Wherever You Go, You Take Yourself With You by K.

1.

The kids were cheering, and he couldn’t understand that at all. What had he ever done to them? He searched their faces, saw no hint of recognition there. And as the pebble presaging the avalanche fell into his guts, Brian’s fist connected with his stomach and he was bent in half and a cupful of vomit burst from his mouth. Laughter rose around him like the flames of an auto-da-fe. He wondered if Brian would go away if he just stayed down on all fours. He didn’t wonder long. Brian’s hands grabbed Jerry’s shoulders and he pulled him up. For a whisper of a second, Jerry thought that it was over, that Brian was letting him know that there were no hard feelings . . . wolf bares throat and lives. And then Brian’s fist connected with Jerry’s jaw, and Jerry fell to the ground and lay there. Blackness punctuated by silver flashes filled his vision, but he could still hear the laughter.

When he could see again, Brian was gone, the others were gone. Jerry was looking into a puddle of water and probing his mouth with his tongue. There was blood, but all of his teeth felt intact. He felt no pressing urge to get to his feet, not even when it began to rain. He just watched the raindrops merging into the puddle, and it made him feel like laughing. A gentle rain. He thought of Ray Bradbury’s Venus. A soft rain.

He caught a glimpse of something in the puddle then.1 A glimmer of light. He wanted to touch it, but was afraid. Unlike most of his schoolmates, Jerry had no desire to hurt anyone. Even now, no anger coiled about his spine, no venom splashed into the engine of his heart. Again there was that glimmer of light, the quick movement of something very tiny and fragile . . . like a newly fertilized egg.

He couldn’t stop himself. Jerry reached out a cupped hand and caught the glimmer of light. He closed his fingers tightly so that the water would not escape. And then he lifted his hand from the water, rose to his feet, and walked home very carefully. The rain helped to keep his cupped hand full. But with each step he took, he felt a new pain begin to chaff at his being. 2

2.

Jerry opened his wallet and pulled out the picture of Susan and Kris and Toni. Underneath it was an older picture with Susan and Melissa, and beneath that an even older picture of Susan and Jerry, awkwardly smiling newlyweds. 3 Then the cab was pulling up in front of the hotel and he was getting out, trading money for his suitcase, and moving into the hotel lobby. The suitcase felt strange in his hand, but before the thought registered in his consciousness, the desk clerk was leaning towards him, mouthing something inane. Jerry looked away from the man and put the suitcase on the floor, pulled a credit card out of his wallet and extended it to the strange man . He felt the urge to hit him.
“Jerry Tuvalu. 4 I’ve got a reservation.”
The clerk leaned toward Jerry, his mouth opening as if to taste him, but Jerry anticipated his question and spelled his last name, then repeated his first name. The clerk seemed saddened by this, settled back into himself and typed on his keypad.
“Ah, yes. Mr. Tuvalu. Room 4040 5, if that will suit.”
“Sure, that’s fine,” Jerry replied, but before he could escape the clerk was leaning toward him again and saying, “Can I get someone to help you with your bag? It looks terribly heavy and—”
“No, it’s okay. I’ve—“ Jerry interrupted, and for a moment they were singing a cacophonous duet.
“—you seem to be . . . leaking something.”
“—got it. What?” Jerry almost shouted, looked down at the floor and saw that the clerk was right, that there was a puddle of water on the floor beside his suitcase. Had it been raining when he came in? he wondered wildly, but when he looked out the front window it was, of course, a dark, dry night.
“No, I’ve got it,” Jerry said, grabbing the key and picking the suitcase up in both hands, turning it so that it was sideways, then he ran for the elevator, banging the up button with his elbow. The doors opened almost immediately and he stepped in, hit the button for the fortieth floor, and tried to calm himself.

3.

It was dry. 6 The sound a little girl 7 might make when her cat shook her canary by the neck escaped from his fifty year-old throat, and his mouth immediately went slack. Sweat burst from his forehead. He turned and ran into the bathroom, pulled up the stopper in the tub and turned both hot and cold water on full blast, then ran back to the bed and gently picked up the suitcase, took it into the bathroom and lowered it onto the surface of the water, then pushed down on the edges until it was submerged. 8 He let go and it stayed down, under the water, and after a minute he checked the temperature with his wrist and turned off both faucets. There was no movement in the water. He slumped against the wall and cried, gritting his teeth so that he would make no sound. He felt himself slipping away, sleep stealing over him as irresistibly as a solar eclipse, his heart pummeling him into complete submission.

If she was dead . . .


4.

His father had been a Kirby man. He was proud to sell the finest vacuum cleaner ever made, and when he delivered on a sale he would spend an hour, sometimes more, demonstrating each of the attachments that were included in the cardboard armoire that accompanied the machine. Something beyond the obvious lived inside of that box, curled up like a genie in the corners, and when he showed the housewife (it was always a housewife in those days) the proper function 9 of each attachment, he felt something expand inside of his lungs. Most of the housewives sensed this as wild joy, as a happiness beyond anything contained in their mediocre days, and they were often inclined to allow him to demonstrate his other skills. He told these stories to Jerry when his son was only six years old, and though he could not understand them, they anchored little Jerry even when the vast waves of grief and loss pummeled him at night, even when he missed his mother and his sister with a ferocity that insisted that he obliterate himself. He longed to grow up and be like his father.

But he could not. Something inside him . . . or almost inside of him, hovering near like a guardian angel . . . made him turn away from the girls who smiled at him in high school and his one year of college. He looked at them and saw the broken bodies of his mother and sister wrapped up in the twisted metal of the family car. Their smiles made him feel nauseous, and he fled from them, sought refuge in his room with the locked door and an aquarium which did not contain a fish.

5.

She grew to be very beautiful, but not large. Jerry’s room was inviolate, so this was no need for disguise or subterfuge there. His father never even came up the stairs to the second floor—where his old bedroom and Janey’s old bedroom were left unattended, unchanged.

And as she grew, she began to sing. At first Jerry could not make out the words, but her song soothed him to sleep at night and gently awakened him in the morning. Her song filled him with joy.

Until one day when he began to understand. “The sea,” he heard, and he leaned close to the glass and looked into her pale blue eyes, saw the longing there, and felt anger grip him and throw him from the room.

She did not relent. “I need the sea” was the first complete phrase he heard her sing, and his anger made him want to break the glass and let her die. The ingratitude of it overwhelmed him. He had rescued her, he thought. He had nourished her and cared for her, and she wanted to leave him.

“No!” she sang, “I need the sea.”

He married Susan because he thought that it would hurt her. It was difficult to find a place to hide her, but she seemed to be happy for him, and she smiled when he told her. And then she folded her hands against her small breasts, held her tail in a rigid, downward sweep, and sang, “Please, Jerry . . . I need the sea.”

He gritted his teeth and snorted contemptuously.

6.

That was when he first thought of the suitcase. He fitted a plastic bag inside of it, reinforced the opening with duct tape so that no leakage was possible, and made a small area for clothes to hide the bag. There would be no fear of discovery . . . a fear which intensified with the arrival of the children, one and three years later. He carried her with him as a punishment, though he would not allow himself to admit to that. If he had simply not wanted her to be discovered, it would have been easier to give her what she asked for, what she so desperately needed.

7.

When he swam back to consciousness and looked into the suitcase he saw that she was dead. Years of traveling had not killed her, but a moment of neglect had done the trick. She was gone, and the world was empty. He wondered how the bag had been punctured, examined the plastic carefully . . . found the tear . . . .

8.

That night, Jerry ordered room service for the first time in his life. He ordered a steak, very rare, and a bottle of Turnbull Cab. When the tray arrived at his room he tipped the young man fifty dollars—all of the cash he had in his wallet. He lit a candle and burned his credit cards as he drank the wine and picked at the steak. And then he stripped himself naked and dumped the food from the plate into the trashcan, washed it in the bathroom sink, and then placed her carefully dried body onto the empty plate.

When he had finished eating, he began to pray for the first time since his mother had died. 10






Annotations

1 It’s too early for you to know this, but that’s what annotations are for, after all. This is the beginning—and what’s in the puddle was created by the violence perpetrated against Jerry. I’m thinking of this in terms of the way character is generally formed—there are events in our lives which have such a large impact upon us that they change our being. In The God of Small Things, this is often caused by tragedy and misfortune. For instance, the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man incident occupies only a small part of the novel . . . and accounts for only a few moments of time in young Estha’s life. But references to that character spread across the work: from the first, on page 3, to the last, on page 276. It’s pretty clear that this incident of abuse changed Estha drastically—in fact, this is overtly referred to in Chapter 16 when we are told, “Thanks to what the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man did to Estha, their Home away from Home was already equipped.” (Roy 276) There are, of course, many other incidents wherein something happens to a character which alters the course of his or her life—and it seems to me that most of these incidents are random and essentially violent. However . . . I’m also thinking of the first sexual encounter between Velutha and Ammu, wherein it begins with a look: “her eyes had told him he was not the only giver of gifts.” (Roy 314) From that one glance comes the most important encounter in their lives, the moment which leads to their “Infinnate Joy” (Roy 320) . . . and to their destruction as well.

2 Which could, of course, just be the result of the beating, but which is for me the result of the separation which has just occurred. For lack of a better way to put it, I’ll say that Jerry’s yin force has just been beaten out of him, thus the yang now dominates his body. This is akin to the major separations which we see in The God of Small Things, all of which involve male and female pairs being separated, and all of which result in negative outcomes. When Rahel comes back to Ayemenem to see the re-returned Estha, “he . . . looked at her and walked straight past. Into the rain. As he did with everyone else.” (Roy 21) When I read this line on my second time through the book, I wrote, “They’ve lost the connection. This is a book about re-connecting.” Thus we see that in the beginning “Esthappen and Rahel thought of themselves together as Me, and separately, individually, as We or Us. As though they were a rare breed of Siamese twins, physically separate, but with joint identitites.” (Roy 4-5) So in the beginning they are one person, but the Sophie Mol disaster rips them apart. This is disastrous for both parties concerned, and they wander through life, unable to find their way. In the end of the book, however, they are able to reunite. Roy prefaces their “reunion” by telling us, “There is very little that anyone could say to clarify what happened next. Nothing that (in Mammachi’s book) would separate Sex from Love. Or Needs from Feelings.” (Roy 311) Which is all pretty darned vague, but that’s the point, isn’t it? This wasn’t really about a sexual act . . . anymore than Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” is about an eating disorder. This is about Estha and Rahel becoming one again, it’s about “Quietness and Emptiness fitt[ing] together like stacked spoons.” It’s about sharing “hideous grief.” (Roy 311) What hideous grief do they share here? The grief that Sophie Mol died under their watch? That’s hard to believe. They were children, after all and Sophie Mol’s death was not intended. It’s the grief at what the world has done to them, I think. It’s the grief that comes from being torn apart. I didn’t notice until a few moments ago that, chronologically speaking, this is where the book ends—in bed with Estha and Rahel, After that, it’s all memory.

3 The pictures in Jerry’s wallet do two things: first, they show that he carries the history of his family with him, just as all of the characters in Roy’s novel seem to do, which I think ties him into the Aristotelian concept of “proper function.” He is on this trip because he is trying to provide for his family, and the fact that he carries their pictures with him and looks at them shows that he is doing what he can to fulfill the proper function of fatherhood. He is engaged in “an activity of the soul in conformity with a rational principle” (Aristotle 8) in that he is proving his love for his family (an activity of the soul) by providing for their well-being (a rational principle—or a pragmatic principle, which, at least here, seems to be the same thing). Second, the pictures indicate the secondary separation which has occurred. The first (when Jerry was a child) was involuntary—what the world did to him. The second is a rational choice—and is thus not nearly so painful, because options have been weighed and a decision has been made. Jerry has decided to give up time with his family because it allows him to be a better provider for them. This may also show the positive aspects of his yang force—he is the modern day incarnation of the mighty hunter (after all, he is pretty much 100% yang—which is why he gets the urge to punch innocent desk clerks.)

4 The name was going to be a straight up anagram for Velutha, but nothing seemed quite right, so I got as far as Thuvale and Googled that, which led me to Tuvalu, a lovely little island nation in the Pacific, somewhere between Hawaii and Australia. I wanted to make a connection with Velutha here, of course, but with the purpose of examining the parallels between Estha & Rahel and Velutha and Ammu. I think that we can see the male/female relationship most clearly if we look at these two character pairs. I also found some very interesting things about Tuvalu that would be nice to include if this story decides to turn into a novel someday.

5 4040 is actually a reference to the biblical concept of time, though it seems to me that Kafka is using this in “A Hunger Artist,” too, so we’ll play it both ways here. For the Bible stuff, a little internet scanning seems to lead to this conclusion: 40 does not mean “a long time” as I’d previously thought, but “a generation”, or, even better “a period of testing, trial, probation, or chastisement (but not judgment) [which] ends with a period of restoration, revival or renewal.” That seems very fitting for “A Hunger Artist,” and explains to me why Kafka refers to the number forty 5 times on page 111 of the story. He wants to draw attention to the symbolic perception of what the Hunger Artist is doing. This is not about denying one’s self sustenance, this is about seeking sustenance that is more fitting for one’s own needs. It is about following the inner compulsions that those who tread the beaten path sublimate and repress. This clearly plays out through Roy’s novel, especially in terms of Ammu & Velutha and Estha & Rahel. They realize that to find their happiness, they have to follow the promptings of their souls—regardless of what society deems appropriate. The trial that Jerry undergoes in Room 4040 is akin to the moments of decisions in all of those characters lives: to be what you are . . . or not to be. To live and die . . . or to stop living.

6 It seems to me that one of the constants in the novel is the idea that water is good, representative of life and happiness. I think this is first seen when the narrator tells us, “It wasn’t an accusing, protesting silence as much as a sort of estivation, a dormancy, the psychological equivalent of what lungfish do to get themselves through the dry season, except that in Estha’s case the dry season looked as though it would last forever.” (Roy 12) By the way, estivation means “prolonged torpor or dormancy of an animal during a hot or dry period.” (This is according to my computer’s Oxford American Dictionary.) Sounds like a return to my 40 comments there, doesn’t it?

7 This is the role reversal I saw in the novel. When Estha and Rahel are separated, they begin to act (speaking in stereotypical terms) in gender inappropriate ways (so far as their society is concerned, anyway): Rahel is expelled from school, and the teachers whisper that it was “as though she didn’t know how to be a girl.” (Roy 18) Estha, on the other hand, after he goes to live with his father and step-mother, “began to do the housework.” (Roy 12) It seems that when the twins were separated, they were not able to be individuals in a way that society deemed appropriate. This makes most sense to me if we see that they were each attempting to be the other, to complete themselves by creating the other inside of their own skin. They were, of course, unsuccessful, and then spent the next two decades wandering, searching, waiting. The Godot that arrives for them is their sexual reunion, sharing the same womb again. (That is not meant as a joke, I hasten to point out.)

8 And here we see the counterpoint to footnote 6. When the river dries up, it becomes disgusting and virtually useless. But in the days before dams and Dam/Age, people bathed in the river and lived off of its bounty.

9 Again with the Aristotle. The premise here is to connect the proper function with happiness, which certainly seems to be Aristotle’s conclusion. Putting together a few pieces of “On Happiness” makes this pretty clear: “all men . . . aim at a certain end” (Aristotle 6) and “happiness [is] the highest good.” (Aristotle 7) Unless there is perversity, obscurity, or mishap, then, all men aim at the highest good, which is happiness. But that’s not the point here. The point is that Jerry’s father is selling vacuum cleaners because he loves to sell vacuum cleaners. That can be metaphysical if you’d like it to be, but I am just thinking about how doing something that you do well brings you happiness, and that when others see that in you, you become a much more attractive person. I think this is what Ammu saw in Velutha. The decision to have a love affair seems to begin as Ammu watches Velutha holding Rahel—seeing the love that he has for her daughter, seeing, in effect, that Velutha does everything—whether it be fixing broken machines or tending to his broken brother—with love. Ammu is drawn to that. But Velutha is also drawn to her, and that’s important, too. Ammu is certainly not a perfect mother—nor, I would insist, is Velutha a perfect person—but she does love her children fiercely, and she does what she can to protect them from the world. Velutha sees that, and when he goes for his swim he is looking for her, certain that she will be there. (This is all over page 315.) I think this is also what is behind Vera’s determination not to succumb to despair—or, even worse, ennui. “What was it worth—a happiness bought that dearly.” (Lavin 38) the narrator of the story asks after Vera’s swim and the crying which followed later that night. And the answer is—everything. Vera swims out in the ocean to physically burn off her despair. She is unwilling to take the easy way out—to drift in an ocean of sadness the way that her relatives and friends wanted her to do after Robert died. Happiness is the point. If you have to cross society’s lines in order to find your happiness, then it’s better to do that than to live like a caged, starving animal. (Hmmm.)

10 This is pretty damned disgusting, of course, and it’s meant to be . . but not in a gratuitous manner. Jerry has waited too long to establish an appropriate relationship with the mermaid. When he was a child, she was his friend and his solace, the female part of himself. That is what allowed him to “become a man,” and why he went from passive victim to a rather aggressive (and, thus, lonely) teen-ager. But when it was time for the relationship to grow, he refused to let go, refused to give his mermaid what she so desperately needed. His inability to let her go also crippled him, and you have to wonder how that plastic bag was compromised. At any rate, his consumption of the mermaid is the equivalent of Rahel and Ammu breaking the love laws. It is an attempt to re-establish wholeness, and the cost is always dire. For Jerry, it means that he must begin a new life—because he has destroyed his old life (hence the nakedness, burnt credit cards, and money given away).