"'We're all alone, Piscine, all alone,' she said, in a tone that broke every hope in my body. I never felt so lonely in all my life as I did at that moment. We had been in the lifeboat two weeks already and it was taking its toll on us. It was getting harder to believe that Father and Ravi had survived.
"When we turned around, the cook was holding the leg by the ankle over the water to drain it. Mother brought her hand over the sailor's eyes.
"He died quietly, the life drained out of him like the liquid from his leg. The cook promptly butchered him. The leg had made for poor bait. The dead flesh was too decayed to hold on to the fishing hook; it simply dissolved in the water. Nothing went to waste with this monster. He cut up everything, including the sailor's skin and every inch of his
intestines. He even prepared his genitals. When he had finished with his torso, he moved on to his arms and shoulders and to his legs. Mother and I rocked with pain and horror. Mother shrieked at the cook, 'How can you do this, you monster? Where is your humanity? Have you no decency? What did the poor boy do to you? You monster! You monster!' The cook replied with unbelievable vulgarity.
"'At least cover his face, for God's sake!' cried my mother. It was unbearable to have that beautiful face, so noble and serene, connected to such a sight below. The cook threw himself upon the sailor's head and before our very eyes scalped him and pulled off his face. Mother and I vomited.
"When he had finished, he threw the butchered carcass overboard. Shortly after, strips of flesh and pieces of organs were lying to dry in the sun all over the boat. We recoiled in horror. We tried not to look at them. The smell would not go away.
"The next time the cook was close by, Mother slapped him in the face, a full hard slap that punctuated the air with a sharp crack. It was something shocking coming from my mother. And it was heroic. It was an act of outrage and pity and grief and bravery. It was done in memory of that poor sailor. It was to salvage his dignity.
"I was stunned. So was the cook. He stood without moving or saying a word as Mother looked him straight in the face. I noticed how he did not meet her eyes.
"We retreated to our private spaces. I stayed close to her. I was filled with a mix of rapt admiration and abject fear.
"Mother kept an eye on him. Two days later she saw him do it. He tried to be discreet, but she saw him bring his hand to his mouth. She shouted, 'I saw you! You just ate a piece! You said it was for bait! I knew it. You monster! You animal! How could you? He's human! He's your own kind!' If she had expected him to be mortified, to spit it out and break down and apologize, she was wrong. He kept chewing. In fact, he lifted his head up and quite openly put the rest of the strip in his mouth. 'Tastes like pork,' he muttered. Mother expressed her indignation and disgust by violently turning away. He ate another strip. 'I feel stronger already,' he muttered. He concentrated on his fishing.
"We each had our end of the lifeboat. It's amazing how willpower can build walls. Whole days went by as if he weren't there.
"But we couldn't ignore him entirely. He was a brute, but a practical brute. He was good with his hands and he knew the sea. He was full of good ideas. He was the one who thought of building a raft to help with the fishing. If we survived any time at all, it was thanks to him. I helped him as best I could. He was very short-tempered, always shouting at me and insulting me.
"Mother and I didn't eat any of the sailor's body, not the smallest morsel, despite the cost in weakness to us, but we did start to eat what the cook caught from the sea. My mother,
a lifelong vegetarian, brought herself to eat raw fish and raw turtle. She had a very hard time of it. She never got over her revulsion. It came easier to me. I found hunger improved the taste of everything.
"When your life has been given a reprieve, it's impossible not to feel some warmth for the one to whom you owe that reprieve. It was very exciting when the cook hauled aboard a turtle or caught a great big dorado. It made us smile broadly and there was a glow in our chests that lasted for hours. Mother and the cook talked in a civil way, even joked. During some spectacular sunsets, life on the boat was nearly good. At such times I looked at him with—yes—with tenderness. With love. I imagined that we were fast friends. He was a coarse man even when he was in a good mood, but we pretended not to notice it, even to ourselves. He said that we would come upon an island. That was our main hope. We exhausted our eyes scanning the horizon for an island that never came. That's when he stole food and water.
"The flat and endless Pacific rose like a great wall around us. I never thought we would get around it.
"He killed her. The cook killed my mother. We were starving. I was weak. I couldn't hold on to a turtle. Because of me we lost it. He hit me. Mother hit him. He hit her back. She turned to me and said, 'Go!' pushing me towards the raft. I jumped for it. I thought she was coming with me. I landed in the water. I scrambled aboard the raft. They were fighting. I did nothing but watch. My mother was fighting an adult man. He was mean and muscular. He caught her by the wrist and twisted it. She shrieked and fell. He moved over her. The knife appeared. He raised it in the air. It came down. Next it was up—it was red. It went up and down repeatedly. I couldn't see her. She was at the bottom of the boat. I saw only him. He stopped. He raised his head and looked at me. He hurled something my way. A line of blood struck me across the face. No whip could have inflicted a more painful lash. I held my mother's head in my hands. I let it go. It sank in a cloud of blood, her tress trailing like a tail. Fish spiralled down towards it until a shark's long grey shadow cut across its path and it vanished. I looked up. I couldn't see him. He was hiding at the bottom of the boat. He appeared when he threw my mother's body overboard. His mouth was red. The water boiled with fish.
"I spent the rest of that day and the night on the raft, looking at him. We didn't speak a word. He could have cut the raft loose. But he didn't. He kept me around, like a bad conscience.
"In the morning, in plain sight of him, I pulled on the rope and boarded the lifeboat. I was very weak. He said nothing. I kept my peace. He caught a turtle. He gave me its blood. He butchered it and laid its best parts for me on the middle bench. I ate.
"Then we fought and I killed him. He had no expression on his face, neither of despair nor of anger, neither of fear nor of pain. He gave up. He let himself be killed, though it was still a struggle. He knew he had gone too far, even by his bestial standards. He had
gone too far and now he didn't want to go on living any more. But he never said 'I'm sorry.' Why do we cling to our evil ways?
"The knife was all along in plain view on the bench. We both knew it. He could have had it in his hands from the start. He was the one who put it there. I picked it up. I stabbed him in the stomach. He grimaced but remained standing. I pulled the knife out and stabbed him again. Blood was pouring out. Still he didn't fall over. Looking me in the eyes, he lifted his head ever so slightly. Did he mean something by this? I took it that he did. I stabbed him in the throat, next to the Adam's apple. He dropped like a stone. And died. He didn't say anything. He had no last words. He only coughed up blood. A knife has a horrible dynamic power; once in motion, it's hard to stop. I stabbed him repeatedly. His blood soothed my chapped hands. His heart was a struggle—all those tubes that connected it. I managed to get it out. It tasted delicious, far better than turtle. I ate his liver. I cut off great pieces of his flesh.
"He was such an evil man. Worse still, he met evil in me—selfishness, anger, ruthlessness. I must live with that.
"Solitude began. I turned to God. I survived."
[Long silence]
"Is that better? Are there any parts you find hard to believe? Anything you'd like me to change?"
Mr. Chiba:
"What a korrible story."
[Long silence]
Mr. Okamoto: "Both the zebra and the Taiwanese sailor broke a leg, did you notice that?"
"No, I didn't."
"And the hyena bit off the zebra's leg just as the cook cut off the sailor's."
"Ohhh, Okamoto-san, you see a lot."
"Tke blind Frenchman they met in the other lifeboat—didn't he admit to killing a man and a woman?"
"Yes, he did."
"The cook killed the sailor and his mother"
"Very impressive."
"His stories match."
"So the Taiwanese sailor is the zebra, his mother is the orang-utan, the cook is ... the hyena — which means he is the tiger!"
"Yes. The tiger killed the hyena-and the blind Frenchman—just as he killed the cook."Pi Patel: "Do you have another chocolate bar?"
Mr. Chiba: "Right away!"
"Thank you."
Mr. Chiba:
"But what does it mean, Okamoto-san?"
"I have no idea."
"And what about those teeth? Whose teeth were those in the tree?"
"I don't know. I'm not inside this boy's head."[Long silence]
Mr. Okamoto: "Please excuse me for asking, but did the cook say anything about the sinking of the Tsimtsum?"
"In this other story?"
"Yes."
"He didn't."
"He made no mention of anything leading up to the early morning of July 2nd that might explain what happened?"
"No."
"Nothing of a nature mechanical or structural?"
"No."
"Nothing about other ships or objects at sea?"
"No."
"He could not explain the sinking of the Tsimtsum at all?"
"No"
"Could he say why it didn't send out a distress signal?"
"And if it had? In my experience, when a dingy, third-rate rust-bucket sinks, unless it has the luck of carrying oil, lots of it, enough to kill entire ecosystems, no one cares and no one hears about it. You're on your own."
"When Oika realized that something was wrong, it was too late. You were too far out for air rescue. Ships in the area were told to be on the lookout. They reported seeing nothing."
"And while we're on the subject, the ship wasn't the only thing that was third-rate. The crew were a sullen, unfriendly lot, hard at work when officers were around but doing nothing when they weren't. They didn't speak a word of English and they were of no help to us. Some of them stank of alcohol by mid-afternoon. Who's to say what those idiots did? The officers—"
"What do you mean by that?"
"By what?"
"'Who's to say what those idiots did?'"
"I mean that maybe in a fit of drunken insanity some of them released the animals."
Mr. Chiba: "Who had the keys to the cages?"
"Father did."
Mr. Chiba: "So how could the crew open the cages if they didn't have the keys?"
"I don't know. They probably used crowbars."
Mr. Chiba: "Why would they do that? Why would anyone want to release a dangerous wild animal from its cage?"
"I don't know. Can anyone fathom the workings of a drunken man's mind? All I can tell you is what happened. The animals were out of their cages."
Mr. Okamoto: "Excuse me. You have doubts about the fitness of the crew?"
"Grave doubts."
"Did you witness any of the officers being under the influence of alcohol?"
"No."
"But you saw some of the crew being under the influence of alcohol?"
"Yes."
"Did the officers act in what seemed to you a competent and professional manner?"
"They had little to do with us. They never came close to the animals."
"I mean in terms of running the ship."
"How should I know? Do you think we had tea with them every day? They spoke English, but they were no better than the crew. They made us feel unwelcome in the common room and hardly said a word to us during meals. They went on in Japanese, as if we weren't there. We were just a lowly Indian family with a bothersome cargo. We ended up eating on our own in Father and Mother's cabin. 'Adventure beckons!' said Ravi. That's what made it tolerable, our sense of adventure. We spent most of our time shovelling excrement and rinsing cages and giving feed while Father played the vet. So long as the animals were all right, we were all right. I don't know if the officers were competent."
"You said the ship was listing to port?"
"Yes."
"And that there was an incline from bow to stern?"
"Yes."
"So the ship sank stern first?"
"Yes."
"Not bow first?"
"No."
"You are sure? There was a slope from the front of the ship to the back?"
"Yes."
"Did the ship hit another ship?"
"I didn't see another ship."
"Did it hit any other object?"
"Not that I saw."
"Did it run aground?"
"No, it sank out of sight."
"You were not aware of mechanical problems after leaving Manila?"
"No."
"Did it appear to you that the ship was properly loaded?"
"It was my first time on a ship. I don't know what a properly loaded ship should look like."
"You believe you heard an explosion?"
"Yes."
"Any other noises?"
"A thousand."
"I mean that might explain the sinking."
"No."
"You said the ship sank quickly."
"Yes."
"Can you estimate how long it took?"
"It's hard to say. Very quickly. I would think less than twenty minutes."
"And there was a lot of debris?"
"Yes."
"Was the ship struck by a freak wave?"
"I don't think so."
"But there was a storm?"
"The sea looked rough to me. There was wind and rain."
"How high were the waves?"
"High. Twenty-five, thirty feet."
"That's quite modest, actually."
"Not when you're in a lifeboat."
"Yes, of course. But for a cargo ship."
"Maybe they were higher. I don't know. The weather was bad enough to scare me witless,
that's all I know for sure."
"You said the weather improved quickly. The ship sank and right after it was a beautiful
day, isn't that what you said?" "Yes."
"Sounds like no more than a passing squall."
"It sank the ship."
"That's what we're wondering."
"My whole family died."
"We're sorry about that."
"Not as much as I am."
"So what happened, Mr. Patel? We're puzzled.. Everything was normal and then...?" "Then normal sank."
"Why?"
"I don't know. You should be telling me. You're the experts. Apply your science."
"We don't understand."
[Long silence]
Mr. Chiba:
"Now what?"
Mr. Okamoto: "We give up. The explanation for the sinking of the Tsimtsum is at the
bottom of the Pacific."
[Long silence]
Mr. Okamoto: "Yes, that's it. Let's go. Well, Mr. Patel, I think we have all
we need. We thank you very much for your cooperaticon. You've been very, very
helpful."
"You're welcome. But before you go, I'd like to ask you something."
"Yes?"
"The Tsimtsum sank on July 2nd, 1977."
"Yes."
"And I arrived on the coast of Mexico, the sole human surviwor of the Tsimtsum, on
February 14th, 1978."
"That's right."
"I told you two stories that account for the 227 days in between."
"Yes, you did."
"Neither explains the sinking of the Tsimtsum."
"That's right."
"Neither makes a factual difference to you."
"That's true."
"You can't prove which story is true and which is not. You must take my word for it."
"I guess so."
"In both stories the ship sinks, my entire family dies, and I suffer."
"Yes, that's true."
"So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question
either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or
the story without animals?"
Mr. Okamoto: "That's an interesting question..."
Mr. Chiba: "The story with animals."
Mr. Okamoto:
"Yes. The story with animals is the better
story."
Pi Patel: "Thank you. And so it goes with God."
[Silence] Mr. Chiba:
"What did he just say?"
Mr. Okamoto: "I don't know."
Mr. Chiba: "Oh look—he's crying."[Long silence]
Mr. Okamoto: "We'll be careful when we drive away. We don't want to run into Richard
Parker."
Pi Patel: "Don't worry, you won't. He's hiding somewhere you'll never find him."
Mr. Okamoto: "Thank you for taking the time to talk to us, Mr. Patel. We're grateful. And
we're really very sorry about what happened to you."
"Thank you."
"What will you be doing now?" "I guess I'll go to Canada."
"Not back to India?"
"No. There's nothing there for me now. Only sad memories."
"Of course, you know you will be getting insurance money."
"Oh."
"Yes. Oika will be in touch with you."
[Silence]
Mr. Okamoto: "We should be going. We wish you all the best, Mr. Patel."
Mr. Chiba: "Yes, all the best."
"Thank you."
Mr. Okamoto: "Goodbye."
Mr. Chiba: "Goodbye."
Pi Patel: "Would you like some cookies for the road?"
Mr. Okamoto: "That would be nice."
"Here, have three each."
"Thank you."
Mr. Chiba: "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Goodbye. God be with you, my brothers."
"Thank you. And with you too, Mr. Patel."
Mr. Chiba: "Goodbye."
Mr. Okamoto:
"I'm starving. Let's go eat. You can turn that
off."CHAPTER IOO
Mr. Okamoto, in his letter to me, recalled the interrogation as having been "difficult and
memorable." He remembered Piscine Molitor Patel as being "very thin, very tough, very
bright."
His report, in its essential part, ran as follows:
Sole survivor could shed no light on reasons for sinking of Tsimtsum. Ship appears to
have sunk very quickly, which would indicate a major hull breach. Important quantity of
debris would support this theory. But precise reason of breach impossible to determine.
No major weather disturbance reported that day in quadrant. Survivor's assessment of
weather impressionistic and unreliable. At most, weather a contributing factor. Cause was
perhaps internal to ship. Survivor believes he heard an explosion, hinting at a majorp
engine problem, possibly the explosion of a boiler, but this is speculation. Ship twentynine
years old (Erlandson and Skank Shipyards, Malmo, 1948), refitted in 1970. Stress of
weather combined with structural fatigue a possibility, but conjecture. No other ship
mishap reported in area on that day, so ship-ship collision unlikely. Collision with debris
a possibility, but unverifiable. Collision with a floating mine might explain explosion, but
seems fanciful, besides highly unlikely as sinking started at stern, which in all likelihood
would mean that hull breach was at stern too. Survivor cast doubts on fitness of crew but
had nothing to say about officers. Oika Shipping Company claims all cargo absolutely
licit and not aware of any officer or crew problems.
Cause of sinking impossible to determine from available evidence. Standard insurance
claim procedure for Oika. No further action required. Recommend that case be closed.
As an aside, story of sole survivor, Mr. Piscine Molitor Patel, Indian citizen, is an
astounding story of courage and endurance in the face of extraordinarily difficult and tragic circumstances. In the experience of this investigator, his story is unparalleled in the
history of shipwrecks. Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as
Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.
YANN MARTEL was born in Spain in 1963. After studying philosophy at Trent
University and doing various odd jobs, he began to write. He is the prize-winning author
of The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, a collection of short stories, and of Self, a
novel, both of them published internationally. He lives in Montreal.
必读网（http://www.beduu.com）整理
