The Blindfold

by Siri Hustvedt

  Unlike Stephen, George appeared open and frank, but in fact, he gave very little away, and sometimes after our evenings together, I would ask myself what I really knew about him. He was the only child of an American diplomat and had grown up in Europe and Asia. His father was dead and his mother lived in Brussels, but he rarely mentioned her. George must have had money. His photographs couldn’t have paid for his large apartment and expensive meals. He did tell me about old girlfriends—a Swedish architect with whom he had lived for two years, a beautiful mime who had thrown herself out a third story window in Paris and lived, as well as a host of other female characters who had passed in and out of his life. But while he was remarkably candid about these affairs, chronicling their highs and lows in great detail, he spoke of them as if they were the comic stuff of another person’s biography, and I began to sense that these stories, no doubt true, were nevertheless a means of evasion. They were too smooth, too complete, and I found myself asking, Where are the holes?

  One evening in George’s apartment—a large, white, nearly empty loft on West Broadway—he showed me a series of photographs. He explained to me that the pictures had been organized into pairs—an impromptu shot taken in the streets coupled with a studio photo. All the photographs were black and white. The first picture, taken at night, was of a very young prostitute stepping into a large car. My eye was immediately drawn to her elevated leg, covered to the thigh in a white boot that was oddly radiant. The picture was matched with one that showed shining car parts laid out on a floor—a hood, a fender, a bucket seat, as well as wires, tubes, hoses, and other innards I couldn’t name. I looked at another pair. Two women sat in an open doorway smoking. Behind them stood a small child in diapers, its mouth gaping in a howl. The companion photo showed a sink with a woman’s hands in rubber gloves and water swirling down a black drain. All the photographs I looked at evoked in me a feeling of mild distress. There was nothing lurid about them, nothing gruesome, and yet the juxtaposition of images was suggestive of a world askew.

  I paused for a long time over two photos. The first was a shot that had been taken through a window covered with a grate. Through the diamond-shaped bars, one glimpsed a tiny room with an unmade bed, an old stuffed chair, and a remarkably hairy rug, but what had obviously intrigued George was a poster hanging on the wall. The image of a young woman in a bathing suit was obscured by the grate—her face couldn’t be seen at all, but her well-shaped torso was perfectly visible. This photograph was paired with one of a naked young man cut off at the shoulders, his back to the camera. Behind him was a window.

  “You like these?” said George.

  “Yes,” I said. I stared at the man’s small, muscular buttocks and narrow thighs. I was reminded of Stephen and for an instant felt sure it was him. The recognition shook me, but bodies are very much alike, and the longer I gazed at the picture, the more I felt it was someone else. “How were you able to take the first one?” I asked George.

  “From a fire escape,” he said.

  “Do you know the person who lives there?”

  “No.”

  I looked George in the face. “My God,” I said. “You go climbing up fire escapes in New York City, snooping in the windows of strangers. You could be arrested, murdered . . .”

  George leaned close to me. He was unshaven. I saw the tiny whiskers on his chin. What would it be like to be a man? I thought.

  “You like it, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “The danger of it excites you.”

  His smile irritated me, and I pulled away from him. I searched for a retort, but none came. That night as I lay in bed, I thought of several things I could have said and mourned the fact that my wit usually bloomed late, peaking when it no longer mattered, during the solitary hours close to midnight.

  • • •

  The photographs George had shown me lingered in my mind, but they were accompanied by other, more forceful images of George on the prowl, roaming the city with his camera, sidling down alleys and hanging from fire escapes. I saw him perched on roofs and hiding behind dumpsters, stealing photographs in the darkness, his flash igniting the startled faces of those caught in an act they wanted to keep secret—-a kiss or a fight or an illicit transaction—and then I saw George run from the spot like a burglar. More than anything, the pictures had altered my vision of George. The graceful young man with long dark hair and beautiful manners had spawned a double, and it was this second man, the one I didn’t know, who fascinated me.

  That Saturday the sun shone brilliantly, and it was very warm. George had invited Stephen and me for lunch at his apartment, and as I stood in the subway car heading downtown, I had a strong feeling of expectation. After we ate, the three of us walked up to the roof and sat on lounge chairs in the sunshine. We looked out over the city’s other landscape—glistening tar flats, mysterious wiring, rusted pipes, and odd little sheds. We were listless from the food and the sun and said little to one another. We each had a book. I read mine intermittently and stared up at the clouds with dull wonder. They moved very slowly in the blue. Stephen was engrossed in his reading. He had rolled up his white pants above his knees, and his naked calves were pink from the sun. George had put his book down and was staring out at the city. His camera lay on a stool beside him. We were only four stories above the street, and the traffic noise was barely muted. George stood up and walked over to the roofs edge. I watched him place his toes over the side and rock gently backward on his heels.

  “Don’t do that!” I shouted at him. “It terrifies me.”

  George jerked his head toward me and extended his arms for balance.

  Stephen looked over at George and shook his head.

  Then I heard it—a scream, a loud bestial whine that went through me like electricity. For an instant I thought George had fallen, but I saw him rush toward me and snatch up his camera. Stephen leapt from his chair and raced to where George had been standing. I followed him and looked down into the street where a small crowd had gathered around a young woman who was collapsed on the sidewalk. A stream of blood ran onto the cement near her head, and I watched her arm fly upward, as if someone were trying to wrench it from her. Her whole body convulsed. The skirt of her dress was twisted around her hips, exposing her thighs and the white rim of her underpants. I heard George swearing as he fumbled with his camera and film, but I didn’t look at him. The girl lost one of her shoes in a spasm, and I saw a man in the crowd bend over and pick it up, but once he had it in his hands, he hesitated, evidently unsure of what he should with it. He looked to either side of him and then in one swift movement knelt and put it back on the ground. Another man left the scene and sprinted toward a telephone booth at the corner. A woman in a red shirt had taken off her jacket and was trying to cushion the girl’s head with it but couldn’t place it correctly, and she cried out when she saw the head jolt backward and slam the cement again. Someone was crying. I heard George’s camera click several times and then he swore again. Stephen stood motionless, his eyes on the street. My pulse beat in my head, and I felt surprisingly cold, but I continued to look down. A man was shouting instructions, his words garbled by a passing truck. He pushed his way through the crowd and took the young woman’s head in his hands. Then I saw her urinate. A large stain darkened the material of her dress and the liquid flowed onto the sidewalk. The man held her firmly, her face toward me, and I stared into it. It was swollen, red; and smeared with blood. Her eyes were open but blank. Suddenly I understood that she was choking. Her face vanished behind the man. He was bent over her and I think had a hand in her mouth. There were sirens. My knees buckled. As I caught myself, I imagined my body in the air, falling to the street below. I backed away from the edge.

  Stephen and George continued to look. George’s camera hung around his neck. Their faces, really very different, resembled each other at that moment, their lips parted, their eyes narrowed in concentration.

  “I think she’s going to be all right,” said
Stephen. “She’s in the ambulance now.”

  “That man saved her,” I said.

  Stephen spoke quickly, excitedly. “It’s hard to believe a body can move like that. I’ve never seen a grand mal seizure before. I thought she was going to come apart. Did you get any pictures?” he said to George.

  “It’s possible,” George said. “But I don’t think so. The shutter jammed. I can’t understand it.” He rubbed his face with his hand. “I’ll never get another chance.”

  Stephen nodded. “That’s too bad.”

  I sat down in one of the chairs. “Maybe it’s for the best,” I said.

  “What?” said Stephen.

  “That there aren’t any pictures.”

  “Why?” said Stephen. He sounded annoyed.

  “Well, because it would be terrible for her if she knew, and it seems so invasive, recording a person’s suffering . . .”

  “You really believe that there are subjects that shouldn’t be photographed?” George said. He spoke evenly and softly.

  “Maybe I do,” I said, thinking aloud.

  “You believe in censorship then,” said Stephen.

  I looked up at Stephen. His face was tight, combative. “Not censorship,” I said slowly. “That’s external. I mean control from the inside. After all, pictures can lie, too, can convey falseness rather than truth.”

  “Really, Iris,” said Stephen. “What does that mean, truth?”

  I turned to George, who was squinting at me. “I mean very simply that photographing an epileptic fit entails some kind of responsibility.” I was startled to feel tears come to my eyes and turned my face so they wouldn’t see.

  George knelt beside my chair. “You’re very pale,” he said. “Don’t take it so hard.”

  I repeated his last word to myself. It meant nothing, like a word from a language I didn’t understand. That happens to me sometimes: a word, often a simple, ordinary word, loses its meaning and becomes gibberish. I stared past George and Stephen and noticed the weather had changed. Dark clouds had blocked the sun. “Let’s go in before it storms,” I said.

  The three of us sat in George’s apartment and talked. Neither of them mentioned the seizure again, and I felt sure the omission was on my account. The windows were open, and we heard thunder and then the rain came in torrents. George closed them and went into the kitchen to make us tea. Stephen sat on the sofa with me, his arm over my shoulder. It was pleasant in the big room, and I grew warm from the tea. George joined me and Stephen on the sofa. I sat between them, and I forgot what I had witnessed from the roof. To forget is ordinary. Even people in mourning, distracted by some little happiness, forget the dead, and I didn’t even know that poor woman.

  The rain stopped. The sun came through the large windows and lit Stephen’s face. George had red tulips in a crystal vase on his table, and they too were suddenly illumined. I felt an acute sense of joy. It was then that George leaned over to me and whispered in my ear. “I want to take your picture.”

  I laughed. “Why are we whispering, George?”

  “We’re conferring in private, my dear,” he said, and grinned. “This is between you and me.”

  “Well, then, between you and me, why do you want to photograph me now?” I spoke in a loud whisper. “We’ve known each other awhile. Why now?”

  “What are you two mumbling about?” said Stephen, who must have overheard the exchange.

  “None of your business,” said George, still smiling, and then to me he said, “Because it just hit me—your unusual beauty, your depth of character and intelligence.”

  Stephen leaned back in the sofa, his eyes on me.

  George and I were playing. I adopted the voice of a comic actress. “If you believe for one moment that you can lure me into one of your schemes with base flattery, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  “Try the earnest approach, George,” said Stephen. “That’s bound to work.”

  “Done,” said George. “Iris, I want to take your picture. You’ve inspired me. My request may appear to be a whim, but in fact, I’ve been pining away for weeks and have only just this minute worked up the courage to ask you. When it comes to photography, I never joke. I am deadly serious.” He stood up from the sofa, knelt at my feet, and took both my hands in his own.

  I giggled and looked over at Stephen. “What do you think?” I said to him. “Do I dare put myself in his hands?”

  Stephen shrugged. I could see he had tired of the game. He glanced at George, who had put my hands to his lips. I moved my gaze to George. He raised his chin and looked at me with open eyes. “Yes,” I said. “Whenever you like.”

  That “Yes” put me at risk, and I knew it even as I said it. But I didn’t care. That’s what is so curious about the whole story. As I uttered the word, I knew I was sealing a pact with George and it couldn’t be undone lightly. And more than that, when I sat beside Stephen on the subway back uptown, I understood that I had somehow hurt him by agreeing to be photographed. He didn’t mention it, but I could read it in his solicitousness and in his renewed hunger for me. I wasn’t sorry either. When the train jolted out of the Seventy-second Street station, he put his hands on my face and kissed me hard. There was anger in the kiss, and for that brief time I relished my power. By morning the mysterious attractiveness I had possessed the night before had gone. Stephen was sullen and peevish. He clearly wanted me out of his apartment, and I obliged him, but I left feeling miserable. Walking home, I had a sensation of tremendous emptiness in my head, chest, and stomach. It was so pronounced I had the fleeting thought that I no longer inhabited myself the way I used to. The “I” which had always designated the whole of my inner life seemed to have shifted elsewhere, and for a minute I stopped walking, overcome by my own strangeness to myself.

  George called to confirm our appointment. I was to come to his apartment Saturday at noon. I should dress simply. That was all. Late Saturday morning I woke from a dream about George. I remember only its end. He was wearing one of Stephen’s shirts and was pointing at a window the size of a child’s block. The dream was an unpleasant one, and I shook it off before I looked out my window into the air shaft, craning my neck to see the sky. It was blue. A good day, I thought. I chose a plain black dress with buttons up the front, reddened my mouth with lipstick, grabbed a sweater, and left for George’s.

  The spring weather put me in a buoyant mood, and while I waited for George to open his door, I realized that I was smiling. He pulled me inside the apartment without saying a word and hugged me. I noticed my heartbeat quicken. The familiar room was brilliant with light.

  “It’s beautiful here today,” I said.

  George took my face in his hands. He leaned backward and narrowed his eyes in mock scrutiny. “You’ll do,” he said. “It’s all there.”

  “What’s all there?”

  “Everything I want.”

  “That’s not an answer,” I said, moving out of his grip.

  “It’s my answer,” he said. He held his eyes on mine; his heavy lids and dark lashes were unmoving. I looked at his mouth and found it beautiful for the first time.

  George looked down at my feet. “I think you should be barefoot. The dress is good, but your shoes and socks are funny.”

  “Are they?” I said, looking at my cotton anklets and sandals.

  “They’re childlike.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” I said and bent down to remove them.

  “No,” he said. “Let me.”

  I sat down on the floor with my legs outstretched in front of me. George sat too, taking my right foot in his lap. He undid the buckle slowly and slipped the shoe off my foot. He was smiling. I watched his fingers gently gather the material at the top of the sock and pull it down my ankle and over my heel. He folded the sock and laid it over the shoe. Then he proceeded to the next foot. There was no hurry in him. His movements were methodical, precise. After he had pulled off my other shoe and sock, he held my naked foot for a few seconds, his expression no
w sober. I leaned back on my hands and closed my eyes. The room’s brilliance left its red markings on the inside skin of my eyelids, glowing through my blindness. I could hear George breathing, then his footsteps across the room and back, but I didn’t open my eyes until I heard the click of his camera.

  “We’ve started?” I said. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” he said.

  “I’m not sure I know what to do.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  I didn’t reply. Perhaps I did know, after all. The sunlight from the window was warm on my back, and I could feel my hair loose over my neck. There is a pleasure in being looked at, and I seemed to discover it all over again as I sat there on the floor listening to the camera’s shutter. I lost track of my thoughts. Images and words passed through my head in the way they do before sleep. I changed position almost unconsciously. It doesn’t matter, I said to myself. Maybe that thought was the break, the change I willed in myself without knowing why. The pace quickened. I heard myself laugh. We found a rhythm. George jumped from side to side. He squatted, stood, knelt, and I moved with him, He laughed, and I danced, carefully at first, aware of my arms and legs, my waist and hips, seeing myself as in a mirror, but then I forgot myself and moved faster and faster. I gyrated and spun like a lunatic for George, who shouted encouragements and took what seemed like hundreds of pictures, stopping only to put more film in the camera. My feet pounded the floor. I made noise, slapping my thighs, beating a chair with my hands, and hooting with an exuberance that made me dizzy. My heart raced. I don’t know how long it went on, but I remember panting from the effort, feeling the sweat in my hair and under my arms, and finally bending over in exhaustion. I looked at George. He grinned. He was sitting on the floor with his camera in his lap. I knelt down and crawled toward him, looking at his lean arms and beautiful mouth. I lifted my right arm and extended my hand toward his face, but something in his expression stopped me. I have what I want, it seemed to say. Don’t come any closer. I dropped my arm and sat back, still breathing hard.