The Illusion of Separateness

by Simon Van Booy

  Rain says everything we cannot say to one another. It is an ancient sound that willed all life into being, but fell so long upon nothing.

  The silence after is always louder. Birds whistle from low branches, ­tying their wishes in knots. I imagine their hearts and feel one in my hand like a hot seed.

  Even though I’m almost twenty-­seven, my mother still puts flowers in my room. She arranges them in a heavy vase that sits on my dresser, next to the plastic model of a B-­24 bomber that my grandfather John flew in World War II.

  The scent of the flowers lingers for a few days as though waiting for an answer.

  Tonight I have a date, which is big news in our house. He’s picking me up at six o’clock, but I feel like I’m already with him, sitting quietly in his warm truck.

  The radio is on but low.

  We’re somewhere in Sagaponack, or maybe he’s driven to Southampton. It’s too cold for the beach, so we sit in the parking lot and talk.

  He wants to know what it’s like being blind.

  I confess the smooth coolness of a window—­but the idea of glass is something beautiful and unknown.

  I ask him to tell me about stars, but what I really want is to be kissed.

  Winter evenings out here are quiet.

  The air smells of wood smoke and seawater. The Golden Pear Café fills up early with retired bankers and once-­famous artists who sit alone by the window, turning the pages of morning.

  Most ­people remember the Hamptons as an unbroken summer. A place of sandwiches and laughter, hot weather, things lost on the beach.

  In summer, I sleep with my windows open. Night holds my body in its mouth.

  In this second darkness, my desire flings itself upon a world of closed eyes.

  Then dreams break against the rocks of morning.

  Summer out here is busy with ­people doing nothing. And the beaches are crowded—­except very early, when it’s mostly dogs and ­people who are alone.

  I’ve been going to East Hampton Beach Club since I was a girl. I know my way around without needing anyone to guide me. It’s also where I learned to swim.

  Sometimes old ­people sit on the benches in front of the restaurant facing the sea. They shuffle in their seats as I pass.

  My eccentric grandfather John is ninety-something. He was born on Long Island but lives in a mansion in England. My grandmother Harriet died a few years ago. He designed their gravestone with a poem:

  Here lie:

  Harriet and John Bray

  H.B. Born 1920, Connecticut, U.S.A.

  Died 2003, East Sussex

  J.B. Born 1923, Long Island, U.S.A.

  Died 20—­, East Sussex

  When days are darkest, the earth enshrines

  the seed of summer’s birth.

  The Spirit of man is a light that shines

  deep in the darkness of earth.

  Grandpa John is very old now. He says his only wish is to see me happy. After the war he became a millionaire. He also met Charlie Chaplin.

  Between May and September, the supermarket in East Hampton smells like sunscreen, and it’s hard to find a parking spot. Someone in Bridgehampton once offered my father a hundred dollars for his space as he was filling the meter. My father said he’d give it to him for a kiss. My mother said he should have taken the hundred dollars.

  ­People stay up late too, and from my bed on a Saturday night, I hear the steady rush of cars between East Hampton and Montauk.

  Where are ­people going?

  I wonder what they hope will happen and what they are afraid of?

  For me it’s the same thing and has to do with being loved.

  It’s very cold here now.

  February is quiet except for the wind, which rushes through hollows in the roof. Everything has a voice. Our house was once a flock of trees in the wilderness.

  On Saturday I sleep later than my parents.

  Sometimes I wake up and lie still enough to hear a petal drop from the vase of flowers. Sometimes I lie awake and wish there was someone to hear my falling. In the safety of my bed, on a tightrope between waking and dreaming, my fantasies feel so real—­only steps away—­around a corner that never ends.

  My father opens the curtains slowly to unveil the day. Every day is a masterpiece, even if it crushes you. Light spills across my face. I blink but see nothing.

  We had more snow overnight. This morning I went with my father to Riverhead for salt and a new shovel. He likes it when I ride with him. We wear hats and gloves. Saturday has always felt hopeful. He treats me like a girl sometimes. I used to hate it when I was in high school, but now I don’t mind. He didn’t mention my date tonight, but I could tell he was thinking about it. He asked if I needed anything from the outlets.

  I have a job in Manhattan and get home at midnight on Fridays when the museum where I work is open late. In summer, the bus is packed, but I’ve been riding the Jitney for so long I always get a seat. The drivers know me. My mother bakes cookies for them. I’ve always wondered if they eat them while they’re driving. Sometimes when I get off, I’m tempted to sweep the driver’s seat with my hand for crumbs.

  When we got home from Riverhead, my father poured salt on the steps. I listened as pellets hit the ice. I imagined a head opening and thoughts falling out. Then my father stopped pouring and told me not to use my separate entrance until he’s replaced a few of the steps. The truth is that I hardly use it anyway.

  When the bag of salt was empty, we went inside. I made two cups of instant coffee. Then we sat at the kitchen table without taking our coats off.

  When my mother came downstairs, my father gave her his coffee and went to make another cup. It’s one of their customs. Another one is cocktails on Saturday night. Another is staying up late in summer.

  My mother was quiet and asked if there was traffic. She said the heat upstairs was on and off.

  My mother wanted to know if there’s anything I need washed for tonight. I’ll be glad when this date is over so things can go back to normal. My father is worried about the roads. He said we can borrow the Range Rover if the weather gets worse.

  When the phone rings, we all jump. It’s Dave. My father called him earlier to see if he would come over and chop wood, which means talking for hours and my father smoking Dave’s cigarettes.

  Dave is from Scotland. He worked for many years as a chef on cruise ships. My mother hired him as her part-­time driver, but the only person he drives is me. He and my father really get along. They are the same age, but Dave seems much younger. Sometimes Dave comes over and watches television if my parents are away. He has small hands and smells of onions. He is divorced but has an Irish girlfriend called Janet. She lives in Montauk and has a catering company.

  Yesterday on the bus, someone was wearing perfume. Sometimes I can smell the person who occupied the seat before me. Whether you know it or not, we leave parts of ourselves wherever we go. I wonder if I should wear perfume tonight for my date. I usually wear it in summer with a lovely dress. I splurge on one dress a year and then wear it to the Parrish Art Museum’s summer ball. My mother takes me to Saks. ­People stop and listen as she describes what’s hanging. Eventually, I touch a fabric and think, That’s me, that’s Amelia.

  I ride the Jitney into Manhattan five days a week for my job at the Museum of Modern Art. I set up programs for the blind. But sometimes I just sit at a desk and answer the phone.

  Each summer we get new interns. They go out for ice cream on Friday afternoons and come back late. They talk freely about their lives. I like my job. I help create art that ­people can touch. The blind patrons come once a month. Some have dogs. Those who are partially sighted have a stick with a heavy ball on the end. Sometimes they burst out laughing when things are placed in their hands. When you can’t see, the coolness of metal is exhilarating—­the weight of
something a sudden intimacy.

  Guide dogs are given water. It drips from their mouths back into the bowl. Hot tea is served in paper cups. The blind stare straight ahead and talk very carefully, as if their words are part of the exhibit, as if feelings can be dropped and broken.

  The poet Emily Dickinson said that nature is a haunted house, while art is a house that tries to be haunted. She was born and died in the same room.

  For young members of the museum, there is sometimes a party or an opening. ­People wear shoes that echo through the galleries. A banquet table is set up. The coat-­check line is long enough to fall in love with the person behind you. My mother said it’s important I go to these events. Dad sometimes drives into the city to pick me up. Many ­people leave together. They go on to other things. Their lives cross like strings. My parents want me to meet someone.

  I was asked to dance at the last museum party. He was from Dublin and smelled like cigarettes. After our dance, a slow song came on. I waited for him to lead me off, but we kept dancing.

  I was quiet in the car on the way home. Dad asked if I was okay. I remember opening the window and letting the world pour in.

  Dave once asked me what blind ­people dream about. Mostly in sound and feeling, I replied. At night I fall in love with a voice, and then wake to a feeling of physical loss. Sometimes I close my eyes to a chorus of “Happy Birthday!” The smell of cake and the sound of feet under the table. I awake in a body that’s too big. I also dream in motion and sensation. My father’s boat and the snore of the mast; the rough fabric of the safety harness and the rip of Velcro. The sun on my legs. An endless stretch of water impossible to imagine.

  I dream when I’m afraid of something I won’t admit.

  A recurring nightmare I’ve had for years is a dream of silence. In the dream I am alone—­but then I hear ­people moving quietly past. No matter how loud I scream or how frantically I reach out with my hands—­I am incapable of a connection.

  It’s my birthday in a few weeks. Most ­people think I’m younger than I am.

  About six years ago, the summer after I turned twenty-­one, my father built a separate entrance that leads to my bedroom. My mother thought it was madness. Months of hammering and sawing. The only silence when my father drove to the hardware store in Sag Harbor for something vital. When it was finished, we stood outside. It was very hot, and my father was drinking beer. Then we climbed the steps and went through a door that led to where my closet had been. It was like Narnia, but the opposite way.

  He said it was so my guests wouldn’t feel obliged to talk to Mom and Dad, but I use it mostly for sitting on when my parents have parties that go on too late. I’ve never ventured beyond the third step alone in either direction.

  I was in love once.

  His name was Philip. We met in Montauk on a bench by the dock. I had been invited to a birthday brunch for someone I hardly knew from high school. My mother said I might as well go. It turned out to be only a few ­people and ended early. The real party was on the beach the night before, and ­people were still passed out.

  Dave was supposed to pick me up but got stuck in the usual summer traffic. Then someone sat down on the bench next to me. I could feel him looking but said nothing.

  A lady on the Jitney once said that I was beautiful. It was a kind thing to say because I will never see my own face. And although this is hard to admit—­as I get older I find myself wanting to be touched. Last summer at a party on Shelter Island, I had too much wine and told my mother that I want to give and receive more hugs. She said, “Oh, Amelia.”

  On the way home she didn’t speak. I sat on the steps of my private entrance and cried but felt fine in the morning. Dad must have heard something because he drove all the way to Southampton to pick up fresh croissants for breakfast.

  When I was young, about fifteen maybe, I dreamed that a boy would wash up on the beach in front of our house. I would sit for a long time listening to the sea.

  When I was offered a job at the Museum of Modern Art, my parents worried about my traveling so far into the city each day. There were so many complications because I’m blind. At first, a car ser­vice had to meet me where the bus stops on Lexington Avenue, but then after six months, MoMA’s head of special collections found out what I was doing and told me to use the interns.

  The car ser­vice was paid for by Grandpa John. He also sends money to pay Dave—­who drives me into the city when I miss the bus (which is about once a week).

  For a long time nobody knew where Grandpa John was.

  His B-­24 Liberator disappeared in the skies above France. It was 1944.

  My grandmother Harriet got a telegram and then drove to the diner that his parents owned. They all sipped gin at a table in the back.

  After months without any news, men began asking my grandmother out.

  They pulled up outside her house in shiny cars.

  They wore sweater vests and kept their hair short.

  Harriet went dancing but was always glad to come home and go to bed with one of John’s handkerchiefs.

  She read his letters over and over.

  She looked at his drawings of plants, and looked up their Latin names.

  The fighting intensified after landings on the Normandy beaches.

  At night, the skies over Europe blazed with fire and metal. ­People sat up in bed as curtains flashed.

  The Allies were advancing. There were heavy casualties. Every day, someone on Harriet’s block lost a son, or a husband, or a brother.

  She remembers kissing John outside Lord & Taylor; the way he held her when they danced at Cousin Mabel’s wedding—­it was like being held for the first time. Driving to Montauk on Sunrise Highway. The rocks beneath their feet and the sweeping tide. The promise of so much ahead. She knew in her heart that being together would always be enough.

  She planned to go to Europe when the war was over and search for his remains. She was confident she could find them.

  Then one morning someone came to the door with a telegram.

  It was stamped Harrington, England.

  She opened it, then ran out of the house in her slippers. She was in such a state, it was hard to drive. ­People thought she was drunk and shook their heads.

  When she got to John’s parents’ diner, she didn’t even turn the engine off or close the door.

  When she read the letter aloud to a packed restaurant, John’s father collapsed.

  He was home before the war ended, but couldn’t stand without help.

  Two years later, after fully recovering, John was offered an engineering job in England by one of his RAF friends.

  Harriet had never left the East Coast of America, but the English welcomed them with open arms. After a few months, John wrote home and asked his parents to wire his life savings so he could invest in a material to make airplanes lighter and stronger.

  My grandpa John would have been one of the richest men in Britain today, Mom says, but he gave most of his fortune away—­keeping only what they needed to be comfortable.

  In some ways, I think Grandpa John has always felt responsible for my blindness, as if it were something he once wished for himself. He was in the hospital for a long time during the war, and nobody really knows what he saw, or what happened to him after being shot down—­not even my grandmother.

  His explanation never went beyond the letter.

  The first time I remember visiting them in London, my mother had booked a table for a special lunch with just Grandpa and me, and then arranged an afternoon at the Imperial War Museum to see the tanks and the planes.

  We were staying at Claridge’s Hotel—­Grandpa John’s treat. I remember waiting on the bed in fancy clothes. My mother was drying her hair. She said it wasn’t like him to be late. Eventually, the telephone rang. It was my grandmother. Grandpa John had locked himself in the bedro
om and wouldn’t come out.

  We made up for it in the years ahead, though. Long walks on the beach, bedtime stories that were so long I fell asleep in the middle, cooking brisket from a family recipe.

  He also taught me how to dance. It was something he did with my grandmother, even when there was no music. During the war, American ser­vicemen often took local English girls to dances. A few fell in love, but most did it to pass the time. Grandpa John stayed in his bunk and wrote letters to Harriet. He even kept paper and a pencil under his seat in the aircraft for the long flights back to base.

  I was named after a pioneer of flight. The last time I told that story was on a bench in Montauk. It was summer and very hot. We were sitting on Gosman’s Dock. It was busy with summer ­people. I had been to a birthday brunch. Children were crying, and laughter spilled from the bars.

  Philip was shy at first. I think I asked him to look out for a blue SUV. I told him my father’s friend was picking me up.

  The summer traffic must have been especially heavy, because we talked for a long time. Sometimes I wonder if Dave wasn’t just sitting in the car watching us.

  Philip told me what it was like being a fisherman. He said most of what he catches on the boat is for restaurants in Manhattan. He told me it’s a hard life, but that it’s his life. I asked him if he felt sorry for the fish, and he laughed but gave me a serious answer.

  He seemed intelligent. I wondered if he would lie on the beach with me and read poems aloud. I tried to recite a poem from memory about a fish by Elizabeth Bishop, but I only got halfway through.

  He asked me if I had ever seen a fish being caught and then quickly apologized. I didn’t mind, and explained how I see things clearly in my own way. I see my parents, my garden, my bedroom, my things on the wall, even Dad’s boat, even the sea, even a fish being caught.

  He asked me more about being blind, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Then a ­couple wanted us to take their picture.

  I was wearing a summer dress from Nanette Lepore and a pair of sandals. When the ­couple left, Philip said I had beautiful shoulders. I waited for him to touch them, ­my heart like a pendulum, swinging between hope and fear.