by Teju Cole
After my colleague dropped me off at Columbia Memorial Hospital, I did my insurance paperwork and was asked to wait on a bed in an emergency triage area. From the other side of the screen, I heard a family discussing the kidney problems of the man on that bed. They spoke in troubled tones, and I could hear that the man, whom I couldn’t see, was in some pain. At length, a doctor arrived and examined me. He asked a few questions and, puzzled, wrote me a referral to a private ophthalmologist nearby. And so I picked my way gingerly down to the Union Street address he had given me, about four blocks away.
It was a bright day, hot for April. The ophthalmology practice was set back from the street, a low brown building at the end of a tarred lot. There, too, the first order of business was about my insurance bona fides—the sense of relief at having insurance, or the distress at not having it, is part of any medical procedure in the United States—and then I sat in the ophthalmologist’s chair in a darkened room, and she leaned over me in that solicitous way that medical practitioners share with barbers and flight attendants, and that I have always liked. She tested my vision on the alphabet charts, irrelevantly, I thought, since I wasn’t there to have new glasses made, and then, dilating both pupils with mydriatic drops, examined each eye with a powerful lamp. She looked closely. In the vision-canceling intensity of the lamp, my gray veil became a thick red cloud of pure vision, and I imagined I could see my own optic nerve. The doctor asked questions. Had I had the problem before? Had I carried anything heavy lately? No, not that I could think of. I did not mention Mrs. Woolf’s diaries. I can tell you it isn’t a detached retina, the doctor said. You’d better see a specialist, in Albany or in New York City. As I stepped out of the office, I made an appointment at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary for that evening. It was mid-afternoon, a Thursday. I had begun to feel the curiously woolly effect of dilation on my eyes. Darkness encroached by degrees, and, in the afternoon sun, I could hardly see out of my right eye, and not at all out of the left. I had become almost completely blind. I began to walk down Union Street in the direction of the train station, glaring and squinting, trying, and mostly failing, to see what was ahead of me.
Hudson is old and elegant, settled by the Dutch in the seventeenth century, and retaining much of its nineteenth-century built environment. One uncertain step at a time I began the walk past the old houses, to the station, which was a little more than a mile away. Is this real? Am I stumbling alone and almost blind down a quiet street in an unfamiliar town? The sun was as strong as a hallucination. The houses were brightly painted, crisp against the sky, making of the whole street a collage, foggy in parts, clear in others, grainy in the distance, so that, all of a sudden, I was no longer in the present at all but back in the era of the earliest photographs.
I heard faint noises, the occasional car going down another street, a voice lightly thrown from its unseen body, the hum of distant machines, and the sound of my own breathing as I put one foot in front of another. My body made its way down the bright street, mystified and almost inadvertent. The journey took a long time, twice as long as it should have taken, and I was afraid I’d get knocked down at one of the intersections. Each house looked much the same as the next, polygonal, almost flat, neither more nor less substantial than the sky above, each successive block glowing like the built landscape in the very first street photograph, the view from Niépce’s country house in Le Gras in 1826. The view seemed on the perpetual verge of vanishing. I myself felt like a cutout: diminished and simplified because the sense of sight on which I was so dependent flickered with each step.
At long last I reached Front Street. As I had eaten nothing all day, I went into a diner. It wasn’t particularly full, but I sat at the counter because it was near the door, and I was given a menu that I couldn’t read. I blinked and squinted, but the words refused to resolve in the meaningless hieroglyphics of my right eye and in the total darkness of the left. As I handed the menu back to the waitress, explaining to her that my pupils were dilated, I was ambushed by a sudden shame: that she would think me illiterate and a liar. The thought, foolish as it was, caught me by surprise. At the far end of the counter was a party of four, all young, two blond women and two men, also fair-haired. Their laughter tinkled around the diner, then ceased, and they went back to talking in hushed tones. I distinctly heard one of the women say: Disfarmer. But I could make out nothing else of the conversation. I was afraid.
When we write fiction, we write within what we know. But we also write in the hope that what we have written will somehow outdistance us. We hope, through the spooky art of writing, to trick ourselves into divulging truths that we do not know we know. Open City, published two months before my eye troubles began, is in part an examination of the limits of sensitivity and of knowledge. One passage, narrated by Julius, the young psychiatrist at the center of the story, reads as follows:
Ophthalmic science describes an area at the back of the bulb of the eye, the optic disk, where the million or so ganglia of the optic nerve exit the eye. It is precisely there, where too many of the neurons associated with vision are clustered, that the vision goes dead. For so long, I recall explaining to my friend that day, I have felt that most of the work of psychiatrists in particular, and mental health professionals in general, was a blind spot so broad that it had taken over most of the eye. What we knew, I said to him, was so much less than what remained in darkness, and in this great limitation lay the appeal and frustration of the profession.
I arrived in Manhattan that evening. My pupils had gone back to normal size, and I could see out of my right eye again. The left remained obscure. That night was the first of more than half a dozen visits to the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. Not until the following Monday, after several exams by several doctors, after contrast scans and high-resolution photographs of my retinas, in which they billowed like mysterious red planets, after sitting in waiting rooms with the sad, quiet blind, many of whom were elderly, after overhearing those who had been told that nothing further could be done for them, only after this unguided tour of misery did I receive a diagnosis. By then the gray veil had retreated and my eyesight had come back. The scans had been alarming: my left retina was strewn with exploded blood vessels, which showed up in the photographs as wiry black tangles against the red field. Where those vessels had bled over the retina, the vision was obscured. That accounted for the field of gray: I had been trying to look through a hemorrhage. You have papillophlebitis, said Dr. L, who had a thick Russian accent and a laconic manner. He was friendly, and a little impatient, as all specialists are. It is idiopathic, he said, so I can’t tell you what caused it. It just happens, it begins on its own, something occludes your retinal veins. It’s also called big blind spot syndrome. It’s a young man’s disease, and, as far as we can tell, it has nothing to do with diet, or genetics, or anything we can trace. But don’t worry, it probably won’t happen again. We’ll just cauterize some of these damaged vessels with a laser. Simple procedure. Big blind spot is benign. He smiled, like a matador who’d just wrestled down a calf, like a man who hadn’t gotten quite the challenge he’d hoped.
On my next visit, Dr. L did the laser surgery, and I returned to normal life, to regular myopia. But of course big blind spot did happen again. That insurgent area of darkness took over my eye, and I returned to the hospital later in the year, and again it cleared up. And I expect that it will happen again, and again, until it is supplanted by something worse, as it was written.
Teju Cole, Sasabe (2011)
Wangechi Mutu, Even (2014)
Malick Sidibé, Je veux être seule (1979)
Alex Webb, Bombardopolis, Haiti (1986)
Roy DeCarava, Mississippi Freedom Marcher, Washington, D.C., 1963 (1963)
Gueorgui Pinkhassov, Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, Paris (2012)
Richard Renaldi, Nathan and Robyn, 2012, Provincetown, MA (2012)
Penelope Umbrico, 541,795 Suns from Sunsets from Flickr (Partial) 1/26/06 (2006–ongoing)
Te
ju Cole, Zürich (2015)
Teju Cole, Lugano (2014)
René Burri, Men on a Rooftop (1960)
Glenna Gordon, Mass Abduction in Nigeria (2014)
National Archives of South Africa, A Prisoner Working in the Garden (Nelson Mandela) (1977)
Teju Cole, Rome (2008)
For Michael, Amitava, and Siddhartha
Acknowledgments
I WOULD LIKE to thank the family, friends, commissioning editors, and colleagues with whose help I wrote the essays contained in these pages. My heartfelt appreciation goes in particular to Susan Aberth, Beth Adams, Oye Akisanya, Svetlana Alpers, Katie Assef, Jin Auh, David Bajo, Elise Blackwell, Tracy Bohan, Chris Boot, Leon Botstein, Lee Brackstone, Finn Canonica, Wah-Ming Chang, Ken Chen, Amy Conchie, Kwame Dawes, Sonali Deraniyagala, David Ebershoff, Kay Eldrege, Max Fisher, John Freeman, Glenn Greenwald, Susan D. Gubar, Gioia Guerzoni, Malcolm Harris, Miriam Hefti, Aleksandar Hemon, Richard Herold, Ana Paula Hisayama, Florian Höllerer, Andy Hsiao, Vijay Iyer, Maria Koliopoulou, Karsten Kredel, Glenn Kurtz, Alexis Madrigal, John Edwin Mason, Jennifer McDonald, Joel Meyerowitz, Beatrice Monti, Michael Morris, Christine Mykityshyn, Christine Richter-Nilsson, Thyago Nogueira, Adewunmi Nuga, Ore Nuga, Afolake Oguntuyo, Akin Omotoso, Abimbola Onafuwa, Dimeji Onafuwa, Beth Pearson, David Remnick, Kornel Ringli, Rachel Rosenfelt, Ebisse Rouw, Kathy Ryan, John Ryle, Jonathan Sa’adah, James Salter, Gesa Schneider, Parul Sehgal, James Shapiro, Lola Shoneyin, Stephen Shore, Jake Silverstein, Ahdaf Soueif, Linda Spalding, Nanda Sugandhi, Monika Tranströmer, Tomas Tranströmer, Pauline Vermare, Roel Veyt, Binyavanga Wainaina, Bill Wasik, Alex Webb, Rebecca Norris Webb, and Andrew Wylie.
I am grateful to various residencies and institutions that have facilitated the work in this book, in particular Ledig House, A Room for London, the Literaturhaus Zürich, the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, the Windham Campbell Prize, the Laudinella, and the team at The New York Times Magazine. I would like to thank my father and mother especially. I would like to thank Angela Chen for advice, research help, and invaluable assistance in assembling the book, and Sasha Weiss, without whose editorial acuity many of these essays would have been much poorer. Caitlin McKenna edited the book with tremendous grace, faith, and patience. My debt to Karen remains inexpressible.
This book is dedicated to three extraordinary writers who read and encourage me: Michael Ondaatje, Amitava Kumar, and Siddhartha Mitter.
Art Permission Credits
WANGECHI MUTU
Even, 2014
Collage painting on vinyl
203.04 × 173.2 × 8.9 cm
80 × 68¼ × 3½ inches
© Wangechi Mutu. Photography: Bill Orcutt. Courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro, London.
MALICK SIDIBÉ
Je veux être seule, 1979
Vintage gelatin silver print, glass, cardboard, tape, string
7¼ × 5¼ inches
© Malick Sidibé. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
ALEX WEBB
Bombardopolis, Haiti, 1986
© Alex Webb/Magnum Photos
ROY DECARAVA
Mississippi Freedom Marcher, Washington, D.C., 1963 (1963)
Silver gelatin photograph
© Estate of Roy DeCarava 2016. All rights reserved.
GUEORGUI PINKHASSOV
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, Paris, 2012
© Gueorgui Pinkhassov/Magnum Photos
RICHARD RENALDI
Nathan and Robyn, 2012, Provincetown, MA
© Richard Renaldi
PENELOPE UMBRICO
541,795 Suns from Sunsets from Flickr (Partial) 1/26/06, 2006–ongoing
Detail of 2,500 4-inch × 6-inch machine C-prints
© Penelope Umbrico
RENÉ BURRI
Men on a Rooftop, 1960
© René Burri/Magnum Photos
GLENNA GORDON
Mass Abduction in Nigeria, 2014
Courtesy of Glenna Gordon
PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN (NELSON MANDELA)
A Prisoner Working in the Garden, 1977
Courtesy of the National Archives of South Africa
Text Permission Credits
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
BOMB MAGAZINE: “A Conversation with Aleksandar Hemon” was commissioned by and first published in Bomb Magazine 127, Spring 2014, copyright © 2014 by Bomb Magazine, New Art Publications and its Contributors. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX, LLC: Excerpts from The Prodigal, “V” from White Egrets, and “XXXVIII” from Midsummer from The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948–2013 by Derek Walcott, selected by Glyn Maxwell, copyright © 2014 by Derek Walcott; excerpts from Another Life and The Arkansas Testament from Selected Poems by Derek Walcott, copyright © 2007 by Derek Walcott. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC.
GRAYWOLF PRESS: “Two Cities,” “Elegy,” and “Grief Gondola #2” from The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer by Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robert Bly, copyright © 2001 by Tomas Tranströmer. Translation copyright © 2001 by Robert Bly. Reprinted by permission of The Permissions Company on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.
HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS: Excerpt from “The Scattered Congregation” from Tomas Tranströmer: Selected Poems 1954–1986 by Tomas Tranströmer, edited by Robert Hass, introduction copyright © 1987 by Robert Hass. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
NEW DIRECTIONS PUBLISHING CORPORATION: Excerpt from “On 8 May 1927” from Unrecounted by W. G. Sebald, copyright © 2004 by The Estate of W. G. Sebald. Translation copyright © 2004 by Michael Hamburger. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
The New Yorker: The following essays by Teju Cole, originally published in The New Yorker: “Black Body: Rereading James Baldwin’s ‘Stranger in the Village’ ” (August 19, 2014), copyright © 2014 by Condé Nast; “Natives on the Boat” (September 11, 2012), copyright © 2012 by Condé Nast; “Miracle Speech: The Poetry of Tomas Tranströmer” (October 6, 2011), copyright © 2011 by Condé Nast; “W. G. Sebald’s Poetry of the Disregarded” (April 5, 2012), copyright © 2012 by Condé Nast; “Always Returning” (July 30, 2012), copyright © 2012 by Condé Nast; “A Better Quality of Agony” (March 27, 2013), copyright © 2013 by Condé Nast; “In Place of Thought” (August 27, 2013), copyright © 2013 by Condé Nast; “Age, Actually” (January 6, 2013), copyright © 2013 by Condé Nast; “An African Caesar” (April 22, 2013), copyright © 2013 by Condé Nast; “Postscript: Peter Sculthorpe (1929–2014)” (August 8, 2014), copyright © 2014 by Condé Nast; “Red Shift/Home” (December 22, 2014), copyright © 2014 by Condé Nast; “Postscript: Saul Leiter (1923–2013)” (November 27, 2013), copyright © 2013 by Condé Nast; “Home Strange Home” (April 18, 2011), copyright © 2011 by Condé Nast; “A Reader’s War” (February 10, 2013), copyright © 2013 by Condé Nast; “Letter from Lagos” (August 15, 2013), copyright © 2013 by Condé Nast; “What It Is” (October 7, 2014), copyright © 2014 by Condé Nast; “Letter from Nairobi” (September 26, 2013); “Captivity” (May 6, 2014), copyright © 2014 by Condé Nast; “Unmournable Bodies” (January 9, 2015), copyright © 2015 by Condé Nast. Reprinted by permission.
PARS: “Purple Haze” by Teju Cole (The New York Times Book Review, 10/9/2011), copyright © 2011 by The New York Times; “Drawing” by Teju Cole (The New York Times Book Review, 12/4/2011), copyright © 2011 by The New York Times; and “Poet of the Caribbean” by Teju Cole (The New York Times Book Review, 2/23/2014), copyright © 2014 by The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without the express written permission is prohibited.
RANDOM HOUSE, AN IMPRINT AND DIVISION OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC, AND THE WYLIE AGENCY LLC: Excerpts f
rom “Giulietta’s Birthday,” “Consensus Omnium,” “Remembered Triptych of a Journey from Brussels,” “Somewhere,” “In the Paradise Landscape,” and “Calm November Weather” from Across the Land and the Water: Selected Poems 1964–2001 by W. G. Sebald, translated by Iain Galbraith, copyright © 2008 by The Estate of W. G. Sebald. Translation copyright © 2011 by Iain Galbraith. Rights in Canada are administered by The Wylie Agency LLC. Reprinted by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, and The Wylie Agency LLC.
THE WYLIE AGENCY LLC: Excerpts from A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul, copyright © 1961, 1969 and copyright renewed 1989 by V. S. Naipaul. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.
BY TEJU COLE