What Is Visible: A Novel (14 page)

M
r. Edward Bond is here to see me—again. The third Sunday this month! I knew it wouldn’t be long until I had a proper suitor. I am fair to pleasing, I think, dark-haired and pale; my features regular, only my nose a little long. “Petite,” I have had spelled into my palm many times, and Mama says I am like a little bird. Who might not love a little bird, I am hopeful, even if it is locked in a dark and silent cage?

But then, of course, the question: Does the little bird desire to be stroked by any hand that reaches into its cage? So far, I haven’t taken any special care with my dressing for his visits, but now is time. I put on my green muslin and the bonnet to match my shade. It’s last year’s dress, but Miss Wight says I look fresh as springtime, perfect for our walk in the garden. I asked for my usual new spring dress, but Doctor said that the Institution couldn’t afford such a luxury this year. A luxury? One new dress a season for the second-most-famous woman in the world? I’ll wager Julia is decked out in the best from Paris, straight from the pages of
Godey’s Lady’s Book
.

In the drawing room, Mr. Bond is waiting, and when I enter, he kisses my hand. His lips are a bit dry, and his touch slightly clammy, as always, so this does not endear him to me. He is taller than I am, but not by much, I can tell, and the bones of his hand and wrist are slight.

Miss Wight walks between us to handle our conversation, because at my age, Doctor has deemed it unwise that unmarried men might hold my hand for the time required for real talking. He is right, I’m sure; I want no liberties taken, and yet I’m tired of Wightie’s fingers always as interlocutor. The novelty and variety of different touches has always been one of my greatest joys, and now I am allowed only the fingers of women, children, and old men, just at the time when a young man tickling my palm might interest me.

So Wight converses with him, and relays the information back and forth. I trust her to give me, mostly unvarnished, the truth of what my visitors say. When charged with the same simple task, Jeannette will deliver to me only what she believes will do me good, an astonishing rudeness, which she freely admits. Doctor apparently agrees with her that sometimes I am to be “protected,” from what I am not exactly certain. Surely not from the spiritually enriching words of a Harvard Divinity student such as Mr. Bond? I have had to reprimand Doctor for opening my letters before he gives them to Wightie to read to me. I have a vast correspondence, from the First Lady Mrs. Polk down to the most pedestrian of devotees, and he has no more right to monitor my letters than I have to read his. He did not take that very well, of course, and we shall see if he honors my request.

On Mr. Bond’s first couple of visits, the conversation was dreadfully dull, so I try to liven it a bit today by asking him which dances he prefers, but Wight says that’s not a proper question for a man I hardly know. Mostly we just walk the grounds, and I take care to point out the wisteria bushes, the chrysanthemums, and the rhododendron, all of which I know by touch. “Sniff,” I urge him, “and tell me what they smell like.”

In reply, Miss Wight writes only, “Sweet.”

“No, exactly how they smell,” I ask, but again all I get is “Sweet.” Not a poetic soul. I must ask Longo the next time he’s by to see Doctor. I would eat the flowers if I could.

Later, as she helps ready me for bed, I ask Wightie if Mr. Bond is handsome, but she demurs from stating an opinion and gives me instead only the concrete details I request. Hair, blond and fine—much like her own, she says―but hardly a whisker on him, and him twenty-eight! I like thicker hair, wish I could get my hand in his to test it. Maybe I can arrange a way. Eyes, hazel, she says, a color name with which I’m not familiar. Wight, poor darling, tries hard, and finally comes up with a description: “a patch of dirt lit by sunlight.” I try to imagine this, the sun-glazed brown of his eyes, which must be regarding me so carefully. Has all his teeth, she reports, and the clothes befitting a young Unitarian minister-to-be, shabby but very neat. She assures me he is absolutely refined in all his demeanor, but I can tell she can’t muster the passion with which she has described a select few other gentlemen, such as Julia’s brother, Sam Ward.

“Favorite book of the Bible?” Mr. Bond asks on his fourth visit.

“Revelation,” I answer because I know this will be the most shocking. Imagine the young lady who desires the company of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse! The truth is I’ve only heard bits of the more awful details of that book, since Doctor won’t let me read it; it’s the one book of the Bible that the Institution press has not presented. “A detriment to young minds,” Doctor says, but he obviously knows little of what really transpires inside my head. If the world is indeed going to end, I deserve to be as prepared for it as everyone else. I believe that in that last glorious blaze, I will finally be able to see everything—for good or for ill―all things bright and beautiful and terrible, and to hear the children wailing and the angels singing and the devils gnashing their teeth.

Miss Wight pats my hand in exasperation, and I know she’s told Mr. Bond that I have not indeed read Revelation. Heaven knows, if Wightie can handle it, with her meek and gentle disposition, then I am well equipped to do so. Mr. Bond then asks which book I actually cherish, and I decide to give him the truth. Easy: the Psalms. The Psalms are beautiful, most of them, though for all his poetry, King David whines incessantly, as, of course, does Job. I tell Wight this, but I don’t know if she relays it to Mr. Bond. She is perhaps censoring me, though not, of course, to the extent that Jeannette would or that Doctor would probably desire.

My suitor says he approves of my choice. It is refreshing to have someone interested in my spiritual progress and opinions, since Doctor does nothing but try to quash them. In turn, I ask his favorite, and he says that after the Gospels, which he thinks are the most important, he would choose Proverbs. He is wise; I am lyrical. We might make a good match, after all, even with the fine hair.

Genesis I have often pondered, and I wonder if I should share my thoughts with my suitor. Michael, the archangel, was thrown out of heaven for challenging God. Dare I consider that might be how I lost my senses, thrown out of the ordinary and essential garden of man, where all the senses are thoughtlessly indulged, out into the blackness beyond Eden’s gates, left only with the feeling of my fingers scraping at the gate, scrabbling about in the endless dark.

“Mr. Bond,” I write, “if I were Eve, I wouldn’t take the apple.”

“Why?”

“I cannot taste and I hate snakes.” I can tell he is impressed and is now contemplating how the world might have turned out very differently indeed if Adam’s mate had been a clever but fever-crippled girl like me instead of the sense-full and silly Eve. Oh, I
know
that the apple represents the hunger for knowledge, but it is too delicious to take a wee poke at a theologian.

Since we are now in the mood for gardens, I lead Mr. Bond to the rosebush by the entrance gate, which I’m told boasts the reddest blooms. He picks a rose for me, which even I know is an established sign of courtship, and presses it carefully between my fingers. I hold the tightly closed bud to my cheek—why did he not give me an open flower?―and rub the petals against my skin, back and forth, back and forth, imagining the hand of a friend, perhaps even Mr. Bond. I revel in the softness upon softness even as I know I am destroying the flower. And then I can’t help myself; I lower the stem and rake the thorns into the hollow of my neck. What ecstasy! What proof of God.

Wight grabs the rose and dabs at my neck with a handkerchief. “In front of Mr. Bond!” she writes. Well, if a minister can’t manage blood and beauty, then he is in the wrong business.

I have read in all four Gospels about the crown of thorns nettling Christ’s head, the nails driven through His precious skin, His side pierced by the sword. It is all terrible perfection. Julia has given me a crucifix she bought in Rome, and the knowledge that she truly cares about me is nearly as precious as the object itself. I spend hours tracing the lines of His body: the long, writhing limbs; the beard like Doctor’s; the splayed palms and feet. I have begged Doctor for a cross, even a small one to wear around my neck, but he won’t give in. Unitarians don’t take well to the violence of the crucifixion. “Think of the ascension, not the suffering,” he says, but the transfiguration I can’t imagine, while the crucifixion feels like second nature.

“Dress spoiled,” Wight spells. I loathe having even one crumb of dirt or food defile my clothes, but the red blood on the green cloth sounds quite lovely. If Mr. Bond is a true man of God, he will find it lovely too.

I began to bleed below last year. So that was what Miss Swift was talking about. Since I have never cut myself there, I didn’t understand. Wight said it happens to every girl and it means that you are a woman. “What does it mean to be a woman?” She told me it means you can fall in love and have babies.

“You bleed? Jeannette? Julia?” Yes, yes, and yes, she tells me. I can’t imagine the dark blood pooling between Julia’s legs beneath the fine silk petticoats. Does Doctor like it?

That night I ask Wight if Mr. Bond was upset by the events of the afternoon.

“He’s fine,” she says, and so I think maybe I will consider him as a possibility, though it would mean going off to the Sandwich Islands where he plans to be a missionary. Wightie would miss me unbearably, and, of course, so would Doctor, for all his grumbling.

“Bond likes me?”

“Yes, he likes you.”

“I’ll wear blue dress next.”

“You don’t need…” Her fingers trail off. “He isn’t…” And again she doesn’t finish. Dear Wightie. She is concerned that this little man of the cloth is not good enough for me, but I will be the judge.

“Don’t worry,” I say, “understand,” and she holds my hand long in hers, as if she is making sure I’ll have no regrets. Of course, a woman as celebrated as I am must be extremely careful to choose well for love.

So this night I allow myself to think a bit of Mr. Bond as my hands go down. I imagine surprising him on our wedding day with my glowing blue eyes, and then that night he gives me Revelation at last, scoring fire and brimstone and apocalypse into my palm. It is working; I feel the beginning of wetness. Usually I think of sitting in Doctor’s lap, or about Tessy rubbing against me. I am very careful, though, to wait for at least an hour after going to bed before I begin, when I know most everyone on the floor should be asleep. Last year, I was on my stomach (Tessy let me in on that trick) since of course I can’t hear anyone coming, and if I am mightily preoccupied—as I am tonight—then I won’t feel even the slight vibrations from footsteps on the wooden floor. That night, I was shocked from my trance by a sudden smack on my upper arm, and I pushed down my nightdress and turned over, my hands up, waiting for the intruder to write upon them. Instead, a fist came down on my forehead and “
no
” was rapped across my brow by hard knuckles. I pulled the blankets up under my chin, and a minute later, a cold, dripping washcloth was flung at my face. Every night for the next month, the gloves were left on top of my pillow and taken away again the next morning. I made sure that the gloves were spotless, unspoiled, but it was a struggle. At least they were cotton ones, not the scratchy wool with which I’d been gloved before. I am still not sure whether it was Wight who found me or Jeannette, or to my greatest horror, maybe Julia, who was staying here because the Institution was short of help. It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly wasn’t the last, no matter how many times they gloved me.

No one can comprehend the multitude of pleasures I receive from my fingertips, the hours I can spend stroking Pozzo’s wiry, tangled fur, careening my fingers down the long whip of his tail, rubbing the softness of his firm belly. And the ladies’ clothes! Their silks and satins, even the roughness of the out-of-towner’s cotton broadcloths; the deep crush of velvet collars and the short, nappy rub of their felt hats. And I am never more stirred than when I find the sharp quill of a plume on a hat and can surrender myself to the feather.

I have devoured the scriptures―I am a very fast reader―and have never found anything that I believe speaks against my explorations of my body. I contend that the unique condition my Maker has forced upon me for His own unintelligible reasons might also grant me an exception—a special pardon, if you will—when it comes to touching. The sensitive, peaking nipples of my breasts and that whole silken netherworld are God’s gifts to me. My universe is manifest only through my fingertips, and I refuse to be a stranger to it.

Mr. Bond has done well by me tonight, and I am pleased. I kneel and offer a prayer to my Lord who has favored me with such raptures.

C
hev supervised the placement of the hundreds of skulls around the Institution’s Exhibition Hall, even dusting some of the cases himself. Less interesting were the busts and plaster casts of famous heads, though he was happy to have the bust of Voltaire, which clearly showed the bulges of language, mirthfulness, and vitality. The skull of an Indian, bullet hole notwithstanding, made concrete the combativeness, destructiveness, and secretiveness inherent in that race’s nature as a whole. As the president of the Boston Phrenological Society, the preeminent American arm initiated by Spurzheim himself on his trip from Germany in the late ’30s, Chev was responsible for the country’s largest collection of phrenological specimens. The maids had set up tall vases of red roses between every few cases, and the contrast between the crimson petals and the ivory patina of the shining skulls pleased him immensely. It would prove a grand day for the Perkins annual fund-raiser with the Chevalier at the helm, where, of course, he always preferred to be. Governor Briggs and most of Boston’s society were coming, even some bigwigs from New York and Providence, all ready to dig deep into their pockets and purses to help those less fortunate. And Chev’s friend and ally, Horace Mann, who in addition to being the secretary of the state Board of Education was also an avid phrenologist, planned on making the gala the upcoming feature of his popular
Common School Journal
, which had already faithfully documented Laura’s progress over the years. It was important for Chev to show his solidarity with Mann and to open more keenly the eyes of New England’s elite to the true basis for his internationally lauded work in education. To that end, besides displaying all his finest specimens, he had invited Dr. Combe to give the opening demonstration and lecture.

Chev was well aware that many of the guests would be there for the explicit purpose of seeing and, if possible, meeting Laura, but at this stage of croquet, he dared not give her any real platform. At the last two exhibitions—fairly small ones, thank God—she had not only answered questions about religion, but had continued to expound on her increasingly Calvinist views until he rushed the stage and took away the French board on which she was writing. For the fund-raiser, he had come up with a beautiful plan to exhibit his “crowning glory,” as he often ruefully still thought of her, while keeping her opinions from polluting the crowd, though he admitted that her evangelical leanings would actually prove of great appeal to at least half of them. The problem was that Laura knew that too. Chev wanted to sway the crowd his way—the right way—not merely to persuade them to hand over their money based on purely philanthropic interests. He and his fellow enlightened Unitarians had waged the battle so long and so hard to showcase Laura as proof that the young and pure would come naturally to God without having the Bible crammed down their throats in the Calvinist fashion, so he wasn’t about to give up the fight now. And so she would sit only as Combe’s subject, while he traced her history and accomplishments on her very skull. He had told Laura that she and Combe would open the ceremony, and though she was not that warm on phrenology anymore, she always liked to be the center of attention, and so she eagerly agreed. When she asked, “Then I talk?” he told her that this time the schedule for the event was packed tight, with the blind girls giving a chorale and the boys displaying their woodworking, not to mention his own speech, and a tour of the facilities. She wasn’t happy, but she’d acquiesced and coquettishly added that she would arrange her hair in “spaniel’s ears” for the occasion, that style being the height of fashion. Again, her vanity preceded her moral capacity. Perhaps he could get Combe to batten down that vice as he worked her over. Just imagine what a preening bird of paradise she’d have become with false and gleaming colored eyes.

The hall was full, the air scented with lavender and sweet French wine. The overflow, which Jeannette had made sure were the more pedestrian of folks, was corralled into the marble foyer, some even perching on the stairs. The blind girls were all dressed and ready in matching sky-blue jumpers, the boys hatted and suspendered. Chev rushed to and fro overseeing last-minute details—did Combe have his spectacles, his gold-plated calipers instead of the silver? Chev finally took his place on the dais beside his wife. Julia had never looked more lovely, he thought, rosy in the glow of new motherhood, still plump from the pregnancy the way he liked her, his son swaddled in her arms. Chev knew the baby’s tiny skull was still developing, and yet he sometimes couldn’t stop himself from fingering his way around his soft spot, from which he knew great potential would manifest. To his surprise, even Laura had managed to look reasonably inviting for the occasion, dressed in a simple white gown that highlighted her ethereal features, making her look the part of the angel in the cage, which was what he still called her on good days. On bad days, he referred to her as a squawking emu, but only to Sumner, the one person with whom he could truly and openly share both his soul’s delights and its travails, however petty. He hazarded a quick wink at his friend, who smiled back from his gilt chair in the front row.

The pianoforte thrummed, and the audience clapped enthusiastically as Laura made her way carefully, unassisted, to the stage. She was holding something behind her back, probably a bouquet for Dr. Combe. But as the phrenologist pulled out the chair for her at center stage, she brought forth a foot-high wooden crucifix, intricately carved and so brightly painted that Chev was sure the oozing streams of blood could be seen from the back of the hall. Chev recognized it immediately; it was the hideous souvenir Julia had insisted on buying outside the Vatican, a garish relic of propaganda. And here it was being displayed for all to see as Laura cradled it gently in her arms like a child. A damnably convenient day for Sarah Wight to have suffered one of her spells. Combe clearly didn’t know what to do; he hopped from one foot to the other behind Laura’s chair, the calipers paused in midair. Chev’s instinct was to jump up and grab the thing away from her, but what would look worse than the Director of the Institution struggling with his most celebrated pupil? That would make news, all of it bad, though the cross itself was sure to be mentioned in the broadsheets anyway. He had to sit calmly, not make it worse. He glanced at his wife and saw that her mouth was twitching, contorted, and realized to his horror that she was trying not to
laugh
! Samuel Gridley Howe and
his
God would not be shown for fools. It was no longer worth wearing the mantle of Laura’s creator, if she chose to act so brazenly against his wishes and his beliefs. Besides, in truth, he was tired of having his name tied forever to hers because he suspected that hers got top billing. His work with Perkins and his many other causes should provide ample laurels. He rose slowly and motioned Combe to the side of the stage, away from all ears, and spoke with him in a low whisper for a moment only.

Combe nodded and returned to his subject. After the preliminaries, the doctor stopped and then began again. In a somewhat strangled voice, he said that while Laura’s chief intellectual faculties remained intact, there appeared to be some disturbance at her crown, where the bumps associated with spirituality and moral rectitude reside. The animal regions at the base of her skull also seemed to be rather engorged, which would help explain the degeneration of her higher proclivities. This was a frequent occurrence in the brains of the severely enfeebled, he concluded.

Chev saw to his great satisfaction that his wife now kept her head down, looking only at his child, who continued to sleep peacefully.

All the while, Laura sat very still, her head erect as Combe tapped away at it. Only her fingers moved in and around the crown of thorns, stroking the head of the Christ as if trying to read in the notches of the wooden skull the very nature of His divinity.