THE HUNGRY MIRROR
a novel by
Lisa de Nikolits
Inanna Publications and Education Inc.
Toronto, Canada
Copyright © 2010 Lisa de Nikolits
Except for the use of short passages for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced, in part or in whole, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording, or any information or storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council
for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
We are also grateful for the support received
from an Anonymous Fund at The Calgary Foundation.
From WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., copyright © 1992, 1995 by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. Used by permission of Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Messages from the Body by: Michael J. Lincoln (FKA Narayan-Singh Khalsa), Copyright © Talking Hearts 2007. Used by permission.
Information from research papers written by Dr. Kelly Klump and used with her kind permission: “Differential Heritability of Eating Attitudes and Behaviors in Prepubertal versus Pubertal Twins;” “Puberty Moderates Genetic Influences on Disordered Eating and Changes in Genetic and Environmental Influences on Disordered Eating Across Adolescence.” Kelly L. Klump, Ph.D., FAED, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, [email protected].
Cover design: Val Fullard
Interior design: Luciana Ricciutelli
eBook development: Wild Element www.WildElement.ca
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
de Nikolits, Lisa, 1966—
The hungry mirror : a novel / Lisa de Nikolits.
(Inanna poetry & fiction series)
ISBN 978-1-926708-00-3
I. Title. II. Series: Inanna poetry and fiction series
PS8607.E63H85 2009–C813’.6–C2009-907161-4
Printed and bound in Canada
Inanna Publications and Education Inc.
210 Founders College, York University
4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3
Telephone: (416) 736-5356 Fax: (416) 736-5765
Email: [email protected] Website: www.yorku.ca/inanna
With thanks always to my extraordinary and inspiring parents,
my beautiful sister and my lovely man.
In the beginning
WELL, FRANCES MIGHT HAVE BEEN out to lunch but she sure as hell wasn’t eating. I thought of her as I sat locked in my washroom cubicle, waiting for the laxative to work.
We’d passed each other earlier in the hall. No greeting, no smile, but that’s okay, it’s not like we’re friends or anything. Just a quick appraisal of the others’ hips, thighs, collarbones. That’s what counts. We know how to measure in a silent instant.
Frances went to the washroom on the lower floor to reassure herself and I went up to the third floor to do the same.
Like her, I look in the mirror.
She’s thinner than me, I think, and the day drops heavy stones onto my thighs. I run my fingers over my collarbone, lift up my shirt to stare at my ribs, and pray no one will come in and wonder what on earth I am doing.
But she’s taller and I’m in proportion, so maybe we’re the same in a sense. I try to believe what I am saying and feel the reward of a small lift of spirits.
Later, the laxative I’d taken for breakfast starts a wave of pleasant cramps deep inside my stomach. I go back to the washroom, to my favourite cubicle, and take off all my clothes. I lay them neatly across the cistern so they won’t get creased. I step out of my shoes, sit down, and look at my watch. It won’t do, to be gone for too long. Ten minutes, no more, will be fine, I think. After all, I rehearse, I could easily have bumped into someone getting coffee in the kitchen and got chatting to them about husbands or families or some such thing. Hardly likely. I’m far too solitary and everybody knows it. I don’t have a boyfriend, or a social network to call my own. I do have my one best friend Miranda, and she’s all I need.
I get uneasy talking to people thinner than me. I feel sure they despise me for my fat and know they’re superior in their lightness. I also get uneasy talking to people fatter than me because I know their swollen shape is my uncomfortable destiny. So I don’t really like to talk to anyone at all. I chat to men because they seem to like me and think I’m just fine the way I am. They don’t look at me like they are measuring and weighing me. And I talk to Miranda. She’s different because she knows, she’s like me, she understands even though we never talk about it. I have been sitting in the washroom for two minutes and nothing has happened. I begin to feel anxious.
Then, in a hot rush, my bowels empty and I feel ecstatic, powerful, in control.
And then I think about Frances. Everybody, even the CEO, knows what she does to keep her weight down.
“I take her out to lunch a lot,” the short, egomaniacal CEO said. His orange eyes bulged slightly. He was trying to charm me but it wasn’t working. I didn’t like him. I wasn’t going to play nice, not like that. It wasn’t my style.
“She eats and waits about ten minutes,” he said, “then she goes to the washroom, and comes back to the table all sparkly-eyed, and on we go.” He has a thick Scottish accent, a wild shock of ginger hair, and unruly blonde eyebrows.
I got the distinct impression that, unlike me, Frances was more than willing to play nice by whatever means it took to get what she wanted. At 37, she’s heavily botoxed and remarkably expressionless; a brunette Barbie with a Mona Lisa smile.
I feel powerful when the CEO talks to me about her because no one knows how I struggle. I always look in control.
The allotted ten minutes over, I pull on my perfectly unwrinkled clothes and step out of the cubicle. I stare at myself in the mirror; yes, I am perceptibly thinner. I look for a long moment. Someone comes in and I pretend to be shaking the last drying specks of water off my hands. I instinctively assess the newcomer’s hips, then quietly leave.
I walk back to my grey office with its grey carpet and count silently – another familiar ritual – a small frown of concentration on my forehead, like I’m thinking about some work concern.
150 plus 50 plus 100 equals 300. That’s okay. So 80 for an apple makes it 380, round it off to 400, that’s not bad for a day.
I’m always careful not to talk out loud. Sometimes, when I’m home alone, I let myself count aloud. Counting aloud helps me add, but if anyone heard me, they’d think I was a homeless person muttering nonsense, looking at a watch, late for an imaginary meeting.
I also make written lists of the numbers on the palm of my hand, inside my notebooks, on post-it notes, anywhere I can. The urge to double check the math sometimes overwhelms me. I have to do it, no matter what, regardless of where I am or who I am with. It’s as though if I don’t, everything will go wrong; I will be Humpty Dumpty gone crazy, burst out of his skin.
My numbers are a secret though, and I scratch them out as soon as I’ve written them or I draw over them so one else can see them. I keep diaries with dates, numbers, exact details of what I ate, and when. I record everything, even every piece of sugar-free chewing gum, because each piece has five calories and it all adds up.
I take out my apple at lunchtime. I try to get the act of eating over with as fast as I can. I take la
rge crunching swallows, shovel it in, try not to think. I finish the last bite and realize with excitement that I’m no longer hungry. I’m terrified of hunger.
I watch my editor walk past carrying a Coke, a curried roti, and a packet of salt and vinegar chips. My mouth is watering. I can smell the curry from my desk.
“Take a break,” she calls out to me. “It’s a lovely day outside.”
I smile and nod my head.
“I’d rather be working,” I say and she laughs.
“I’ll remember to put that on your gravestone,” she says. “You’re young, you should have more fun.”
I can’t. Fun is fattening I want to tell her. And we all know fat people don’t get ahead, and I am career-orientated. I want to get ahead. I think about her food, and count her numbers. It’s more than I’ll eat in two days. I feel a bit better about myself then.
Miranda, my best friend, phones me. I tell her about my gravestone inscription and she laughs.
“I think I’ll have a T-shirt made,” she says. “I’d rather be working too. The rest is all way too tiring.”
I carry on working. I have been at work since 6:00 a.m. and, apart from my visit to the washroom, I haven’t stopped. I feel invincible. The next time I look at my watch, it’s 3:00 p.m.
Good. The day is passing and all the numbers are where they should be, so this is good. The worst kind of day is the one where you’ve eaten all your food by 11:00 a.m. The rest of the day becomes terrifying in its potential to bring you to your knees.
I feel lightheaded and hope no one will step into my office to talk to me. I can’t be sure I’ll say the right thing because I am really thinking about what to have for dinner and wondering how to fit what I want into 150 calories. I am nervous I will make a slip if I talk to someone. I remember chatting to my boss about a work thing some time back and suddenly, in the middle of a sentence I said something about weight and I may even have murmured a number, my real thoughts making an audible escape.
There was no fallout because I quickly made it sound as if I’d meant the argument had no weight, or something like that. But my boss gave me a strange look and I told myself then that I had to concentrate harder, pay more attention. You have to be so careful you know, and that wasn’t the first time I’d nearly lost it.
Like the time I was designing a layout and all the editors and subs were gathered around my computer, discussing the article on the screen, which was about the latest anti-depressant.
“The Scientologists claim it’s making users commits suicide.”
“Any truth to that?” I ask.
“Well, it is true there are people killing themselves, but you have to remember some of the users might have committed suicide anyway. I mean that’s why they were taking the drug in the first place, because they were potentially suicidal. But for our purposes, there aren’t enough of them to support the argument that the drug is dangerous.”
“It seems reprehensible to me,” I said, imagining a sad group of underweight, suicidal depressives, collectively not heavy enough to impact the balance of the psychometric scales. “How it’s statistically irrelevant if only a small percentage of depressed people kill themselves instead of a significant number. What do the drug companies have to say about the it?”
“They’ve issued a statement dispelling all negative claims. They say they’re having a lot of success, not just with depressed people, but with bulimics too.”
I snapped my head back, startling myself. But as quickly as I’d moved, I cleared my face of all expression, and made an excellent recovery.
“I need a caption here,” I said flatly. That was close.
I suppose you could say I have food issues, but I’m not really a bulimic, not like Frances.
I only do it when the circumstances allow for it – when I am three hundred percent sure I won’t be caught. And I only do it when I have been forced to eat, and don’t have a choice.
I remember the first time I realized that this was a way for me to take control. I was fourteen and had been out for dinner with a naturally thin girlfriend who could eat whatever she liked and stay skinny. We’d eaten like pigs and then, on the way home, I’d felt miserable; me, the fattest girl, to the nth degree. I’d also drunk a bottle of wine and that has never sat well with me.
My father and I dropped off my friend and as soon as we got home, I ran from the car, hand over mouth, and was sick in one huge, relieving whoosh.
I had stared down at the stirred-up floating stomach contents, greasy in the toilet bowl and felt a sense of knowledge, power, and peace.
After that, it wasn’t so hard to do; it even came naturally.
But I am careful. I only do it when I really have to. It is my private escape hatch. I don’t really need it. I am stronger than that. I have discipline, self-control, and an iron will. Everybody has always complimented me on my willpower and discipline. It’s easy for you they say, you are so disciplined. And when I am not, or can’t be, well then I have a quiet friend in my corner, when I really need one.
The theory of small bites
I WANT TO SAY SOMETHING THAT is very important to me.
Legendary willpower or not, I’m tired of being so hungry all the time. I am so hungry all the time. I don’t mean some of the time, or just before meals. I mean I am hungry all of the time. I am hungry even when I am eating and even when I am sleeping.
I don’t sleep much. I lie awake, hungry, and fantasize about food while I run my hands over my body. If I’m lucky I sleep maybe four hours a night.
There was a brief period in my life when I wasn’t as hungry as I am now.
When I was twenty-three, I was diagnosed with malnutrition. My mother’s social network turned up a diet therapist who tried to teach me how to be at one with my body and understand its needs. She wasn’t a therapist in the true sense of the word or I would never have seen her because it’s not like I had a real problem or anything. I just needed a bit of help getting my food groups balanced. Her business card said she was a Nutritional Alignment Coach, which was perfectly acceptable. She’s the one who introduced me to my inner child, you know, the one who only wants to eat chips, chocolates, fudge-covered ice cream, all that kind of stuff.
She also ate meals with me to teach me how to stop eating once I had started; to teach me how to give the inner child what she wanted without going on a binge. At first I struggled with the stopping bit, but then I got really good at it, so good that I could stop after just one bite. A single bite of toast could satisfy me for nearly a whole day.
I got it all so under control that I didn’t need any more coaching.
I could be near food for what felt like the first time in my life. I could make food for others. I could go into an office kitchen and see birthday cake and not even want a piece. If I had a day when I did want it, then I would take a slice and eat a tiny bite and there, I was satisfied. I’d throw the rest of the cake away. I don’t even really like cake, you know.
I started testing this with all the things I do like, like muffins, and chocolate for breakfast, just the tiniest morsels. And then, later, smoked oysters for supper; just two would do.
I lived alone, which made it easer, but even if I hadn’t, I would have been in control. I just know it.
I told Miranda about this and I gave her some examples.
“Interesting,” she said.
Miranda had been an obsessive, punishing runner for years until one day she crossed a bridge and came to a sudden stop. She bent down, and untied the laces of her well-worn, much-loved running shoes and threw them into the lake.
Then she hobbled home in socks and never ran again.
She said she walked in through the back door of the kitchen, and limped past her mother who looked at her feet but didn’t say anything. Neither of them ever mentioned her running again.
“I love chips,” she said, when we discussed the theory of small bites. “I am going to try eating just one or two instead of a whole bag. And if I
want a grilled cheese sandwich, well then, I’ll have that too, but I’ll try just a bite.”
“I think it could work really well,” I said and we looked at each other.
“We’ve got willpower whereas other people don’t,” she said.
“Yes, but we won’t even need willpower. If we listen to our bodies, we won’t need to try to stop eating. It will happen naturally because we’ll be well and truly satisfied.”
We both concentrated hard and it worked.
We got really thin too; well, as thin as we could be. I’ll never be thin, not really. I just don’t have the build for it. It’d be like a bulldog trying to be a greyhound. A starved bulldog might admittedly be bony and have jutting hipbones, a visible rib cage, and a sharp spine, but it lacks the sleek inherent grace of a born-to-be-lean creature. I stayed the same shape and just got a bit reduced all round. A slightly smaller pear, that was me.
Miranda’s a boxy kind of girl. She’s got broad shoulders and broad hips, big hands and big feet. She gives the impression of being a big girl even when she’s a thin big girl. And she always looks capable and strong, but that could just be the impression one gets from the set of her jaw, which like mine, is resolute. Anyway, she got thin too, and there we were, a short bony pear and a tall bony box.
But the main thing, we agreed, was that we felt good. Personally, I wasn’t even worried any more, about the weight side of it all, and I wasn’t hungry any more. I was slimmer, yes, but even that no longer mattered. What mattered was that I was in control, that I wasn’t hungry anymore; that voracious, terrible, overwhelmingly terrifying hunger was gone.
Oh, God, the joy of not feeling that sense of terror around food; the joy of not having to calculate every single calorie.
But then, to my dismay, the fears, the worries, and worst of all the hungers, all started to come back. My short reprieve was over.
A tree falls unnoticed
SATURDAY HAS NOT BEEN A good day. This morning I woke up hungry, the kind of hungry that won’t accept the usual to satisfy its needs. I lay in bed and dreaded the day. Hell was making its way toward me, and I was stuck, my heel caught in the tracks. I tried to pretend I wasn’t hungry but I was, oh dear God, yes I was, and I couldn’t help myself.
The Hungry Mirror Page 1