I know what pleasure is, and this isn’t it. Pleasure is a great thing. Like making love, for example. That won’t happen to me anymore. Because who would want to have anything to do with me, for a start. And because I can’t do it anymore. How can you move even a fraction with a body that weighs four hundred pounds? Can you imagine, since I’ve been in Iraq I’ve put on over two hundred pounds. Forty pounds a year. And it’s not over. I’ll be here another eighteen months, time enough to put on seventy pounds. That’s assuming I stop putting on weight when I get home. Like a lot of American soldiers, I’m a bulimic who can’t throw up. In these conditions, losing weight is the last thing imaginable.
Two hundred pounds is already a huge person. I’m richer by one whole huge person now. Since she came and joined me here, I’ve been calling her Scheherazade. It’s not very kind to the real Scheherazade, who must have been a slender creature. But I’d rather identify her with one person and not two, and with a woman rather than a man, probably because I’m heterosexual. Besides, I like the idea of Scheherazade. She speaks to me all night long. She knows I can’t make love anymore, so instead of doing it with me she charms me with her beautiful stories. I’ll let you in on my secret: it’s thanks to Scheherazade’s storytelling that I can live with my obesity. I don’t need to make you a drawing to show you what would happen to me if the guys found out I gave the name of a woman to my fat. But I know that you won’t judge me. You have a few obese characters in your books, and the way you portray them they never lack dignity. And in your books they make up strange legends, like Scheherazade, to be able to go on living.
It’s as if she were the one writing this letter. I can’t get her to stop. I’ve never written such a long message in my life, which proves it’s not me. I hate my obesity, but I love Scheherazade. At night when my weight presses down my chest, I imagine it’s not me but a beautiful young woman lying on my body. I immerse myself in the story and I can hear her sweet feminine voice murmuring indescribable things in my ear. Then my fat arms squeeze her flesh and it’s so convincing that instead of feeling my own flab, I am touching a lover’s smooth skin. At times like that, believe me, I am happy. Better still: we are happy, she and I, the way only lovers can be.
It’s not like it’s protecting me from anything: you can die from obesity, it does happen, and since I’m going to go on putting on weight, it will catch up with me sooner or later. But if Scheherazade will have me right to the end, I’ll die a happy man. That’s all. Scheherazade and I wanted to tell you this story.
Sincerely,
Melvin Mapple
Paris, March 10, 2009
Dear Melvin Mapple,
Thank you for this incredible missive of yours, which I have just read and reread with stupefaction and wonder. What you have just told me leaves me speechless. The more I think about it, the more disgusted, amazed, and dazzled I am. May I ask you both, you and Scheherazade, to tell me this story over and over again? I have never read anything like it.
Best wishes,
Amélie Nothomb
I waited feverishly for Melvin’s next epistle. I was bombarded with the most extraordinary images: one minute I saw Iraqis being blown to bits, explosions shattering my skull, then a minute later it was American soldiers stuffing their faces so traumatizingly that their bellies were reproducing the explosions on the front line. I could see portliness gaining ground, then defenses lost one after the other as the next size up gradually became indispensable, an entire front line of fat inching its way across the map. The US Army was swelling, growing ever larger, like a gigantic larva absorbing some indistinct substance, maybe its Iraqi victims. One of the military units is the corps—which in French means body—and what I was seeing must have been a body, insofar as one can use this word to refer to an efflorescence of fat. Then again, in English, corpse means a dead body. In French, that is only one meaning for the word corps. Is an obese body a living body? The only proof it has that it is still alive is that it goes on getting fat. Such is the logic of obesity.
Then I imagined someone who might be Melvin Mapple, lying on his back and suffocating in the night. I worked out that of the two hundred pounds he’d put on, the weight located in the chest and belly must represent roughly half: one hundred and ten pounds for Scheherazade was a credible size, so I could believe in the existence of a lover lying over his heart. And I could picture their idyll, their intimate conversations, the blossoming of love in the place they least expected it. In six years of war there had been well over a thousand and one nights.
We have known, since Pascal, that “he who would act the angel acts the beast.” Melvin Mapple was adding his own version: he who would act the beast acts the angel. To be sure, his story was not solely a tale of angelism, far from it. But the power of this vision which enabled my correspondent to endure something so intolerable was deserving of respect.
Among the people who came up to me at the Paris Book Fair to ask me to sign their books was an obese young woman. By then I was so contaminated by Melvin’s letters that the young girl seemed almost frail to me, as she nestled in the embrace of the Romeo holding fast to her body.
Baghdad, March 17, 2009
Dear Amélie Nothomb,
I was touched by your reaction. But I hope you aren’t exaggerating the lyrical side of my situation. You know, even if Obama is president, the war is not over. It won’t be over until our opponents think it’s over, too. For as long as we’re here, we’ll be in danger. It’s true the terrible assaults that made me bulimic have come to an end. But even a small offensive makes us targets again; there are still soldiers in our ranks who are getting killed. That’s because the people here have it in for us, and no doubt they have good reason.
Obese folks like me always get sent to the front. It’s pointless for me to explain why, it’s dead obvious: a fat man makes the best human shield. A normal body might protect a single individual, but mine protects two or three. Especially as our presence acts as a lightning rod: the Iraqis are so hungry, it’s as if our obesity is mocking them, so we’re the ones they want to target first and foremost.
I am convinced that the American leaders want the same thing. That’s the reason, too, why the obese soldiers are bound to stay here until Obama decides on the final day: to increase the probability of our demise. After every conflict, there have been soldiers suffering from all sorts of abominable pathologies who go home and guilt trip the entire country. But their afflictions were usually so special that the population could always blame them on everything about war that surpasses human understanding.
Obesity, on the other hand, is nothing peculiar in America, it’s just pathetic. Although it is a disease, most ordinary folk rarely view it as one, and they talk about us in terms that imply we’re still doing all right. The US Army can put up with a lot, except being grotesque. “You had a rough time? It doesn’t look like it!” or “What else did you do in Iraq besides eat?” are the sort of remarks we’ll be met with. We’re in for a real hard time with public opinion. The US Army thinks it’s imperative to project a virile image of brute strength and courage. But with our obesity we’ve been landed with enormous breasts and buttocks, and that projects a female image of softness and cowardice.
The corporals tried to put us on a diet. No way: our gluttony has made us capable of anything. Food is a drug like any other and it is easier to deal doughnuts than coke. They imposed a period of food prohibition on us but we only got even fatter than under normal circumstances. Once they lifted the embargo on food our weight gain went right back to cruising speed.
Let’s talk about drugs, while we’re at it: modern warfare is unbearable without drugs. In Vietnam our boys had opium, and say what you like about it, it’s not nearly as habit-forming as my own addiction to pastrami sandwiches. When the boys got home in the sixties and seventies, none of them went on with their opium habit—opium’s pretty hard to come by in the States. When
we go home, how are we supposed to wean ourselves off junk food when you can find it anywhere? Our leaders would have done better to hand out the opium, at least we wouldn’t be obese now. Food is the most harmful, addictive drug there is.
They say you’re supposed to eat to live. Well, we’re eating to die. It’s the only form of suicide we have at our disposal. We’re so enormous that we hardly seem human, and yet the most human guys among us are the ones who have foundered in overeating. Some guys can put up with the monstrosity of war without ever getting sick. I don’t admire them. That’s not bravery, it’s a lack of sensitivity on their part.
There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And even supposing there were some doubts on the matter, there’s no doubt anymore. The whole conflict has been a scandalous injustice. I’m not trying to exonerate myself. I might be less guilty than George W. Bush and his gang, but I’m guilty all the same. I took part in the horror, I killed soldiers, I killed civilians. I blew up places where people lived, and women and children died because of me.
Sometimes I tell myself that Scheherazade is one of those unseen Iraqi women I massacred. No metaphor intended, I assume the burden of my crime. I can consider myself lucky, Scheherazade would have plenty of good reasons to hate me. But when night falls I get the feeling that she loves me. Go figure: I hate my fat and all day long it torments me. To live with this burden is a torture, my victims haunt me. Yet in this mountain of flesh there is Scheherazade, and after lights out she brings me love. Does she know that I am probably her murderer? That’s what I murmured to her in reply to some of her declarations. It doesn’t seem to have bothered her. Love is a mystery.
I hate being in Baghdad. But I don’t really feel like going back to Baltimore. I haven’t told my family that I have put on over two hundred pounds, and I’m terrified at how they might react. No way can I go on a diet. I don’t want to lose Scheherazade. If I lost weight it would be like killing her all over again. If my punishment for this war crime is to carry my victim with me as a mound of flesh, then so be it. First of all because justice will have been done, and then because in some inexplicable way it makes me happy. And I’m not being masochistic either, that’s not my style.
In the States, back when I was thin, I had quite a few affairs with women. They were generous, no cause for complaint. Sometimes I even fell in love. As everyone knows, the height of earthly happiness is to make love with a woman you love. Well, what I experience with Scheherazade is even better. Is it because she shares my intimacy in the most concrete way? Or is it simply because it’s her?
If my existence consisted only of nights, I would be the happiest man on earth. But daytime overwhelms me, in the strictest sense of the term. I have to carry this body around; there’s no exaggerating what an ordeal it is to be obese. Even the slaves who built the pyramids did not have burdens as heavy as mine, because I can never put it down even for a moment. The simple joy of walking with a light step, without feeling crushed, is something I really miss. I feel like shouting out and telling normal people to make the most of this unbelievable privilege they don’t even seem to be aware of: they can frolic around, carefree, and enjoy the dance of the most ordinary movements. And to think there are people who complain that they have to walk to the store, or that it takes them ten minutes to get to the Metro station!
But the shame is the worst thing of all. What saves me is the fact I’m not the only obese one here. Solidarity with the other fat soldiers keeps me from sinking into despair. I can’t imagine any worse suffering than having to put up with the way people stare, or their remarks, or the way they pick on you. I don’t know how I used to behave in the old days when I would meet a fatty: did I act like a bastard toward them, too? People always feel smug; they assume that if people are fat they must have been asking for it, you don’t get fat for no reason, so come on, boys, we have every right to make them pay, they’re not innocent.
It’s true, I’m not innocent. Either psychologically or physically. I’ve committed war crimes, I’ve been stuffing my face like a monster. But no one is better qualified to judge me than I myself. Our ranks are made up of murderers like me. If they haven’t gotten fat, it just goes to show that their misdeeds are not weighing on their conscience. They are worse than I am.
When my buddies and I pork out, the thin soldiers shout at us: “Fuck, guys, stop it! You’re disgusting, just watching you eat makes us feel like puking!” We don’t say anything, but we talk about it among ourselves: they’re the ones, when they’ve just finished massacring civilians, who go on with life as if nothing has changed, they don’t even show any signs of trauma. There are people who stick up for them, saying that they must be suffering from some secret sickness. As if a secret sickness could atone for crimes that are anything but secret! At least we put our guilt right out there on display. Our remorse isn’t discreet. Isn’t that one way of showing our consideration toward the people we have hurt so badly?
Among ourselves we hate being called fat, so we call each other saboteurs. Our obesity is a wonderful, spectacular act of sabotage. We are costing the Army a lot of money. Our food is cheap, but we eat such terrifying amounts that the bill must be pretty steep. Which is perfect, it’s the government’s treat. At one point there was this complaint from the Quartermaster Corps, so the bosses decided they would make us pay if we had more than two helpings. Unfortunately for them they didn’t test their scheme on a nice guy, but on our buddy Bozo, who is your nasty fat man par excellence. You should have seen Bozo’s face when the guard handed him the bill! Bozo made him eat it. Can you believe it! And when he had swallowed it, Bozo shouted, “Consider yourself lucky. If you ever do that again, I’m the one who’ll eat you.” The issue never came up again.
We cost them a lot in clothes, too: every month we have to change uniforms, because we can’t fit in the ones we have anymore. We can’t button the pants or the shirt. Apparently the Army had to design a new size: XXXXL. I can’t tell you how proud we are. I hope they’ll come out with a XXXXXL, because why should we stop when we’re on a roll like this. Just between you and me, if they weren’t so stupid, they would invent a stretch uniform. I talked about it with the guy in charge of equipment and this is what he said: “No way. The notion of stretch is contrary to the military doctrine. Your clothes have to be stiff, made of non-extensible fabric. Elasticity is our enemy.” I thought we were at war with Iraq, and now I find out we’re at war with latex.
We cost them a lot in terms of health care. When you’re obese, there’s always something wrong somewhere. Most of us have heart trouble now: we have to take medication for it. And stuff for high blood pressure. The worst was when they wanted to operate on us. What a screwup. They had this surgeon come from the States, some guy renowned for gastric band surgery: they compress your stomach in a sort of band and you’re not hungry anymore. But they don’t have the right to insert this thing against your will, and none of us went along with it. We want to be hungry! Food is our drug, our safety valve, we don’t want to lose interest in it. You should have seen the surgeon’s face when he saw he had no takers. Then the corporals found the weakest link, this guy called Iggy, who visibly had a bigger complex about his weight than we did. They started by getting him all depressed, showing him pictures of what he used to look like: “You were dead handsome, Iggy, when you were thin! What will your girlfriend say when you get back? She won’t want anything to do with you!” Iggy broke down, and they operated on him. It worked, he lost weight like crazy. Except that the famous surgeon was pissed he didn’t have more success, so he went back to Florida. Not long afterward the gastric band fucked up, it moved, and they had to perform an emergency operation on Iggy. The military surgeons botched it and the poor guy died. Apparently it’s inevitable, unless you’re a specialist in this operation, there’s no way to do it properly. They should have brought the guy back from Florida, but he wouldn’t have gotten there in time. In short, Iggy’s family filed a la
wsuit against the US Army and they won, no problem. The government had to give Iggy’s parents a colossal amount of money.
So we are costing them a lot in legal fees, too. Iggy’s story gave people ideas. After all, we are all obese because of George W. Bush. I know plenty of guys who will be litigious when they get home. Not me. I’d rather not have anything to do with those folks. They’re criminals: in the name of a lie, they sent thousands of innocent people to their death, and they’ve ruined the lives of the ones who have survived.
I wish I could do them more harm. Unfortunately I belong to a fairly inoffensive species. If anything, eating is still the best way for me to sabotage the system. The problem is the kamikaze nature of my act: I’m not really hitting the target, I’m destroying myself is more like it.
Still, I’m pretty proud of my latest victory: I can’t get into a tank anymore. The hatch is too narrow. So much the better, I always hated being in those things, they make you claustrophobic, and you’re not as well protected as you think.
Have you seen how long my letter is? I can’t get over how much I’ve written. I needed it. I hope I haven’t been force-feeding you.
Sincerely,
Melvin Mapple
As a rule, I’m not wild about lengthy missives. They are usually the least interesting kind. For over sixteen years I have been getting such a huge amount of mail that I have involuntarily developed an instinctive and experimental theory about the epistolary art. Plus, I have observed that the best letters are never longer than two two-sided letter size pages. (I insist on the two-sided: a love of forests obliges one to be opisthographic. Those who refuse to comply, in the name of some old rule of politeness, have strange priorities.) It’s not absurd, it is disrespectful to imagine one has more than that to say, and the lack of courtesy does not make one interesting. Madame de Sévigné put it very well: “Forgive me, I do not have time to be brief.” But she’s a very poor illustration of my theory: her epistles are always fascinating.