ON A GRAY LEATHER SEAT IN THE FIRST-CLASS PORTION OF AN airplane, Oprah Winfrey sits half reclining. She has a blanket spread over her legs, her overhead air turned on, and a book in her lap that she opens now and again, pages through, and sets down. She is greatly agitated.
On the seat next to her is a budding young author who has published one novel about a young boy growing up in the nineteen-eighties and is beginning work on a more ambitious project about the life and death of an American city. He is gazing into Oprah’s face, gazing intently, with the eyes of a connoisseur. He is watching, studying, catching every shade of this exceptional, enigmatic nature. He understands it, he fathoms it. Her soul, her whole psychology, lies open before him.
“I know who you are,” he says. “But I don’t mean it the way you think.” He has been drinking, and he touches her elbow. “Everyone sees a certain thing about you, but I see a sensitive, responsive soul. You show it, but you can’t really show it. The struggle is terrific, titanic. But do not lose heart. You will be triumphant!”
“Write about me,” says Oprah with a mournful smile. “My life has been so full, so varied, so checkered, so perfect. I should be happy. I tell everyone to be that way. I teach everyone to be that way. And yet I suffer. Reveal that soul to the world. Reveal that hapless soul. You are a psychologist. We’ve only been on the plane an hour together, and you have already fathomed my heart.”
“Tell me what you mean,” the author says.
“Listen. It starts in Mississippi. My parents were never married. My father had a good heart and was not without intelligence, but the way things were then . . . he worked in a coal mine, cut hair . . . I do not blame my father. My mother—but why say more? She left to move north and find work, and I stayed behind with my grandmother. I got beaten. I got educated. I went to school dressed in burlap. It was awful! The challenges! The sense of hopelessness! And the agonies of losing faith in life, in oneself! You are an author. You know us women. You will understand. I have always had an intense nature. I looked for happiness—and what happiness! I longed to set my soul free. Yes. In that I saw my happiness!”
“That’s exactly right,” murmurs the author, touching her arm just above the elbow. “I have heard this told, or read about it, but it is so different to hear it directly from you.”
“Oh, I longed for glory, renown, success, like every—why affect modesty?—every nature above the commonplace. I yearned for something extraordinary, above the common lot of woman! And then, I was seized by the radio business, and then by television. It is not too much to say that the opportunity took me violently. I sacrificed myself to that life as much as any woman ever sacrifices herself to a husband or a lover. You must see that! I could do nothing else. I began to see some money, to make a name for myself. There were moments—terrible moments—but I was kept afloat by the thought that one day I would lift myself even higher, that I would control the process that had controlled me!”
Oprah returns to her book, turns a few more pages. Her face has fallen into sadness. She goes on:
“There was a point where I sensed I might be done with it all. I was hosting Dialing for Dollars in Baltimore. Things were coming to a close. I thought I’d have my freedom. That was the moment I should have left definitively. But then came Chicago, and my morning show. It started as a half hour. It went to an hour. It went into syndication. It went national. It went worldwide. What could have been my freedom was my captivity once again. Don’t misunderstand me. It is a wonderful kind of captivity, but it is also wretched. The things I have seen, the things I have not let myself feel. How ignoble, repulsive, and senseless life is. I dated John Tesh. I have recently been thinking about freedom again, but again there is an obstacle in my path, and again I feel that my happiness is far, far away. It is anguish—if only you knew.”
“What stands in your way? Tell me! What is it?”
“It is success. It is fame. It is the need to do good for others, to offer the full power of my assistance. This cycle never ends. It cannot end, because it is the correct thing for me to do, and yet there are times when I cannot bear it any longer.”
The book conceals her face. The author props his chin on his fist and ponders with the air of a professional. The engines of the plane thrum on either side of them as the glow of the setting sun fills the window.