Life of Pi

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