Helen Keller in Love

by Kristin Cashore

  “With pleasure.” I reached across the wrinkled bedspread and put my hands on Annie’s face. Her cheekbones were so prominent beneath my fingers that I pulled back, startled.

  “Annie, you’re …”

  “What? Wasting away?” Annie struggled to sit up.

  I sat down, suddenly weary. “You’ve got to fight. You can’t just—”

  “Helen, the battle is over.”

  “No—”

  “It is. This useless, stupid battle—was a complete waste of time.”

  “It wasn’t, and it isn’t over.”

  “You’ve been too busy with Mr. Fagan to keep up with the news.”

  “What?”

  “Helen, haven’t you read the lead story on the front page of the Boston Globe?”

  “No, I …”

  “Then listen up, lady. With all your incessant protesting against the war you’ll be glad to hear this:

  The Boston Globe

  THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME ENDS

  PARIS, FRANCE, NOV 1916 — The Battle of the Somme, the scene of heavy fighting since July 1, 1916, is finished. British troops suffered nearly 60,000 casualties on the first day. Tens of thousands of soldiers suffered shell shock, and casualties on both sides total over one million.

  “The world has gone mad,” Annie said. “A million killed—for what? Why don’t they think of the toll these battles take on families? The mothers who’ve lost sons, the wives who will never see their husbands again. That’s the real tragedy.”

  For once I didn’t care about others, their misfortunes. I even forgot that I might be pregnant. Sitting by Annie, the air in the room heavy, I was just relieved that she didn’t know about my affair with Peter. Then, under my fingers Annie’s face felt dry, and she suddenly spasmed into a cough so harsh it made the air shudder.

  Mother adjusted Annie’s pillows, I smoothed her damp curls, yet Annie coughed so that I almost panicked; it seemed as if her lungs had filled with water, and she struggled to breathe. All that afternoon she tossed in her bed, the sheets crossed over her body until she flung them off. Her distress gave me a reason to forget myself, and I pulled my body onto the bed and lay beside her, the way I did as a child.

  After what seemed like hours, she relaxed, and there was a long interval of tense stillness. Annie didn’t cough, Mother didn’t say a word, and I was loath to have the moment end. Once Annie sipped some water Mother said, “Annie, it’s not the world that’s gone mad. It’s Helen.”

  Annie turned toward me. “Helen, do you have something to say?”

  “No.” I stood up, defiant by the bed.

  “Helen, if you won’t tell Annie, I will.” Mother rattled the newspaper, preparing to read the engagement article, as I stood helpless.

  From the time I was seven Annie taught me to describe the world just as hearing and sighted people do. So in Vermont I wrote letters about the blue mountains visible outside our hotel window; in California I told audiences I loved the sound of the Pacific Ocean cascading on Pelican Beach; on the banks of the Mississippi River I wrote in my journal that the muddy waters leaped before my eyes to crash thousands of feet below in a resounding roar.

  But critics hounded me: Who did I think I was? They complained after my words were published in books and articles. How could a deaf-blind girl use language to describe anything, especially the natural world? I responded in my autobiography that the deaf-blind exist alone on an island. We are surrounded by deep silence, impenetrable. We must learn the language of the hearing and sighted world to survive.

  Yet that day I could find no words to explain to Annie my deception.

  Annie’s hands felt weak in mine. “Helen, in exactly sixty minutes I leave this house. I don’t know when—or if—I’ll be back. So whatever you have to say, just spit it out. What have you done?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not according to the New York Times.” Mother handed Annie the paper.

  A long while passed.

  “Perfect,” Annie said. “‘Helen Keller Engaged to Marry’—people will eat this up. Kate, the press loves to make up stories about Helen. Their lies sell copy, you know that.”

  “Annie, Helen has lied to us—to you.”

  “Helen hasn’t done a thing. Some reporter saw her and Peter in Boston, jumped to a conclusion, and wham—whipped up this lie. Helen’s not capable of this kind of deceit, especially with as unimportant a man as Peter Fagan.”

  Maybe Annie believed what she was saying, or maybe she was too weak, too exhausted, to keep me from harm’s way. I had only to escape Mother, and I was free.

  Mother left the room, her perfume wafting in the air. “She’s calling the lawyer,” Annie said. “You’re going to have to face the press.” I held her hand, wishing I could tell her the truth. “I want to go away, Helen. You’ve tired me out. I’ve never said it before, but it’s true. I need to be away.”

  An hour later a cab rolled up the driveway. “Wake up, Helen,” Annie said. She picked up her suitcase and I followed her down the hall. At the front door she said, “Without me you’re going to be bored to death in Montgomery. And if you think you made a mistake already with this Fagan mess, something tells me you’ll do even worse with just Mildred and your mother as your constant companions.” With a thump of the car door she was gone.

  I stood alone in the driveway. With one hand I tapped on a maple tree’s cold bark, a deep loneliness filled the branches, even the sky.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The scent of honeysuckle and steel told me my train had entered the Montgomery station. Mother, seated by my side, had not spoken a word to me since we had left Boston five days ago. She pulled down our luggage, and I felt the sweltering heat of the station. Finally, she spoke. “Helen, your sister has no idea what you’ve done, and I have no intention of telling her. The last thing we need is for all of Montgomery to know about the scandal you’ve created—”

  “Mother, it was in the New York Times.”

  “Helen, you’ve been in the North too long. Do you think Mildred—or anyone in Montgomery—reads the New York Times? As long as you keep quiet, they won’t know about it. You will simply conduct yourself as any visitor would: If Mildred asks you to deliver Thanksgiving biscuits to the poor, you’ll do it. If her card party wants you to join, you will. Do you understand me? Not one word. You’ve caused enough problems already.”

  The train shuddered to a stop. I stood, smoothing my dress, and held on to the seat back to follow Mother onto the platform. But she paused just before we stepped off the train.

  “I did mention it to Warren.”

  “Warren? Why?”

  “Because someone has to protect you.”

  “From what?”

  “From yourself.”

  With that, the doors bumped open, and as we walked out I smelled a familiar scent of wool and rubber. “What is it?” I asked Mother as hundreds of footsteps fled past.

  “Nothing.” Mother hurried me through the crowds. Only on the way to Mildred’s did she say the station had teamed with hundreds of soldiers, readying for war.

  Steamy heat rose from Mildred’s house on Seventh Avenue, and the scent of corn bread wafted out of the kitchen in preparation for Thanksgiving. When I walked in the front door Mildred put her new baby, Katherine, in my arms. I had to sit down at the table, so weak did I feel when I inhaled the new-baby smell of talcum powder. I ran my fingers over her tiny ears, and practically blurted out to Mildred, “I may be having a child.” Instead I silently rocked Katherine, aching for Peter to come bounding up the front porch steps.

  “Let’s leave Katherine in her bassinet.” Mildred took the baby from my arms. “You look so pale, Helen. I’ve never quite seen you like this. Mother’s resting upstairs—let’s sit by the fire in the living room. The trip must have exhausted you.” She led me into the front parlor, where leather-bound books lined the walls. As I moved toward the couch, my hands skimmed the glass case where Warren’s gun collection was on dis
play.

  “Is Warren … home?”

  “Oh, no. He’s out celebrating the city’s finally passing that new statute.”

  “Why, Mildred, have you gotten all political since the last time I was here?”

  “I pay attention to politics when politics affect me. The Yankee factories are paying agents to come down here and recruit the Negroes. Every day they camp out, telling the Negroes to move up North because they’ll have better lives far away from their homes. Can you imagine?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You’re always sympathizing with the wrong side, Helen. The Negroes are fleeing Montgomery in droves, so the city passed a statute making it illegal for anyone to recruit them to work in any other town or city.”

  “I’ll bet they’re going anyway.”

  “Without looking back. I’m without a cook, can’t get a nanny, I’ve been up nights with Katherine so long I’m falling asleep talking to you. Soon I’ll be doing our laundry, too. Every last one of them will have fled. Now Katherine’s up. That’s enough on that topic. Let’s leave that to the men. Would you hold her, Helen?”

  I rocked Katherine, but the room felt empty. Without Peter, life felt achingly constricted. “Explain it to me again,” I said. “The Negroes are free. They can’t go and make their own lives?”

  “Absolutely not. We’ve been like family to them.”

  As Mildred talked, my mind wandered. I knew it wasn’t the same. I’ve said before that I have rights, white skin, a chance to travel if accompanied … I’m free, and educated, and have never suffered like the Negroes, but I couldn’t help thinking how I, too, was demonized for trying to flee.

  “Now, about my card party tomorrow …” Mildred shook my shoulder. “I don’t have bridge cards in Braille, but you could still sit with us. We can …” I began to feel a familiar ache in my abdomen, so I turned away from Mildred. At first it seemed like nothing, but soon I stood up and started to pat my way down the hall to the washroom. Mildred followed and turned me to her.

  “Sister Helen, you look … Let me get you to your room.” She led me up the carpeted stairs.

  Within minutes I lay on the guest-room bed, the familiar small cloths I’d used since age fourteen unpacked by Mildred and placed on my nightstand. The cramps intensified and a heaviness came over me, the acrid smell of blood telling me I was not pregnant. I had been so eager to have a child, and to know I was not made me turn toward the wall. But relief flooded me, too. Peter might want a child someday—he said so—and when the time came he might be ready.

  I stayed in the room as long as I could, pressing a wet washcloth to my forehead as Mildred thumped at the door.

  “Helen. You’ve been weeping.” She handed me a hanky.

  “I …”

  “You’ve never been separated from Miss Annie for long.” Mildred always called my teacher “Miss.” “She always kept you so busy, connected to everything,” Mildred said in her clumsy fingerspelling. “I’ve found a nice Jewish girl, she lives in Montgomery, and wants to meet you. She wants to learn fingerspelling. She could be a … paid companion of sorts for you now that—”

  “Now that what?” I pulled away.

  “Miss Annie’s … away. Mother’s older and needs her rest, and I’m so occupied with the babies. You need someone just for yourself.” Mildred put Katherine in my arms.

  Katherine sucked my thumb.

  Mildred sensed my loneliness. When Katherine started to cry again she said, “It’s not for the faint of heart, a husband, a family.”

  “You said it.”

  After Mildred put the baby down for a nap she brought me a cup of peppermint tea. “This might cheer you.” She slid a letter into my hands. I ran my fingers over the envelope: the Braille dashes and dots meant it was either from Peter or Annie. I tore it open.

  San Juan,

  Puerto Rico

  November 1916

  Helen Dear:

  Your mother has told me that you are in love with Peter. Could this be true? She wants me to recover, fast, and return to keep you safe. I want to protect you. But understand: I cannot leave Puerto Rico now. I cannot face the cold of our Wrentham house, the uncertainty about money, the secret that John has had a baby with another woman.

  I am trying to get better. Even one short week in Puerto Rico has improved me immensely. I’m sure a large part of my recovery is that this place is an island of joy. When I arrived here I had only a dull ache where my heart should have been. But here I wake to the sound of birds, the scent of fresh pineapple in the warm air. In the heat of the day I eat fruit that has grown to be as large as a tree. As large as the mulberry in front of your house in Tuscumbia—the one we were in when that storm came. Do you remember, Helen? How you shook in that mulberry tree, afraid of lightning, until I came and took your hand?

  When I came to Tuscumbia, I wanted someone to love. And you loved me, Helen. Now I am too tired to fight; you must have someone else to love. It may sound strange to you that I believe that you should hold on to Peter. Don’t lose the man you love, as I did.

  I have tuberculosis. The White Death. It is unthinkable that I should not live, but if I do not, remember that you were like a daughter to me. I have given you my life. Never have I had the chance to see what talents I might have had on my own. You must see this. Face it: If I die, who will care for you?

  Peter will.

  Helen, fight for what you have.

  Fight for your island of joy.

  Love,

  Annie

  That night I dreamed of Peter leading me into a sleeping berth on a train, his hands on my ribs, then on my hips, as he rolled over me on an unmade bed.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  On the day of my elopement, the vibrations of Montgomery were strong around me. Inside the house, Risa, the girl Mildred had hired to entertain me, sat at the sewing machine in the living room. As I walked in Mildred’s backyard, with one hand on the fence, I stumbled over small rocks and children’s toys. Mother and Mildred were shopping in Montgomery and I was alone, when a familiar scent of muskrat and warm rain swam over the humid air.

  Peter walked toward me from the piney woods. As he got closer I burst forward to take him in my arms.

  “Peter, it’s not until tonight, what are you doing here now?”

  “Don’t fret, missy. I couldn’t just hang around Montgomery all day. I was here, and I wanted to see you.” He took my hands.

  “But—”

  “But nothing. I rang the bell, your new … assistant—though if I may say so she doesn’t look nearly as exciting as me—pointed me out here.”

  “You told Risa about us? How did you—”

  “Relax, missy. I told her I’m working for the Montgomery Monitor and wanted to interview you.”

  “You’re a master of disguises.”

  “To get to you, yes.” He pulled me close.

  “Ow,” I said, lifting my foot. “Red ants. They’re biting me, like fire.”

  “How I love rescuing a damsel in distress.” With one brisk movement we fled the yard and walked down the wooden path behind Mildred’s house to a small clearing where the ants wouldn’t be.

  Then I felt Peter turn toward the flagpole in the side yard. “Hey, rebel girl. What’s with the Confederate flag?”

  “It’s my brother-in-law’s.”

  “And just where is he now? Sniffing around the property, hoping to find me?”

  “No. He’s out hunting for the Thanksgiving turkey.”

  “He’s quite the patriot.”

  “Indeed. He lowers the flag before he goes to bed.”

  “So when the flag goes down tonight I’ll know he’s safe in bed. That’s when I’ll creep up the steps …”

  “And whisk me away.”

  “So good of your brother-in-law to help.”

  “He lives to serve.” I laughed.

  But there was something distant about Peter. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Oh, just two or t
hree things. One: this place looks like a fortress. Two: I’m being hounded by the press, the Keller family, and their damned dogs. And three: Macy wrote that if I marry you I’m …”

  “You’re what?”

  “I’m like a person boarding the Titanic—ready to go down.”

  “John’s hardly a reliable source about life.”

  “True. But he has experience with …”

  “What? Me and Annie?”

  “Well, theirs was a … tempestuous marriage.”

  “Tempestuous? John had the best days of his life with us until whiskey soaked him through. He brought his troubles on himself, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Besides, I’ll make your life better, not worse. Has one week apart caused you to forget? Then let me remind you.” I pulled him to me and opened his shirt.

  “Ah, that’s what I love. My fighting Helen. I love it when you get mad.” He drew me to him.

  Then a snap in the woods signaled someone was coming.

  “Tonight.” He pushed me toward the house, but I didn’t want to go. I crossed the yard with small steps, as if to slow down time.

  I didn’t show up for lunch or dinner that day. It was past seven when Mother pushed open the door to my room, shook me by the shoulder as I read by my desk. “Helen, your house in Wrentham has sold. I’ve engaged a rental agent and she’s found a new house for you and Annie to rent. It’s in Forest Hills, outside Manhattan. When Annie returns, the mover will come to the Wrentham farmhouse and pack up the heavy things. What do you want them to take?”

  I said nothing.

  “I assume you’ll want your most precious things.”

  “Yes, indeed.” I already had my most precious thing. My suitcase was packed and locked under my bed; it would be only three hours until I grabbed it, walked briskly to the front porch, and took Peter’s hand.