What Is Visible: A Novel (2 page)

I
count to a thousand, bathing my hands in the bowl of milk I have begged from Cook, turning them over and over, kneading the warmth into each crevice of my palms, soaking my fingertips until they pucker. They must be soft, soft as the unlucky day I was born, to touch the world and be touched by it on this important occasion. I wonder what would happen if my hands blaze so brightly that all of the people who have come to see me are struck blind by their light.

With the fingers of my left hand I skim the raised letters of the page, while those of my right rest in Doctor’s palm, as he waits for any questions I may have about my reading. The scratchy wool of his Sunday waistcoat sleeve tickles my bare wrist. Today, I have no questions because it’s all for show, not study; I finished with this primer,
The Child’s Fourth Book of Grammar and Spelling
, before Christmas. We host hundreds in the public hall for the usual Saturday Exhibition Days here at Perkins, but today we’re in the front parlor, and Miss Swift, my teacher, says there are only about forty very special guests.

Doctor places my finger on a sentence, and I copy it onto the grooved French board: “After the children had exhausted their inquiries and expressions of admiration about the learned dog Apollo, William asked his mother if she thought, at some future time, there would be schools for dogs.” So easy. Doctor holds up the board and the clapping drums through the soles of my shoes. Doctor had asked me if he could read out loud a letter I’m working on to send Mama in Hanover, but I told him no, not to the crowd. So I write a line now for him to read: “Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe rides all over Boston on his big black horse, then comes home to take care of Laura, his little dove.” Doctor takes the page, but I don’t think he reads it because there’s no applause. I perform four arithmetics―one each addition, subtraction, multiplication, division―and on the division, which is quite simple, I pretend to make a mistake and slap my right hand with my left, the way Miss Swift does when I make a real mistake, which used to happen often, but not much now that I’ve been here five years.

Doctor writes “London” into my palm, his thumb and forefinger in the shape of an
L
, and taps me to get up. Exactly three arm’s lengths down left from my chair I reach the embossed globe just as he sets it spinning, and the wooden continents rise under my fingers. I grab all of Europe, then trace my way to England and stop on its capital, the city of our guest of honor, Mr. Charles Dickens. The floor vibrates with the clapping, and I curtsy, which seems to generate more applause―they didn’t think I could curtsy? I whirl the globe to Africa, fingering the wavy ridges of the Nile, and turn again to the crowd. I’m laughing at my trick because I know we have no visitors from Africa here; the slaves are all down South. No one claps this time; I guess they don’t understand my little joke. Doctor pats my arm and pulls me down beside him at the desk. I’m not supposed to laugh hard, because Doctor says the sound scares people, but sometimes I can’t help it.

There are too many people around me now, the air full of their heat. When there’s a bigger crowd, the teachers push a row of chairs between me and them so they don’t crush me. Miss Swift says I am puny and too thin, but Doctor says I am a little dove, which must mean that I am small in an excellent way, because doves are soft and, I think, very beautiful. Where is Doctor?

I walk the twenty-three lady’s steps to my visitor’s seat in front of the fireplace, and find rough worsted draped over the padded armrest. Tessy and her dirty shawl are in my chair! She is my best friend of all the blind girls, so sometimes I let her sit there to warm herself on very cold days like today, but
never
when I have visitors. Everybody knows that. I grab for her hand to tell her to get up, but she hides it in her sleeve, so I push her, just a little. I try to hold down the ugly sound I’m not supposed to make, the one I’ve felt from Pozzo, the Institution’s dog, thrumming in the cords of his neck. Miss Swift comes suddenly between us—she’s certainly wide enough to keep two armies apart—and of course, Tessy jumps up for her, but as soon as Swift moves away, Tessy sidles back and writes very hard, “You’re not Jenny Lind, you know,” and skitters away.

I start to go after her—I’m a very fast runner—but that’s not how a civilized young lady of twelve should behave, especially at an afternoon exhibition. The blinds are all jealous because I’m the only one who gets to live in the Director’s apartment with Doctor and his sister, Jeannette, while they sleep in dormitories and have to share everything, even soap. I know I’m not Jenny Lind, but I’m not just some silly blind girl either. I straighten my day dress, the green one Doctor picked to match the shade that covers my eyes, and settle back into the cushions to wait for the people to come to me.

My feet hear Doctor’s boots at last. He is a very quick stepper and not so heavy on the floor as other men, like the one he’s bringing with him. He leans down and writes that he is giving me Mr. Dickens, who I’m told is even more famous than I am. Mr. Dickens sits on the settee and Miss Swift tucks in between us to translate. I feel him pitching forward, too close, as he takes my hand. His knuckles are so hairy I pray he won’t expect me to touch his face. I like to stroke the ladies’ faces, their necks and hair, even the old ladies if their skin isn’t too flappy, but Doctor’s is the only man’s face I touch, unless I’m requested to show my skill at identification. Doctor’s eyelashes are as long as a woman’s, as long as my whole thumbnail, and his sideburns curl around my pinkie. I have eyelashes too, but no one ever sees them because they might be frightened.

“He says you are the second wonder of North America,” Miss Swift writes, and then adds that only the roar of Niagara Falls is more impressive than what I have achieved in silence.

“You write books?” I ask. “Good?” I would like to have the Perkins press raise one for me so I could form my own opinion.

“They sell,” he tells me. “You remind me of girl in my last.”

“Real girl or pretend?”

“Pretend. Little Nell.”

Stupid name. I don’t know if it’s better to be a real girl or a pretend girl; that’s something I’ll need to think about. “Had scarlet fever like me?”

“No, but hard life like you.”

“She can see and hear?” I ask, and as I thought, the answer is yes.

“Taste and smell?”

Yes again.

“Then she is not like me,” I tell him. Everyone thinks Mr. Dickens is very smart, but I’m not so sure.

Miss Swift lays one of the purses I’ve knitted in my lap, and I present it: “For Mrs. Dickens. Carry her sundries.” Then I lie: “Made it special.” I hope he has a wife. I hope he realizes that people from all over the world come to pay half a dollar for my purses and crocheted napkin holders and handkerchiefs. I’m allowed to keep all my money, and I’m saving up for either a pearl necklace for Mama or a silver pen for Doctor to replace the one he lost last month, dear to him because it was engraved with thanks from the Greek Revolution he fought in before he founded Perkins. And he got Lord Byron’s helmet from Greece too. I’m not sure exactly who that is because Doctor says his poetry is too hard for me, but he must be very important because the helmet is displayed in a glass case in the front parlor. Tessy says that Doctor gets trunks of money from rich folks to pay for our food and our clothes and our teachers. I asked him about that, but he said that little girls should not concern themselves with finances. Miss Swift doesn’t know I didn’t actually make the purse special for Mr. Dickens, but if anybody found out that I lied to the famous author, I would have to sit by myself in the schoolroom until I apologized, which sometimes takes me a whole day and a night. The good thing―probably the only good thing―about writing in someone’s hand instead of speaking is that no one can eavesdrop. I don’t know how regular people manage to have any secrets.

“Scrubbed everything for you,” I tell Mr. Dickens. “Five floors. On my knees.” I had to help; Jeannette is such a terrible housekeeper that I find balls of dust whenever I check the floor in my room. I can’t see the dirt, but if you set me in a spot with a soapy rag and a bucket, I won’t move until you tell me it’s all spanking clean. I think one of the reasons Doctor keeps me in his apartment is because it would be a mess without me, and Doctor hates a mess, even more than Papa did. Miss Swift signs that it’s time for Doctor to give a speech.

And so from Mr. Dickens one last thing: “God bless you.”

“You also,” I write. Then he pats my head, and I try not to flinch, afraid a crinkled hair from his knuckle might slip into my braid like an old spider. I plaited my hair myself in one long braid wound tight in a circle at the back of my head. It’s very neat.

Miss Swift pulls a chair by mine and tells me that her hands are tired already, so she won’t be filling me in on Doctor’s speech, as she usually does. I don’t understand how she can be so tired when we haven’t even done much talking today, and heaven knows she never helps with the cleaning. I don’t really mind, though, because I’ve gotten the Exhibition speech a hundred times: charity; education; how Doctor founded Perkins ten years ago; how Doctor doesn’t like the Braille he saw in France and invented his own Boston type; and then he talks about me. I will sorely miss that part today.

I sit patiently in my chair until I feel the applause and I can tell everyone is rising to their feet, as they often do after Doctor, so I stand too. Then Doctor comes straight to my chair, but it pains me that he brings more guests, two stepping lightly who I know are women, and then one treading more heavily than a bear, Doctor’s closest friend, Charles Sumner. Sumner is too tall; even when he bends down, he’s my whole hand taller than Doctor. I was so scared of Doctor when he first came to see me in Hanover because he was the tallest person I had ever met until then. But I was only seven, so I didn’t know anything.

He introduces me to Misses Louisa and Julia Ward, sisters visiting from New York City, who are staying nearby in Dorchester. The Julia one is standing so close to Doctor that his sleeve grazes me when I reach for her hand.

“Lovely little girl,” Doctor says she called me, and then he is off to play with his other guests, leaving Miss Swift to translate.

The Miss Julia Ward is wearing a bracelet with huge triangles that feel like glass. “Diamonds?” I ask.

“Austrian crystals,” but they are sharper than the crystals in Jeannette’s jewelry. Maybe she is rich, like many people from New York.

I reach up to touch her hair. The women like me to play with their hair. They always invite me. Two long, crisp plumes stand straight on a tiny hat that feels like satin. It’s not a daytime hat; satin is what the ladies wear at night. And it has a jewel as well, a smooth, flat square. Definitely an evening hat. Her hair is pulled to the back much like mine, but I can still feel on the sides how silky it is—silkier than mine, thicker than mine or Swift’s or Jeannette’s or Tessy’s or Mama’s. I wonder if Doctor knows this. His own hair is almost that thick, and he isn’t missing any on the top like some men. There’s nothing more terrible than to explore a forehead only to find it goes on and on, especially if there are any tufted bits left sprouting like grass between stones. I check the front of Julia’s head, because women can sometimes be missing hair too, especially the old ones, but no, Julia has it all. I trail lightly down the curve of her cheek—I want to get to know her face better—but she suddenly leans away from me. Very rude.

“Excited for Oliver coming?” she asks.

“Who is Oliver?”

Miss Swift’s hand hesitates. “The one like you.”

She’s talking nonsense. I search the air in front of me for Doctor—where is Doctor? I stand and step on her foot. Sumner tugs at my upper arm, but I elbow him off and run through the room, cracking my knee against the corner of the chaise, grazing shoulders and backs as I circle toward the door, toward the bay window, the fireplace, and back again. Warm liquid spills down the front of my dress—someone’s tea, I suppose—and then I find Doctor’s coattail. He turns and shakes me by the shoulders, just like I’m trying to shake him, and then his hands go down and he writes on my wet palm, “Stop! Calm.” I am behaving like a wild animal, and making the noises of one too, coming deep from my chest. I let them rip.

“Who is Oliver?” I write.

“Hush.” He pats my back and guides me to a chair. “Little boy who is blind and deaf. Wonderful.”

“How old?”

“Eight.”

“Can taste and smell?”

“Yes. You’ll help teach.”

I shake my head.

“You’ll love him, Laura, as we love you.” I don’t think he understands me as well as I thought. He tells me that he’s off to town with Sumner and the Miss Wards.

He waits as I press my nails in. Miss Swift never lets them grow as long as I’d like; she cuts them every Monday morning.

“Let go. Now.”

I allow him to pry my hands from his, and he goes. The last of the footsteps thud away, but still I sit, not even in my visitor’s chair, but in a low, hard one by the bay window, letting the draft creep across my feet. I keep my hands shut, like a book with flat print that I’ll never be able to read, maybe one of Mr. Dickens’s, its pages filled with the joys and sorrows—no, the
adventures
—of someone like me. Oliver will come smelling flowers, sniffing Doctor’s coat, tasting peaches and custards and boiled sugar syrup and sausages and turtle soup. He won’t be like me. No one is like me. It’s really true, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad.