by Yann Martel
In the following minutes we witnessed similar executions with a variety of shotguns, handguns and rifles. Each firearm looked more fearsome than the last. The final weapon was a piece of machinery that seemed driven more by electronics than by gunpowder, with a curious chamber, a telescopic sight and the daintiest trigger you could imagine. It made only a restrained tuc sound when fired.
The movie concluded with close-up shots of the wounded dictionaries, each laid out on a white table next to the firearm with which it had been shot. The mutilations were varied. Some dictionaries were faceless corpses lying supine. Others had had their backs blown out and lay awkwardly on their sides. A small number appeared only moderately disfigured, but had massive internal injuries. The last dictionary, the one hit by the gun with the innocent-looking trigger, was little more than a devastated front cover with bits of pages clinging to it. The rest of the body, what was found of it, was nearly a powder.
The string piece was by Schubert, said the credits. The movie ended with a dedication: In Memoriam Marie-France Desmeules.
It was at Canadian Images that I met Tom. Tom of the gratifying ten days. I arrived for a showing of three medium-length movies at the Tecumseh amphitheatre, Ellis's largest venue, just as the lights were dimming. It was on the festival's third day, I believe. I don't recall the time of day; my mind had already habituated itself to a timeless Arctic-winter darkness. I quickly scanned the amphitheatre for a seat. There was a good attendance. I saw a waving hand. It was Joe; there was a free seat beside him. By the time I got to the seat it was pitch-black, and it was Joe's extended hand that guided me to it.
"Hello, sweetie," whispered Joe.
"Hello, dearie. Thanks for the seat."
It was the way we always greeted each other.
"Hello, darling."
Oh. It was Egon.
"Hello, Egon. I didn't see you."
"My sad fate," he replied.
"Hi," came yet another whispered voice, this one unknown.
"Hi," I replied into the darkness.
The movie started. A scream of a little comedy. A young man is looking down at another young man lying in bed. "Frank," he says, waking the young man, "there was a dirty plate in the sink. I've had it. I'm leaving you."
"What?" says Frank. He props himself up and in a deadpan voice, looking straight at us, launches forth on the unpredictability of human relationships. The rings of Saturn, the disposal of toenail clippings, the continual pregnancies of male sea-horses, the dimples that reduce the drag on golf balls, the importance of good posture, Buster Keaton's dentition and the history of doughnuts in North America are all pertinently mentioned.
Between Frank and his fastidious boyfriend and the next movie, there was a lighted pause of a few minutes. I met Egon's neighbour, the unheralded greeter, Tom. He stretched his hand out and we shook hands. He was from Halifax and was billeted with Egon and his roommate. He went to Dalhousie and worked for an alternative movie-house which, thanks to the partial sponsorship of a local travel agency, had -- but the lights went out, and it's strange how darkness inhibits speech, as if spoken words had colour.
A movie went by, less successful than the previous one since I've clean forgotten it, and I found out that his alternative movie-house had sent him over to check out this year's crop of Canadian movies. He was to see as many as he could and make a selection that the Halifax Slocum-Pocum Movie-Shmovie House would show (I asked about the name. Joshua Slocum was the first man to sail around the world solo, in his thirty-seven-foot boat, the Spray, in the 1890s; he was from Nova Scotia). Tom had a schedule that was even more crowded than mine. I asked him if he had seen A Study into -- but the lights were dimming and bossy Joe was shushing us.
"The one about the dictionaries?" asked Tom at the lifting of darkness.
"Yes."
"I loved it. I've already written to the filmmaker. We're showing it for sure."
Joe and Egon hadn't seen it so we had to explain. They played hard-to-please, though Egon said that he liked Schubert. Joe, who was tone-deaf and was irked by knowledge and appreciation of music, retorted, "Well, I prefer Webster to Oxford. I can't help it. I adore modernity. I'm sorry." And he looked at Egon and away. If looks could be hooks, Joe's would have been big and sharp, with a fat, juicy worm on it with its thumbs to its temples, waving its fingers and chanting, "Come and get me, na-na-a-na-na." Egon opened his eyes wide and swallowed hook, line and sinker. "Now, now, Jo-Jo, just because you're as musical as a can of tuna doesn't mean you have to take it out on Oxford," he said -- and they were off, out of nowhere, Joe-Blow-Usage against Egon-Blow-Historical-Principles, with a few jabs thrown at poor Schubert for good measure, and it was my turn to shush them for the next movie.
Which I barely watched. My mind was elsewhere. I was thinking about Tom. Vague, titillating thoughts.
When it was over the four of us got up.
"I think we've had our fill of celluloid today," said Egon.
"Yes," agreed Joe.
After the merest fraction of an uncertain pause, felt only by me, perhaps, they were gone, just goosey-goosey happy to be with each other, not giving a fuck about dictionaries, only Egon turning and saying, "You've got a key, right, Tom?" Tom nodded, and got a smile and a wave back, and the two of us were left standing there.
"What movie are you seeing next?" I asked, my answer to his answer already prepared -- "Oh, so am I" -- even if it had to be the documentary on the P.E.I. potato again.
"Uh" -- he unfolded his program -- "I was thinking of seeing The Wars."
"Oh, so was I." Which was true. It was one of the much-trumpeted features at the festival, with director Phillips and author Findley in attendance. It was playing downtown. A bus ride away.
"Oh, good."
Without a further word, just like that, we started walking together, our strides matching perfectly.
We talked, went about that curious, demanding task of meeting someone new and trying to extrapolate a personality from a few points of words. He was very organized, he said, had to be. At the end of every day he sat down and wrote to the filmmakers and distributors whose movies he wanted for the Slocum-Pocum. I saw his stack of letters, sometimes ten a night; on the portable he had brought he banged them out flawlessly on Slocum-Pocum letterhead (Joshua on his sloop, his hand on the rudder, but it's a projector and his sail is a screen. "You can't make it out, but it's supposed to be Citizen Kane on the sail," said Tom). The paper was heavy bond, and stiff ("corporate gift"), and it gave the envelopes a thick, spongy quality. The maker of Snowflakes would be thrilled to receive such an envelope. Tom hadn't seen the movie, but he took my word that it was worth it. I volunteered to be the stamp-licker.
After The Wars (so-so), Tom was seeing a movie I had made the mistake of saying I had seen on the first day. For me to see it again two days later would have strained the credibility of casualness, so we said goodbye. I added that I would probably bump into him again the next day since we were both such avid cinephiles.
"That would be great," he said (which I immediately weighed. Not Yeah, not Maybe, but That would be great. Great).
He was a little shorter than I, an inch or so. He had wiry black hair, bright dark eyes and a smile that appeared and vanished quickly. He was a touch pudgy, but in a pleasant way; his belly looked as if it were the centre of something, the proper context for a navel, rather than an excess. His limbs were well connected and well oiled, by which I mean that he moved in a perfectly unselfconscious way, something I have never managed. He was older, twenty-two, in fourth year, politics, loved Bergman, Bunuel and Cocteau, and I felt butterflies in my stomach when I thought about him in a certain way.
It was he who saw me first the next day. Around two o'clock, coming out of an abysmal feature with Donald Sutherland. Surely only financial desperation could have induced that great artist to play a Mountie, complete with red and black get-up and horse. Stupid script, clunky dialogue, cardboard characters, insulting stereotypes, false emotion
s, unconvincing action, fake-looking sets, shiny foreheads, syrupy music -- there was only the pleasure of seeing and hearing Donald Sutherland. I was mulling over the badness of the movie, the hows and the whys, when a voice, his voice, called me. I turned. Two smiles, his, there and gone in a moment, and mine, lasting a little longer. Immediately we had so much to talk about. He had arrived late, which was why I hadn't seen him. We proceeded to tear the movie apart with ferocious glee. With our two minds working on it we discovered even more outrageous flaws. The horsemanship! The footwear! The cutlery! Why, it was the shoddiest movie in history! Worse even than The Sudsy Massacre, which I told Tom about.
"But of course," he said, "I must have it for the Slocum-Pocum."
"What!"
"Well, sure. Donald Sutherland's from Nova Scotia."
Ah yes. Later, Tom sent me the Slocum-Pocum Movie Shmovie Monthly Shmonthly program. The blurb went: "Come and see Donald Sutherland's Worst Movie! A great actor in a horrible Canadian production. Nothing is good about this movie except Nova Scotia's native son. See the stark solitude of genius. See it cope with dross. A must-see!"
Our schedules matched effortlessly. We often had similar views on movies. When we didn't, that was even better: we went at it like two dogs that want the same bone. Tom had an exceptional argumentative streak, a match to mine, I'd say. We celebrated the rubber chicken in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and had merry tussles over La Grande Illusion, Last Tango in Paris, Kubrick, The Tin Drum, Otto Preminger.
On a warm Friday evening we gave up on movies. There was a Claude Jutras retrospective, but we'd both already seen Mon Oncle Antoine. Instead, we had dinner at Egon's place (which reminds me that I brought over a cast-iron frying pan that I never got back). There was Egon and his roommate Terry (straight) and Joe and Tom and me. Egon made a delicious pizza of fried aubergines, red peppers and ripe goat's cheese, I concocted an authentic Caesar salad, Tom brought three bottles of California red wine, Joe baked a marvellous pecan-caramel pie, and the whole resulting mess of dishes was dreamily cleaned up by everyone thanks to Terry's marijuana. It was a great evening. I have never been a gregarious person and I usually dread planned time-slots of geniality, but that evening was genuinely genial.
We talked about painting. Joe was a painter, a very good one at that. When he spoke of his paintings, it was usually with a prickly, defensive arrogance, with arias of meaningless mumbo-jumbo. But that evening we were mellow and receptive and stoned; we turned the sofa to face one of his best paintings -- a richly coloured acrylic portrait of an ear and Joe for once got his words plain, simple and right. The tones of the painting were flesh, ochre, burnt almond and black. At the centre of the ear, deep within it, was the tiniest drawing of an empty chair, a symbol of expectancy, said Joe; an empty chair is an "expectant chair, a nostalgic chair."
Towards two in the morning, we were all falling asleep on the sofa. I struggled to my feet and announced my departure. I could hardly keep my eyes open. Tom offered to walk me home. With sleepy alacrity I said yes. I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I was thinking.
As we walked towards my place through the quiet, deserted streets of Roetown, we got our second wind. The air was pleasantly cool. We stopped and looked at a few churches.
When we started the climb up the hill beyond which I lived, my heart began to beat hard. What now? I was terribly nervous.
We reached my house.
I could see light in the living-room. Someone was still up. I felt unbearably selfconscious. What to do with the space between us? Where to lay my eyes? I pointed out to Tom the oatmeal factory and the jail with its whirling camera -- of no great interest in the middle of the night except when silence is the enemy.
While we were bent on the fascinating subject of dandelions, of which the small front lawn had five or six, I managed to pop the question.
"Do you" -- why am I scuffing the sidewalk with the side of my shoe? -- "want to come in" -- will you look at him! -- "for a cup of tea?"
"I'd love to."
Good, a reprieve. We could now shut up and talk normally. We climbed the cement steps.
There was not only light in the living-room, but music, a British folk rock band that was Sarah's record. "Everything But the Girl," said Tom, to which I replied, "That's right." But there was no one. Sarah had an antique stereo system, the sort with a tall central pin and a plastic arm so that several records could be played in a row. It was cheap but faithful. Dogged, in fact; sometimes it started up on its own. That night for example. The evil-tempered Spanakopita was square on the sofa. Martin, Sarah's latest and fondest, was not fond of cats, so when he spent the night the cat got the boot from Sarah's room, which usually brought on a three-act drama of meowing, sofa-scratching and guerrilla-warfare shitting (having learned from first-hand experience, I always kept my rooms closed off). Clearly, we had trespassed upon Act Two. Spanakopita was methodically kneading and clawing the sofa.
But my first thought was "Isn't this nice," and I smiled. Isn't it nice to come in at two in the morning to the dim charm of a red-shaded forty-watt light-bulb and the charming din of music and no one around? Though to Tom's perky "Oh, a cat" I was quick to respond that I wouldn't touch the fuming feline if I were he.
I clearly remember that "Isn't this nice." It was a little emotion that spoke its words and then flooded me. I believe it was at that moment that I emphatically decided that I wanted to sleep with Tom. It made me happy to see us remove our shoes and pad about in our socks.
We went to the kitchen and performed the simple, pleasing ritual of making tea. With a full pot and two big mugs, we headed for the living-room. Spanakopita hadn't budged, still had that dead-ahead stare of a cat machinating evil deeds, so we set ourselves up on the floor. I had my back against the sofa. We were fresh and ready to go for hours yet.
As the stereo played Side A of Everything But the Girl over and over, we talked about this and that, nothing and everything, life in the future, life in the past. The subject of parents came up, and my lack thereof, which brought on a silence from Tom, which I interrupted by saying that it was all right and what did his parents do, which was schoolteacher father and Halifax Humane Society president mother. At that precise moment, at the mention of the Halifax Humane Society, Spanakopita dropped down from the sofa and silently stalked off. Act Three was upon us. I said to myself that if I had forgotten to close the door to my bedroom and that cat shit on my pillow again, it would be the Roetown Humane Society for it the very next morning.
Tom got up to refill the pot. When he came back, he set it on the floor next to me and sat on the sofa, his leg comfortably against my shoulder.
"Here, I'll give you a massage," he said, swinging his leg over me so that he was sitting directly behind me.
I could feel his hands gathering my hair, fingers brushing my neck. I raised my arms and held my hair against my head with my hands, leaving my neck and shoulders exposed to his touch.
It was with an audible sigh of pleasure that I took to his pressing, probing, circling fingers as they plied the crucifix of my shoulders and spine. I straightened up and he brought himself closer. I rested my arms on his knees. He worked east and west as far as the beginning of my arms, north a little beyond my hairline, south until it tickled, and round and round on my trapezii, those muscles that seem to hold the world together. It was so relaxing that I felt the four points of my compass distending, a deeply enjoyable form of quartering. All the while, I was aware that it was Tom's fingers that were playing along my shoulders. Each time they crossed over one of the straps of my bra, I wondered what he thought.
After a long while, the cooling off of all tea, he stopped and his hands rested against the back of my neck. Two of his fingers lazily scratched me. I flopped my arms around Tom's legs.
"I'm exhausted," he said. He rested his head on mine, chin to crown. As I played with the balance of that weight, I had an image of a Third World girl carrying a jar of water.
Suddenly my
heart, rushing ahead of me, anticipating me, began to beat very hard, in just the right rhythm to make my whole body shake, like that gentle breeze that brought down a big suspension bridge in the U.S. I shifted to break the rhythm.
"You can spend the night here, if you want," I said quietly, in a tone of voice that I hoped was like a suitcase, of neutral appearance and changeable contents depending on the destination.
"That would be nice," he said, and kissed the top of my head. Which I felt like an echo.
I was equally divided between shock and thrill.
"Let's go to bed," I said, taking his hand in mine, though I didn't exactly look at him.
I had the presence of mind -- which otherwise was rapidly dissolving -- to unplug the stereo system. We tiptoed up the stairs, I ahead of him. The landing was Spanakopita-free and the door to my room closed.
I opened it, we entered, I locked it behind us. The click-clack of the mechanism signified to me This is it, this is it.
I turned, we smiled, he came up to me and kissed me on the mouth.
He's a man. This is homosexuality. I'm a homosexual. This was what had flashed through my mind downstairs when Tom had kissed the top of my head, and what began racing through my mind as soon as our lips touched. I was against the wall and Tom was against me, not hard but unmistakably, one hand on my left shoulder, the other on the wall. The slight scratch of his skin, the feel of his body against mine, his way of kissing so different from Ruth's, the rhythm faster, the probing a little furious: He's a man. This is homosexuality. I'm a homosexual. Which is crazy, I know. We were doing the perfectly heterosexually normal, the banal even, but it came, over and over, he's a man, this is homosexuality, I'm a homosexual, though this sense of committing the forbidden forbade nothing, only both my legs were trembling and I needed air. I broke off the kissing and moved away a little, though I kept both my hands on his shoulders.
