Annie has been here almost two years now, but the other girls still mock her: she’s Irish, Catholic, and from the almshouse—a triptych of the most dismal. Her strategy is to be rude to them and to her teachers, something I well understand. I think Doctor would have enjoyed her, and Anagnos enjoys her until she pushes him to the brink. Last week, he almost expelled her—for the third time—for going to a rally for General Butler, who’s making his fifth try at governorship, this time on the Democratic ticket, when she’d said she was going to the Eye and Ear Infirmary. I spoke to Anagnos on her behalf, telling him how learned and insightful the girl is, and what a wonderful boon she’s been to me thus far. Annie is the one who sits beside me and translates as the teachers read from the newspapers every night. It had never bothered me before that they read to us only from the Transcript and the Post, but Annie complains that we are getting only one side of things, their side. Now that she’s had an operation, her vision is good enough to read the Catholic Register, and she expounds on various political and social issues sometimes until late in the night. She tells me that Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the recent telephone—a device I cannot even fathom—has successfully devised a system to teach the deaf to speak. He has set up his own School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech right here in Boston. Annie says that she will accompany me if I want to attend, but the sad fact is that I gave up that dream long ago—it was far too painful to continue to entertain the fantasy—and it seems impossible to begin its recovery at this late stage. What a breathtaking possibility, though, and so I encourage Annie to learn all she can since she plans to be a teacher.
Annie loathes Julia, who teaches a class in Greek drama. She calls her the “grande dame” and lampoons the way she declaims. As much as Annie makes me laugh, I feel inclined to take Julia’s side occasionally. Our friendship, though a slight and twisted skein, has even withstood the shocking news that while Doctor left two thousand dollars for my care, he left his own wife nothing. The betrayal must be remarkably painful. I was so grateful for his bequest, especially since my own father gave me nothing, and yet equally puzzled that he should so dishonor his own wife. Their more than thirty years together must have been much fierier than even I’d imagined or, frankly, hoped. Julia is forced to go on tours reading from her essays and poetry to support herself, an irony since her desire for public acclaim was the thing Doctor hated most. Once again, I realize I do not understand this man who held dominion over both our lives.
How swiftly the years have passed between me and my needlework, the occasional worldly visitor, and Annie for entertainment. It is time to graduate her and she has been named valedictorian from her class of eight. Doesn’t sound that much of an accomplishment, but Anagnos is making quite the ceremony, with Julia surprisingly at the helm. Hundreds will be coming to the Tremont Temple, including the governor himself. But no one has paid attention to the girl’s costume and she has not two pennies to rub together, so she asks to borrow one of my dresses. She is not so thin as I am—no one is—but she comes close; I can tell from our embraces. She has only two calicoes, a dark and a light, and one silk for church, though she despises church and only goes to vespers with the three other Catholic girls. After two years, she refused to go to Mass any longer and told me that she let the priest know she had absolutely nothing to confess. It’s not that she prefers the Unitarians or the Baptists, on whose behalf I admit I’ve tried to proselytize a bit, but that she thinks of God as just one more authority figure on whom she must turn her back. I do not have that option.
I let her go through my dresses—there aren’t that many—and tell her she can pick any one she’d like. I sit on the bed while she tries them, my skin prickling at the fact that she is nearly naked before me, only a few feet away. She is not Kate, she is Annie, but she rouses in me something both soft and hard that I must put down. I am, after all, more than twice her age, not that that would matter if I were a man. I wonder if she has any awareness at all that I am trembling so close by as she slides the garments on and off. I doubt it. Finally, she chooses the white muslin, the one I was baptized in, and we take it to Jeannette to add a blue sash. Her hair is fixed in a high pompadour with ringlets curling at the sides because Anagnos remarked that she favors President Cleveland’s young ward, Frances Folsom, recently married at the White House. I’m not sure if Annie is dressing as the famous belle as a joke or if her vanity is truly primed. It’s difficult to tell with her, though her manners have vastly improved, or improved at least when she so chooses.
Julia writes Annie’s speech out into my hand, and it is more beautiful and impressive than even I had thought she was capable. A few lines make me reflect upon my own case: “To a certain extent our growth is unconscious. We receive impressions and arrive at conclusions without any effort on our part; but also have the power of controlling the course of our lives.” I have helped her, this half-blind Irish from Tewksbury, and she has helped me in return, the extent of our growth vast and unconscious.
I enjoy being feted. Though I am not well, keeping to my bed more days than not, it is more than worth it to rise for this occasion. Anagnos I have spoken of perhaps too harshly, for in this he has a splendid idea: a co-celebration of my fiftieth year at Perkins and my fifty-eighth birthday, which also happily coincide with the 1887 Christmas season. The event has been announced in all the papers, and apparently I am the talk of the town again, however briefly. It is not the most appealing that everyone should know a lady’s advanced age, but there you have it. Anagnos has even paid for a new dress and bustle for the day, made of the black wool I feel suits me best now, but I did allow for a jaunty silk fanchon with a short veil. And I asked the seamstress please, please, for a feather, for I have never had a feather on a hat. “What color?” And straightaway I said, “Peacock.” I’ve read they have fantastic long plumes topped off by shimmering iridescent eyes. Imagine that: Laura Bridgman sporting a tall, bright feather from which one brilliant eye peers over the crowd. Perfect. My spectacles will still serve me beneath the veil, of course, but when I tried on the fanchon, I felt quite liberated knowing that I presented a more mysterious and perhaps even alluring visage to the world. Would that I had had this hat for Doctor’s funeral! But I will be photographed ceaselessly tomorrow at the party, and so my delightful hat will be recorded for posterity. I wonder how many pictures of me already exist. There is no point in me owning any of them because the photographs themselves have no texture, nothing for me to glean at all with my fingers. They should make raised pictures just as they make raised books. I’ll bet Doctor would’ve tried it if I’d had the idea then, but Anagnos is not the risk taker his predecessor was.
He is not bad, I suppose, though he seems to spend most of his time in the pursuit of money for the Institution, and very little time with the children. He has trotted me out to raise funds for printing more books and then again two years ago when he decided to open a kindergarten here. For that one, he asked me to appear with a blind translator—two for the price of one!―to plead with the crowd for donations. Honestly, I did it because I don’t have much to fill my days, and I do like to be onstage. I think back to the days when several hundred crowded in here just to see me, to watch me write on the French board or to pick out places on the embossed globe. Those were the loveliest days, although I didn’t know it then.
And so tomorrow will probably be the last of such wonders. Anagnos says he is expecting over five hundred, and Julia herself will preside over the ceremonies in the music hall. She has taken much interest in the Institution since Doctor’s death. Like me, she has always enjoyed the spotlight, which Doctor had preferred shining brightest on himself.
I sit in the place of honor on the dais, in my favorite velvet chair brought up from the parlor, with Julia on one side and Anagnos on the other. Vibrations all round, not only hundreds of feet, but also the beats of music. A group of blind children from the kindergarten have come onstage to sing me a song. Julia writes it out:
&
nbsp; The birthday queen we children greet,
And offer roses, fresh and sweet.
May fortune never cease to bless
And crown her days with happiness.
A nice enough song, I suppose, but it could have been written for anyone. Julia gets up to speak and Anagnos translates, but I must admit that I am disappointed to find that it is as much a tribute to her husband as it is a celebration of my accomplishments. Am I never to be seen as separate from him? The speeches continue from ministers and philanthropists—the best of Boston has shown for me today—and even Edward Everett Hale speaks, saying that my education provided knowledge of “the great unseen.” A good name for me. My own dear minister from South Baptist speaks of my conversion and my passion for Christ. I know this does not go down well with all the Unitarian bigwigs assembled, but he is the one person I insisted be part of the day. He declares that I am one of the few who can truly be considered “a bride of Christ.” Ha! He has no idea that I did not save myself for Jesus, but let him think that the black spider is a bride draped in white. I pull my veil a little lower.
The applause is long, and I hope sincere. Many in the crowd have watched me grow up, pass through all the stages of childhood and womanhood. What am I to them? A beacon, a curiosity, an affection, or merely a dark and familiar presence against which all other shades of humanity seem bright? I have tried, in my own rocky fashion, to prove an Inspiration, but it has been so hard to get out of my own way, to know which parts of myself to separate and which to marry with man and with Maker.
Julia leads me to a Christmas tree and I reach for the prickly branches—Doctor’s mustache. But then she kneels with me, and I am delighted to find the base of the tree laden with wrapped packages. My fingers flutter over silk ribbons, alight on tissue paper, crinkly paper, slick wrappings. All for me? “Yes,” she says, “from Perkins and from guests.” I can’t even count them, they are piled so high! I have never had this many presents, even my first Christmas here. I know it is not ladylike, but I sit down on the floor and pick up a small one with a velvet bow I rub against my cheek. I’d like to stick it fast atop my hat, but people would doubtless think it looked silly at my age. Still, I would like to be a present for the crowd. That’s what I hope they think of me: a present to them all from God, to show how little one can possess of what we think it means to be human while still possessing full humanity. I am a gift, though only one ever dared unwrap me.
The first is a bracelet, gold, Julia tells me, from Anagnos. It is engraved on the front and I can almost make out the tiny etched words: “Our Laura for 50 Years.” I rip open another and pull out a long, fuzzy scarf from Jeannette. Julia has given me a raised-letter book of her latest verse (the hubris cannot be vanquished, but that is as it has always been), and Annie has bequeathed me her copy of the Iliad. I forget that all are watching me go through my packages and lose myself in the joyful frenzy of the moment, feeling genuinely like that child of fifty years ago, though without any of the fear. Oh, this one is heavy, large, and square. I tear off the paper—cheap and rough, like butcher’s paper—surprising. I run my hands over the smooth wooden box until I find the lid and pop it open. At the back I turn a tiny lever and the music begins to hum through my hands. “Who?” I ask Julia, but there’s no card.
I stand and turn outward to the crowd, holding the box. Who has brought it, this handsome present? I crank it again and another song plays, one I recognize from its beats, “Johnnie My Boy.” The song from my old music box. Is this indeed my own box that I gave Laura years ago? I have never wished for eyes more than at this moment, to scan the crowd before me, sure that I would recognize my Laura, my Kate. Julia takes the box gently from me and says it’s time to greet my visitors. I am buzzing, but I allow her to lead me down from the stage, where I stand waiting for all who want to touch me in the last throes of my celebrity. Hand after hand, they go so fast, a few clumsily attempting to write something, but all I can think is: that’s not her hand, that’s not her hand. And then quickly, toward the end, the most familiar fingers close on mine, and I grip them tight, hold on, try to write, but then she is gone. I raise my fingers to my lips. Sweetness. I wheel around, bumping into strangers, grabbing at sleeves, reaching for faces. I make my old noise for Kate, the most beautiful sound I’ve ever mustered, and I’m sure she will hear me and come running back. I have money now to give her. Does she know that? I will give her everything. I make her noise again, louder, and then Anagnos reins me in, pulls me back to center stage, back to all the hands awaiting me, but not the one I want. I have made a spectacle of myself at my own party, but it must be as God intended. It was Kate, I know in my heart it was Kate. I breathe deeply, in and out, in and out, and tell myself that it is all right that she touched me and fled. I do not pretend to understand, and yet all is still lit with a flame from within that cannot, will not, ever be extinguished. She was here; that is the jewel I must cherish. After all these years, she still wanted to see me, to touch me.
Now it is time for Anagnos to wrap up the festivities, though I can still barely catch my breath. Julia takes my hand again but she is not writing about me. I’d thought there would be a summing up of my accomplishments, but no: she writes two names, Edith Thomas and Helen Keller, whom Anagnos calls the new deaf-blind girls. Ah, their long search has finally yielded fresh fruit. He says that Edith will be here at Perkins next month and that Annie will be sent immediately to teach Helen in Alabama. So far for Annie to go! I will miss her spitfire. Anagnos ends by saying what “a singular coincidence that Laura’s semicentenary should mark the advent of two little hapless pilgrims to the beneficent care that had given to her life all its brightness.” If they are pilgrims, what am I? Apparently, Mrs. Keller read about me in Dickens’s American Notes and thought her daughter might be helped. “So she sent a letter and a picture,” he says, “of the loveliest little girl you’ve ever seen, smiling, dimpled, a perfectly shaped head.” He seems already to have forgotten about Edith in his enthusiasm for describing the beauty of little Miss Helen. I crank the music box again and again, though I know it is rude while he is speaking. I don’t know why this news strikes such a hollow and melancholy gong within my heart. Today was meant to be my day, and yet I have been eclipsed by a more radiant sun. Why must the Lord keep making deaf-blind children? Wasn’t I enough for the world?
Chapter 37
Laura, 1888
Now I ask Helen again: “Which sense would you have back?”
“Whichever God chooses,” she says. The perfect, tiny diplomat to God and man. Oh, she will do fine, this second me; she will do so much better than I did because she understands already—or Annie has made her to understand—what will be expected of her. And she might as well be the second Laura Bridgman because she will never be able to be truly herself. Poor darling child. And yet perhaps I have been too much myself—is this possible?
“A delightful answer.” I bend close and turn us away from our watchers to allow for a private exchange. She sniffs long and hard against my shoulder. “Speak, speak if you can.” I push the air up from my throat and growl a special naming noise for Helen. The normal ones must be shaking in their boots. “And get the glass eyes,” I tell her, “the bluest marbles fame can buy to stuff into those dry sockets. It will be worth it.”
She taps gently against the glass of my spectacles, and I hold my breath. She traces the prow of my nose and her fingertip rests between my lips. I kiss that finger, and then the palm that she will open to the world.
I want to write out everything—for me, for her—but I am denied the pleasure, or pain, of ever being able to read my own words. You will be able to read them, but I will not. So I write this out into the air, in a grand and looping script, that what is invisible to man may be visible to God.
Epilogue
A year after her meeting with Helen Keller, on May 4, 1889, Laura Bridgman died at Perkins of a streptococcal infection. She was fifty-nine. Her funeral, attended by hundreds, was held in the E
xhibition Hall, and her body taken back to New Hampshire for burial near the Bridgmans’ farm. Laura’s brain was preserved for scientific analysis, and in his 1890 report, Dr. Henry H. Donaldson found no organic traces of disability except for a slightly underdeveloped region of speech and noted only that hers was a “typical female brain.” Though Dr. Howe had planned to write a biography of Laura, he never did, and the task was taken up by his daughters, who published Laura Bridgman: Dr. Howe’s Famous Pupil and What He Taught Her in 1903, a work that centered largely on their father.
Julia Ward Howe continued her work as a writer, suffragist, and pacifist and was also, ironically, the creator of Mother’s Day. Her daughters’ biography of her won the Pulitzer Prize in 1917. Literary historian Gary Williams recently discovered an unfinished, novel-length manuscript, The Hermaphrodite, written between 1846 and 1847, which she had apparently kept hidden, and his resulting book speculates that the novel explores the complex relationships between Julia, her husband, and Charles Sumner.
What Is Visible: A Novel Page 29