The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios. Yann Martel

broke up some 250 million years ago, the pieces drifting apart at the rate of roughly an inch a year, thus producing the continents of today.

      “An inch a year?” Paul smiles. He likes my story, too. But he won’t be stopped.

       1916—Germany declares war on Portugal.

       Austria declares war on Portugal.

       Romania declares war on Austria.

       Italy declares war on Germany.

       Germany declares war on Romania.

       Turkey declares war on Romania.

       Bulgaria declares war on Romania.

      More tests. Paul has something called cytomegalovirus, which may account for his diarrhoea and his general weakness. It’s a highly disseminating infection, could affect his eyes, lungs, liver, gastrointestinal tract, spinal cord or brain. There’s nothing to be done. No effective therapy exists. Paul is speechlessly depressed. I give in to him.

      1917—The United States declares war on Germany.

       Panama declares war on Germany.

       Cuba declares war on Germany.

      Greece declares war on Austria, Bulgaria, Germany and Turkey.

       Siam declares war on Germany and Austria.

       Liberia declares war on Germany.

       China declares war on Germany and Austria.

       Brazil declares war on Germany.

       The United States declares war on Austria.

       Panama declares war on Austria.

       Cuba declares war on Austria.

      For 1918 Paul wants to use further declarations of war—Haiti and Honduras declared war on Germany, he informs me—but for the first time I use my power of veto and declare these fictionally unacceptable. Nor do I accept the publication of Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, in which Spengler argues that civilizations are like natural organisms, with life cycles implying birth, bloom and decay, and that Western civilization has entered the last, inevitable stage of decay. Enough is enough, I tell Paul. There is hope. The sun still shines. Paul is angry, but he is tired and he submits. I think he was expecting my censure, for he surprises me with a curious event and a fully prepared story.

      1918—After an extensive study of globular clusters—immense, densely packed groups of stars—Harlow Shapley determines that the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy, our galaxy, is in the Sagittarius constellation and that our solar system lies about two thirds of the way from this centre, some thirty thousand light years away.

      “Isn’t it grand,” I say.

      “Aren’t we lonely,” he replies.

      His story—of Orlando, of alcoholism—is ugly.

      1919—Walter Gropius becomes head of the Bauhaus, a school of art, design and architecture in Weimar, Germany. Under his leadership, the teachers at Bauhaus break with the past. They emphasize geometrical forms, smooth surfaces, regular outlines, primary colours and modern materials. Just as importantly, they take to mass-manufacturing techniques, making their functional, aesthetically pleasing objects affordable to everyone. Never before have objects of daily life looked so good to so many.

      “This AZT is exhausting,” says Paul. He is anemic because of it and receives blood transfusions regularly.

      In 1920, I forbid the publication of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, in which Freud posits an underlying, destructive drive, Thanatos, the death instinct, which seeks to end life’s inevitable tensions by ending life itself. Paul changes historical events while keeping the same Roccamatio story.

      1920—Dada triumphs. Born in Zurich during the depths of the First World War and spread by a merry, desperate band of writers and artists, including Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Arp, Richard Hulsenbeck, Raoul Hausmann, Kurt Schwitters, Francis Picabia, George Grosz and many others, Dadaism seeks the demolition of all the values of art, society and civilization.

      Paul tells me over the phone that he’s developing Kaposi’s sarcoma. He has purple, blue lesions on his feet and ankles. Not many, but they are there. The doctors have zeroed in on them. He will be put on alpha interferon and undergo radiation therapy. Paul’s voice is shaky. But we agree, we strongly agree, with what the doctors have said, that radiation therapy has been found to be successful against localized Kaposi’s sarcoma, and he’s only got it on his skin, in fact, only on his feet, and it doesn’t hurt, and at least his lungs are fine. I promise to come by the hospital.

      Paul is quiet. He is in his usual, favourite position: lying on his back against a fastidiously constructed pyramid of three pillows.

      1921—Frederick Banting and Charles Best discover insulin, the glucose-metabolizing hormone secreted by the pancreas. It is immediately and spectacularly effective as a therapy for diabetes. The lives of millions are saved.

      I have just started my story when Paul interrupts me.

      “In 1921, Albert Camus died in a car crash.”

      He doesn’t say anything more. I continue until he interrupts me a second time.

      “In 1921, Albert Camus died in a car crash.”

      “Paul, he didn’t. Camus died in 1960.”

      “No, Albert Camus died in a car crash in 1921. He was a passenger in a Facel-Vega. Never heard of it, have you? It was a small series, French copy of a Chrysler, not very road-tested. Camus and some friends were returning—”

      “Paul, what are you doing?”

      “They were returning to Paris from the Lubéron, where Camus had bought a beautiful white house with his Nobel money. The road was—”

      “Okay, that’s enough.”

      “The road was straight and dry and empty. Along the road were trees. Suddenly—an axle that broke? a wheel that blocked?—for no reason, the car—”

      “You’re not following the rules, Paul. You’re chea—”

      “THE CAR SLID and hit a tree. Camus was killed instantly—”

      “In 1921, Banting and Best discover insulin, the glu—”

      “In 1921, Camus was killed instantly—”

      “The glucose-metabolizing hormone—”

      “By a tree—”

      “By a hormone—”

      “In 1921, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and it killed—”

      “Ha! In 1921, Banting and Best—”

      “In 1921, the bomb was dropped and it killed—”

      “It is spectacularly effective as—”

      “It killed—”

      “Is spectacularly effective—”

      “It ki—”

      “Is effective.”

      “It—”

      “So, so effective.”

      He’s tiring. I can sense he will submit in a moment.

      “IT WAS DROPPED AND IT KILLED CAMUS!”