The Midnight Circus, стр. 18
Itwas clear to me that until I could find a solution, I needed to devisesome means whereby I could carry on my life without posing a threat tothose whose good will meant so much to me. In a city such as London,there are women who will perform almost any service if adequatelyrecompensed, and I had little trouble finding one suitable to mypurpose. I shall call her Marie. Her real name does not matter in theslightest, and she was well paid for what I had her do. Better, infact, than had I used her in the usual fashion.
Mariegave me the impression that—bizarre as my needs were—this was not themost repellent behavior she had been party to. Feeding sparingly, Ilearned that two or three visits with her per week were sufficient toprevent any uncontrollable outbursts of savagery on my part, at leastin the beginning. Marie suffered no harm as a result of my . . .desires. And—to my even greater relief—she showed no sign of becomingcontaminated with this dreadful infection herself. However, the shameof it all, the constant need for secrecy, and the knowledge of theirreparable harm it would do my family if the truth were ever exposed,all preyed horribly on my mind.
Consequentlya brooding self-abhorrence came to dominate my waking hours. I foundthat I could no longer abide the sight of my own reflection in amirror. Images of deathstruck me with a painful force that compelled me to avert my gaze fromgazettes and books. Paintings in the museums—where Kathleen loved towalk with me—became abhorrent if they were about war or martyrdoms.And crowds—crowds were intolerable, for it was as though I could hearthe very blood coursing richly through the veins as people pressedabout me, upsetting the stability I strove so hard to achieve with myvisits to Marie.
Witheach passing day it became more and more difficult to maintain asemblance of normal behavior. The birth of my son only exacerbated mygloom. His innocence threw into grotesque relief my own ever-presentguilt.
Ibegan to see that the only faint glimmer of hope I had was in mountinga second Antarctic Expedition. The aim of this journey was not merelyto map and study, but to attain the greatest goal of allexploration—the South Pole itself. Perhaps there, amid the most intensecold to be found anywhere on earth, the heat of my unnatural thirstmight be cooled.
Ibecame obsessed with the grave site at Cape Adair where Hanson, thenaturalist with the earlier Southern Cross party, had been buried. Hiswas the only grave on that vast continent. I thought that I, too, mightfind the rest I longed for there at the frozen center of a bloodlessland.
Thetask of raising finance for the expedition was both wearisome andfrustrating, but I threw myself into it with afierce energy and at last we were set to go. Kathleen already spokeof me as if I were a hero. I could not disabuse her of the notion. So Isaid nothing more.
Weset sail on the Terra Nova, and while the others had theirhopes set on the Pole, mine were set on peace. The close confines ofthe ship forced me into an unavoidable proximity with the other men,but fortunately the lowering temperatures did, indeed, temper myunnatural hunger. Tempered—but did not entirely destroy the thirst.
Iwas able to limit myself to only a fortnightly indulgence, usingthree different sources so as not to overweaken anyone. I carried outmy drinking during the hours of sleep, having by this time become wellpracticed at taking my guilty sustenance with a delicacy that left onlythe barest physical trace, and even this would fade in the course of aday. I never drank from the same man twice in a month. Any debilitatingeffects experienced by my comrades were thus attributed to the climaticconditions and our restricted diet.
Evenyou, my dear Atkinson, had my lips on your neck and never knew it. Yourblood is a trifle sweet, more a Chianti than a cabernet.
Thedetails of the trek to the Pole I have recorded in the diaries you willfind in the green wallet under my bag. I have made every effort to beas truthful as possible while omitting those matters I am entrusting toyou alone. I am sure you wondered why I decided to take an extra man onthat last leg when we had originally planned for only four. By thattime it had occurred to me that if the center of Antarctica were toprove my final resting place, then an extra man would be needed to haulthe sleds on the returnjourney. I could not—of course—reveal my reasoning to anyone else,but here, now, you have it.
Therewas controversy about whether or not we should use dogs or men for thepulling, and I confess that my resistance to the use of dogs may havebeen colored by the incident I have already related to you, when Itried to drink from a beast rather than a man. Having dogs along mademe terribly uncomfortable, to the point of nausea. And having alongextra men for the work meant that I would need to visit individualsfewer times for my cursed drink.
My companions were the best of men,and I hoped that we might yet beat Amundsen in the race for the Pole,both for their sakes and for those we had left at home. For my ownpart, that goal had become second, for every step we took deeper intothe vast, cold bleakness, the raging heat ofmy thirst cooled still further.
Inthe end, while I shared my crew’s disappointment when we found theNorwegian flag and the note from Amundsen waiting for us, it was for mebut a small distress. For there at the center of the stark icy world,I found myself without hunger or thirst or the raging blood that hadplagued me for so long.
Here, I thought, here is where I shall stay.
Iwas already composing a letter to my dear Kathleen in my head. It wasfull