The Hunger

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  Paula looked at the screen and saw little symbols of people crashing into buildings and destroying things. It seemed silly to get all worked up about a game, but she knew her brother took his games very seriously.

  “Do you think you could take a break some time soon and let me look something up on the Internet?”

  Paula didn’t have a computer. The reason Erik did was because he saved every penny that crossed his palm. Birthday and Christmas money was carefully saved, and odd jobs like snow shoveling and grass cutting added to his stash. He had saved enough a year ago to buy a colour printer and a modem. And then Gramma Pauline sprung for a whole year’s worth of Internet access, much to the chagrin of his parents. “Both kids will use it for homework,” she declared.

  “This game is toast anyway,” said Erik, hitting the exit button. “What is it that you want to look up?”

  “I want to do a search on MetaCrawler for ‘immigration’ and ‘Armenia.’”

  Erik rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe that you’re starting your project now. It’s not due for months! Are you sick?”

  “I’m not sick,” Paula responded. “I get As because I start my projects early. I don’t leave them to the last minute and get only Bs. Like you.”

  “I’d rather get Bs and have time for fun things than be a work nut like you,” flashed Erik.

  “Look,” asked Paula with sweet impatience. “Can we just do the search?”

  Eric punched in both words and then waited while MetaCrawler searched through six search engines. He got fifty-three hits—most of which were tourism sites.

  “That’s not right,” said Paula. “Try ‘Armenia’ and ‘orphans.’”

  This search resulted in 33 hits, primarily youth groups, ads for encyclopedias, and so on, but one site caught Paula’s eye. It was a photo collection by a person named John Elder, and the photos were from 1917 to 1919. That would have been during the time that Gramma Pauline was still in Armenia. She would have been a toddler then, Paula calculated. Erik clicked onto the site.

  The photos were chilling. There was one of ragged children walking up steps to a feeding station, and another of emaciated children in an orphanage. But the picture that had the most impact on Paula was the last. There was a barren country road, empty—except for the skeleton lying abandoned in the middle of it. Had Gramma Pauline actually lived through all of this horror? It hurt her to imagine her beloved grandmother as a child in these conditions. What had caused it? And how many loved ones had Gramma Pauline lost? No wonder her memories were sketchy.

  Friday, September 17, after school

  The nurse gently closed the door behind her. Paula glanced around the examining room, and her eye lighted on the weight scale sitting in the corner. She stepped on the scales. This was the moment of truth! The scales at home could be wildly inaccurate. With expert hands, she quickly adjusted the sliding weights until the scale was balanced. But it couldn’t be right! According to this scale, Paula had actually gained two pounds since yesterday. Paula was five-foot-ten and her goal was to weigh one hundred and ten pounds and be just as beautiful as her favourite supermodel, Kate Moss. If this scale was right, then she still had twenty pounds to go. Damn! Tears welled in her eyes and she could feel a sob rise in her throat. She took a deep breath, trying to repress the sob.

  She got off the scale and slipped the weights back into the zero position. Paula cringed at the thought of someone finding out how much she weighed. She stuck her head out the examining room door. No one in sight. At least she had a few minutes to compose herself.

  As the door closed, she caught her own reflection in the mirror on the back of the door. Paula’s hair was a mess, and her cheeks looked fat. She glanced down at the image of her body in street clothes and all she could see were huge thighs. “I can’t stand this!” she cried, then pummelled her thighs with her fists. “This is where those extra two pounds have settled.”

  The door opened and the nurse was back. “Are you all right?” she asked. “I thought I heard someone crying.”

  “I’m fine,” Paula said. “In fact, I feel so much better that maybe I don’t need to see a doctor after all.”

  There was a tap on the door and a young man’s voice said, “It’s Doctor Tavish. May I come in?”

  Dr. Tavish again? Damn! One thing Paula liked about coming to the clinic was that she rarely saw the same doctor twice. They could get so nosy, after all. This would be the second time in as many weeks that she happened to be assigned to Dr. Tavish. She would have to be extra careful with him.

  The nurse looked at Paula questioningly. Paula nodded with resignation. “Come on in, Doctor T,” the nurse said.

  Doctor T wasn’t more than five foot two and couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. But he had a cute sandy-blond moustache and kind blue eyes. He didn’t look like a doctor—he looked like Paula’s kid brother playing doctor.

  “What seems to be the problem?” Doctor T asked, quickly scanning the top page of her medical history.

  “My back hurts.”

  He motioned for her to get up on the examining table and with firm fingers, he traced the lines of her muscles through the back of her shirt. “Do you remember when the pain started?”

  “I was lifting boxes at home,” she replied. Paula didn’t want to tell him what she had really been doing when her back started hurting—that was none of his business!

  “Hmm, if you were lifting boxes, it would have been these muscles that were pulled.” He then lightly drew his finger down the middle of Paula’s back. She flinched. “You didn’t do this lifting boxes.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Turn around so that you’re facing me, Paula.” She reluctantly turned around, dangling her legs over the side of the examining table and looked down at her feet—avoiding his eyes.

  “Could you have done this exercising?”

  Now there was a good excuse! “That’s probably when I did it,” she exclaimed. “I do sit-ups every night before I go to bed. What I really need, though, Doctor, is just some kind of pain-killer until it heals up.”

  Again he did that “Hmmm” thing with the frown.

  “Let me see your hands.”

  She stretched them out in front of her and flinched slightly when he took one in each of his own. Slowly, he looked at each of her palms as if he were about to read her fortune. Paula had to suppress a giggle. What did this have to do with a sore back?

  Then he turned her hands palm down and examined her knuckles.

  He looked into Paula’s eyes, and without a trace of judgment, asked, “So how long have you been making yourself throw up?

  Paula yanked her hands away from him as if she had touched something hot. “What are you talking about?”

  “Paula, you exhibit all of the classic signs of an anorexic with bulimic tendencies. Take a look at your hands and you tell me how you got bite marks on your knuckles.”

  She held them, knuckle up, in front of her and stared. Her traitor hands! The knuckle above each index finger was an angry red, the curved lines of tooth marks clearly visible. “I … I... fell.”

  “You fell on a pair of teeth, did you?” The doctor asked dryly. “There is only one way that you can pull that particular muscle in your back and that’s from vomiting. This is a chronic condition associated with bulimia.”

  Paula was stunned. How could a doctor who looked like he was barely out of medical school be so wise to her tricks? As she sat there clutching her arms close to her body, he flipped through the older pages of her chart.

  “Can you get up on the scales for me please?”

  Paula did as she was asked, painfully aware of those extra two pounds. Dr. Tavish balanced the sliding weights just as she had done moments before, arriving at the same conclusion. Now he knew how fat she was.

  “Paula, since last June, your weight has dropped by twenty pounds!”

  “That’s because I’ve been dieting,” she replied with impatience.r />
  Doctor T took a step back, and with furrowed blond brows, he eyeballed Paula from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. “You’re already bordering on a dangerously low body weight.”

  Paula almost laughed out loud. His scales had just declared that she’d gained two pounds since yesterday! His stupidity didn’t even deserve a reply. She stared angrily at his well-manicured index finger as it tapped thoughtfully on the top page of her chart.

  “Paula, this isn’t a joke.” Doctor T put the chart down on the desk and crossed his arms. Paula stared at the number on the scales. “Would you like me to contact your parents about your problem, or do you think that we might be able to work together to make sure you stay healthy?”

  At the mention of her parents, Paula’s head jerked up. “You cannot tell my parents about this!”

  “Everything all right in here, Doctor T?” The nurse popped her head through the door and looked from Paula to the doctor with a worried expression on her face. “Everything’s under control, Nancy,” he replied. “I’ll be out shortly.”

  Paula got off the scales and sat down on a chair, her eyes downcast. She felt his finger under her chin. He gently lifted her face until their eyes met. “What will it be?” he asked. “Will we work together?”

  What choice did she have? “What do you want me to do?” Paula asked, working hard to control her anger.

  “I want to set up a regular weekly appointment with you so we can talk about your problems,” he said. “And I want to weigh you once each week to make sure you don’t lose any more weight.”

  Paula watched angrily as Doctor Tavish left the examining room. Now she was supposed to come to this office once a week? And to do what? Talk about her problems? Paula had one problem—and it was that she now had this doctor on her back.

  She headed out the door, passing the nurses’ desk without making an appointment.

  Paula had intended to go to the library from the doctor’s office in order to do some research on Armenians, but the confrontation with the doctor had aggravated her so much that she had an urge to eat. She headed home. Unlocking the front door she called out, “Anybody here?” even though she knew that it was only 3:30 and far too early for anyone else to be there. Erik had fliers to deliver right after school every Friday and wouldn’t be home for another hour. Her mother was rarely home before six, and even if her father were early, he wouldn’t be home much before five.

  She opened up the refrigerator and gazed in, but it was filled with her mother’s low-fat yogurt and leftovers from last night’s dinner. The pantry was equally bereft of snacks.

  She reached up to the top shelf and with shaking hands, pulled down a dented coffee canister. She tore the lid off with such fury that she cut her hand, but she was oblivious to the pain. Thank God! There were two twenty-dollar bills left of grocery money. Stuffing the bills into her pocket, she dashed out the front door and headed for the store.

  Just a little treat is all I want, rationalized Paula. Maybe a cupcake, or a chocolate bar. She told herself that she took the rest of the money just in case she needed some groceries for the family.

  When she got into the store, the first thing she spied was a package of store baked butter tarts, twelve for $4.99. Perfect, she thought. That’s all I want. I’ll have one butter tart, and the rest will be for the family. Better just look around though, maybe we’re out of something at home. She pushed her cart to the dairy aisle and noticed that shelved beside the milk were litre cartons of Caramilk chocolate milk, $1.99 each. A tiny glass of rich chocolate would be good with a butter tart. And Erik could have the rest. She had to walk through the freezer aisle to get to the check-out counter, and on her way there she spied Chocolate Madness Extraordinary ice cream, $5.49 a carton. Who am I kidding? Into the cart it went. Her stomach rumbled as she passed through the bakery section. What the hell, she said to herself, throwing in a chocolate fudge birthday cake with pink and white icing, $8.99; a store baked cherry pie, only $3.79! Oh, garlic bread, only $1.99! Sounds good. Salty. I want something salty. She loped down the snack aisle and grabbed a 240 gram package of ripple potato chips, $3.49—“great value!” the package exclaimed. Paula agreed. Further down in the snack aisle, she spied Double Stuff Oreo Cookies, $3.49. She threw those into the cart too. Chicken, she mumbled. Nice hot greasy chicken. She ran with her cart over to the deli section and scooped up a steaming rotisserie chicken, just $4.19!

  She stopped when she estimated that she had reached her forty dollar limit. When the cashier looked with curiosity at the array of food, Paula said, “It’s a birthday party. Mom’s got a carload of kids to feed.” The cashier handed Paula a few coins in change.

  Hugging the two grocery bags to her chest, Paula walked out of the store, careful to appear nonchalant.

  At home, her demeanour changed. There was no longer the need to hide her hunger once the front door closed behind her. Paula dumped the bags onto the kitchen table and ripped them open, letting her precious hoard fall across the table. Her mouth rilled with saliva at the sight of so much forbidden food. She opened the tinfoil bag of hot chicken, tore off a piece of meat and shoved it into her mouth. Her greasy fingers slipped as they opened the Caramilk, and then she took a swig. She grabbed a wooden spoon from the cudery drawer and scooped an enormous spoonful of ice-cream from the container. The chocolate richness of the cold dessert filled her mouth and a shiver of fulfillment coursed through her. Next came the cherry pie. Using the same spoon, she dug right to the centre of it and gorged on a huge serving of cherry filling. She tore open the bag of chips and the Double Stuff Oreos, filling her mouth with cookies and chips together. The salty sweetness satisfied a need deep within her.

  It seemed that in a blink of an eye, the food was gone. Paula looked at the devastation with dismay. Chicken bones sat in pools of melted ice-cream. Empty cartons and soiled utensils had scattered over the table and on to the floor.

  What have I done? Her hands were sticky with remnants of her feast. She let out a low moan and pounded a fist on the table. Oh God, I am so bad! And to think that the stupid doctor thought I was too thin. This little episode will put ten pounds on me.

  She ran to the bathroom, then carefully twisted her long hair into a knot at the nape of her neck so it wouldn’t get in the way. She leaned over the toilet and jammed the fingers of her right hand down her throat. The sensation of her teeth grazing her scabbed knuckles brought her up short. What am I doing? She thought desperately. The doctor will know!

  She ran back to the kitchen and grabbed the wooden spoon that was still sticky with ice cream, and took it back to the bathroom. Crouching over the toilet again, she shoved the spoon down her throat until she gagged. Her stomach convulsed, and with a lurch forward, huge chunks of undigested food hit the toilet water with such a force that it splashed back in her face. Shoving the spoon even deeper down her throat, she gagged again, this time splashing chunks of undigested food into her hair and down her shirt. Some of the mess landed on the floor around the base of the toilet, and some of it landed all over the space-heater against the wall. The effort sent shivers of exhaustion through Paula’s body. She sat on the bathroom floor and hugged her vomit-covered knees tight until her breathing settled down and her heart’s staccato beat subsided. She dragged herself to a standing position and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot. Mucus hung from her nose. Her throat was raw from the wooden spoon. Her hair and face were wet with toilet water and worse. “You are so disgusting.”

  Paula tore off her filthy jeans and shirt and climbed into the shower, turning the stream of water on as hot as she could stand it. It was as if she thought she could wash the past hour away. As her guilt swirled down the drain, she dried herself and wrapped her hair into a towel. She pulled on a terry robe and gathered the pile of clothing from the floor and tossed it into the washing machine. To make it less obvious, she prodded around the laundry shute and found a few other items to throw in the wash and make it look like she
was just helping out with the laundry. With bathroom cleaner and a rag, she meticulously cleaned the sink, the floor and the toilet. The space heater took more time to clean, because fragments of food had lodged within the grille and between the wall and the heater. By the time she finished, the bathroom was cleaner than before she had purged. Next, she grabbed a garbage bag from the garage and headed back to the kitchen to clean up that mess. She shoveled all the signs of her last meal into the bag and out of sight. She scrubbed the floor and table clean, and placed the bulging bag in between the other garbage bags in the garage. Just as she reached for the handle of the door that led from the garage into the kitchen, Paula was startled to hear the sound of the front door slamming shut. God, is it 4:30 already? She smoothed the front of her robe and took a deep breath, hoping her brother wouldn’t notice anything amiss.

  “Paula! What happened?” Erik dropped his knapsack in the front hallway and stared at his sister. “Your eyes are all red. Have you been crying?”

  Great, thought Paula. So much for not noticing. “I’ve got a cold,” replied Paula, scooting past her brother.

  In her top drawer Paula kept a bottle of Visine and a container of matte face powder. The drops stung as they went in, but her eyes quickly lost their redness. Next, she patted powder over the blotchy spots on her face. Paula then changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

  “Never again,” she swore to herself. “Never again will I lose control like that!”

  Thursday, October 1

  It was early morning, and Doctor Tavish sat in the basement office that he shared with two other clinic colleagues. A stack of charts were piled on his desk, a cold cup of coffee on the side. Halfway through the charts, he happened upon Paula Romaniuks. “Where has she been?” He wrote her phone number on a scrap of paper and stuck it in his shirt pocket. Sipping the cold coffee, he continued working his way through the charts.

  At the same time that Doctor T was perusing Paula’s chart, Paula was standing in front of her dresser mirror in her loft bedroom, staring at her reflection with clinical detachment. She slipped off her flannel nightgown and shivered slightly as it fell to the floor. Her eyes darted to the various posters that adorned her walls. Where other girls her age hid the floral wallpaper of childhood with posters of rock stars or school artwork, Paula’s choice leaned towards photos of ballerinas, Calvin Klein models, and figure skaters.