Life Form

by Amélie Nothomb

  “Of course it is. I can’t do without them. How do you manage to withstand the pressure?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a terrible stress to be a novelist?”

  “I do. I’m terribly stressed.”

  “So why aren’t you taking tranquilizers? You think it’s necessary to suffer, is that it?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you accept your suffering, then?”

  “I suppose I don’t want to damage my brain.”

  “So you think I’m damaging mine?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Don’t you think that suffering causes greater harm to your brain?”

  “Let’s not exaggerate. Writing can be extremely pleasurable, for a start. What makes me suffer is all the anxiety that comes with it.”

  “Whence the need for tranquilizers.”

  “I’m not so sure. Without anxiety, there can be no pleasure.”

  “Of course there can. Try pleasure without anxiety.”

  “Are you under contract to the pharmaceutical industry?”

  “Yeah, really. Go on being anxious, if you enjoy it so much. I see you haven’t answered my question. How do you deal with the stress?”

  “Badly.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  She was funny. Even though I liked her well enough, I realized I would have preferred a letter from her to her physical presence. Could this be a pathological attitude, due to the hegemony of letters in my life? There are very few individuals whose company is more pleasant than a letter from them would be—assuming, naturally, that they possess a minimum of epistolary talent. Most people would consider such a realization to be a confession of weakness, a lack of energy, an inability to confront reality. I’ve been told on occasion, “You don’t like people in real life.” I object: why should someone be more real just because you have him or her across from you? Why shouldn’t their truth stand out better, or simply differently, in a letter?

  The only thing I know for certain is that it depends on the individual. There are some people who improve on personal acquaintance, and others who improve on being read. In any event, even when I like someone to the point of living with him, I have to have him write to me, too: no connection seems complete unless it includes an element of correspondence.

  Some people I know solely through an epistolary connection. Naturally I would be curious to see them in person, but that is in no way indispensable. And to meet them would not necessarily be without consequence. In this respect, correspondence raises that important literary question: should we meet writers?

  There is no answer to this, because there are too many answers. Indisputably, some authors do their work great harm. I have spoken with people who met Montherlant, and they were sorry they had done so: one man told me that pursuant to a brief conversation with that writer, he had been so disgusted by the man that he never read another line of the work he had once so admired. Conversely, I have been told that Giono’s prose was even more beautiful if one had had the good fortune to meet him. And then there are those authors you would never have dreamt of reading had you not met them, not to mention the most numerous category of all, those who in real life leave us every bit as indifferent as their books have done.

  Similarly, there can be no law governing correspondents. But my natural tendency advises me not to meet them, not so much out of caution, as for the reason so sublimely expressed in a preface by Proust: reading enables us to discover the other, while preserving the depths one has solely when alone.

  And I found, indeed, that the young novelist would have done better to get to know me in my more interesting condition of solitude. The opposite would no doubt have been true as well: her pharmaceutical proselytism had traumatized me to no small degree.

  By the time the next letter from the American arrived, I had forgotten that I had asked him for a photograph. It hit me right in the face: a naked, hairless thing, so enormous that it spilled over the edge. A blister in full expansion: you could sense the flesh constantly searching for new opportunities to spread and swell, to conquer new terrain. The fresh flab must have to cross continents of fatty tissue to blossom on the surface, before crusting over like bacon draped over a roast to become the support for even newer fat. Thus is the void conquered by obesity: to add weight, the body annexes the empty space.

  The sex of this tumor could not be determined. While the individual stood facing the camera lens, the sheer abundance of rolls of fat hid the genitals. Gigantic breasts would seem to imply that this was a woman, but drowned as they were among so many other folds and protuberances, they lost their full teat-like impact, resembling nothing so much as rubber tires.

  It took me a moment to recall that all this efflorescence was human, and that it was indeed my correspondent, Private Melvin Mapple. I have had more than my share of the always astonishing experience that consists in putting a face to a person’s handwriting: in the soldier’s case, it would be difficult to isolate from the body a face so polderized by fat. He had already lost his neck, because the isthmus that was supposed to connect the head to the torso did not display the trait of relative narrowness which enables one to identify that segment of the body. I thought how it would be impossible to guillotine this man, or even oblige him to wear a necktie.

  As I looked at Melvin Mapple I could see he still had features, but you could no longer qualify them: you could not say whether his nose was hooked or turned up, his mouth was large or small, his eyes were this way or that; you could say he had a nose, a mouth, and a pair of eyes, and that was already something, for you could not say as much for his chin, which had disappeared long before. It gave you the anxious feeling that a time would come when even these basic elements would also sink deeper and deeper until they were no longer visible. And it made you wonder how, when that day came, would this living creature manage to breathe, to speak, to see.

  His eyes were like the recessed tucks in a padded armchair. And while the eyes are supposed to be the mirror of the soul, there was nothing one could read in Melvin Mapple’s eyes beyond their effort to force their way through to the outside world. His nose was a curl of cartilage in an ocean of flesh, his nostrils a precarious treasure: one day this power socket would be covered over by the masonry of his fat. One could only hope that the man would still be able to breathe through his mouth; no doubt it would hold out until the bitter end, driven by the instinct for survival which every assassin shares.

  It was indeed hard to look at what remained of his mouth and not be reminded that it was to blame, this minuscule orifice that had opened the gates to the invaders. We all know that the brain is in charge and yet, when we meet a sculptor, we observe his hands; when we spent time with a perfumer, we steal glances at his nose; a ballerina’s legs are more entrancing than her head is. Melvin Mapple’s lips had well and truly been the pioneers of this suffocating expansion into space, and his teeth had voluntarily undertaken to chew all that food. His mouth exerted a fascination not unlike that of History’s great murderers.

  I had come to know this man through our correspondence. At the end of his hypertrophied arms his fingers seemed microscopic, and I could only surmise how difficult it must be to write with such a volume of fat. To reach me, his writing had to transit so much flesh. The distance between Iraq and France seemed far less daunting than that which separated the soldier’s brain from his hand.

  Melvin Mapple’s brain: how could one help but think of it? Gray matter is made up essentially of fat; in the case of excessive weight loss, the brain suffers aftereffects. What happens in the opposite case? Does the brain get bigger, or does it simply acquire more fat? If so, what effect would that have on thought? The intelligence of a Churchill or a Hitchcock had not suffered on account of its owner’s obesity, that much is clear, but beyond a doubt, when you find yourself dragging that much weight a
round it must influence your thinking in one way or another.

  Never had I taken so long to start reading what he had written:

  Baghdad, May 14, 2009

  Dear Amélie Nothomb,

  Thank you for the wonderful news! I am overjoyed that the famous Cullus Gallery in Brussels is including me in their catalog, and I know how much I owe you for your contribution. I’ve already told everyone here about it: it’s a major event. I’ve enclosed the photograph you asked for.

  Now I feel like an established artist. And as such I don’t feel the least bit embarrassed showing you my photograph. Otherwise I would have been too ashamed for you to find out what I look like. Now I tell myself that it is art, so I’m proud.

  I hope the photograph is appropriate; it was taken two weeks ago. Please tell the Belgian gallery owner how grateful I am. Thanks again.

  Sincerely,

  Melvin Mapple

  This was a very American attitude: everything was fine provided it was official and aboveboard. If you came out and proclaimed the phenomenon, you eliminated any risk of embarrassment. And while I might appreciate the fact that Melvin had no complexes, I did nevertheless feel somewhat uncomfortable with the way he flaunted himself—while reproaching myself for my European prudishness. He was happy, after all: that was all that mattered.

  Still, I could not help but place the image and the writing side by side: the photograph in my left hand, the letter in my right. My eyes went from one to the other as if I were trying to persuade myself that the human message had actually come from this pudding, and that all the touching missives I’d received over the few last months had come from this ton. I was so perplexed by the thought that I blushed. To cut things short I slipped the print into an envelope, wrote Cullus’s address on the outside and added a note explaining that this was the new artist we had talked about.

  I did not answer the American right away. I let myself believe that I was waiting for a reaction from the gallery owner. To be honest, I had been intimidated by my confrontation with the obese amoeba. I just did not feel up to resuming the civilized tone of our correspondence right away: “Thank you, dear Melvin, for the charming photograph . . . ”—no, courtesy had its limits. I was somewhat annoyed with myself for being so impressionable, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  As I never lacked a backlog of letters, I set about writing to people of ordinary corpulence. To erase the very memory of the photograph, I filled out my tax return: I have often found that soul-destroying tasks help one to live.

  That day I also received a letter from P. asking me for a preface. Not one day goes by without at least one letter of this kind. I systematically refuse, for that very reason. The fact remains that people would make my existence so much easier if they would spare me these constant entreaties—when it’s not a preface, it’s their manuscript that wants reading, or I must teach them how to write.

  The fact that I reply to the letters I receive has given rise to considerable confusion, to erroneous and contradictory interpretations. The first of these is that my letter writing is some sort of savvy marketing ploy on my part. Yet the figures are eloquent: I have hundreds of thousands of readers, and although I write letters like a maniac, I’ve never had more than two thousand correspondents, which is already sheer madness. The second misconstruction is quite the opposite: that I am involved with charitable works. On occasion I receive requests for money, straight up, not from charitable foundations but from Mr. and Mrs. Everybody, generally accompanied by an explanation: “I would like to write a book. You know how it is, so I have to stop working and I’m not rolling in dough,” (and I am?). Other misinterpretations: I lack imagination where the content of my novels is concerned, so I feed off my correspondents’ secret confessions; or I am in search of sexual partners; or I am desperate to convert to some religion, or to the Internet. And so on.

  The truth is both more limited and more mysterious, even to me. I don’t know why I answer my mail. I’m not looking for anything or anybody. While I appreciate the fact that people write to me about my books, that is not the only subject that feeds these missives, far from it. When a correspondence develops in a pleasant way—and, thank God, this does happen—I am given to experience the imponderable delight of getting to know someone a little, of reading human words. You don’t have to be having withdrawal symptoms to enjoy this sort of contact.

  With Melvin Mapple, until only a few weeks earlier, that was how things had been. And perhaps they still were, only I could no longer be sure. I now felt a malaise that defied all analysis. It dated from before the photograph. Seeing him naked had not helped things. Apart from the epiphenomena arising from my vague celebrity, I’m just like anyone else: to have a relationship with someone means that naturally there will be problems. Even when things go well, there are ups and downs, tension, misunderstandings, which may seem harmless at the time, but only five years later will we understand why they made our relation untenable. With Melvin Mapple, it had taken only five months. I wanted to believe that the situation was not irremediable, because he did make me want to have him as a friend.

  Five days later I received an answer from the gallery owner in the Marolles:

  Brussels, May 23, 2009

  Dear Amélie,

  The photograph of Melvin Mapple is great. To make it clearer to people, I need a picture of him in uniform. Can you ask him for one? Thanks. Talk to you soon,

  Albert Cullus

  This seemed perfectly normal. I wrote to the American at once, at Cullus’s request. I added a P.S. to indicate that I too liked the picture a great deal, with some sort of platitude in the vein of, “It’s so interesting to see at last what the person I have been corresponding with actually looks like.” If I hadn’t said anything at all about the picture, Melvin Mapple might have thought I was rejecting him.

  Not long afterwards I went to Brussels to vote. On June 7, there were both European and regional elections. I wouldn’t miss an election for anything on earth. In Belgium, it goes without saying, if you don’t vote you are punished with a hefty fine. In my case no threats are needed: I would sooner die than fail to fulfill my electoral duty.

  Besides, it would be an opportunity to see Brussels again, once my hometown; I don’t visit often enough. There is a sweetness to life in Brussels that the denizens of Paris cannot even begin to imagine.

  I extended my stay to record a program for Belgian television that would be broadcast in the fall. I took the train back to Paris on the morning of June 10. A great deal of mail had accumulated over three days and was waiting for me on my desk, which meant that I did not immediately notice the absence of a reply from Melvin Mapple. On June 11, I realized that I had sent my last letter to him on May 27 and that such a long silence was unusual, coming from him.

  There was no need to be particularly worried. The rhythm of a correspondence can change, that’s normal. I myself was not very consistent, and I would raise my eyes to the heavens if one of my correspondents began to panic because of too long a gap between my replies. I would not allow myself to succumb to such a psychosis; I was someone with a certain amount of sangfroid.

  One week later, still nothing. The same the following week. I sent a letter repeating the same information as in my letter of May 27: perhaps it had gotten lost.

  By mid-July I still had no news of Melvin Mapple, and I was beginning to worry. Did the American soldier think I had failed to show enough interest in his photograph? Such narcissism was not like him. Or perhaps he was finding it difficult to come up with a good portrait of himself as a soldier for Cullus? But we weren’t asking for a masterpiece.

  With this in mind, I wrote to him right away to tell him that a very simple photograph would suffice. I adopted a friendly tone, and it was sincere: I missed our communication.

  No answer. I left on vacation, asking my publisher to forward my mail. I took with me all the
American soldier’s letters: on rereading them I felt nostalgic. I took note of his companions’ names: could I write to Plumpy, or Bozo? They were nicknames, but perhaps it would be enough. So I sent short messages to these two fellows, at the same address, and asked them how Melvin Mapple was doing.

  Something must have happened to him. The war was supposed to be over, but on the news there were regular reports of attacks on soldiers based in Iraq. And Melvin was also fighting on another front, that of obesity: perhaps he’d had a stroke, or a heart attack, the kind of accident that happens to hearts that are smothered in fat.

  I did not hear from Plumpy, or Bozo, or Mapple. I didn’t like the sound of this silence. This was not the first time I’d found myself confronted with such a situation. To be sure, an epistolary relationship is not a contract, you can get out of it whenever you want, without prior notice. I have dropped a few myself when they no longer seemed tenable. And there have also been correspondents who stopped answering me, without an explanation. In most cases I do not get upset, for the simple reason that I do not have time, given the affluence of new letters from strangers.

  But occasionally I persisted, when the correspondence had been going on for a long time, and the correspondent was fragile in age or in health. I would phone. Only once did I allow myself to dig deeper: a charming old gentleman in Lyon had not answered my letters in a year and a half, so I took the liberty of asking a young friend of mine in Lyon, whose brother worked in the local administration, to check whether the gentleman had died. The friend did me that favor, and I found out that the man was still alive. More than that I did not know. Any conjecture was possible, from Alzheimer’s to the mystical desire to drop all communication.

  It is very difficult to know where to stop. Once again there is the problem of barriers: another person goes through your life, and you must agree to have him leave it as easily as he entered. Naturally, you can tell yourself it’s not serious, that the connection was no more than an exchange of letters. Or you can also tell yourself that just because you have fallen silent your friendship has not ended for all that. This last argument is more convincing than the previous one. You become wise, you find consolation. You welcome your new friends without forgetting those who have chosen silence. No one is replaceable.