Alva and Irva - Edward Carey [54]
As I clutched myself after those first hours of pain in our bathroom, I endlessly regarded and prodded the scab upon my chest, a scab exactly indicating the borders of our country. I must not pick at the scab, Pig told me, otherwise it would heal badly. And soon enough the dead blood flaked away and I was left with the map of our country that I had ordered, which selflessly took up only a tiny portion of my skin. And with what happiness did I rush to Arsenal Street, into the half light of Pig Mikel’s parlour, and tugging off my shirt so that the pain could begin again, expounded, ‘You can read the map of Alva!’ Pig said, ‘We can stop now, if you like. Do you really want to continue?’ I said, ‘Give me Europe!’
Some people write telephone numbers on the palms of their hands or upon their wrists, to remind themselves. I had the world inserted into my skin.
AFTER OUR COUNTRY was completed, mapped and coloured upon my chest, the rest of the world slowly followed. It made little difference whether it was India or Africa, Luxembourg or Madagascar, Saint Helena or Easter Island that were drawn upon me, blood and ink were shed in the same way, and swept aside by the gloved hands of Pig Mikel, in the same nonchalant fashion. Some days I would be at one with the pain and in a trance-like state calmly let it drill into me, some days it would beat me and I would clench my body and despite the protestations and insults hailed upon me by Pig would be unable to relax and on those days how the pain howled. Of course, there are certain parts of the body, in regard to this art of tattooing, that are more sensitive than others, the underside of the arms, for example, is particularly tender, or anywhere bony, particularly the collar bone, and so on the days when Alaska and Greenland were inserted into me or the central portions of Russia or Mongolia and China, I experienced a particularly keen agony and I left the parlour in a more dishevelled and miserable state than was customary, but I would return the next day just the same, eager for the horrors. I believed that it was only natural that the process should cause pain, how else could I get the grief and splendours, the histories, such histories, of so many different places to enter into me and stay with me always. The world was out there, but it was also, I thought touching my body, touching the ultramarine skin or the patches of me now coloured yellow or green or orange or red (the hypsometric tints of the globe), it was also here.
And all the while I was training myself to leave Irva. With each new country came the proclamation, the vow, the promise each time a little more strongly, each time with growing confidence that refused to be beaten, the sublime truth: Irva, I’m leaving you, every day I’m growing further and further away.
When Mother was asleep I would slip into my sister’s room and removing my nightdress would show her the world as it was appearing. And Irva fretting, tears in her eyes, would touch those pieces of the world spreading over me like a blessing, those parts of me swollen in their newness. She’d moisten her fingers with a little of her spit and begin to scratch vigorously into me. ‘No, Irva,’ I said, moving her hands away, ‘you’ll need a knife to get it off, you’d have to peel me.’ She kept shaking her head as if to say, ‘No more, Alva, please, please, no more.’ And always just before