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time tutoring mathematics for a toy boat that I was enamored with. The boat was beautifully carved from soft stone and looked correct in every way. Only one problem: when I put it in a pond, it sank. It was good at everything except the one thing that defined its purpose.” He tipped his head. “Eyes that do everything well except see aren’t of much value, are they?”
    Mondark nodded. “That’s true. But, Afsan, your eyes are seeing: they are responding to light. Now, yes, perhaps there is some problem with the way your new eyes are connected to the rest of your body. But as far as I can tell, your eyes are fully restored.”
    “Then God is having Her revenge on me,” said Afsan, his tone only half-jesting. “A cruel joke, no? To give back eyes, only to have them not function.”
    “Perhaps.”
    “Perhaps nothing, Doctor. I’m not a medical expert, but clearly there’s something wrong with the nerves that connect my eyes to my brain.”
    “In ordinary cases of blindness, I’d concur. But this isn’t ordinary. Your eyes are responding to light, and they’re tracking as though they can see. They would do neither of those things if there were extensive nerve damage.”
    “But I tell you, I’m not seeing anything.”
    “Exactly. Which brings us to another possibility.” Mondark paused, as if reluctant to go on.
    “Yes?” said Afsan impatiently.
    “Do you know the word ’hysteria’?”
    “No.”
    “That’s not surprising; it’s a fairly new medical term. Hysteria refers to a neurosis characterized by physical symptoms, such as paralysis, that don’t seem to have any organic cause.”
    Afsan sounded suspicious. “For instance?”
    “Oh, there have been several cases over the kilodays. A person may lose the use of a limb even though the limb appears to be uninjured. And yet the person simply stops being able to move, for instance, his or her right arm.”
    “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
    “Well, it does happen. It used to be if your arm stopped working, they’d hack it off in hopes that the regenerated arm would function. Sometimes that worked — if there had been damage to the nerves in the arm. But sometimes the arm would grow back just as dead as it had been before.”
    “But surely the paralysis would have been caused by a stroke or something similar.”
    “Ah, there’s the rub,” said Mondark. “When paralysis is caused by a stroke, it affects general parts of the body. Oh, the right arm might be completely paralyzed, but there will also be numbness in the right leg, and perhaps the right side of the face. But in hysterical paralysis, only the arm seems dead. The loss of sensation is quite abrupt, beginning, say, precisely at the shoulder, and affecting no other part of the body.”
    “Go on,” said Afsan.
    “Well, there are also cases of hysterical blindness: eyes that arein working order that simply no longer function.”
    “And you think that’s the case here? That my blindness is caused by … by hysteria?”
    “It’s possible. Your eyes physically can see, but your mind refuses to see.”
    “Nonsense, Mondark. I want to see. I’ve wanted to see since the very day I was blinded.”
    “Consciously, yes. But your subconscious — ? Well, this isn’t my area of expertise, but there is a doctor who has had some success curing these matters, Afsan. She’s helped several people regain the use of arms or legs.”
    “This is ridiculous,” said Afsan. “If my eyes are malfunctioning, the problem is physical. It’s that simple.”
    “Perhaps,” said Mondark. “But what have you got to lose by visiting her?”
    ’Time,” said Afsan. “I’m getting old, Mondark, and there is much that I wish to accomplish still.”
    Mondark grunted. “Humor me, Afsan. Meet with this person.”
    “I have been humoring you. I’ve been coming here every ten days to let you look at these useless eyes.”
    “And I thank you for that. But consider how lucky you are: almost no one