A Closed Book (6 page)

‘You mean, italicize it?'

‘Can do you that?'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘On the computer screen?'

‘Absolutely. I've done it already.'

‘Good Lord. What a dream machine it must be. I almost wish I could see it. Well, never mind. Read that last bit back to me, please.'

‘The last bit. “I continue to ‘see' the same plaid, the same deep space, because as a human being I cannot not see it; because seeing is a function of the organism even when the organs themselves have been removed. I
have
to see –”'

‘“I
have
to see, whether such is my active intention or not. It is an itch which scratches itself, an itch comparable to that which makes amputees worry over” – no, “fret over” – “fret over their missing limbs. For there is, seemingly, what might be called an etiquette of amputation, an Emily Postish” – that's “Emily Post” plus “ish”, one word, no hyphen, please – “an Emily Postish list of dos and don'ts where the physically impaired are concerned, mostly don'ts, of course. Thus, one should not sit on an amputee's bed at the exact spot where his leg would normally be, one should not violate the – the air space of his missing arm, etc.”'

‘Do you want me to write “etc”?'

‘Just the usual abbreviation, please. Are you getting all this?'

‘Think so. But, tell me, we're still on the same paragraph, right?'

‘Yes. Well, actually, no. Now I think of it, no. New paragraph coming up. I'll tell you when in future.'

‘Okay. New paragraph. Go on.'

‘Go on! Go on! Easy to say.'

‘Or don't go on, as the case may be.'

‘“The question” – I'm going on – “the question is more general, however, than that posed by blindness alone. In my own past, whenever an optician or ophthalmologist trained a torch” – no, a – a – a – what are they called, those slim little torches that opticians use?'

‘A pencil torch?'

‘A pencil torch, yes. “In the past –”'

‘“In
my own
past –”'

‘“In my own past, whenever an optician or ophthalmologist trained a pencil torch on my eye, or whenever I myself chanced to rub too hard and long on my eyeball, I seemed to catch sight of” – dash – “well, what precisely?” Don't forget the question mark. “Well, what precisely? The retina? The eyeball's inner surface? Its outer surface? Whichever” – colon – “cratered, cicatrized, lunar” – comma – “as raw” – no, wait, better underline “lunar”.'

‘Right. Is “cicatrized” spelt with an s or a z?'

‘Who cares? That's the sort of thing we can fix up later. “Whichever: cratered, cicatrized,
lunar
, as red and rawly textured as the skin of a scrawny day-old nestling, as biliously opaque as a – as a gaudy glass paperweight, the sight of it was deeply disquieting. It reminded me of the earth's primaeval convulsions in the horrendously vulgar
Sacre du Printemps
sequence of Walt Disney's
Fantasia
” – wait, cut “horrendously vulgar”, this isn't a work of film criticism – “in the
Sacre du Printemps
sequence of Walt Disney's
Fantasia
. It reminded me, above all, that the eyes are two parts of the body, are things” – italicize – “
things
, units that can be lost, broken, cracked –”'

‘Shouldn't that be “lost, cracked, broken”?'

‘Oh. And why?'

‘Just that there appears to be an ascending order of seriousness and “cracked” is surely less serious than “broken”?'

‘Quite right, quite right. Well spotted, John. Keep taking the tablets.'

‘We aim to please.'

‘I'm going on: “that can be lost, cracked, broken, that, as I well know, can be disjoined from the head and held, even rolled around, in the palm of the hand. From inside my head” – ICs around “inside” – “from ‘inside' my head it never occurred to me, unless I happened to think of it” – ICs around “think of it” – “that I had in reality two eyes, not one. From inside I was a human Cyclops” – capital C, semi-colon – “my Cyclops eye, as I perceived it, was both the spectator and screen of the world” – semi-colon – “the world, as I confronted and controlled it – I mean, attempted to control it” – that “I mean” is in the text, incidentally, after a dash – “was in a tangible sense inside the eye” – open brackets – “(remove the eye and you also remove
the world)” – close brackets, full stop. “The eye, then, was finally just that glass paperweight which I mention above –” Wait, though, wait. Did I?'

‘Did you what?'

‘Mention a glass paperweight?'

‘Bubbubbubbubbubbubbubbub. Yes, you did: “as biliously opaque as a gaudy glass paperweight”.'

‘Of course I did. I'm going on. “The eye, then, was finally just that gaudy glass paperweight which I mention above, save that, instead of a nostalgic little Christmassy vista” – open brackets – “(soft snow falls if you hold it upside-down)” – close brackets – “what it contained was the world itself.” New paragraph. “But was I really seeing it” – ICs around “seeing”, comma after “it” – “was I really seeing my own eye? How can an eye manage to see itself? See inwardly or, so to speak, self-referentially? Even way back then, I was myopic, even then I saw the external world only with glasses. Yet, miraculously, I could see this lunar surface just as sharply as would anyone possessed of normal vision. What was it, though, that I saw it with” – underline “with”, question mark. “What was it, though, that I saw it
with
? With, doubtless, that instinctual and atavistic seeing reflex that I have already referred to and that ultimately transcends the possession of one's very organs of sight.”'

‘Paul? Would you like to stop for a moment?'

‘Why do you ask?'

‘You seem a bit distracted.'

‘I told you how hard it would be for me to dictate a book. It is. Harder than I dreamed. I'm sweating like a pig. My shirt's damp at the collar. Why am I sweating so?'

‘Shall we take a short break? Elevenses?'

‘Yes. Yes, John, it might be a good idea to take a break. Though, if we're to finish within the year, we can't take too many of them.'

‘True. But will I get us some coffee now?'

‘Did it all appear to make sense to you?'

‘To be honest, Paul, I was too busy taking it down to take it in.'

‘Well, I'm sorry, but I've got to know the worst. Read it back to me, will you.'

‘Everything, you mean?'

‘From the top, as cocktail pianists say. Slowly and fluently. And no matter what I think of it, no matter if I die a little on hearing it, I promise not to interrupt. Then we'll have our break. Deal?'

‘Deal. All right, here we go. “I am blind. I have no sight. Equally –”'

‘Not so fast.'

‘Sorry. Okay. “I am blind. I have no sight. Equally I have no eyes. I am thus a freak. For blindness is freakish, is surreal.”'

‘Oh God, it's so jerky. So many short sentences. It's like a leader in the
Daily Express
.'

‘Paul, you promised not to interrupt.'

‘I'm sorry, it's just so simplistic.'

‘You'll have plenty of time later to complicate it.'

‘Hmm. I'll take that in the spirit in which I trust it was intended. All right, go on. I won't say another word.'

‘“I am blind. I have no sight. Equally I have no eyes. I am thus a freak. For blindness is freakish, is surreal. Even more surreal than my blindness itself, however, is the fact that, having been dispossessed not only of my sight but of my eyes, I continue to ‘see' nevertheless. What it is that I see may be ‘nothing' – I am blind, after all – but that ‘nothing' is, paradoxically, by no means beyond my powers of description. I see nothing, yet, amazingly, I am able to describe that nothing. The world for me, the world of sightlessness, has become a sombre and coarsely textured plaid as devoid of light as I imagine deep space must be and yet somehow, also like deep space, penetrable. And, I repeat, I really do see it. There would seem to exist a profound and immemorial impulse, in that part of my face where my eyes used to be, to ‘look out' at the world, an impulse that, even when I no longer have eyes, does not then spread indiscriminately to the rest of my face. It is still with my missing eyes, exclusively
with them, that I ‘see nothing'. I still turn my head to greet someone, not merely in unthinking obeisance to the weary conventions of jejune social intercourse but also as though, even eyeless, I remain subject to an instinctual and atavistic seeing reflex. In short, I continue to ‘see' the same plaid, the same deep space, because as a human being I cannot not see it; because seeing is a function of the organism even when the organs themselves have been removed. I
have
to see, whether such is my active intention or not. It is an itch which scratches itself, an itch comparable to that which makes amputees fret over their missing limbs. For there is, seemingly, what might be called an etiquette of amputation, an Emily Postish list of dos and don'ts where the physically impaired are concerned, mostly don'ts, of course. Thus, one should not sit on an amputee's bed at the exact spot where his leg would normally be, one should not violate the air space of his missing arm, etc.

‘“The question is more general, however, than that posed by blindness alone. In my own past, whenever an optician or ophthalmologist trained a pencil torch on my eye, or whenever I myself chanced to rub too hard and long on my eyeball, I seemed to catch sight of – well, what precisely? The retina? The eyeball's inner surface? Its outer surface? Whichever: cratered, cicatrized,
lunar
, as red and rawly textured as the skin of a
scrawny day-old nestling, as biliously opaque as a gaudy glass paperweight, the sight of it was deeply disquieting. It reminded me of the earth's primaeval convulsions in the
Sacre du Printemps
sequence of Walt Disney's
Fantasia
. It reminded me, above all, that the eyes are two parts of the body, are
things
, units that can be lost, cracked, broken, that, as I well know, can be disjoined from the head and held, even rolled around, in the palm of the hand. From ‘inside' my head it never occurred to me, unless I happened to ‘think of it', that I had in reality two eyes, not one. From inside I was a human Cyclops; my Cyclops eye, as I perceived it, was both the spectator and screen of the world; the world, as I confronted and controlled it – I mean, attempted to control it – was in a tangible sense inside the eye (remove the eye and you also remove the world). The eye, then, was finally just that gaudy glass paperweight which I mention above, save that, instead of a nostalgic little Christmassy vista (soft snow falls if you hold it upside-down), what it contained was the world itself.

‘“But was I really ‘seeing' it, was I really seeing my own eye? How can an eye manage to see itself? See inwardly or, so to speak, self-referentially? Even way back then, I was myopic, even then I saw the external world only with glasses. Yet, miraculously, I could see this lunar surface just as sharply as would anyone
possessed of normal vision. What was it, though, that I saw it
with
? With, doubtless, that instinctual and atavistic seeing reflex that I have already referred to and that ultimately transcends the possession of one's very organs of sight.”'

‘Sorry to be a bore, John, but I want to add something. Directly following “I
have
to see, whether such is my active intention or not”, I want to add – in brackets – something along the lines of “Let the reader close his eyes and verify for himself that, even then, even with his eyes closed, he continues to see” – inverted commas around “see” – “even if what he sees is nothing at all” – close brackets.'

‘You want me to add that now?'

‘Yes, I do.'

‘Very well. Can you dictate it again? More slowly this time.'

‘“Let the reader close his eyes –”'

‘Hold on, I've got to find the place.'

‘Right. Fire away.'

‘“Let the reader close his eyes –”'

‘Sorry.'

‘What is it now?'

‘You don't want to say, “Let the reader close his or her eyes”?'

‘Lord, no! I told you once before I won't be a slave to that PC poppycock. It becomes so infernally awkward. “Let the reader close his
or her
eyes and verify for himself
or herself
–”'

‘Okay, okay. “And verify for
him
self –” Go on.'

‘“And verify for himself that, even then, even with his eyes tightly closed, he continues to see” – ICs – “even if what he sees is nothing at all.”'

‘Close brackets?'

‘Close brackets. Shit, I've suddenly realized. Three “evens” in the same sentence. And I shudder to think how you spelt
Sacre du Printemps
. Never mind, we'll have another look at it all after we've had our break. I wonder how long it is. Offhand, I'd say just under eight hundred words. Seven hundred and – oh, fifty.'

‘Give me a sec and I'll have the exact figure for you.'

‘What? Don't tell me you're some kind of mathematical prodigy? What do they call them? Idiot savants?'

‘No, of course not. I'm getting the Mac to give me a word count.'

‘Curiouser and curiouser. Is there anything it can't do?'

‘Not much. Here you are. Seven hundred and seventy-five words. Not counting the title and date, seven hundred and seventy.'

‘Seven hundred and seventy, eh?'

‘I must say, you made a very impressive guess.'