Where I'm Calling From

simple question, yes or no. I’m just curious and there’s no offense.
    You’re my host. But let me ask if you are in any way religious? You don’t mind my asking?”
    I shook my head. He couldn’t see that, though. A wink is the same as a nod to a blind man. “I guess I don’t believe in it. In anything. Sometimes it’s hard. You know what I’m saying?”
    “Sure, I do,” he said.
    “Right,” I said.
    The Englishman was still holding forth. My wife sighed in her sleep. She drew a long breath and went on with her sleeping.
    “You’ll have to forgive me,” I said. “But I can’t tell you what a cathedral looks like. It just isn’t in me to do it. I can’t do any more than I’ve done.”
    The blind man sat very still, his head down, as he listened to me.
    I said, “The truth is, cathedrals don’t mean anything special to me. Nothing. Cathedrals. They’re something to look at on late-night TV. That’s all they are.”
    It was then that the blind man cleared his throat. He brought something up. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket. Then he said, “I get it, bub. It’s okay. It happens. Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Hey, listen to me. Will you do me a favor? I got an idea. Why don’t you find us some heavy paper? And a pen. We’ll do something. We’ll draw one together. Get us a pen and some heavy paper. Go on, bub, get the stuff,” he said.
    So I went upstairs. My legs felt like they didn’t have any strength in them. They felt like they did after I’d done some running. In my wife’s room, I looked around. I found some ballpoints in a little basket on her table. And then I tried to think where to look for the kind of paper he was talking about.
    Downstairs, in the kitchen, I found a shopping bag with onion skins in the bottom of the bag. I emptied the bag and shook it. I brought it into the living room and sat down with it near his legs. I moved some things, smoothed the wrinkles from the bag, spread it out on the coffee table.
    The blind man got down from the sofa and sat next to me on the carpet.
    He ran his fingers over the paper. He went up and down the sides of the paper. The edges, even the edges. He fingered the corners.
    “All right,” he said. “All right, let’s do her.”
    He found my hand, the hand with the pen. He closed his hand over my hand. “Go ahead, bub, draw,” he said. “Draw. You’ll see. I’ll follow along with you. It’ll be okay. Just begin now like I’m telling you.
    You’ll see. Draw,” the blind man said.
    So I began. First I drew a box that looked like a house. It could have been the house I lived in. Then I put a roof on it. At either end of the roof, I drew spires. Crazy.
    “Swell,” he said. “Terrific. You’re doing fine,” he said. “Never thought anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did you, bub? Well, it’s a strange life, we all know that. Go on now. Keep it up.”
    I put in windows with arches. I drew flying buttresses. I hung great doors. I couldn’t stop. The TV
    station went off the air. I put down the pen and closed and opened my fingers. The blind man felt around over the paper. He moved the tips of his fingers over the paper, all over what I had drawn, and he nodded.
    “Doing fine,” the blind man said.
    I took up the pen again, and he found my hand. I kept at it. I’m no artist. But I kept drawing just the same.
    My wife opened up her eyes and gazed at us. She sat up on the sofa, her robe hanging open. She said,
    “What are you doing? Tell me, I want to know.”
    I didn’t answer her.
    The blind man said, “We’re drawing a cathedral. Me and him are working on it. Press hard,” he said to me. “That’s right. That’s good,” he said. “Sure. You got it, bub. I can tell. You didn’t think you could. But you can, can’t you? You’re cooking with gas now. You know what I’m saying? We’re going to really have us something here in a minute. How’s the old arm?” he said. “Put some people in there now. What’s a cathedral without people?”
    My wife said, “What’s going on? Robert, what are you doing? What’s going on?”
    “It’s all right,” he said to her. “Close your eyes now,” the blind man said to me.
    I did it. I closed them just like he said.
    “Are they closed?” he said. “Don’t fudge.”
    “They’re closed,” I said.
    “Keep them that way,” he said. He said, “Don’t stop now. Draw.”
    So we kept on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as