Paul Theroux - O-Zone

When she was active — striding to the windows, or hurrying to the bathroom — he remembered how he had first seen her like this, on the original tape, shining on the screen in Fizzy's room after they had unlocked that film cartridge; how, seeing her running in the dry woods of O-Zone, among the thin trees, he had decided to hunt her and capture her and bring her back.

He could not explain his helpless urge to watch her. Calling it voyeurism merely turned it into a decadent passion. And that was inaccurate, because it was not fulfillment but rather the most intense form of waiting. Watching her prolonged his ecstasy, and gave him the element he valued most in sensuality, which was suspense. Photography was foreplay, and it sometimes seemed to him the gentlest sexuality imaginable. It was also, with Bligh, a longing in him for a simpler world — the one she had inhabited: the past. The activity took hold of him and thrilled him. He was discovering another man inside himself, and this creature, a kind of timid twin, surprised him as he emerged: not a beast, but a patient kindly soul, who was bewitched by a little girl. And he thought: I'm the one who is trapped — not she.

There was also something pathetic in this watching and filming — he knew that, too. You filmed the thing you could not have. You had it this way — just the narrow image of her flashing like a fire on the screen: her body always looked so hot to him. Then it all went black, and he was alone. He had other moments of supreme confidence, when he felt they would never be parted, and when he saw them both much older in New York or elsewhere, still in love. He counted it as a measure of his love that no other person entered that imagining: he and Bligh were alone, needing only each other. Their love was not a way of making other friends, or trying out other lives. He had hope.

But just as often he felt panic — the idea that he was filming Bligh so that he would have something of her to hold on to long after she was gone: this image. He knew that if he had had no doubts he would have taken things as they came and allowed himself the rest of his life to love her. But he watched her, he filmed her, he kept his distance, he burned; and he suspected that he was running out of time.

He had once thought that it would all be simple, because she was an alien. Now he knew that nothing would ever be simple, because she was an alien.

His fortune, his future, all his time, and all his hopes were concentrated on his success with this young girl. For her he had risked a jail sentence, and following her he had trespassed in a Prohibited Area. He had left Fizzy behind in the wilderness for her. Taking her away, he had abandoned the boy.

In the morning he worked at his console, doing Allbright business — messages to his employees around the country, directives and memos to the managers. And still he watched her: rising, bathing, dressing, eating, undressing, squatting, roosting, dozing. He knew all her secrets, and at times she seemed fascinated by her own body, the way she sniffed and peered. It seemed as though she had begun to enjoy the complacencies of captivity.

He said, "I want to feed you," and gave her lunch. Her breasts moved when she chewed. In the afternoon they used the whirlpool bath, or the hothouse, or the sleep chamber.

He made films of this; he watched them after she went to her suite to sleep, and then he watched her sleeping.

A rigid schedule was important, because these days they did not go out. It was easy in the tower to lose track of time and turn day into night. Fizzy had lapsed into that lonely pattern of reversal many times before — it was the hazard of living indoors, a sort of sleepwalking, nighthawk life. But Hooper had always been careful, and he was careful now. A week after their return from Africa they were still keeping to regular hours, rising at dawn and dividing the day into four parts.

And still he went on monitoring her. He made copies and often watched them again the same day, and he stored the copies. He was glad she did not ask to go out. His watching had given him lately a powerful sense of possession. He did not want anyone else to see her — not now.

She slept naked, tumbling weightlessly in bed. She woke up quickly, at first light, and always seemed startled by her surroundings. Then she smiled, cursing softly in wonderment at the smoky dawn — and talked to herself, "Get smart, girlie," or something similar. She did stretching exercises very slowly, one limb at a time, and she growled in a way that always reminded Hooper of Fizzy's harsh catlike yawns.

Hooper had his favorite moments of watching her, but the best of the day was when she woke and winced at the light and remembered that she was in this pleasant tower. He hoped she was thinking of him at that moment, as she smiled and seemed to breathe Alive!

Her suite was full of mirrors, so that Hooper missed nothing. But neither did she miss anything of herself. She was obviously not used to mirrors, at least not ones this size. She found herself funny — teased herself and made faces. Sometimes her reflection seemed to arouse her sexually — she was less mature than her reflection — and that fleeting narcissism in her aroused Hooper more than he had ever known.

To start the morning she paced naked to the window and flung the blinds open and stretched some more — and more dance steps, pawing the floor and flexing her shoulders and scratching herself. She drank water thirstily in a neat licking way and then padded to the bathroom and stood in the tub and made a wishbone of her legs — arched her back and pushed and pissed hard into the drain. She washed in the tub after that, a shower, and then brushed her hair and dressed. By the time they met for breakfast she was a subdued and slightly different person from the swimmer who had surfaced on the bed.

That was what kept Hooper watching her this way: he loved the panting energy of the prowling youngster in the room, and he felt he knew her better than the shy and rather quiet and womanish girl who joined him for meals.

"I hardly see you," she said, biting an apple. "I don't know what I'm doing here!"

He felt he was taking a great risk saying. "Go if you want—"

"You're very kind to me," she said in a puzzled way.

His guilt stung him, and he hated his secrets. He wanted to tell her everything. That we are most ourselves when we are alone. That we are at our most natural when we are hidden, and that this is all a rehearsal. That for the pleasure of suspense he had been watching her closely on the monitor. That he loved her.

But just the word "love" frightened her — or else she raised her face at him and tried to repel the word with a laugh.

"I think you're rich," she said.

"Real apples. Real meat. Real vegetables. Potatoes with real dirt on them! Real firewood. Leather boots," he said. All his boasts had become jokes. "My own car!"

Yet she saw he was serious.

She said, "I never see anyone else at the swimming pool."

"I own that swimming pool," he said. "Here you can have anything you want."

"I can't swim," she said.

"I'll teach you," he said.

But another question forming in her eyes remained unasked.

She was still somewhat timid and obedient with him, and after the meal she quietly returned to her suite. She kicked off her slippers and became the prowling little girl again, and he became the hidden watcher.

He had only guessed from a few glimpses about her reaction to mirrors, but he soon realized that he had been right. Today, not long after she left him, she caught sight of herself in a full-length mirror, and lingered and teased herself. Then she went into a corner and lay on her side, facing the wall, with her legs drawn-up and slowly scissoring. Her hands were clasped between her thighs, and she began chafing herself and uttering low sorrowing moans. Then she struggled with herself, and became frantic, as if she were being stabbed to death — each knife blow was distinct until they were too quick to see. And she died, too, but came alive some minutes later, looking shattered.