Life Form

by Amélie Nothomb

  Although he was very different from Madame de Sévigné, Melvin Mapple was offering me yet another incredible exception that confirmed the rule. His letters were so fascinating that they did not even seem long. You could tell they had been written in the grip of absolute necessity: there is no better muse. I could do nothing but reply at once, contrary to my usual habit.

  Paris, March 24, 2009

  Dear Melvin Mapple,

  Thank you for your letters, which are more and more interesting. Do not be afraid of force-feeding me: as far as I’m concerned you can never write too much.

  Your overeating, and that of your associates, is indeed an act of sabotage. Allow me to congratulate you. You’re familiar with the slogan, “Make love, not war.” Your slogan should be, “Make fat, not war.” That is infinitely praiseworthy. But I am aware of the danger you are in, and I beg you to take care of yourself, to the best of your ability.

  Best wishes,

  Amélie Nothomb

  Baghdad, March 31, 2009

  Dear Amélie Nothomb,

  Your letter came at just the right time. I’ve been feeling really down. Yesterday we had a run-in with the thin guys in the contingent. It was during dinner. We fat guys are in the habit of eating together: that way we can stuff our faces unashamedly, among ourselves, and we don’t need to put up with dirty looks and rude remarks. When one of us outdoes himself by eating more than ever, we congratulate him with this expression we came up with: “That’s the spirit, man!” It always leaves us in fits of laughter, go figure.

  Yesterday evening, probably because there hasn’t been much action lately, the other guys came and stood around our table to provoke us.

  “Hey, lardasses, what’s up?”

  Since they started off slowly, we weren’t particularly bothered, so we replied with the usual polite formulas.

  “How do you manage to eat like that when you’re so huge? With all your reserve fat you shouldn’t be hungry.”

  “We have to feed our pounds somehow,” said Plumpy.

  “I think it’s disgusting to see you stuffing your faces like that,” said some worthless moron.

  “Then don’t look at us,” I answered.

  “Yeah, but how am I supposed to do that? You take up my whole field of vision. We’d love to look at something else but there’s always some roll of fat in the way.”

  We laughed.

  “That makes you laugh?”

  “Yes. You’re funny, so we laugh.”

  “Maybe it’s stealing food from the army that makes you laugh, more like.”

  “We’re not stealing. See, we’re eating in plain sight, we’re not hiding.”

  “Yeah sure. That doesn’t mean it’s not stealing. Every one of you devours ten times our rations.”

  “We’re not stopping you from eating more.”

  “We don’t feel like eating more.”

  “So where’s the problem?”

  “You’re stealing from the army. So, you’re stealing from the United States of America.”

  “The United States are doing just fine.”

  “There are loads of people dying of hunger back home.”

  “That’s not our fault.”

  “How do you know? It’s because of thieves and parasites like you that there are poor people at home.”

  “No. It’s because of the thieves a lot higher up.”

  “So, you admit you’re thieves.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Then things started to get out of hand.

  Bozo was the first one to get up and hit one of the skinny guys. I tried to stop him. “Can’t you see that’s what he wants?”

  “Then he’s gonna get it!”

  “Don’t! They’ll send you to the clink.”

  “No one can put me there.”

  “They’ll have to widen the door to the clink,” shouted the little runt.

  At that point I couldn’t hold Bozo back anymore. We started fighting. We fat guys had a clear advantage, that was obvious. Our sheer mass would crush anyone. But our Achilles’ heel is that if we fall we can’t get back up. The other guys had that all figured out. So they went for our ankles, tried to trip us up, or they rolled around on the floor at our feet like bottles. Plumpy fell down, and they rushed over and started beating him. We came to the rescue, and we picked off those wusses who were going at Plumpy as if they were lice. One of the cooks came in with a pot of chili con carne. One guy grabbed the pot from his hands and spilled the boiling chili onto Plumpy’s head, laughing, “You hungry? Eat!” The poor guy was screaming. The cook sent for the MPs who came rushing in and pointed their guns at us. That calmed everyone right down. But poor Plumpy has second-degree burns on his face. Bastards.

  They took disciplinary action. Not just against the thin guys, either. They held this sort of trial, and no matter how much we protested that we’d been provoked, it wasn’t enough to get us off. One guy even said that our size meant we were walking provocateurs, and the official didn’t dispute it. We could tell they all agreed.

  Bozo and the guy who disfigured Plumpy got the same sentence: three days’ detention. He shouted, “So I’m just supposed to stand there and let them insult me?”

  “You must not attack your adversary physically.”

  “Well that’s exactly what he was doing!”

  “You’re playing with words.”

  What nobody said at the trial, but we all sensed, was how much they hate us. Maybe everyone thinks that plump people are cozy and likable, but if you’re obese they despise you, that’s just the way it is. Sure, we’re not a pleasant sight. I took a closer look at us: the worst thing isn’t our bodies, it’s our faces. Obesity gives you this hideous expression—blasé, tearful, annoyed, and stupid all at the same time. Not exactly the way to go about it if you want people to like you.

  After this parody of justice, we all felt really down. We went for a milkshake in the canteen to try and recover, and the cook who had brought out the chili came over to speak to us. He shared our indignation, he was thinking about Plumpy. For once a thin guy was on our side, so I opened my heart to him. I told them that the reason we ate so much was a kind of rebellion, a violent response to the violence we were being subjected to.

  “You don’t think it would be smarter to do the opposite?” he suggested.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “A hunger strike would have more of an impact on public opinion, and everyone would respect you.”

  We all looked at each other with consternation.

  “Have you seen who you’re talking to?” I said.

  “Anybody can go on a hunger strike,” replied this simple soul.

  “For a start, I don’t think just anybody can. Especially not us. You think we’re just some guys with enormous reserves of fat. The truth is that we’re the worst junkies on earth. Food, in high doses, is a harder drug than heroin. Porking out is like being sure of your fix, you get these incredible feelings, indescribable thoughts. For guys like us a hunger strike would be like a really heavy-duty form of detox, like those junkies on heroin they have to lock up. No cell is big enough for us. There would be only one way to stop us eating: the straitjacket. But I don’t think they make them in our size.”

  “Gandhi, he—”

  “Stop it. What are the odds someone like Bozo could turn into Gandhi? Zero. And my friends and me, the same. To want us to become saints—that’s revolting. You’re in no danger of becoming one yourself, so what makes you think we can?”

  “I don’t know, I’m just trying to find a solution for you.”

  “And as usual, people like you think the only solution can be some form of self-help. Apparently that’s all there is for obese people. But you know, obesity is a disease. When someone has cancer, no one has the nerve to suggest they try a
nd help themselves. Yes, I know, you can’t compare. It’s our fault if we weigh four hundred pounds. We shouldn’t have been eating like pigs. Someone who has cancer is a victim, but we’re not. We asked for it, we sinned. So we’re supposed to redeem ourselves through some saintly act, to atone for what we’ve done.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Well, that’s what it amounts to, all the same.”

  “Shit, guys, I’m on your side.”

  “I know. That’s what’s so awful, even our friends don’t understand us. Obesity is not a communicable experience.”

  That made me think of you. Maybe it’s an illusion, because of our letter writing: I get the impression that you understand me. I know you suffered from an eating disorder, but of a very different kind. Or maybe it’s because you’re a writer. People imagine, maybe naively, that novelists have access to a person’s soul, to experiences they haven’t had themselves. That really got me in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood: this impression that the author knew every character intimately, even the minor ones. I would like you to know me that way. It’s probably an absurd desire, connected in some way to the scorn people heap upon me, and which makes me suffer. I need a human being who has nothing to do with any of that and who is close to me at the same time: that’s what a writer is, right?

  You’ll tell me that there are other writers and that on top of it English isn’t your mother tongue. I know. But you’re the one who gave me the idea. I can’t help it: you inspire me. In my mind I went through all the living writers. Of course, I’d read an article where you said you answered your letters, which isn’t all that common. Still, I swear to you that that’s not the reason why. It’s as if, with you, everything is possible. It’s hard to explain.

  Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to be my shrink. There’s no lack of shrinks around here. I’ve tried several of them. We talk for three-quarters of an hour in the deepest silence and then they prescribe some Prozac. I refuse to take any of that stuff. I have nothing against shrinks. Except that I’m not sure about the ones from the US Army. What I expect from you is something different.

  I want to exist for you. Is that pretentious? I don’t know. If it is, forgive me. That’s the truest thing I can tell you: I want to exist for you.

  Sincerely,

  Melvin Mapple

  Melvin was hardly the first person who felt he needed to exist for me and that with me everything was possible. Still, rarely had anyone said it to me so simply and clearly.

  When someone makes this kind of declaration, I can’t really be sure what sort of effect it will have on me: a mixture of emotion and anxiety. If I were to compare this statement to a gift, I would say it’s like a dog. The animal itself is touching, but then you think about how you’re going to have to look after it, and the fact that you never asked for anything of the kind. On top of it all, the dog is sitting there gazing at you with its kindly eyes, and you say to yourself that it’s not its fault, that you can feed it with leftovers, that it will be easy. A tragic mistake, and yet unavoidable.

  I’m not comparing Melvin Mapple to a dog, it’s this sort of declaration of his that I’m saying is similar to a dog. There are doggie-phrases. It’s perfidious.

  Paris, April 6, 2009

  Dear Melvin Mapple,

  Your letter was very touching. You do exist for me, rest easy on that score. In Cold Blood is a masterpiece. I surely do not possess the power of a Truman Capote, but I do feel as if I know you.

  The story about your quarrel and its consequences is terrible and unjust. I think I can understand how you feel. You are being asked to display a greatness of soul, something other people would be incapable of, as if you were trying to apologize for being obese. Tell Plumpy that I’ve been thinking about him.

  I don’t know if everything is possible with me, I don’t know what that implies. I do know that you exist for me.

  Best wishes,

  Amélie Nothomb

  As I mailed my letter, I reflected that caution had never been my strong point.

  Baghdad, April 11, 2009

  Dear Amélie Nothomb,

  Forgive me, I expressed myself poorly in my last letter. You must think it’s strange to read that with you everything is possible. I didn’t mean it in a disrespectful way. I’ve never been good at expressing my feelings, and this has already played tricks on me. Thank you for writing that I exist for you, that’s very important to me.

  Because my life here sucks. If I can exist for you, it makes me feel as if I have another life elsewhere: the life I have in your thoughts. It’s not that I want you to imagine me: I don’t know what shape your thoughts about me are taking. I’m a figment in your brain: I’m not only what I incarnate in Baghdad. This is a consolation to me.

  Your letter was from April 6. The day before, in the New York Times, I read your op-ed piece about President Obama’s visit to France: it’s odd that they chose you to represent France, when you’re actually from Belgium. I was impressed to see your byline in the newspaper. I showed it to my buddies and they said, “Isn’t she the one you’re writing to?” I was proud. I really liked your article. What you wrote about President Sarkozy was really funny.

  On April 7 the British soldiers started to pull out. We didn’t meet them. Still, it was really upsetting to see how quickly things were resolved for them. Sure, there are more of us Americans. But what are we doing here? Sometimes I tell myself that if I have gotten so fat in Iraq it’s in order to have something to do. It sounds cynical when I write it like this, I know there are things we did in this country: we killed a lot of people, destroyed a lot of their infrastructure, and so on. And I have been a part of all that, it’s left me with terrible memories. I’m guilty, I’m not trying to get out of it. And yet it doesn’t feel as if it were me. I’m aware, ashamed, I have a mental idea of what it represents, whatever you like, but I don’t feel anything.

  What can give you the feeling of having accomplished something? When I was twenty-five, sleeping rough, I built a kind of shack in a forest in Pennsylvania. It was my achievement, I felt connected to that hut. I feel the same way about my fat. Maybe this fat is my way of leaving a mark on my body, the mark of the evil I’ve done and cannot feel. It’s complicated.

  In short, my obesity has become my life’s work. I’m still working on it really hard. I eat like a crazy man. Sometimes I tell myself that if I get along with you so well it’s because you’ve never seen me and, above all, because you’ve never seen me stuffing my face.

  When Iggy was alive, he used to say that the reason he’d gotten so fat was to build a barrier between himself and the world. That might have been true for him—the proof is that when his rampart disappeared he died. We all have different theories about our fat. Bozo says that his fat is mean and nasty and that’s why he wants to put on as much as possible. I can see what he means. We piss other people off because we inflict the sight of our obesity on them, it’s as simple as that. Plumpy thinks his shape has turned him into a baby again. Maybe that’s how he feels. No one dares tell him they’ve never seen such a repulsive baby.

  With me it’s something else again. When I write that my obesity is my life’s work, I’m not joking. That’s something you can understand. You have your life’s work, it’s your literary oeuvre, and it’s hard to know what an oeuvre is. We devote our very essence to it and yet it remains a mystery. That’s where the comparison stops. Your oeuvre is something worthy of respect, you have every right to be proud of it. But even if there’s nothing artistic about mine, it still has significance. Of course I didn’t do it on purpose, there’s nothing premeditated about it, you could even say I have created it against my will. And yet, from time to time when I’m eating like a pig, I actually feel this sort of enthusiasm which, I suppose, is the enthusiasm of creativity.

  When I step on the scales I’m afraid and ashamed because I know that the numb
er I’m about to see, which was already bad enough, will have gotten worse. And yet every time the new verdict appears, every time I cross another unthinkable weight threshold, I’m dismayed, of course, but I’m also impressed: I did this. So there’s no limit to my expansion. There’s no reason for it to stop. How high can I go? I say “high” because of the number, but it’s not really the right adverb, because I get fat sideways, not upwards. “Far out” might be more appropriate. I’m constantly increasing in volume, as if some inner Big Bang occurred when I arrived in Iraq.

  Sometimes after a meal when I sprawl on a chair (they had to order chairs made of reinforced steel) I sit alone with my thoughts for a moment and tell myself, “I must be getting fat at this very instant. My belly must be hard at it.” It’s fascinating to imagine the transformation of food into all this fat tissue. The body is one hell of a machine. It’s too bad I can’t feel the moment when the lipids are formed, that would be really interesting.

  I already tried to talk about it with the guys, but they said it was obscene. “If getting fat disgusts you so much, then stop,” I said. “Don’t you start now, too!” they replied. “Of course I won’t,” I continued, “but since we have no choice in the matter, we could at least feel some joyful curiosity about it. It’s an experience, no?” They looked at me as if I were demented.

  You understand me better than they do; I know that for you, when you create it’s deliberate, and you take a certain pride in it, you go into a mental trance, even if you can read what you’ve created with the kind of passion that I would find hard to summon when I look at my stomach, I know that you have the constant feeling that your oeuvre has surpassed you. But my oeuvre has surpassed me, too.