by Yann Martel
This boundless, ethnocentric optimism would wreck itself against the shores of the Congo River, against Kurtz's hoarse "The horror! The horror!" Nonetheless, I was taken by his vision. What secular nobility it had!
I imagined Roget in the street observing a couple, turning to a row of houses, glancing into the display window of a bookshop, looking up at the sun and sky, running and looking down at his feet and laughing, greeting his wife and children, settling down to write -- all the while, at every moment, thinking, "Synonyms!"
I would write a novel about Peter Mark Roget. It would be called Thesaurus, and it would take place on that same boat on the river Thames as Heart of Darkness -- the cruising yawl Nellie. It would be a short novel. An evening in the life of a man of good cheer, convinced of the unity of life.
We travelled. To Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. To India and Pakistan. To Egypt. To New York. By plane, by train, by boat, by bus, by car, on foot. For six months, for three months, for one month, for one week. Each time Fig Leaf packed off to Hungarian boarding school.
The stories I could tell! The Inca trail and the slow rise to the epiphany of Machu Picchu. Arduous, heavenly trekking around Nanga Parbat. A dawn walk around the immensity of the Kheops pyramid. Matisse at the MOMA. The cows of India's cities, urban bovines as jaded and streetwise as Big Apple drug peddlers. The giant tortoises of the Galapagos Islands, their shells like the dome of St. Peter's, their haughty faces like those of cardinals'. Life on a train in India. Life on a bus in South America. Life on a felucca on the Nile. Early mornings in Varanasi, in La Paz. The organic rot that is Calcutta, that is the Amazon. The walls of Sacsayhuaman. The fields of stupas of Ladakh. The temple of Karnak. Tito's voice and look when he said to me, "Are you seriously suggesting that I take another language course?" when I mentioned one of the good ways of preparing for Latin America. His Spanish nearly as good as mine by the end of our trip.
And these, but a handful of memories, a quarter-turn in the kaleidoscope, a mere glimpse at inexhaustible riches, like Howard Carter replying to Lord Carnarvon, "Yes, wonderful things."
If I had to remember only one place, treasure only one vision, it would be that room lit up by the single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling or that stretch of awful road with the dramatic backdrop or that green village fleetingly seen from the train or that bend of river with the water buffalo wallowing in it or that tumbledown restaurant with the welcome hot tea -- if you asked me for the one destination of which I could say, "Go there -- and you will have travelled," if you wanted to know where El Dorado was, I would say it was that place ubiquitous among travellers: the middle of nowhere.
I would return there any time. With my veteran blue backpack and with Tito, my fellow eyes, my fellow skin, my fellow thirst.
We fell into the habit of presenting ourselves as husband and wife, took on this traditional garb to make things easier in places where the concepts of girlfriendship and boyfriendship might not go down well. At first it was the strangest thing for me to refer to Tito as "my husband". It felt so old-fashioned. I would tell fellow travellers, "He's not actually my husband," and they would nod. But then it started coming easily. I liked it that our relationship gave us titles. It felt mature, enduring. After being called "Senora Imilac" over and over, I even began to play with this, the most reprehensible of marital practices. I began to see identity in it, an important part of who I was.
We were dreaming of China next, of travels to the Celestial Empire.
In early 1989 -- January 18, to be precise, on a 7:40 a.m. flight -- Tito left for Banff, Alberta, for a conference. Managers, clerks, sorters, letter carriers, drivers -- a whole vertical slab of the Canada Post hierarchy from across the country would be attending, and he was one of the lucky chosen letter carriers. He was going for the mountains rather than for the talking heads. He had never seen the Rockies.
He would be gone a week.
I had a secret, but I didn't say anything. I would wait till his return.
I never saw him again.
I had finished the lunch shift at the restaurant and I had bought groceries. I was standing in front of my office door, fishing for the keys in my coat pocket, two plastic bags full of food at my feet. The year's first big snowstorm had settled and the day was cold, clear and sunshiny (a weather much like that three years before, when Tito and I had first got close, though then it had been night-time and now it was broad daylight, a little before three in the afternoon). I mention the weather only because it reflected my mood: bright. It had nothing to do with where I was standing: at the end of a windowless vomit-green corridor whose only light was a dying, flickering neon. I don't recall what I was thinking at that moment. My mind had no reason yet to be as attentive as a court stenographer. I missed Tito already, but seven Tito-less days meant lots of time for my novel and the pleasure of seeing him again after missing him. I was quite certain I was pregnant. I had been sloppy that month with the pill. I believe I was trying to assign to accident what I actually wanted. I was already three days late, something unheard of in my caesium atomic clock cycle. I had a feeling. With Tito away, I could make certain. The prospect horrified me and thrilled me -- rather like a wonderful gift that comes in horrible wrapping-paper. I walked around with no tampons. If I wasn't pregnant, I wanted to bleed with a vengeful inconvenience, in the street or during my waitressing shift. In a far corner of my mind, at the very back of a filing cabinet, there was an insurance policy signed Henry Morgentaler. That Tito and I had not been paying our premiums came out in jokes and comments about "little Tito babies".
"Hi," he said. He was walking down the corridor towards me.
"Hi," I replied, pushing the key into the lock and unlocking my door.
He was a neighbour. The man with the walrus moustache. A three-year acquaintanceship of nods, greetings and the occasional brief exchange. I didn't even know his name.
"Is this where you live?" he said.
He was beside me, looking in.
"No, I just use this place as an office."
"Can I see?"
"Sure." I suppose it was presumptuous of him, but I thought nothing of it. He was moving, he was idly curious, he was being neighbourly -- something like that. Nor did I pick up on the fact that he waited for me to go in before entering. "It's a tiny place," I added.
He looked about.
"Well, I have to work," I said, after a minute or so. He didn't move.
"Out you go," I said lightly, with a sweeping movement of my hands, treating him as if he were a contrary child.
He looked at me.
"Take your clothes off," he said, closing the door.
The words didn't register. I was shocked. Right away I seemed to go numb.
"What?"
"I said, take your clothes off. Let's see the goods."
There was no warning. Things went from normal to terribly wrong in a fraction of a second. There was nothing I could do about it. I had no time to think, to react, to take measures. No. I even had my boots off, had removed them upon entering.
It was a long assault. It felt as if it lasted hours. How otherwise can I account for so much fear? Can fear be concentrated? Can it enter your life like a few drops of food colouring, a few drops of red that plop in and dilute and taint your whole life? The problem with rape is that it ruins your life, the whole rest of your life, because the fear spreads. When I think back, he was there maybe twenty minutes.
He didn't have a knife or a gun. He didn't need one. He did nothing more threatening than pull my hair with all his strength and slap me and punch me and kick me.
His fist flew out and hit me square on the cheek. I lurched to the side and collapsed.
"Get up."
I did so, mechanically.
"Now get your fucking sweater off."
I started to protest, to plead, I can't remember my words exactly. He grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall.
"Listen, you bitch, you start stripping now or I'll kil
l you. Who do you think you are?"
His hand was choking me. I had to fight to get each breath into my lungs. I was terrified. I thought I was going to die. I croaked, "All right, all right!"
I removed my sweater.
"Take your shirt off."
My hands were trembling so much I had difficulty with the buttons.
"Now the rest."
I looked at him. He moved towards me.
"Okay, okay."
I took my T-shirt off. Then my bra.
He stared. He was rubbing his crotch.
"Take the rest off."
"Oh, please." I couldn't. I just couldn't. His hand shot up for my throat again.
"All right, all right, I will."
I took my skirt and my thick stockings off.
He came up, grabbed my underwear and with a rough yank pulled them down. In doing so, he scratched me with his nails. Two lines of red on my lower belly. The first acute pain to register.
I was completely naked. I kept my eyes on the floor. My stomach was so twisted up it hurt. I kept thinking, "I'm going to die, I don't want to die. I'm going to die, I don't want to die. I'm going to die, I don't want to die."
He slapped me full in the face. I didn't understand. I was doing what he wanted. He slapped me again. When I brought my hands up to protect myself, he started punching me in the face and in the body. I fell to the ground. He grabbed me by the throat and started strangling me while banging my head against the wall. I couldn't breathe. I thought I was going to die. But he stopped.
He stood up and took his clothes off. I didn't look. There was the taste of blood in my mouth. He grabbed me by my hair and pulled me to my feet. The pain was excruciating. He led me to the futon and threw me down on it.
"Did that hurt?"
He seemed pleased when I said yes. He knelt beside me and took hold of my hair again. He twisted it hard around his fist.
"I'll do anything you want, anything. Just please don't kill me."
He manhandled my breasts.
He began to fuck my mouth with his half-hard penis. It was unspeakably disgusting. I tried to put as much blood and saliva between him and me as I could. I felt like vomiting. But better a blow job than him fucking me. I wanted to protect my baby, didn't want the pollution of his dick in my vagina.
He kept pushing in too far, making me gag.
I pushed his flabby white belly away and vomited on the futon. The heaves were very painful and I couldn't breathe.
"That's disgusting," he said, but laughed. "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha," he went.
I caught his eyes. I instantly looked away.
He moved between my legs. I made to resist.
He punched me repeatedly in the face. I must only survive. Death was the only loss. I spread my legs.
"You just fucking watch yourself," he said.
He spat between my legs twice, for lubricant. But he barely had it up and just managed to push the head of his penis into me. He pumped carefully. He held himself up by his arms and kept his gaze fixed between our legs. Every place his warm skin touched mine, something in me recoiled.
I could hear a roar. The subway? It was my heart. It was unbelievable how hard it was pounding.
His penis fell out. He lifted himself to his knees.
He wasn't saying anything. I wanted to say something, but I couldn't get any words out.
He got up and began pulling me about the room by my hair, dragging me over my desk and crashing me against the walls. Each time I tried to get to my feet, he yanked me off balance. When it hurt so much that I screamed, he kicked me in the face and said, "Don't scream, I said don't scream."
He threw me down on the futon and knelt between my legs. He was hard now. He penetrated me again. This time he pumped furiously. He had his head up, but he kept his eyes tightly closed. I looked away. After the oral sex, after being pulled around by my hair, this was a relief.
I noticed odd things. As I lay there, going through the butchery, I was bothered by a tickling in my ears. My tears were gathering in them.
I tried to bang on the floor so someone would know that something terrible was going on. But I suppose no one heard. I suppose I didn't bang very hard, too afraid that he would notice. I suppose I merely tapped the floor a little.
He ejaculated inside me and burst out laughing.
He got to his feet and walked about the room. I lay still, absolutely still, not looking at him, only keeping him in the corner of my eye. He went to the bathroom. He pissed without flushing and cleaned himself. He came out wiping himself with my towel.
He picked through my groceries and found the orange juice and the cookies. I slowly lifted myself, but only to my elbows. I kept my eyes diverted. My nose was bleeding, drip, drip, drip.
"Where's your purse?"
"I don't have one. I just keep things in my pockets."
He searched my coat pockets. He brought out a fistful of crumpled-up bills and change, my day's earnings, about fifty dollars, and laid it on the floor. He went through it. He took the fives right away, but seemed to want to leave the rest. Then reconsidered and took the twos. Then the ones. He was going to leave the change, but then picked out the quarters.
As he ate my cookies, he looked at the papers that were scattered all over the place. "You a student?"
"No."
"What's all these papers?"
"I'm writing a book."
"No shit. A writer. What's your book about?"
"It's a novel about a man who's written a new kind of dictionary." He was coming towards me. "It's a d--d--d--dictionary of s--s--s--s--synonyms. It's just a boring story. It won't be a bestseller or anything. I'm not very good at it. I--"
"Well, if you say so yourself, I guess I won't buy it."
He was kneeling next to me. His penis hung limply between his legs. I looked away.
"Oh please don't kill me, please don't kill me. I haven't done anything to you. Please don't kill me. We're neighbours. Please don't kill me."
He laughed. "Why would I want to kill you?"
There was a harsh noise from his mouth. He spat in my face.
I can't understand it. After what he had done to me, he could do that, spit in my face.
He seemed to get bored.
He dressed. He combed his hair in the mirror, spending time on his part. Then he picked up my two bags of groceries, said, "See you around," and left, closing the door behind him.
I crawled over to the door, reached up, and locked it.
I lay on the floor. I thought nothing. I just lay there.
I got up. I could hardly stand. I went to the bathroom. My face didn't look beaten up, it looked as if all the skin had been peeled off. I couldn't recognize myself.
I moved like an automaton. I wasn't there, I was somewhere else. I rinsed a face, don't know whose. With a clean dish-towel I wiped a body, don't know whose. His sperm stank.
Suddenly, the fear that he was still around, in the building, gripped me. In the mirror, eyes widened. My stomach seized up.
I dressed, wrapped my face in my scarf and put my coat on, hood up. I gathered my novel and stuffed it in my coat pocket. Strands of my hair were all over the floor. I went through the window on to the fire exit.
The walk seemed endless. I stumbled several times. I kept thinking he was following me, but I was too afraid to turn around and check. I took a circuitous route home, running down streets as soon as I had turned corners and dodging into back alleys.
I got home. To a dog who greeted me with his usual gruff happiness.
As soon as I took my scarf off, he fell silent.
I went to the bathroom and started a bath.
I stayed in the bath for hours. Shivering in the hot water. Thinking nothing. Washing obsessively.
I was covered in bruises. My head ached. My face hurt. My neck was stiff and painful. Every time I swallowed, a claw lashed out at the back of my throat. Only blinking didn't hurt. I couldn't even speak to Fig Leaf, who sat in a corner of the
bathroom and tried to start a conversation a few times. I was so sore and swollen that it hurt to touch; not just my vagina -- the whole area. The soap didn't help, but I had to wash, had to.
I could hardly walk when I got out. I went to the kitchen to make tea.
I thought of Fig Leaf. I hadn't let him out. Over my bathrobe I put Tito's. I carefully looked about before opening the downstairs door. I opened it only wide enough to let him squeeze through. He paused on the landing, but I shook my head and he understood that he was going out on his own. I closed and locked the door, and waited.
When he was back in, I climbed the stairs. At the top I turned and looked at him looking up at me. "Come," I whispered hoarsely. He climbed the stairs.
The phone rang.
"Tito!" I couldn't recognize my voice.
There was silence, and then a hang-up.
It wasn't Tito. He would have spoken. Perhaps a wrong number.
But perhaps it was him.
I dropped the phone. The doors were locked, the windows were closed, the curtains were drawn -- but Alexander Graham Bell would let him in. I had a surge of panic.
I ripped the phone off the wall.
I could still smell the stink of his sperm. I had another bath and washed again.
I dressed for bed. I put on a pair of Tito's sweatpants, a T-shirt and a sweater. I went to bed with the lights on, even though darkness had nothing to do with it.
I had chairs blocking every locked door. I got up and checked every window over and over. I had a knife next to the bed.
But he comes in through my dreams. I'm standing at the end of a long corridor. He is coming towards me. Not him -- his face. It's enormous, takes up the entire corridor, is the fourth wall. I feel the compression of space, of light, of air. His face keeps approaching in a way that never ends. I wake up with a scream and a pounding heart.
I didn't eat.
There was a discharge. It wasn't blood, it was yellowish. I had saved my baby. The soreness and swelling were worse. It hurt when I urinated.
Though Fig Leaf had stopped barking, I hit him anyway. A blow against the side of his head and neck, one area really. He toppled over. He got up and scurried away. His beautiful, ugly expression, usually so happy-go-lucky, was blank. He was terrified. He disappeared around the corner, nails skittering against the floor. I realized that I had forgotten to feed him for two days. He had waited this long to protest.
