Self (37 page)

Once, only once, I spent an entire night with a man. He had eyes and a way of walking that were heart-stoppingly evocative of Tito. He directed things, went about his lust with total control, fucking me so hard that I bled, and I managed to forget myself in an ecstatic passivity without terror. Until morning.

I never ate before these encounters, was too nervous, and for a while I resisted going home with anyone. I felt trapped indoors; fear, like a nausea, like an asphixiation, would grip me. A car or a park was a space closed enough for me. I usually went with middle-aged men, figuring that I had a better chance at survival if things went wrong than with a young man.

I remember a gentle, melancholy man who caressed my ass as he sucked me sweetly and vigorously. He was a quiet man in his mid-fifties with salt-and-pepper hair. I met him in a park and he invited me to his home. But I was overtaken by fear and I didn’t want to go farther than the front hall, so we fell into the habit — the ten or so times I went to his place — of doing it right there, amidst the winter coats and the boots. After finishing, he would sit back on the floor and say little more than “Thank you,” and light up a cigarette, as if we had just made love. I felt he would never hurt me. For the longest
time he stayed in my memory as the only person with whom I had a relationship during those hell-times. I felt a sad tenderness for him. It peaked one evening when he gently turned me around and licked my asshole as he masturbated me. When I came against the door, I was in not only a sexual paroxysm, but an emotional one. I felt my entire body was full of tears. The least word, the least motion, would make them spill from my eyes. He smoked without saying a word, considering the space of air in front of him. I carefully brought myself down to the floor and kissed him on the mouth.

These emotions were so difficult! Loneliness, desire, pleasure, bliss — then silence, strangeness, fear, loneliness, with a convulsion as the moment at which illusion would shatter. Each time I was left with nothing, with only the terrible loop in my head, “You are not Tito. You are not Tito. You are not Tito.” I thought something must break, that it couldn’t go on like this. But nothing broke and it went on.

I had left my car behind and I was walking along a road amidst a sea of wheat-fields. If you’ve never been, the south of Saskatchewan is so flat the horizon is perceptibly round. Above you, during the day, lords an immense dome of sky so empty it feels like a fullness, with clouds the size of mountains, the sun but a small disk, and a depth of colour that is often chalk blue, oh so chalk blue. At night this reassuring curtain of blue is pulled away and you realize where you really are: at infinity’s doorstep. A plain is what a mountain aims to be: the closest you can come to being in outer space while yet having your feet on this planet.

The language of the plain is the wind. It carries sweetness and fragrance, the wealth of the earth. It is a soothsayer, herald
of storm and of change of season. And the wind speaks. When you walk in a plain, gusts of words blow through your head, words that have travelled over the surface of the planet. That night the wind whispered words of doom to me.

The sun had set. The horizon was a slowly collapsing explosion of red and deep orange. The wheat-fields no longer matched the sun’s radiance, but took on a menacing hue; they looked as if sharks might be swimming in them. Soon the fields vanished into blackness. Had it not been for the stars and the sliver of moon, even the bare outline of the road would have disappeared and I would have been blind.

I lay flat on the gravel beside the road. A car once in a while roared by. Each vehicle was divided in two at the headlights. The larger, front part was pure, blinding white light; the back part was a more humble and compact volume of metal. The roar was divided evenly between the parts. Every car pushed me to the question. I would lift myself off the gravel a few inches and stay suspended, my muscles tense. To be or not to be? I would waver on the edge of life, prey to a mere chemical fluctuation in my brain. I could see how it would go: a sprinter’s start … a lurch into the illuminated threshold of death … a clash of light, metal and flesh … mind and memory jostled … a little pain … and then the pain gone, all gone.

I lay there, car after car, the gravel chilling me and pricking me. Now? This one?

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

Then I was over the edge. Suddenly all desire to live was gutted.

I sprint-started and I stood trembling, blinded by the light. I closed my eyes. A screech tore through the night. At any moment — now! now! now! now! now! — I was expecting violent relief. But the screech stopped and there was a sickening silence. I heard the sound, so universally familiar, of a car door opening. I opened my eyes. Everything in me was twisted up. There was a car at an angle to the road. A bull of a man was emerging from the other side of the car. His face was flushed and contorted. In the passenger seat was a woman with her hands on the dashboard and wide-open eyes. “ARE YOU CRAZY! I NEARLY HIT YOU!” shouted the man. He was making his way around the car. I was suddenly terrified that he’d do the very thing I wanted — kill me. Though I could hardly control my legs, I began to run. He shouted after me. I kept running.

I heard his car. He was coming after me. I was convinced that he wanted to run me down. I plunged into the wheat-fields.

I stopped only when the dead black silence convinced me that I was alone. In the distance he was still there, in the form of a lit-up car. Was he still shouting? What did he want? What had I done to him?

I stayed in the field all night, acutely aware of every rustle of life. The wind blew above me, over the wheat, like a spirit haunting the sky. I crept back to my car in the early morning, exhausted and overwrought. I will never forget the sound of my car starting up.

I was sitting in a cemetery with my head in my hands.

Sadness was sifting through me, touching every part of me. My feet were sad. My palms were sad. My eyelids were sad.

I heard a female voice come through my ears. It seemed to come from miles away. She was right in front of me.

“Do you like cemeteries too?”

I looked up.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she continued, “you’re grieving. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“No, no. Not at all. Well, yes. But it’s all right.” My voice was rough and gruff. I cleared my throat several times. “I
do
like cemeteries.”

“So do I. So peaceful and beautiful, and some of the epitaphs are lovely. Did you see that some over there are in French?”

“Yes.”

It happened like that. One item of small talk led to another, a little awkwardly at first, then with greater ease as the conversation took on a life of its own. It felt strange to talk. Such an effort. Such a pleasure. She sat down beside me. I told her I was grieving for my twin sister. But she hadn’t died here. It was out east. In a car crash.

We walked around the cemetery. I translated some of the French epitaphs for her. Her name was Cathy.

The first time we undressed, I was bashful. She interpreted my impotence as a consequence of mourning. She patiently coaxed my penis to an erection. I was a tepid lesbian. But a deeper satisfaction drew me on. A warmth after a long period of cold. The comfort of my own sex. The absence of fear. Our gentle, peaceable ways.

“You’re the saddest guy I ever met,” Cathy told me once.

I never told her about Tito or about
him
. We met in the present tense and moved on to the future. How do you explain horror, anyway? And why? Revelation would not thaw
the numbness, would only bring on the additional pain of her pain. My soul is like Bluebeard’s castle: it has a few locked rooms in it.

She was older than I, thirty-seven to my twenty-nine. She gave no particular thought to her age except with regards to childbearing. She was aware that, if she wanted children, it had to be soon.

Cathy and I travelled to Thailand. It was her choice of country, for the warmth of the sun. Bob and Ben, two Australians who were wearing
The Bob and Ben Fuckorama Tour
T-shirts when we met them, were on hormonal overdrive. The tits, stomachs, asses and legs of female bodies-for-hire spoke a language they wanted to hear.

We saw a Jack the Ripper movie in a bar. The only emotion it inspired in me was terror. I could not help but identify with the female victims who walked the fogbound streets of London unaware of their imminent death. I imagined this would be the reaction of any woman. But the women in the bar just watched the movie, as passive and entertained as the men.

We stayed on a remote island, practically alone. I liked it there. The sun. Wonderful snorkelling. We played card games and did crossword puzzles.

She lay on her side, her eyes closed. I looked at her, at her breasts. I have no breasts, I thought. I lay down. A hand came up from behind me and gently touched my hip; I moved close to her. I could feel her breasts against my back. I moved closer still and her breasts went through me — I had breasts. She liked the name Adam for a boy — she wanted a boy. I fell asleep.

CHAPTER TWO

I AM THIRTY YEARS OLD
. I weigh 139 pounds. I am five foot seven and a half inches tall. My hair is brown and curly. My eyes are grey-blue. My blood type is O positive. I am Canadian. I speak English and French.

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

YANN MARTEL
was born in Spain in 1963. After studying philosophy at Trent University and doing various odd jobs, he began to write. He is the prize-winning author of a short story collection,
The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios
and, most recently, the bestselling
Life of Pi
. He lives in Montreal.