Life of Pi

He headed for the ticket booth but I called him back “No, no. Not for you, master.”

It was with pride that I waved the ticket collector’s hand away and showed Mr. Kumar into the zoo.

He marvelled at everything, at how to tall trees came tall giraffes, how carnivores were supplied with herbivores and herbivores with grass, how some creatures crowded the day and others the night, how some that needed sharp beaks had sharp beaks and others that needed limber limbs had limber limbs. It made me happy that he was so impressed.

He quoted from the Holy Qur’an: “In all this there are messages indeed for a people who use their reason.”

We came to the zebras. Mr. Kumar had never heard of such creatures, let alone seen one. He was dumbfounded.

“They’re called zebras,” I said.

“Have they been painted with a brush?”

“No, no. They look like that naturally.”

“What happens when it rains?”

“Nothing.”

“The stripes don’t melt?”

“No.”

I had brought some carrots. There was one left, a large and sturdy specimen. I took it out of the bag. At that moment I heard a slight scraping of gravel to my right. It was Mr. Kumar, coming up to the railing in his usual limping and rolling gait.

“Hello, sir.”

“Hello, Pi.”

The baker, a shy but dignified man, nodded at the teacher, who nodded back.

An alert zebra had noticed my carrot and had come up to the low fence. It twitched its ears and stamped the ground softly. I broke the carrot in two and gave one half to Mr. Kumar and one half to Mr. Kumar. “Thank you, Piscine,” said one; “Thank you, Pi,” said the other. Mr. Kumar went first, dipping his hand over the fence. The zebra’s thick, strong, black lips grasped the carrot eagerly. Mr. Kumar wouldn’t let go. The zebra sank its teeth into the carrot and snapped it in two. It crunched loudly on the treat for a few seconds, then reached for the remaining piece, lips flowing over Mr. Kumar’s fingertips. He released the carrot and touched the zebra’s soft nose.

It was Mr. Kumar’s turn. He wasn’t so demanding of the zebra. Once it had his half of the carrot between its lips, he let go. The lips hurriedly moved the carrot into the mouth.

Mr. and Mr. Kumar looked delighted. “A zebra, you say?” said Mr. Kumar. “That’s right,” I replied. “It belongs to the same family as the ass and the horse.”

“The Rolls-Royce of equids,” said Mr. Kumar.

“What a wondrous creature,” said Mr. Kumar.

“This one’s a Grant’s zebra,” I said.

Mr. Kumar said, “Equus burchelli boehmi.”

Mr. Kumar said, “Allahu akbar.”

I said, “It’s very pretty.”

We looked on.

C H A P T E R 3 2

There are many examples of animals coming to surprising living arrangements. All are instances of that animal equivalent of anthropomorphism: zoomorphism, where an animal takes a human being, or another animal, to be one of its kind.

The most famous case is also the most common: the pet dog, which has so assimilated humans into the realm of doghood as to want to mate with them, a fact that any dog owner who has had to pull an amorous dog from the leg of a mortified visitor will confirm.

Our golden agouti and spotted paca got along very well, contentedly huddling together and sleeping against each other until the first was stolen.

I have already mentioned our rhinoceros-and-goat herd, and the case of circus lions.

There are confirmed stories of drowning sailors being pushed up to the surface of the water and held there by dolphins, a characteristic way in which these marine mammals help each other.

A case is mentioned in the literature of a stoat and a rat living in a companion relationship, while other rats presented to the stoat were devoured by it in the typical way of stoats.

We had our own case of the freak suspension of the predator-prey relationship. We had a mouse that lived for several weeks with the vipers. While other mice dropped in the terrarium disappeared within two days, this little brown Methuselah built itself a nest, stored the grains we gave it in various hideaways and scampered about in plain sight of the snakes. We were amazed. We put up a sign to bring the mouse to the public’s attention. It finally met its end in a curious way: a young viper bit it. Was the viper unaware of the mouse’s special status? Unsocialized to it, perhaps? Whatever the case, the mouse was bitten by a young viper but devoured—and immediately—by an adult. If there was a spell, it was broken by the young one. Things returned to normal after that. All mice disappeared down the vipers’ gullets at the usual rate.

In the trade, dogs are sometimes used as foster mothers for lion cubs. Though the cubs grow to become larger than their caregiver, and far more dangerous, they never give their mother trouble and she never loses her placid behaviour or her sense of authority over her litter. Signs have to be put up to explain to the public that the dog is not live food left for the lions (just as we had to put up a sign pointing out that rhinoceros are herbivores and do not eat goats).