go any other way would be deceitful.”
“What if they found out the truth?”
“That is the truth. Please move.”
She moved, she was bent backward, as though wishing for words. She said, “To pretend to be afflicted.”
“I’m not afflicted,” he said, and struck again with his knight. “That’s the first thing people have to know.”
“It is such bullshit,” she said.
“Your move.”
She poked at a bishop, and in the next move lost him, and began to cry, the same lament but softer, more sorrowful, rubbing her eyes. With wet fingers she moved a pawn.
“I help sick people,” she said. “And you pretend to be sick. It makes a mockery of everything I do.”
“I became blind. I lost my sight. You know that.”
“People with brain tumors lose their sight. Diabetics lose their sight. People with detached retinas. Burn victims. Infected corneas. Serious head trauma. You should be ashamed.”
“I never said I was a victim. I never whined.”
“You’re worse. You boasted.”
He folded his hands and waited for her to move.
But she said, mimicking his voice, “I can write in the dark!”
“I can write in the dark. I am blinder than Borges when he wrote his essay ‘On Blindness.’ I wrote my book in the dark.” He had not looked up at her. He added, “If you don’t want to play, just say so.”
Ava stared at the board for a long while, then made a move, another fatal one. As Steadman plucked at her chess piece, Ava said, “I’m not going to help you. I won’t be part of it. Go to the White House blind if you like. What a mockery!”
He said, “It’s the truth. It’s who I am. Me at my best.”
Then he moved. She glanced down to see the trap. He said, “Checkmate,” and only then did he raise his eyes to her.
She recognized the bloodshot and glassy stare of his blindness as he sat triumphant over the chessboard. She put her hands in her lap and looked old and prim and distant.
He knew she would not howl again. No one could do that twice, with such a cry of horror. But she didn’t have to. He still heard it within himself. The sorrowing sound had deranged something in him — no longer a sound, but a pain lodged deep inside him, something torn, an ache that had displaced all his desire.
2
EVEN WITH THE invitation propped on the mantelpiece and the decision to go settled, Steadman kept receiving phone calls and faxes to verify additional details: his and Ava’s Social Security numbers, ages, birthplaces, home address, and — though Steadman had been explicit about his not needing help — a “Special Needs” form to be filled out and faxed back. Another form in the invitation package indicated that because rooms were unavailable, they were not being invited to stay the night in the White House. Attached to this was a list of hotels that offered special rates to White House dinner guests, with parking instructions, and “handicapped accessible” was mentioned here, too.
“‘Special needs’ describes me perfectly.”
“Why do you insist on doing this?”
He had to think a moment before he realized she didn’t mean the decision to accept the invitation but rather his insistence on attending the dinner blind. But he said nothing. His mind was made up.
Black tie had also been stressed — everything that was stated was stressed — and it was repeated that the chancellor of Germany was the guest of honor. Nothing was left to chance.
The morning of their departure, Steadman called Wolfbein to tell him the news and to ask for advice. Wolfbein was a friend of the president and a frequent overnighter at the White House.