Life of Pi

four chairs. You sit where you can, with whoever is at a table. The coffee is good and they serve French toast. Conversation is easy to come by. And so, a spry, bright-eyed elderly man with great shocks of pure white hair was talking to me. I confirmed to him that Canada was cold and that French was indeed spoken in parts of it and that I liked India and so on and so forth—the usual light talk between friendly, curious Indians and foreign backpackers. He took in my line of work with a widening of the eyes and a nodding of the head. It was time to go. I had my hand up, trying to catch my waiter's eye to get the bill.
     
    Then the elderly man said, "I have a story that will make you believe in God."
     
    I stopped waving my hand. But I was suspicious. Was this a Jehovah's Witness knocking at my door? "Does your story take place two thousand years ago in a remote corner of the Roman Empire?" I asked.
     
    "No."
     
    Was he some sort of Muslim evangelist? "Does it take place in seventh-century Arabia?"
     
    "No, no. It starts right here in Pondicherry just a few years back, and it ends, I am delighted to tell you, in the very country you come from."
     
    "And it will make me believe in God?"
     
    "Yes."
     
    "That's a tall order."
     
    "Not so tall that you can't reach."
     
    My waiter appeared. I hesitated for a moment. I ordered two coffees. We introduced ourselves. His name was Francis Adirubasamy. "Please tell me your story," I said.
     
    "You must pay proper attention," he replied.
     
    "I will." I brought out pen and notepad.
     
    "Tell me, have you been to the botanical garden?" he asked.
     
    "I went yesterday."
     
    "Did you notice the toy train tracks?"
     
    "Yes, I did"
     
    "A train still runs on Sundays for the amusement of the children. But it used to run twice an hour every day. Did you take note of the names of the stations?"
     
    "One is called Roseville. It's right next to the rose garden."
     
    "That's right. And the other?"
     
    "I don't remember."
     
    "The sign was taken down. The other station was once called Zootown. The toy train had two stops: Roseville and Zootown. Once upon a time there was a zoo in the Pondicherry Botanical Garden."
     
    He went on. I took notes, the elements of the story. "You must talk to him," he said, of the main character. "I knew him very, very well. He's a grown man now. You must ask him all the questions you want."
     
    Later, in Toronto, among nine columns of Patels in the phone book, I found him, the main character. My heart pounded as I dialed his phone number. The voice that answered had an Indian lilt to its Canadian accent, light but unmistakable, like a trace of incense in the air. "That was a very long time ago," he said. Yet he agreed to meet. We met many times. He showed me the diary he kept during the events. He showed me the yellowed newspaper clippings that made him briefly, obscurely famous. He told me his story. All the while I took notes. Nearly a year later, after considerable difficulties, I received a tape and a report from the Japanese Ministry of Transport. It was as I listened to that tape that I agreed with Mr. Adirubasamy that this was, indeed, a story to make you believe in God.
     
    It seemed natural that Mr. Patel's story should be told mostly in the first person, in his voice and through his eyes. But any inaccuracies or mistakes are mine.
     
    I have a few people to thank. I am most obviously indebted to Mr. Patel. My gratitude to him is as boundless as the Pacific Ocean and I hope that my telling of his tale does not disappoint him. For getting me started on the story, I have Mr. Adirubasamy to thank. For helping me complete it, I am grateful to three officials of exemplary professionalism: Mr. Kazuhiko Oda, lately of the Japanese Embassy in Ottawa; Mr. Hiroshi Watanabe, of Oika Shipping Company; and, especially, Mr. Tomohiro Okamoto, of the Japanese Ministry of Transport, now retired. As for the spark of life, I owe it to Mr. Moacyr Scliar. Lastly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to that great institution, the Canada Council for the Arts, without whose grant I could not have brought together this story that has nothing to do with Portugal in 1939. If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.
     
     
     
     
    PART    ONE
     
     
    Toronto and Pondicherry
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER    I
     
    My