Helen Keller in Love (21 page)

Even
though the South had lost the Civil War, families like ours were still on top. Our servants were descended from slaves. They were powerless, trying to find their way after the war, forced to build gaiety out of sorrow. But so was I. Like them, I was invisible, vulnerable, easily shamed: a self-hatred burned at our core.

Later that fall Annie wrote to Michael Anagnos at the Perkins School that I was “restored to myself.” But that wasn’t true. I wasn’t restored to myself. I was different. From then on I knew that my life would be dedicated not only to the blind in later years, but also to anyone who was vulnerable, unable to speak.

My lot would be to side with the marginalized.

I was no longer frozen in my grief. I had a voice, and I intended to use it.

Even so, as the cab lurched up the steep hill of Beacon Street toward the rally, I became unsure, even panicked. What Peter couldn’t know, not in the caustic way I had to learn, was that my success as an advocate for others had its price: loneliness. I’d been isolated from the deaf-blind community: they called me a plaster saint, because my successes were held up to them as impossible feats that only I could achieve. One deaf-blind man, very successful, found a statue of me at his place of work and promptly hid it.

I will never fully belong to any world. Not any. But I refused to be isolated. I was defiant, ready to break into a new life. Still, when Peter put the Braille copy of my speech in his pocket, I was more determined than ever not to be left alone. “Did I ever tell you that I once said any man who married me would be marrying a statue?”

“I love art,” Peter spelled into my open hand.

The
cab stopped, and Peter pulled out his wallet to pay. I felt his hand waver, then go still.

“Let me.” I slipped my wallet into his hand. “Why don’t you hold on to my wallet while we’re here. It’s so easy to lose.”

“And you’re so easy to see through.” Peter handed back the wallet. “I’ll take the cab fare, since this is official Helen Keller business, but carrying around a wallet embossed H.K. just doesn’t suit me.”

“It’s just that …”

“Helen, you have more money, and you’re more famous. It’s something I can’t forget.”

Peter said the Massachusetts Statehouse loomed on our left, with its dignified brick facade and shining gold-leaf dome, and a statue standing on the side lawn.

“Ah, Miss Anne Hutchinson, a woman after my own heart. An early Boston colonist, hmm, in the 1700s, no—” Peter paused. “Okay, the plaque says she was around from 1591 to 1643.” He put his arm around my waist.

“I know my history.”

“You didn’t go to that fancy school for nothing. But just for once, Helen, let me be the fountain of wisdom.” Peter said Anne Hutchinson actually believed she had the right to express her own views; she told those Puritan boys there were other ways to think. “That riled them up: she was expelled from Massachusetts for preaching her own beliefs. She was a smart aleck.”

“Like me?”

“Absolutely. People were drawn to her. She raised their hackles. In the 1600s she said women’s souls were as important as men’s—”

“She was right about that,” I said.

“Even had prayer meetings just for women at her house—a regular rabble-rouser, like you, Miss Keller.”

“And what did she get for it?”

“The usual. Banishment from proper society—sent to what’s now Rhode Island to live her life in exile—and an early death.” Peter tightened his hand on my waist.

“Lovely.”

“Don’t forget, they made a statue of her, to remind everyone of her virtues.”

“Statues are for smashing.” I opened the door.

Chapter Twenty-nine

T
he vibrations of a marching band shuddered up my calves as Peter and I stepped out of the cab. In the chill wind of Boston Common Peter took my arm and guided me along the sidewalk, where I felt the streams of people pushing past.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s unbelievable. There’s a whole marching band, fully suited up, blaring their horns and beating their drums right down the middle of Beacon Street, and, wait, behind them a regiment—looks like an army regiment. There must be six, ten, no, twelve columns of kids—boys, really—all suited up in uniforms. Volunteers, ready for the slaughter.” Peter pulled me back from the crowd.

“But isn’t it the day of our rally?”

“You got it, sister. How handy that they’re out marching, to remind the faithful of the importance of war.”

“Don’t call me ‘sister.’” I pulled his hand under my coat.

“Right. Mrs. Fagan, I should have said.”

I walked by Peter’s side into Boston Common.

“Banners everywhere,” Peter said. “Extolling the war. And the boys—they look fifteen, eighteen, like babes, really—gawky, chewing gum, tramping past—are they in training? Wait, yes, Boston Reserves Unit 18. They’re part of this clamor for young guys to get ready in case we go to war. Preparedness, that’s Wilson’s whole idea: let’s get a hundred and fifty thousand young men into the army and ready to die.”

As they
tramped past in their heavy army boots, I inhaled the oily scent of their guns. The European war was coming closer.

“It’s unbelievable,” Peter’s hand spelled rapidly. “Wilson’s campaigning for reelection with the slogan ‘He Kept Us Out of War.’ But he signed the National Defense Act last June, remember? Now he’s building up the national guard to four times its size, says he’ll make our navy as powerful as any in the world, and has these high school kids out in droves as recruits for the army. Tell me, Helen, exactly how is he keeping us out of war?”

“Our whole country is blind,” I said.

“You said it. Don’t they read the newspapers? Over one million soldiers killed in the battle of the Somme since July—one battle, Helen, and one million dead. And it’s still going on.”

“Are people clapping?”

“Oh, only about two hundred prowar people—they’re crowding the sidewalks, cheering these poor kids on. The traffic on Beacon Street’s stopped to let them cross.”

“What else?” I shook Peter.

He said that across Park Street throngs of protesters held signs, chanting against the war. “And the sidewalks are crammed with the usual reporters, gawking at the whole scene. There’s O’Rourke, and Danson …”

“The ones who came to my house?”

“The very same. O’Rourke’s a real troublemaker. Let’s steer clear.”

Peter led me across the street; I was set to talk in five minutes, but someone pulled my sleeve.

“Great,” Peter said. “The boys from the
Globe
have caught up with us. They want to ask you some questions before you go onstage. Danson is first. Watch out for him—he’s a joker.”

“Fire away.”

“All right. He asks if you can tell the color of his coat?”

“It’s blue.”

“Wrong.
He says it’s black.”

“Well if he knew, then why did he ask me?”

I felt laughter in waves. But then the air turned heavier.

“O’Rourke’s asking your take on the war.”

“Tell him President Wilson is as blind as I am.”

Then Peter leaned forward, his hands tense. “O’Rourke’s a real crank. He says you have no right to speak here, no right to speak out against the war.”

“What he means is how can I, blind and deaf Helen Keller, have any thoughts worth hearing about something I can’t see. That’s his point, isn’t it?”

“Yup.”

“Let me finish his sentence then—I’ve heard it only about a hundred times before. He’s saying, ‘Has Miss Helen Keller experienced war? Has she seen the battlefields, heard the soldiers’ cries?’ He wants me to stay away from topics of national interest and stick to the sole topic allowed me: blindness. Am I right?”

“Right as always, my pet.”

America’s leading newspaper editors said over and over that because I was deaf and blind I could have no real knowledge of politics and the world. When I wrote about anything besides blindness or deafness they said, “Why, Miss Keller, thank you for your lovely article on the state of our economy. But we don’t want to hear your opinions on labor, jobs, or peace. Better minds than yours are working on those subjects. But please, won’t you enlighten us on what it’s like to live in the dark?”

Do they think that just because I can’t see or hear I don’t have a brain? I am trained to think, and unlike most editors I know, I can do so in five languages. I read papers daily in German, English, Italian, and French. I’ve read both Marx and Engels in German Braille. I dare any of them to surpass that.

I felt O’Rourke’s footsteps on the sidewalk.

“Peter,” I
said, “ask Mr. O’Rourke if he has read
Le Monde
lately? I certainly have. Would he like me to update him on firsthand reports from the front?”

“He says he doesn’t speak French.”

“Oh, then maybe the report from yesterday’s
Der Spiegel
?”

“No, not German either.”

“A shame. Tell him it’s easier for me to learn about the world because I can read all night in the dark.”

O’Rourke’s footsteps were behind us when suddenly Peter moved away and I stood alone, unanchored, with the crowds of people bumping and jostling past me. When he returned he took my arm. “The coast is clear. That O’Rourke kept buzzing around. I told him to get lost.”

“You’re my hero.”

“But do you know what O’Rourke said next?”

“No.”

“He said that I’m the one who’s lost.”

“He’s just jealous.”

“Of what?”

“He’s chasing you for a story while you’re heading onto the stage with me.”

“Right. I’m next to the beautiful Helen Keller while he’s filing stories people stuff in windows all winter to keep out the chill.”

The cheers of the crowd were so strong, I felt them in the air as we approached the stage area. “Jesus, Helen, they’re stamping their feet. The crowd is all riled up, and I’ve got to get through this mess. Let’s take a minute.” We stepped off the path and moved behind a grove of trees. “Helen, my dear, if I get you through this I believe I deserve a raise.”

“A raise? How about this.” I stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

“Well, that’s one kind of raise. But I meant the cash kind. Do you realize what I need to do before we leave here today?”

“I have the feeling I’m about to find out …”

I felt
him tick his fingers together. “I’ll strong-arm my way through your adoring crowds, then call out your words from the stage. When it’s all over I’ll get you out of here safely.”

“Your work never ends.”

He plunged through the crowd, me by his side, and we began to climb the stairs to the stage. “Watch your step. I’d hate to see you get hurt.”

But neither of us would come out of this unscathed. I had violated my word to Annie, lied to Mother, and Peter had become something of a joke among some of the reporters. But I was at his mercy. If he had regrets, I couldn’t bear to hear them. So I turned and smiled at him. “Lead on,” I said, and he lifted me, in one fell swoop, over the last step and onto the wooden stage.

As I spelled my words to Peter he called them out to the crowd. “Rumors have begun to spread about this war,” I said. A wave of applause rippling, moving the air. “Rumors that this war is just, that it is necessary, or called for, for us to intervene in the lives of other people when they have the right, the need, to stand on their own two feet.”

“Helen,” Peter spelled rapidly. “You’re departing from our speech. The one we wrote together in Wrentham.” But I went on pressing my words into his palm.

“These countries were our friends, and we respected their independence,” I said. I stood still while Peter repeated the words, then I went on: “Then the imperialists came in, demanding they bow down. It is their
right
to determine their own futures, their
right
to make decisions on their own.” I felt Peter’s arms as he began to rouse the crowd. “It is our absolute
need
to let them determine their own futures, whether we like their futures or not.”

“You tell them, Helen.”

The audience burst into rousing applause.

On stage
I am the center of the universe. Wherever I am—Boston Common, Carnegie Hall, or under the burning sun of Colorado’s Rockies where dust swirls and wind whips my face—on stage I am in control. Yes, I still need a guiding hand’s help to cross a strange room, to comb my hair, to put on the right clothes, to leave the stage gracefully. Yes, I need Peter or Annie to translate my words, to make them ring out to the crowd, but it is the one place where I am surer of myself than any other. It’s the place where I have a voice, and with any luck it would soon be Peter’s most important place, too. Beside me.