The Night Listener : A Novel (29 page)

Was that why Ashe Findlay never told me she was blind? Had Donna demanded his silence as part of the deal? And was that why this crucial detail was nowhere to be found in
The Blacking Factory
?

Findlay had told me there were things I didn’t know, valid reasons to trust Donna’s motives and respect her wishes. This was obviously what he’d meant. When I’d pressed the issue, he’d cancelled Pete’s book rather than reveal the omission that made it something less than the whole truth.

Were blind people allowed to adopt children? Why not? Especially a psychiatrist, someone equipped to deal with the boy’s emotional health. She wouldn’t be able to drive him anywhere, but that could easily be done by a social worker or a friend. Someone like…Marsha from across the street! Marsha who rode with them on those long, boring trips into Milwaukee, Marsha who’d been so very helpful, by Donna’s own account.

Beyond the junior high school the street became more residential and wooded. It was snowing harder now, so I expected Donna and Janus to pick up speed, but instead, without warning, they stopped dead in their tracks. Some forty feet behind them, I found myself doing the same—an odd sight indeed for anyone watching from a window.

“C’mon,” said Donna. “I thought we took care of that.” Janus mumbled something in his own language.

“Okay,” replied his mistress. “Do it, then.” The dog squatted in the gutter and shat, the steam from it curling in the air like smoke from a genie’s lamp. Janus, meanwhile, looked around with the mortified expression that canines wear on such occasions. For a moment, his eyes seemed to settle on me, though I was almost a block away. In my consternation I couldn’t decide whether it was better not to move or move in a way that might be interpreted as natural.

Mercifully, the dog looked back at Donna when she spoke to him again. “Yeah, that’s a good one, I can tell.” She was talking about his shit, I realized, and it gave me a twinge of remorse to have invaded her privacy so completely. I myself had paid similar compliments to Hugo—and unashamedly—but I would not have looked kindly upon eavesdroppers.

“Okay,” said Donna. “Let’s go.” With that they were off again, moving faster than before. The blocks were shorter here and the streets more mazelike, so I knew I would have to keep pace or lose them completely. I decided to trail her from the other side of the street, where I would look a little less like a stalker. I made myself promise not to lose my nerve.

Then I heard a voice coming from a house.

“Hey,” it called. “You’re gonna miss him.” It was a woman’s voice—one that Donna obviously recognized.

“Oh, hi.” She brought the dog to a halt. “Miss who?”

“C’mon now. Who would you miss at eleven o’clock?”

“Really? Is it that late?”

I stopped behind a tree and pretended to kick snow off my shoes, an unconvincing charade intended only for this unseen woman. I was fairly sure she hadn’t spotted me, but I wanted to look innocuous in case she had. There was no quicker way to forfeit my invisibility.

“What are you doing in this mess?” said the woman.

Donna sighed. “I just had to get out for a while. I like this, anyway.

It’s so peaceful without the traffic. Is it really eleven o’clock?”

“’Fraid so. You wanna come in and listen? I could make us some cocoa.” There was something about her tone that seemed unusually tender and solicitous—even for someone speaking to a blind lady in a snowstorm.

“That’s sweet, Pat. But I’m beat.”

“You sure?” coaxed the woman. “Should be a good one. Jamie’s eccentric uncle gets back from his hunting trip tonight.”

“I’ve heard that one already,” said Donna. “These are all reruns, you know. He hasn’t done anything new for ages.” Then it hit me: they were talking about me. Or at least about
Noone
at Night
. Donna’s voice, while remaining civil, seemed to have a dismissive ring to it, as if she wanted no part of this woman’s fan-dom.

“Well, go home, then,” said the woman. “Tuck yourself in.”

“I hear you,” said Donna, putting a fresh spin on that late-twentieth-century cliché. She had heard me for years, after all. She had
only
heard me. Like other sightless radio listeners, she had built a teeming three-dimensional world from the sound of my voice alone.

Judging from the letters I received, that intimate aural connection could be far more potent than anything the eyes could contain. But if Donna had once known that experience—and shared it with her son—she seemed to have lost it now.

I heard a door close solidly as the woman went back inside. Then Donna and the dog went on their way, and the knot in my chest loosened a little. I waited until they had rounded the corner before continuing my bogus stroll. At that moment, a clock began to toll gravely in the distance, offering proof of the eleventh hour. I half expected to hear my own voice coming from one of those houses, intoning the intro to my show: “I’m Gabriel Noone and this is
Noone at Night
…” But there was only the clock, and the sound of a faraway train as it screamed through the frozen night.

At the end of the next block I heard the jingle of keys and realized that Donna was almost home. Still watching from across the street, I kept my distance as she stopped in front of her house. The place was nearly—though not exactly—what I’d imagined. It was set back on the lot, but there were no trees to speak of, just a huddle of overgrown shrubbery against the windows. And the house, while compact, wasn’t a bungalow at all but an L-shaped brick ranch from the sixties with a cluttered carport to one side. The aluminum-framed windows afforded a partial glimpse of a still-lighted Christmas tree.

Still lighted, no doubt, for the benefit of the neighbors.

Or the benefit of
someone
other than Donna.

The implications were both heartening and terrifying. After all my reckless sleuthing, I was suddenly paralyzed with indecision.

This was clearly not the time to confront this woman, much less force a meeting with an ailing boy. It would be better to return in the morning when Donna wouldn’t feel so cornered and I could pretend that I’d found their address through legitimate means. I could bring them some flowers, perhaps, or a nice Christmas present, something to soften the blow of my rude invasion. And I would feel more rested then, ready to face whatever it was that awaited me.

I turned and walked away briskly, heading back the way I’d come.

The relief I felt was enormous, but only temporary, since I couldn’t resist the temptation to look back at Donna one more time. She had stopped halfway down her front walk and was facing toward me with a new expression on her face. Had she been sighted, I would have known right away that the game was over. As it was, I had to wait for the sound of her voice: “Come now, Gabriel, aren’t you going to say hello?”

TWENTY-FOUR

THE IDEA OF HIM

MY FIRST THOUGHT, irrational as it sounds, was that she wasn’t really blind; that the guide dog and the harness and the careful mannerisms were just a clever ruse to flush out the people who might be tempted to exploit such limiting circumstances. People like me, for instance.

But when I got closer and caught the dull pewter sheen of her eyes, the reality was undeniable. I was so lost for a response that I heard myself affecting a tone of jovial astonishment, as if we were old friends from college who’d just bumped into each other in a crowded European airport: “
Donna?
”

Her reaction was laughter, deservedly enough, a throaty chuckle that might have reassured me if it had not raised the hairs on the back of my neck. “Save us both the trouble,” she said. “Hank told me you were here.”

Hank? Who was that?

She read my confusion and explained: “The clerk at the Mail ‘n’ More. He called me as soon as you left. Said some guy from California was asking about me. I figured you’d turn up eventually.”

“I’m so sorry, Donna.” My effort to sound sincere was undermined by the distracting thought that guide dogs might also be trained to attack. Janus seemed friendly enough, but he had a sort of wait-and-see gleam in his eyes that worried me. “I know how this looks,” I went on. “I tried to reach you by phone, but you were disconnected and…I really didn’t mean to…”

“Right.”

“I heard you up the block here. Talking to the dog. But I wasn’t sure if it was you or just somebody who…”

“Oh, please,” she said wearily. “You heard me at Plato’s.”

“Where?”

“The restaurant. You were in the next booth. And you’ve been following me ever since.” The corner of her mouth flickered in private amusement. “I took the scenic route just for you.” I managed a feeble laugh.

“Never knew you had such fans, huh? Way up here in the frozen north.” I assumed that she meant her neighbor, which suggested that her own remark about my productivity had been uttered in the knowledge that I could hear it.
He hasn’t done anything new for ages
.

“I guess there’s a lot I don’t know,” I said. “I’m really sorry if I—”

“Don’t be so contrite,” she said, “or I won’t believe you. It’s important that I believe you right now.”

“I understand.”

“Where are you staying? The Lake-Vue?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yeah.” Boy, was I alone.

“How long had you planned on staying?”

“Only as long as you wanted me to.” I knew I was sounding like a whipped puppy again, but I couldn’t help it. Her blindness not-withstanding, there was something about her carriage that was so commanding. “I could come back in the morning, Donna.” She shrugged with weary resignation. “What difference would it make now?” It’s funny how a little word like
now
can sow a subliminal seed that will grow into something unthinkable in a matter of minutes.

It’s not that I caught her implication—I didn’t—but I could feel a new presence deep in my bones, already stirring to life, already sinking its terrible roots.

“I may be out of line,” I said, “but I feel as if we’ve shared something. And I thought maybe if…you saw me…I mean…
met
me…” A whisper of a smile. “I’m seeing you just fine.” I couldn’t tell if this was sweet or sardonic—or a little of both.

“I’m not nearly as stupid as I’m acting,” I told her.

“Then don’t I get a hug?”

This offer was so unexpected that I had to rummage for words.

“Well, yeah…sure…of course.” I moved closer and embraced her from the left side to avoid disrupting the dog. I caught a pleasant scent—lavender, I decided—and her cheek felt calmingly warm and smooth as it grazed mine. I imagined Pete meeting her for the first time, feeling the tender assurance of her touch, a sense that for her had surely been heightened by the absence of another. And one she’d been saving just for him.

“And this,” she said, pulling out of the hug, “is Janus.”

“I know.” I stroked the dog’s thick butterscotch neck. “We were introduced on the phone. He was attacking a vacuum cleaner at the time.”

She touched my cheek appraisingly. “You’re freezing your ass off, aren’t you?”

“Well…yeah. Pretty much.”

“C’mon.” She jerked her head toward the house. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

Her living room was sparsely furnished and unadorned except for a portrait of Pete over the oatmeal sectional sofa. It was a blowup of the photo Donna had already sent me, the one with the startling beach-glass eyes. It took all my self-restraint not to ask where he was tonight, but I thought it wiser to let her call the shots. Still, my eyes wandered uncontrollably to the darkened hallway beyond the kitchen, where I knew the bedrooms must lie, where I could imagine Pete sleeping even as we spoke, a wheezing form in an oxygen tent.

Unless he was back in the hospital again.

“Is this enough light?” she asked.

“Fine.” There was just the glow from the Christmas tree, but I liked the kaleidoscopic play of its colors against her angular face.

She was really quite lovely, I realized, in a rangy, rawboned kind of way.

She handed me a mug of peppermint tea, then sat on the sectional across from me, curling her corduroyed legs beneath her. I was sure she arranged herself just that way when she listened to her patients; it somehow conveyed the very essence of informal concern.

“Did this surprise you?” she asked, sweeping her hand past her eyes.

Honesty seemed in order at this point. “Yes, actually…it did.”

“Because it wasn’t in Pete’s book?”

“And because Ashe never mentioned it. It just wasn’t…in the equation at all.”

“You understand why, though.” This was plainly more of a statement than a question.

“I think so, yes. For protective purposes.” She nodded.

“Have you been blind all your life?”

Another slow nod. “Almost.”

“You mean since…”

“I remember what sky looks like. And a dollhouse I used to have.

Things like that. But just barely.”

“Well…it makes it even more impressive, you know…what you did.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know…Pete…rescuing him.”

“Is that what I did?” There was a note in her voice that was both wistful and ironic, a note I’d never heard before.

“It’s obvious what you did, Donna. It’s there on every page of Pete’s book. Even without the mention of…your blindness.” She just nodded darkly.

“It’s a shame he couldn’t have used that detail. It would have made an even better story.”

She heaved a sigh, then aimed those eyes at me like a sightless gun. “We weren’t trying to make a story. We were trying to make a life.”

“I know.”

“No. I don’t think you do.”

“Look, if there’s something I…”

“Has this always been just a story to you?”

“No,” I replied in horror, wondering if Pete could hear us. “Not at all. It’s been much more than that.”

“I don’t think so, Gabriel. Your mind has been engaged…but never your heart. Not really.”

I was appalled at the hostility beneath this observation.

“Donna…for heaven’s sake…I love him.”

She shook her head. “You loved the
idea
of him. There’s a difference.”