"I'm curious, tell me--have you ever killed a man?"
I doubted it. Man-eaters among animals are as rare as murderers among men, and Richard Parker was caught while still a cub. But who's to say that his mother, before she was nabbed by Thirsty, hadn't caught a human being?
"What a question," replied Richard Parker.
"Seems reasonable."
"It does?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You have the reputation that you have."
"I do?"
"Of course. Are you blind to that fact?"
"I am."
"Well, let me make clear what you evidently can't see: you have that reputation. So, have you ever killed a man?"
Silence.
"Well? Answer me."
"Yes."
"Oh! It sends shivers down my spine. How many?"
"Two."
"You've killed two men?"
"No. A man and a woman."
"At the same time?"
"No. The man first, the woman second."
"You monster! I bet you thought it was great fun. You must have found their cries and their struggles quite entertaining."
"Not really."
"Were they good?"
"Were they good?"
"Yes. Don't be so obtuse. Did they taste good?"
"No, they didn't taste good."
"I thought so. I've heard it's an acquired taste in animals. So why did you kill them?"
"Need."
"The need of a monster. Any regrets?"
"It was them or me."
"That is need expressed in all its amoral simplicity. But any regrets now?"
"It was the doing of a moment. It was circumstance."
"Instinct, it's called instinct. Still, answer the question, any regrets now?"
"I don't think about it."
"The very definition of an animal. That's all you are."
"And what are you?"
"A human being, I'll have you know."
"What boastful pride."
"It's the plain truth."
"So, you would throw the first stone, would you?"
"Have you ever had oothappam?"
"No, I haven't. But tell me about it. What is oothappam?"
"It is so good."
"Sounds delicious. Tell me more."
"Oothappam is often made with leftover batter, but rarely has a culinary afterthought been so memorable."
"I can already taste it."
I fell asleep. Or, rather, into a state of dying delirium.
But something was niggling at me. I couldn't say what. Whatever it was, it was disturbing my dying.
I came to. I knew what it was that was bothering me.
"Excuse me?"
"Yes?" came Richard Parker's voice faintly.
"Why do you have an accent?"
"I don't. It is you who has an accent."
"No, I don't. You pronounce the 'ze'."
"I pronounce ze 'ze', as it should be. You speak with warm marbles in your mouth. You have an Indian accent."
"You speak as if your tongue were a saw and English words were made of wood. You have a French accent."
It was utterly incongruous. Richard Parker was born in Bangladesh and raised in Tamil Nadu, so why should he have a French accent? Granted, Pondicherry was once a French colony, but no one would have me believe that some of the zoo animals had frequented the Alliance Francaise on rue Dumas.
It was very perplexing. I fell into a fog again.
I woke up with a gasp. Someone was there! This voice coming to my ears was neither a wind with an accent nor an animal speaking up. It was someone else! My heart beat fiercely, making one last go at pushing some blood through my worn-out system. My mind made a final attempt at being lucid.
"Only an echo, I fear," I heard, barely audibly.
"Wait, I'm here!" I shouted.
"An echo at sea ..."
"No, it's me!"
"That this would end!"
"My friend!"
"I'm wasting away ..."
"Stay, stay!"
I could barely hear him.
I shrieked.
He shrieked back.
It was too much. I would go mad.
I had an idea.
"MY NAME," I roared to the elements with my last breath, "IS PISCINE MOLITOR PATEL." How could an echo create a name? "Do you hear me? I am Piscine Molitor Patel, known to all as Pi Patel!"
"What? Is someone there?"
"Yes, someone's there!"
"What! Can it be true? Please, do you have any food? Anything at all. I have no food left. I haven't eaten anything in days. I must have something. I'll be grateful for whatever you can spare. I beg you."
"But I have no food either," I answered, dismayed. "I haven't eaten anything in days myself. I was hoping you would have food. Do you have water? My supplies are very low."
"No, I don't. You have no food at all? Nothing?"
"No, nothing."
There was silence, a heavy silence.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"I'm here," he replied wearily.
"But where is that? I can't see you."
"Why can't you see me?"
"I've gone blind."
"What?" he exclaimed.
"I've gone blind. My eyes see nothing but darkness. I blink for nothing. These last two days, if my skin can be trusted to measure time. It only can tell me if it's day or night."
I heard a terrible wail.
"What? What is it, my friend?" I asked.
He kept wailing.
"Please answer me. What is it? I'm blind and we have no food and water, but we have each other. That is something. Something precious. So what is it, my dear brother?"
"I too am blind!"
"What?"
"I too blink for nothing, as you say."
He wailed again. I was struck dumb. I had met another blind man on another lifeboat in the Pacific!
"But how could you be blind?" I mumbled.
"Probably for the same reason you are. The result of poor hygiene on a starving body at the end of its tether."
We both broke down. He wailed and I sobbed. It was too much, truly it was too much.
"I have a story," I said, after a while.
"A story?"
"Yes."
"Of what use is a story? I'm hungry."
"It's a story about food."
"Words have no calories."
"Seek food where food is to be found."
"That's an idea."
Silence. A famishing silence.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"Here. And you?"
"Here."
I heard a splashing sound as an oar dipped into water. I reached for one of the oars I had salvaged from the wrecked raft. It was so heavy. I felt with my hands and found the closest oarlock. I dropped the oar in it. I pulled on the handle. I had no strength. But I rowed as best I could.
"Let's hear your story," he said, panting.
"Once upon a time there was a banana and it grew. It grew until it was large, firm, yellow and fragrant. Then it fell to the ground and someone came upon it and ate it."
He stopped rowing. "What a beautiful story!"
"Thank you."
"I have tears in my eyes."
"I have another element," I said.
"What is it?"
"The banana fell to the ground and someone came upon it and ate it--and afterwards that person felt better."
"It takes the breath away!" he exclaimed.
"Thank you."
A pause.
"But you don't have any bananas?"
"No. An orang-utan distracted me."
"A what?"
"It's a long story."
"Any toothpaste?"
"No."
"Delicious on fish. Any cigarettes?"
"I ate them already."
"You ate them?"
"I still have the filters. You can have them if you like."
"The filters? What would I do with cigarette filters without the tobacco? How could you eat cigarettes?"
"What should I have done with them? I don't smoke."
"You should have kept them for trading."
"Trading? With whom?"
"With me!"
"My brother, when I ate them I was alone in a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific."
"So?"
"So, the chance of meeting someone in the middle of the Pacific with whom to trade my cigarettes did not strike me as an obvious prospect."
"You have to plan ahead, you stupid boy! Now you have nothing to trade."
"But even if I had something to trade, what would I trade it for? What do you have that I would want?"
"I have a boot," he said.
"A boot?"
"Yes, a fine leather boot."
"What would I do with a leather boot in a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific? Do you think I go for hikes in my spare time?"
"You could eat it!"
"Eat a boot? What an idea."
"You eat cigarettes--why not a boot?"
"The idea is disgusting. Whose boot, by the way?"
"How should I know?"
"You're suggesting I eat a complete stranger's boot?"
"What difference does it make?"
"I'm flabbergasted. A boot. Putting aside the fact that I am a Hindu and we Hindus consider cows sacred, eating a leather boot conjures to my mind eating all the filth that a foot might exude in addition to all the filth it might step in while shod."
"So no boot for you."
"Let's see it first."
"No."
"What? Do you expect me to trade something with you sight unseen?"
"We're both blind, may I remind you."
"Describe this boot to me, then! What kind of a pitiful salesman are you? No wonder you're starved for customers."
"That's right. I am."
"Well, the boot?"
"It's a leather boot."
"What kind of leather boot?"
"The regular kind."
"Which means?"
"A boot with a shoelace and eyelets and a tongue. With an inner sole. The regular kind."
"What colour?"
"Black."
"In what condition?"
"Worn. The leather soft and supple, lovely to the touch."
"And the smell?"
"Of warm, fragrant leather."
"I must admit--I must admit--it sounds tempting!"
"You can forget about it."
"Why?"
Silence.
"Will you not answer, my brother?"
"There's no boot."
"No boot?"
"No."
"That makes me sad."
"I ate it."
"You ate the boot?"
"Yes."
"Was it good?"
"No. Were the cigarettes good?"
"No. I couldn't finish them."
"I couldn't finish the boot."
"Once upon a time there was a banana and it grew. It grew until it was large, firm, yellow and fragrant. Then it fell to the ground and someone came upon it and ate it and afterwards that person felt better."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all I've said and done. I'm a worthless person," he burst out.
"What do you mean? You are the most precious, wonderful person on earth. Come, my brother, let us be together and feast on each other's company."
"Yes!"
The Pacific is no place for rowers, especially when they are weak and blind, when their lifeboats are large and unwieldy, and when the wind is not cooperating. He was close by; he was far away. He was to my left; he was to my right. He was ahead of me; he was behind me. But at last we managed it. Our boats touched with a bump even sweeter-sounding than a turtle's. He threw me a rope and I tethered his boat to mine. I opened my arms to embrace him and to be embraced by him. My eyes were brimming with tears and I was smiling. He was directly in front of me, a presence glowing through my blindness.
"My sweet brother," I whispered.
"I am here," he replied.
I heard a faint growl.
"Brother, there's something I forgot to mention."
He landed upon me heavily. We fell half onto the tarpaulin, half onto the middle bench. His hands reached for my throat.
"Brother," I gasped through his overeager embrace, "my heart is with you, but I must urgently suggest we repair to another part of my humble ship."
"You're damn right your heart is with me!" he said. "And your liver and your flesh!"
I could feel him moving off the tarpaulin onto the middle bench and, fatally, bringing a foot down to the floor of the boat.
"No, no, my brother! Don't! We're not--"
I tried to hold him back. Alas, it was too late. Before I could say the word alone, I was alone again. I heard the merest clicking of claws against the bottom of the boat, no more than the sound of a pair of spectacles falling to the floor, and the next moment my dear brother shrieked in my face like I've never heard a man shriek before. He let go of me.
This was the terrible cost of Richard Parker. He gave me a life, my own, but at the expense of taking one. He ripped the flesh off the man's frame and cracked his bones. The smell of blood filled my nose. Something in me died then that has never come back to life.
CHAPTER 91
I climbed aboard my brother's boat. With my hands I explored it. I found he had lied to me. He had a little turtle meat, a dorado head, and even--a supreme treat--some biscuit crumbs. And he had water. It all went into my mouth. I returned to my boat and released his.
Crying as I had done did my eyes some good. The small window at the top left of my vision opened a crack. I rinsed my eyes with sea water. With every rinsing, the window opened further. My vision came back within two days.
I saw such a vision that I nearly wished I had remained blind. His butchered, dismembered body lay on the floor of the boat. Richard Parker had amply supped on him, including on his face, so that I never saw who my brother was. His eviscerated torso, with its broken ribs curving up like the frame of a ship, looked like a miniature version of the lifeboat, such was its blood-drenched and horrifying state.
I will confess that I caught one of his arms with the gaff and used his flesh as bait. I will further confess that, driven by the extremity of my need and the madness to which it pushed me, I ate some of his flesh. I mean small pieces, little strips that I meant for the gaff's hook that, when dried by the sun, looked like ordinary animal flesh. They slipped into my mouth nearly unnoticed. You must understand, my suffering was unremitting and he was already dead. I stopped as soon as I caught a fish.
I pray for his soul every day.
CHAPTER 92
I made an exceptional botanical discovery. But there will be many who disbelieve the following episode. Still, I give it to you now because it's part of the story and it happened to me.
I was on my side. It was an hour or two past noon on a day of quiet sunshine and gentle breeze. I had slept a short while, a diluted sleep that had brought no rest and no dreams. I turned over to my other side, expending as little energy as possible in doing so. I opened my eyes.
In the near distance I saw trees. I did not react. I was certain it was an illusion that a few blinks would make disappear.
The trees remained. In fact, they grew to be a forest. They were part of a lowlying island. I pushed myself up. I continued to disbelieve my eyes. But it was a thrill to be deluded in such a high-quality way. The trees were beautiful. They were like none I had ever seen before. They had a pale bark, and equally distributed branches that carried an amazing profusion of leaves. These leaves were brilliantly green, a green so bright and emerald that, next to it, vegetation during the monsoons was drab olive.
I blinked deliberately, expecting my eyelids to act like lumberjacks. But the trees would not fall.
I looked down. I was both satisfied and disappointed with what I saw. The island had no
soil. Not that the trees stood in water. Rather, they stood in what appeared to be a dense mass of vegetation, as sparkling green as the leaves. Who had ever heard of land with no soil? With trees growing out of pure vegetation? I felt satisfaction because such a geology confirmed that I was right, that this island was a chimera, a play of the mind. By the same token I felt disappointment because an island, any island, however strange, would have been very good to come upon.
Since the trees continued to stand, I continued to look. To take in green, after so much blue, was like music to my eyes. Green is a lovely colour. It is the colour of Islam. It is my favourite colour.
The current gently pushed the lifeboat closer to the illusion. Its shore could not be called a beach, there being neither sand nor pebbles, and there was no pounding of surf either, since the waves that fell upon the island simply vanished into its porosity. From a ridge some three hundred yards inland, the island sloped to the sea and, forty or so yards into it, fell off precipitously, disappearing from sight into the depths of the Pacific, surely the smallest continental shelf on record.
I was getting used to the mental delusion. To make it last I refrained from putting a strain on it; when the lifeboat nudged the island, I did not move, only continued to dream. The fabric of the island seemed to be an intricate, tightly webbed mass of tube-shaped seaweed, in diameter a little thicker than two fingers. What a fanciful island, I thought.
After some minutes I crept up to the side of the boat. "Look for green," said the survival manual. Well, this was green. In fact, it was chlorophyll heaven. A green to outshine food colouring and flashing neon lights. A green to get drunk on. "Ultimately, a foot is the only good judge of land," pursued the manual. The island was within reach of a foot. To judge--and be disappointed--or not to judge, that was the question.
I decided to judge. I looked about to see if there were sharks. There were none. I turned on my stomach, and holding on to the tarpaulin, I slowly brought a leg down. My foot entered the sea. It was pleasingly cool. The island lay just a little further down, shimmering in the water. I stretched. I expected the bubble of illusion to burst at any second.
It did not. My foot sank into clear water and met the rubbery resistance of something flexible but solid. I put more weight down. The illusion would not give. I put my full weight on my foot. Still I did not sink. Still I did not believe.
Finally, it was my nose that was the judge of land. It came to my olfactory sense, full and fresh, overwhelming: the smell of vegetation. I gasped. After months of nothing but saltwater-bleached smells, this reek of vegetable organic matter was intoxicating. It was then that I believed, and the only thing that sank was my mind; my thought process became disjointed. My leg began to shake.