Yann Martel - Life of Pi

“I’m barely holding on.”

The voice faded. I was trembling with nausea. Madness in the mind was one thing, but it was not fair that it should go to the stomach.

Understanding suddenly dawned on me.

“Would you eat bleeding raw beef?” I asked.

“Of course! I love tartar steak.”

“Would you eat the congealed blood of a dead pig?”

“Every day, with apple sauce!”

“Would you eat anything from an animal, the last remains?”

“Scrapple and sausage! I’d have a heaping plate!”

“How about a carrot? Would you eat a plain, raw carrot?”

There was no answer.

“Did you not hear me? Would you eat a carrot?”

“I heard you. To be honest, if I had the choice, I wouldn’t. I don’t have much of a stomach for that kind of food. I find it quite distasteful.”

I laughed. I knew it. I wasn’t hearing voices. I hadn’t gone mad. It was Richard Parker who was speaking to me! The carnivorous rascal. All this time together and he had chosen an hour before we were to die to pipe up. I was elated to be on speaking terms with a tiger. Immediately I was filled with a vulgar curiosity, the sort that movie stars suffer from at the hands of their fans.

“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 Française 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.