Excerpts

Excerpt from Chapter 19 Helen Without Annie I ache all over as I remember how she grew thinner and thinner," Helen later recorded in the journal that she had started keeping after Annie's death to discipline her mind back to regular work. "I was glad she could not see my swimming eyes as I massaged her and noticed skin and bones where I had once felt the firm softness of her chest and shoulders. "I live over the last few minutes of her earth life: the death rattle after an eight-hour struggle for breath . . . her darling hand growing cold in mine . . . the smell of opiates heavy in the room . . . sorrowing friends who drew me away so that her body might be prepared for the funeral . . . the Gethsemane I passed through an hour later when I touched, not Teacher's blessed face, but fixed features from which expression had fled. I feel again the recoil, the cry that escaped me, 'It is not Teacher, it is not Teacher!' . . . "When she breathed no more, somehow the faith she had wished she could hold with me rose up stronger than ever and, leaning over, I said, 'You know, dearest, don't you, that life is beginning over again, glorious with light and peace.' Then it came over me that she was thinking of the joy of being reunited with her little brother, and I talked about him, feeling his nearness vividly. I wonder if her mind answered mine from afar. There was such a surge of memories sweeping over me, and I remembered the first joyous days of release when we spelled winged words to each other, and life was a continuous great discovery. . . . As I murmured to her I still felt the indefinable response of the spirit in her face. The change I sensed afterwards was more than I could bear. Everything was blurred. It seemed as if I should henceforth tread paths that led nowhere, climb steps that would lead to nothing because they could not bring me to her." As Helen was communing with Annie's soul among the books that she had cherished, her grief gave way to ecstasy. "The body," she was convinced, "was only a shadow of the soul," and she knew that Teacher would never be far away. On November 3 Helen traveled to Washington, where, at the National Cathedral, Annie's ashes were placed in the columbarium in the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea. At the time of Annie's death Helen had received word that the bishop of the cathedral "will consider it a privilege to offer the right of sepulcher in the cathedral for Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy . . . and that the privilege of sepulcher at the cathedral should also be offered to Miss Keller." Annie Sullivan was the first female offered this distinction for her own achievements. "Among the great teachers of all time," the bishop of Washington referred to her in his address, "she occupies a commanding and conspicuous place." At the committal service Helen spoke a few words that were recorded by a friend: "Blessings upon the receptacle of the precious dust which my heaven-sent Teacher wore as a garment as she wrought her miracle of liberation through Him who is the Lord of Life and Love." In the hope of adjusting herself to her loss as well as escaping from the interference of well-meaning friends, she decided to visit Polly's family in Scotland. Two days after Annie's service, she and Polly, who had immediately applied for citizenship, sailed on a German ship, the S.S. Deutschland, for England. On the first night of the voyage Helen was plagued by dark thoughts and insomnia. Although Polly tried to break her mood of melancholy by reading to her with her fingers, as she used to do with the blind Annie, Helen could not concentrate. She regarded herself as a "somnambulist, impelled only by an intense faith." The following day was "a day dreadful beyond words" as she began to emerge from "the stupor of grief, and every nerve is aquiver. It does not seem possible that the pain flooding through my heart can ever be stilled but I know it is a sign of returning spiritual health." Helen's despondency lifted when Polly, on their walks up and down the deck, described the gulls circling the ship and the white sea swallows that were capable of flying several thousand miles. The next day, however, she was again plunged into a deep depression. "What earthly consolation is there for one like me, whom fate has denied a husband and the joy of motherhood?" she mourned. "At the moment my loneliness seems a void that will always be immense." But then she remembered her work for the blind and the deaf-blind, as well as her unshakable belief in immortality and an afterlife in which she would be able to both see and hear, and her faith sustained her. By the ninth day at sea, after a hearty lunch of frankfurters and sauerkraut, one of her favorite dishes, she noted, with pleasure, that her interest in philosophy, poetry, and travel was returning. Although she was deeply concerned about "the demoniac forces like Hitlerism" in Europe, her loathing of the Nazis did not prevent her from appreciating the "home- like atmosphere" of the Deutschland and "the German love of beauty that greets my fingers." She was especially delighted by the bouquets of small and large chrysanthemums that seemed to be omnipresent, and her cabin, which even though it was small and "cozy," boasted every modern convenience. Still, Annie's presence seemed omnipresent. On the tender to Southampton, she strongly felt her spirit, "tantalizing almost beyond endurance." Several nights before, on shipboard, she had a wonderfully comforting dream in which Teacher had kissed her, and "literally her face against mine breathed youth, sunshine and flower-sweet air. Since then I have had a sense of following, following, following her, and I keep expecting to find her somewhere--in London or up in the Scottish highlands that her Celtic soul loved." On the train from England to Scotland, Helen had difficulty believing that it was just she and Polly who were in the compartment. Teacher had accompanied them on their previous trips to England, and Helen fancied that she was merely asleep; otherwise, she would be spelling into her hand "the charm of light or color of flying cloud." She consoled herself by the thought that Annie, for whom teaching had been "her work and her glory," was instructing "the sensorially crippled" in heaven. "My soul was so conscious of her presence I could not--I would not--say she was dead, and I do not now." As the days went by, fresh life pulsed through her. She began reading André Maurois's Life of Disraeli, which, as a biography written in French by a Frenchman about one of Britain's most distinguished political leaders, appealed to her as an internationalist. Closing the book, she marveled for "the millionth time" at the freedom that literature had given her. Politics and world affairs again began to deeply absorb her. Although she believed that world peace would triumph over the insuperable evil that was Hitler, her heart sank when she learned that forty million gas masks were being prepared for use in Britain and Scotland alone. Her hatred of Hitler, "a Mephistopheles," intensified in late December when she received a letter from her German publisher informing her that he was going to delete her admiring views of Bolshevism and Lenin from the German edition of Midstream. The publisher, Otto Schramm, wrote, "I must today emphasize that I hope you meantime have become convinced of your error of judgment, and therefore feel obliged to let me know that your attitude now towards Russian Bolshevism has entirely altered since you have learned about the evil and monstrous destruction to which this world doctrine tends." But Helen's views of Soviet Russia had not changed. Although she was becoming increasingly disturbed by the totalitarian government of the Soviets, she refused to believe, as Schramm asserted, in the Soviet purges and that millions of Russian people had been slaughtered; otherwise "that country would not now be emerging, as we know it is, stronger than ever from its age-long fight against hunger and ignorance. . . . No doubt Russia has committed blunders, grave ones; but so has National-Socialist Germany, and now it has reverted to the darkest of the Dark Ages. . . ." She wrote Schramm an angry, impassioned letter, saying that she had no intention of deleting her views, as she knew about "Germany's anti-Semitic atrocities, fear-clamping state control over lives and homes, and imprisonment of thousands without trial," and that she planned to withdraw her book from publication in Germany. Other world events also aroused a fiery response. When King Edward VIII abdicated to marry the American divorcée Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson, she had no sympathy with his plight. "I doubt whether His Majesty will reap from his decision the happiness he anticipates," she wrote in her journal. "There is a love of the people surpassing the love of a woman. . . . Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. . . ." Clearly the king's decision to give up his throne to marry Mrs. Simpson rankled Helen, perhaps because she herself had never been permitted to relinquish her public image as a handicapped icon for personal happiness. "Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved," she continued. "Most of the men and women honored in history for their services to mankind were acquainted with 'the uses of adversity.' They triumphed because they refused to be turned aside by difficulties or opposition." In Bothwell they stayed at the manse of Polly's brother Bert, who was a minister, and his wife and children. Although Helen intended her visit to be a quiet one, free of the constant interruptions that plagued her at home, it proved stimulating. Visiting a mine, she felt thrilled as she was placed in a cage and then lowered nine hundred feet down a shaft. Swaying from side to side and feeling the drippings from a well as she descended were almost as powerful tactile sensations as flying, which she loved, because it released her from the physical restraints that constrained her in her house and on the street. As she traveled through tunnels that she was told were lighted only by safety lamps, Helen was reminded of her own condition. "Airmen flying blind in a fog and miners quarrying in a deep pit are among the few who can imagine what blindness means," she noted. A far different type of delight was provided by the minister's children, who knew the manual finger language. They watched with curiosity as Helen typed her correspondence--it was her habit to write at least eleven letters a day--and their presence made her feel less weary and restless. Like Annie Sullivan, she loved all children, comparing them to "sunshine"--their companionship made her feel young again. Although Helen was an adept typist, she could not keep up with her recent correspondence. There were hundreds of sympathy letters to answer, and she was beginning to worry about her hands. She felt that she was using them too constantly for writing, reading, and listening to conversation, as well as reading people's lips. If they became injured or crippled with arthritis, she would become truly helpless, completely isolated and shut off from human society. Quickly she reminded herself that she had to keep on using her hands, as "work is the only sure bulwark against despair." The strain of having to reply to the sympathy notes of concerned friends and relatives, as well as strangers, became so overwhelming that she considered renting a room at a quiet hotel where she could live like a recluse. This was impossible, and on a single afternoon, for three hours, Polly was forced to spell letters of condolence into her hand. Exhausted, Helen inadvertently said something thoughtless. As high-strung as Annie and Helen, Polly reacted emotionally, and a bitter exchange occurred between the two women. For several minutes they sat in stony silence, with tears in their eyes, biting their lips in frustration. Then they broke down and embraced each other, as they remembered the last wishes of Annie Sullivan that someday they all might be reunited in harmony. Another time, as they were looking through a pile of letters and business papers, Helen realized what she had been spared when Annie sorted the mail and conveyed the necessary information to her with expert brevity. They departed for the United States on board the S.S. Champlain on February 2, 1936. A fellow passenger was the English author Hilaire Belloc, who was planning to lecture in America. It was a rough voyage. Helen spent most of her time reading and thinking deeply about the soullessness of modern life and its impact on present and future generations whose imaginations, she feared, unlike her own, intensely vivid one, were becoming stunted. This repels me--a future civilization likely to be hard, practical, monotonous. I feel fortunate indeed that it has been possible for me to be a barbarian, to enjoy sculpture, the flow of graceful lines on surfaces, poetry, happy make-believe in bleak corners of my limitations. It also seems to me more urgent than ever to foster in the present young generation a spiritual philosophy and imagination that shall keep the morning dew in their souls when an age arrives that knows not the muses or the graces. The present generation is losing the capacity of enjoying life from within. They are sacrificing the delight in handicrafts born with every child to machine products. They want machines to sing, play, talk and read to them. They demand to be amused instead of amusing themselves. Although Helen knew that people were surprised that a deaf-blind person could get any pleasure from the cinema, she liked to attend films and the theater regularly, perhaps because it made her feel like other people. One evening on shipboard, she attended the film Camille, with Greta Garbo starring as Marguerite. But as Polly's facile fingers described the dialogue as well as Garbo's cool beauty and her magnificent costumes, Helen regretted exposing herself to this tragic tale only three months after Annie's death. She saw similarities between Teacher and Marguerite--like Annie, Dumas's courtesan was an unconquerable spirit who rose from her sickbed and put on her sunniest face for the lover who refused to give her up. Helen began to weep as she recalled the small party Teacher had planned at their Long Island cottage during her final illness. Before the guests arrived, she struggled to put on her shoes with Polly's help; then, suddenly, she was seized with a violent pain. A doctor was immediately summoned and put her into the hospital the next day. As she dressed herself in street clothes for the last time, she silently gripped Helen's hand, and Helen sensed her imminent death when she spelled, "Dear, there is the ambulance," and Polly supported her downstairs. Although she cheered up the following day when the captain invited them to tea in his cabin, her grief intensified as their ship approached New York. Friends sent her radiograms aboard the ship, but there was none from Teacher, and "this finality about our earthly separation seemed more than I could bear." Her homecoming was not as sad as she had imagined. On her arrival, the dogs greeted her, wagging their tails against her and kissing her face. As she walked through the rooms, her hands lovingly felt Teacher's desk and the chair where Annie used to sit when she could see enough to read to her. To her relief, her teacher's bed, on which she had endured months of darkness and anguish, had been taken away. But when Helen touched Annie's books, she was again overcome with grief. "I had watched the darkness descending upon the eyes she had used during half a century to assist me and enrich my happiness. Only by the hardest work could I shut out that mournful memory and the heart-stabbing loneliness that pursued me every moment." Hoping to console Helen, a friend who was a sculptress presented her with a cast of Annie's hand that she had made before Annie's death. It took all of Helen's composure to touch its delicate, familiar outline, with the thumb and index finger forming the letter L, which suggested love. But as Helen traced each line in the palm, "a likeness snatched, as it were, from death's relentless waves," she succumbed, in spite of herself, "to the old heartbreak . . . my tears fell; and I could not speak." She was not alone in the world, of course. She still had Polly, on whom she could rely to communicate the beauty of a flower or a sunset, even though her new companion's descriptions ran to such clichés as "Pink! . . . Blue! . . . Mauve! . . . Green! . . . Gold! . . . Lavender! . . . Oh, Helen! The water is one sheet of burnished gold! . . ." But, one morning, as Polly's hands coolly informed her that her favorite coat from Scotland was now "too shabby" to wear into town, Helen lost her temper. It was clear that this fashion-conscious, thoroughly unimaginative Scotswoman could never take her beloved Teacher's place. With the death of Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller had met her severest crisis with immense courage and fortitude. Although after Midstream she had vowed that her literary career was over, in the years following Annie's death she would write three more books and numerous magazine articles. When the first one, Helen Keller's Journal, was published in 1938, she demonstrated to an admiring public that she was capable of a fine literary effort without Teacher at her side. In death Annie Sullivan had answered her critics. Despite her dominating, irrational, and impulsive personality, she had enabled Helen to function without her. Far from creating a dependent, helpless woman, she had made a strong, resilient one who was more than capable of dealing with life's inevitable traumas and losses. Although it was clear that Helen Keller could live without Annie Sullivan, her disability prevented her from living on her own. Even though she was now fifty-eight years old, she was forced to rely on Polly and other people for her needs. That she was able to adapt quickly to different people and situations was to her credit. Many of her blind contemporaries, particularly those who attended some schools for the blind where they were oversupervised, were haunted by the persistent feeling that they were being watched even in the privacy of their own rooms. Amazingly, Helen never became wary and suspicious of those around her. This woman, who had lived perhaps one of the most observed and documented feminine lives in history, continued to greet the world with characteristic sincerity and optimism. Excerpted from Helen Keller: A Life by Dorothy Herrmann All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.