“You putz,” he said, and he bantered, pretending to be hurt because he had not been invited. Then he urged Steadman always to remember to call him “Mr. President,” and not to bring a camera, and to observe protocol. “It’s ground zero. It’s the center of the world.” Wolfbein then became concerned. “How are you feeling?”
“Great. I can see through walls and around corners.”
When he put the phone down he was aware that Ava was behind him, leaning away, in a posture of disapproval.
She was silent on the way to Boston, silent on the plane to Washington, and it was only when they arrived at Reagan Airport that she spoke.
“I see the Jordans.”
Vernon and Ann Jordan approached and said hello. They had just arrived from New York, en route to the same dinner party.
“How’re you doing?” Vernon demanded in his hearty direct manner, fixing Steadman with a smile.
“X-ray vision,” Steadman said, tapping his dark glasses.
That pleased Vernon, who laughed loudly, his muscular body radiating light and health and humor. He was a man who smiled easily and whose casual manner masked a shrewd intelligence and fastidious discretion. Yet he was genuinely friendly, and near him Steadman felt that he was in the presence of a man of power, a smiling sorcerer who remembered everything he saw or heard.
“You know my wife,” Vernon said, and turning to Ann, said playfully, with a little bow, “Hello, wife.”
“I know you from the hospital,” Ann said to Ava. “We are all so thankful to you for your wonderful work.”
“Can we offer you good people a lift?” Vernon asked.
They accepted the ride with gratitude, feeling rescued, for they had traveled in silence and had arrived in Washington bewildered. And now, having been swept into the limo, they were treated to Vernon’s running commentary about the landmarks they were passing — the Pentagon, the Jefferson Memorial. He narrated tactfully, describing their beauty, using his enthusiasm for detail as a way of hiding the fact that he was doing this for a blind man.
“And here we are at the Willard. We’ll see you folks later.”
The formalities at check-in were brief and efficient, questions asked and ignored by Steadman, who brushed at his watch face with his fingertips and said, “We have to get a move on.”
He had taken a dose of the drug in the morning. He took another one in the hotel room after he changed into his tuxedo. Ava sat apart from him in the cab to the White House; she was remote, she disapproved, she was sorry she had come. A shadow of unease lay across her features, while Steadman’s were bathed in light.
After they were dropped at the side entrance, following the instructions on the map, they showed their IDs and were escorted (“This is the East Room”) to where there was a receiving line and drinks being served. Steadman was aware of a glazed and shimmering room filled with excited strangers.
“I’m right beside you,” Ava said.
“I know,” Steadman said. And then, “Do you believe this?”
The smells of fresh flowers and floor wax and new paint gave the place a hum of something venerable, the glory of an old hotel restored to luxury. All this with the contrasting odors of perfume and aftershave lotion and polished leather. But more conspicuous than anything was the insinuation of decay beneath the sweaty faces and the glitter, the corruption and the untruth, like the decrepitude that stank under the White House timbers — Steadman could smell it all.
The discomfort, the awkwardness, was palpable, too — bumped shoulders, loud greetings, the hyperalertness of strangers. But though no one seemed at home there — the whole gleaming structure was like a stage set — they were all energized by simply being in the place. With an intensity that was like a fever of madness, the guests seemed to Steadman like heavy animals in unnatural postures, tottering on their hind legs. They were clumsy, they were eager, they chattered and bantered in a way that made them seem skittish and tickled. Their attention was brief but vibrant, glittering for an instant and then flashing elsewhere, as they roved — the men especially — swinging their arms, shouldering forward, glancing sideways. Steadman was reminded first of ungainly athletes and then of greedy goodhearted apes.
Approaching the receiving line, Steadman was cued to the keen attention — gestures more obvious than murmurs — of people making way for him. They stood aside and let him pass, no one touching him, until the large warm arm of the president rested on his shoulder. With a firm fond hug, the president held on.
“So glad you could make it. And you, too, Doctor,” the president said, gripping Ava’s elbows. Then he turned and said, “This man is truly one of my favorite writers. And I can tell you, he’s a hero. Slade Steadman, this is His Excellency…”
But Steadman was grasped again, and the chancellor said, in a slight accent that made him seem kindly and precise, “Yes, in Germany as well. So good to meet you.”
He heard the soft bubble-burst of camera flashes and felt his face warmed as his picture was taken. He knew the others were smiling, he could tell by a tightness in their voices, but he did not smile. He tried to look serene and untroubled, indifferent to the cameras, for he knew these pictures would travel.
“You’ve probably been to Germany.” The voice was unmistakably Vernon Jordan’s. And Steadman was hugged and Vernon said, “How you doing now?”
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.