cathedral
raymond carver
This blind man, an old friend of my wife’s, he was on
his way to spend the night. His wife had died. So he was
visiting the dead wife’s relatives in Conne/icut. He called
my wife from his in-law’s. Arrangements were made. He
would come by train, a five-hour trip, and my wife would
meet him at the station. She hadn’t seen him since she
worked for him one summer in Seattle ten years ago. But
she and the blind man had kept in touch. They made tapes
and mailed them back and forth. I wasn’t enthusiastic about
his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind
bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies.
In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed.
Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in
my house was not something I looked forward to.
That summer in Seattle she had needed a job. She
didn’t have any money. The man she was going to marry at
the end of the summer was in officers’ training school. He
didn’t have any money, either. But she was in love with the
guy, and he was in love with her, etc. She’d seen something
in the paper: help wanted—reading to blind man, and a
telephone number. She phoned and went over, was hired on
the spot. She worked with this blind man all summer. She
read stuff to him, case studies, reports, that sort of thing.
She helped him organize his little office in the county social-
service department. They’d become good friends, my wife
and the blind man. On her last day in the office, the blind
man asked if he could touch her face. She agreed to this. She
told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her
nose—even her neck! She never forgot it. She even tried to
write a poem about it. She was always trying to write a
poem. She wrote a poem or two every year, usually after
something really important had happened to her.
When we first started going out together, she
showed me the poem. In the poem, she recalled his fingers
and the way they had moved around over her face. In the
poem, she talked about what she had felt at the time, about
what went through her mind when the blind man touched
her nose and lips. I can remember I didn’t think much of
the poem. Of course, I didn’t tell her that. Maybe I just
don’t understand poetry. I admit it’s not the first thing I
reach for when I pick up something to read.
Anyway, this man who’d first enjoyed her favors, this
officer-to-be, he’d been her childhood sweetheart. So okay.
I’m saying that at the end of the summer she let the blind
man run his hands over her face, said good-bye to him,
married her childhood etc., who was now a commissioned
officer, and she moved away from Seattle. But they’d keep in
touch, she and the blind man. She made the first conta/
after a year or so. She called him up one night from an Air
Force base in Alabama. She wanted to talk. They talked. He
asked her to send him a tape and tell him about her life. She
did this. She sent the tape. On the tape, she told the blind
man she loved her husband but she didn’t like it where they
lived and she didn’t like it that he was a part of the military-
industrial thing. She told the blind man she’d written a
poem and he was in it. She told him that she was writing a
poem about what it was like to be an Air Force officer’s wife.
The poem wasn’t finished yet. She was still writing it. The
blind man made a tape. He sent her the tape. She made a
tape. This went on for years. My wife’s officer was posted to
one base and then another. She sent tapes from Moody
AFB, McGuire, McConnell, and finally Travis, near
Sacramento, where one night she got to feeling lonely and
cut off from people she kept losing in that moving-around
life. She got to feeling she couldn’t go it another step. She
went in and swallowed all the pills and capsules in the
medicine chest and washed them down with a bottle of gin.
Then she got into a hot bath and passed out.
But instead of dying, she got sick. She threw up. Her
officer—why should he have a name? he was the childhood
sweetheart, and what more does he want?—came home
from somewhere, found her, and called the ambulance. In
time, she put it all on tape and sent the tape to the blind
man. Over the years, she put all kinds of stuff on tapes and
sent the tapes off lickety-split. Next to writing a poem every
year, I think it was her chief means of recreation. On one
tape, she told the blind man she’d decided to live away from
her officer for a time. On another tape, she told him about
her divorce. She and I began going out, and of course she
told her blind man about it. She told him everything, or so it
seemed to me. Once she asked me if I’d like to hear the
latest tape from the blind man. This was a year ago. I was on
the tape, she said. So I said okay, I’d listen to it. I got us
drinks and we settled down in the living room. We made
ready to listen. First she inserted the tape into the player
and adjusted a couple of dials. Then she pushed a lever. The
tape squeaked and someone began to talk in this loud voice.
She lowered the volume. After a few minutes of harmless
chitchat, I heard my own name in the mouth of this
stranger, this blind man I didn’t even know! And then this:
“From all you’ve said about him, I can only conclude—“ But
we were interrupted, a knock at the door, something, and
we didn’t ever get back to the tape. Maybe it was just as
well. I’d heard all I wanted to.
Now this same blind man was coming over to sleep
in my house.
“Maybe I could take him bowling,” I said to my wife.
She was at the draining board doing scalloped potatoes. She
put down the knife she was using and turned around.
“If you love me,” she said, “you can do this for me. If
you don’t love me, okay. But if you had a friend, any friend,
and the friend came to visit, I’d make him feel comfortable.”
She wiped her hands with the dish towel.
“I don’t have any blind friends,” I said.
“You don’t have any friends,” she said. “Period.
Besides,” she said, “goddamn it, his wife’s just died! Don’t
you understand that? The man’s lost his wife!”
I didn’t answer. She’d told me a little about the blind
man’s wife. Her name was Beulah. Beulah! That’s a name for
a colored woman.
“Was his wife a Negro?” I asked.
“Are you crazy?” my wife said. “Have you just flipped
or something?” She picked up a potato. I saw it hit the floor,
then roll under the stove. “What’s wrong with you?” she
said. “Are you drunk?”
“I’m just asking,” I said.
Right then my wife filled me in with more detail
than I cared to know. I made a drink and sat at the kitchen
table to listen. Pieces of the story began to fall into place.
Beaulah had gone to work for the blind man the
summer after my wife had stopped working for him. Pretty
soon Beulah and the blind man had themselves a church
wedding. It was a little wedding—who’d want to go to such
a wedding in the first place?—just the two of them, plus the
minister and the minister’s wife. But it was a church
wedding just the same. It was what Beulah had wanted, he’d
said. But even then Beulah must have been carrying the
cancer in her glands. After they had been inseparable for
eight years—my wife’s word, inseparable—Beulah’s health
went into a rapid decline. She died in a Seattle hospital
room, the blind man sitting beside the bed and holding on
to her hand. They’d married, lived and worked together,
slept together—had sex, sure—and then the blind man had
to bury her. All this without his having ever seen what the
goddamned woman looked like. It was beyond my
understanding. Hearing this, I felt sorry for the blind man
for a little bit. And then I found myself thinking what a
pitiful life this woman must have led. Imagine a woman who
could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her
loved one. A woman who could go on day after day and
never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved. A
woman whose husband could never read the expression on
her face, be it misery or something better. Someone who
could wear makeup or not—what difference to him? She
could if she wanted, wear green eye-shadow around one eye,
a straight pin in her nostril, yellow slacks, and purple shoes,
no matter. And then to slip off into death, the blind man’s
hand on her hand, his blind eyes streaming tears—I’m
imagining now—her last thought maybe this: that he never
even knew what she looked like, and she on an express to
the grave. Robert was left with a small insurance policy and
half of a twenty-peso Mexican coin. The other half of the
coin went into the box with her. Pathetic.
So when the time rolled around, my wife went to the
depot to pick him up. With nothing to do but wait—sure, I
blamed him for that—I was having a drink and watching the
TV when I heard the car pull into the drive. I got up from
the sofa with my drink and went to the window to have a
look.
I saw my wife laughing as she parked the car. I saw
her get out of the car and shut the door. She was still
wearing a smile. Just amazing. She went around to the other
side of the car to where the blind man was already starting
to get out. This blind man, feature this, he was wearing a full
beard! A beard on a blind man! Too much, I say. The blind
man reached into the backseat and dragged out a suitcase.
My wife took his arm, shut the car door, and, talking all the
way, moved him down the drive and then up the steps to the
front porch. I turned off the TV. I finished my drink, rinsed
the glass, dried my hands. Then I went to the door.
My wife said, “I want you to meet Robert. Robert,
this is my husband. I’ve told you all about him.” She was
beaming. She had this blind man by his coat sleeve.
The blind man let go of his suitcase and up came his
hand.
I took it. He squeezed hard, held my hand, and then
he let it go.
“I feel like we’ve already met,” he boomed.
“Likewise,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.
Then I said, “Welcome. I’ve heard a lot about you.” We
began to move then, a little group, from the porch into the
living room, my wife guiding him by the arm. The blind man
was carrying his suitcase in his other hand. My wife said
things like, “To your left here, Robert. That’s right. Now
watch it, there’s a chair. That’s it. Sit down right here. This
is the sofa. We just bought this sofa two weeks ago.”
I started to say something about the old sofa. I’d
liked that old sofa. But I didn’t say anything. Then I wanted
to say something else, small-talk, about the scenic ride along
the Hudson. How going to New York, you should sit on the
right-hand side of the train, and coming from New York, the
left-hand side.
“Did you have a good train ride?” I said. “Which side
of the train did you sit on, by the way?”
“What a question, which side!” my wife said. “What’s
it matter which side?” she said.
“I just asked,” I said.
“Right side,” the blind man said. “I hadn’t been on a
train in nearly forty years. Not since I was a kid. With my
folks. That’s been a long time. I’d nearly forgotten the
sensation. I have winter in my beard now, “ he said. “So I’ve
been told, anyway. Do I look distinguished, my dear?” the
blind man said to my wife.
“You look distinguished, Robert,” she said. “Robert,”
she said. “Robert, it’s just so good to see you.”
My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and
looked at me. I had the feeling she didn’t like what she saw.
I shrugged.
I’ve never met, or personally known, anyone who was
blind. This blind man was late forties, a heavy-set, balding
man with stooped shoulders, as if he carried a great weight
there. He wore brown slacks, brown shoes, a light-brown
shirt, a tie, a sports coat. Spiffy. He also had this full beard.
But he didn’t use a cane and he didn’t wear dark glasses. I’d
always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind. Fa/
was, I wish he had a pair. At first glance, his eyes looked like
anyone else’s eyes. But if you looked close, there was
something different about them. Too much white in the iris,
for one thing, and the pupils seemed to move around in the
sockets without his knowing it or being able to stop it.
Creepy. As I stared at his face, I saw the left pupil turn in
toward his nose while the other made an effort to keep in
one place. But it was only an effort, for that one eye was on
the roam without his knowing it or wanting it to be.
I said, “Let me get you a drink. What’s your pleasure?
We have a little bit of everything. It’s one of our pastimes.”
“Bub, I’m a Scotch man myself,” he said fast enough
in this big voice.
“Right,” I said. Bub! “Sure you are. I knew it.”
He let his fingers touch his suitcase, which was
sitting alongside the sofa. He was taking his bearings. I
didn’t blame him for that.
“I’ll move that up to your room,” my wife said.
“No, that’s fine,” the blind man said loudly. “It can go
up when I go up.”
“A little water with the Scotch?” I said.
“Very little,” he said.
“I knew it, “ I said.
He said, “Just a tad. The Irish a/or, Barry Fitzgerald?
I’m like that fellow. When I drink water, Fitzgerald said, I
drink water. When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey.” My
wife laughed. The blind man brought his hand up under his
beard. He lifted his beard slowly and let it drop.
I did the drinks, three big glasses of Scotch with a
splash of water in each. Then we made ourselves
comfortable and talked about Robert’s travels. First the long
flight from the West Coast to Conne/icut, we covered that.
Then from Conne/icut up here by train. We had another
drink concerning that leg of the trip.
I remembered having read somewhere that the blind
didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t
see the smoke they exhaled. I though I knew that much and
that much only about blind people. But this blind man
smoked his cigarette down to the nubbin and then lit
another one. This blind man filled his ashtray and my wife
emptied it.
When we sat down at the table for dinner, we had
another drink. M wife heaped Robert’s plate with cube
steak, scalloped potatoes, green beans. I buttered him up
two slices of bread. I said, “Here’s bread and butter for you.”
I swallowed some of my drink. “Now let us pray,” I said, and
the blind man lowered his head. My wife looked at me, her
mouth agape. “Pray the phone won’t ring and the food
doesn’t get cold,” I said.
We dug in. We ate everything there was to eat on the
table. We ate like there was no tomorrow. We didn’t talk. We
ate. We scarfed. We grazed the table. We were into serious
eating. The blind man had right away located his foods, he
knew just where everything was on his plate. I watched with
admiration as he used his knife and fork on the meat. He’d
cut two pieces of the meat, fork the meat into his mouth,
and then go all out for the scalloped potatoes, the beans
next, and then he’d tear off a hunk of buttered bread and eat
that. He’d follow this up with a big drink of milk. It didn’t
seem to bother him to use his fingers once in a while, either.
We finished everything, including half a strawberry
pie. For a few moments, we sat as if stunned. Swear beaded
on our faces. Finally, we got up from the table and left the
dirty plates. We didn’t look back. We took ourselves into the
living room and sank into our places again. Robert and my
wife sat on the sofa. I took the big chair. We had us two or
three more drinks while they talked about the major things
that had come to pass for them in the past ten years. For the
most part, I just listened. Now and then I joined in. I didn’t
want him to think I’d left the room, and I didn’t want her to
think I was feeling left out. They talked of things that had
happened to them—to them!—these past ten years. I
waited in vain to hear my name on my wife’s sweet lips: “And
then my dear husband came into my life”—something like
that. But I heard nothing of the sort. More talk of Robert.
Robert had done a little of everything, it seemed, a regular
blind jack-of-all-trades. But most recently he and his wife
had had an Amway distributorship, from which, I gathered,
they’d earned a living, such as it was. The blind man was also
a ham radio operator. He talked in his loud voice about
conversations he’d had with fellow operators in Guam, in
the Philippines, in Alaska, and even in Tahiti. He said he’d
have a lot of friends there if her ever wanted to go visit
those places. From time to time, he’d turn his blind face
toward me, put his hand under his beard, ask me something.
How long had I been in my present position? (Three years.)
Did I like my work? (I didn’t.) Was I going to stay with it?
(What were the options?) Finally, when I thought he was
beginning to run down, I got up and turned on the TV.
My wife looked at me with irritation. She was
heading toward a boil. Then she looked at the blind man
and said, “Robert, do you have a TV?”
The blind man said, “My dear, I have two TVs. I have
a color set and a black-and-white thing, an old relic. It’s
funny, but if I turn the TV on, and I’m always turning it on,
I turn on the color set. It’s funny, don’t you think?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I had absolutely nothing
to say to that. No opinion. So I watched the news program
and tried to listen to what the announcer was saying.
“This is a color TV,” the blind man said. “Don’t ask
me how, but I can tell.”
“We traded up a while ago,” I said.
The blind man had another taste of his drink. He
lifted his beard, sniffed it, and let it fall. He leaned forward
on the sofa. He positioned his ashtray on the coffee table,
then put the lighter to his cigarette. He leaned back on the
sofa and crossed his legs at the ankles.
My wife covered her mouth, and then she yawned.
She stretched. She said, “I think I’ll go upstairs and put on
my robe. I think I’ll change into something else. Robert,
you make yourself comfortable,” she said.
“I’m comfortable,” the blind man said.
“I want you to feel comfortable in this house,” she
said.
“I am comfortable,” the blind man said.
After she’d left the room, he and I listened to the
weather report and then to the sports roundup. By that
time, she’d been gone so long I didn’t know if she was going
to come back. I thought she might have gone to bed. I
wished she’d come back downstairs. I didn’t want to be left
alone with a blind man. I asked him if he wanted another
drink, and he said sure. Then I asked if he wanted to smoke
some dope with me. I said I’d just rolled a number. I hadn’t,
but I planned to do so in about two shakes.
“I’ll try some with you,” he said.
“Damn right,” I said. “That’s the stuff.”
I got our drinks and sat down on the sofa with him.
Then I rolled us two fat numbers. I lit one and passed it. I
brought it to his fingers. He took it and inhaled.
“Hold it as long as you can,” I said. I could tell he
didn’t know the first thing.
My wife came back downstairs wearing her pink robe
and her pink slippers.
“What do I smell?” she said.
“We thought we’d have us some cannabis,” I said.
My wife gave me a savage look. Then she looked at
the blind man and said, “Robert, I didn’t know you smoked.”
He said, “I do now, my dear. There’s a first time for
everything. But I don’t feel anything yet.”
“This stuff is pretty mellow,” I said. “This stuff is
mild. It’s dope you can reason with,” I said. “It doesn’t mess
you up.”
“Not much it doesn’t, bub,” he said, and laughed.
My wife sat on the sofa between the blind man and
me. I passed her the number. She took it and toked and
then passed it back to me. “Which way is this going?” she
said. Then she said, “I shouldn’t be smoking this. I can
hardly keep my eyes open as it is. That dinner did me in. I
shouldn’t have eaten so much.”
“It was the strawberry pie,” the blind man said.
“That’s what did it,” he said, and he laughed his big laugh.
Then he shook his head.
“There’s more straw
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