The Half Brother: A Novel (77 page)

A boy,
BARNUM,
is sitting in a movie theater. He’s twelve years old and extremely small. He can’t see anything. A lady with a great deal of hair is blocking his view. He moves to another seat and ends up sitting behind a man with a hat. He moves yet again, but to no avail. Everyone’s taller than he is. He stretches from one side to the other. He can barely see the screen.

Advertisements are shown. For Coca-Cola. Ajax. Chocolate. Finally Barnum gets up and stands on his seat so he can see. The audience laughs at him. A furious
USHER
swears his way between the rows and drags him out with him. The audience laughs and applauds.

Darkness falls.

There’s quiet, broken only by the rustle of candy wrappers.

We see the film title appear on the screen:
fattening.

The film begins.

A boy appears
— PHILIP —
twelve years of age and also extremely small. He’s standing against the door frame in his room measuring his height. He’s wearing only his underpants. And high-heeled shoes on his feet. He stretches up to become taller. We can see a whole series of marks on the door frame with different years and individual dates recorded beside them.

Someone shouts from the theater:

MAN: Take off your shoes, you dwarf!

Some people in the audience laugh. Others tell them to be quiet. Philip turns around quickly and gets rid of his shoes as fast as he can, but doesn’t manage it before his
FATHER
appears. He’s a small but extremely fat man
—
almost square. He bends down and picks up the high-heeled shoes. He then proceeds to box his son’s ears.

2. INT. DAY. THE SCHOOL DOCTOR’S OFFICE

Philips standing, getting measured in his underpants. The
SCHOOL DOCTOR —
a strict, tall man in a white coat
—
looks closely at his height measure. Then he glances down at Philip’s feet. The boy hasn’t taken off his socks.

SCHOOL DOCTOR: Take off your socks too.

Philip reluctantly removes them and gives them to the nurse.

The school doctor pushes the top of the measure down onto his head and looks at the measure once more.

SCHOOL DOCTOR: Have you done something wrong, Philip?

Philip shakes his head.

SCHOOL DOCTOR: Oh, yes, you have. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so small.

3. INT. EVENING. AT HOME.

Philip’s eating dinner with his parents. His
MOTHER
is quiet and nervous. His father’s eating a vast amount. Philip stares at him and stops eating. The fat shines on his father’s bloated face and trickles down his double chin. He looks at his son and talks with his mouth full.

FATHER: You’re getting more and more like me, Philip.

Philip doesn’t reply. He just stares at his father, who keeps eating and eating.

MOTHER: You have to eat up now, Philip.

His mother gives him another helping of food. Philip doesn’t touch it. He just stares in terror at his father.

PHILIP’S VOICE: I don’t want to be like Dad.

His father looks up at him sharply.

FATHER: What did you say?

PHILIP: Nothing.

FATHER: Nothing? I’m sure I heard you say something.

PHILIP: Thanks for dinner.

MOTHER: You have to eat up before you’re finished.

His father gets up. He appears even smaller now, and fatter too. He’s been sitting on a large cushion which he takes with him to the divan over in the corner. Suddenly he stops and lets out a large fart. His mother looks down in shame.

MOTHER: Dad, please.

PHILIP’S VOICE: It was at that moment I made up my mind to stop eating. Because if I stopped eating then perhaps I’d start growing instead.

His father lies down on the living room divan with a newspaper over his face
—
the obituaries.

PHILIP’S VOICE: At least I had nothing to lose.

4. INT. MORNING. SCHOOL CAFETERIA.

Philip’s sitting at a long table with other pupils. There’s milk, carrots and crackers with caviar. Philip appears to eat but doesn’t actually swallow a thing.

5. INT. MORNING. SCHOOL. LAVATORY.

Philip stands bent over a toilet bowl and vomits. Someone
KNOCKS
hard on the door several times. Philip straightens up and opens the door. Outside are the biggest boys in the school waiting for him. They drag him over to the urinal, which is blocked with toilet paper and overflowing.

BOY: You think he can swim, boys?

All of them laugh. They get hold of his neck and shove him closer to all the piss. Finally he’s sucked down through the mass of toilet paper.

6. INT. SEWER.

Philip is floating in a dark underground channel. He tries to keep afloat in a sea of excrement, paper, garbage and rats.

7. EXT. AFTERNOON. STREET.

In a deserted street a manhole cover is lifted to one side. Philip climbs up
—
wet, filthy and exhausted. He manages to get to his feet, just barely, and totters off down the street.

8. INT. EVENING. BATHROOM.

Philip’s lying naked in the bath, underwater. There’s knocking at the door. He doesn’t hear it.

MOTHER: Philip? Aren’t you finished yet? What are you up to, Philip? You’re not doing something bad, are you?

Philip gets out, pads over the floor and bends down to the keyhole. He puts his mouth to it and blows for all he’s worth. There’s a shrill shriek from outside.

9. INT. EVENING. LIVING ROOM.

The family is sitting around the dinner table. One of Philip’s mothers eyes is red and infected, and it’s running, as if she’s crying from just the one eye. His father is sitting on his cushion stuffing his face. Philip hides his food in his pockets.

His
FATHER
always talks with his mouth full

FATHER: Hows it going at school, Philip?

PHILIP’S VOICE: It’s Dads fault I’m so small. I wish he would die.

His father looks at him and wipes his mouth with his napkin.

FATHER: What was that you said?

PHILIP: Nothing.

His father puts a huge piece of meat into his mouth. Suddenly his face goes red. He starts gasping for breath. He gets up. Philip and his mother just look at him in amazement. He sinks to the floor. In the distance church bells can be heard.

10. INT. MORNING. CHAPEL.

The church bells keep on ringing. Philip and his mother are sitting in the front pew. They are the only ones in the chapel.

The coffin, extremely short and broad, sinks down through a hole in the floor.

The
VICAR
comes down to shake hands with Philips mother.

Philip goes forward to the hole. He empties his pockets without anyone seeing him do so: pieces of meat, sausages, cakes and potatoes. He throws all of it down where the coffins gone before. He bends over the hole and peers into the crematorium’s fire. And he’s sucked down into the flames, just as he disappeared into the urinal.

11. INT. CREMATORIUM.

Philip struggles through the flames. A dark form stands before him, untouched by the conflagration. Philip stops. It’s his father.

FATHER: Have you got what you wanted now, son?

The flames engulf Philip.

12. INT. EVENING. BEDROOM.

Philip stands against the door frame to measure his height. His mother is weeping in the next room. Philip checks the new measurement. He’s grown half an inch. He shouts for joy.

His mother comes to him in her mourning clothes, choked with grief.

MOTHER: How dare you rejoice on this day of all days?

13. INT. MORNING. CLASSROOM.

The teacher, Miss
KNUCKLES,
is standing by the blackboard looking around at her pupils. She focuses her attention on Philip. He’s sitting at the front desk. He’s grown very thin and pale; he’s short, and nothing more than skin and bones.

KNUCKLES: And what is the fourth commandment, Philip? Can you tell me?

Philip gets up, but immediately sinks to the floor in a faint.

14. INT. MORNING. SCHOOL DOCTOR’S OFFICE

Philip’s lying on a mattress. The school doctor’s examining him. Knuckles and the school nurse are standing close by.

KNUCKLES: His father has just died. It’s all been too much for little Philip.

SCHOOL DOCTOR: The boy’s undernourished. That’s what’s wrong with him.

The school doctor rouses Philip.

SCHOOL DOCTOR: Don’t you get enough food at home, Philip?

Philip looks at him.

PHILIP: Yes.

SCHOOL DOCTOR: You’re lying, Philip.

The school doctor signals to the nurse, who goes over to the telephone.

15. EXT. DAY. STREET.

Philips mother hurries down the street. But then she has to stop. In front of her on the sidewalk, men in white, bloodied overalls are carrying pig carcasses from a truck into the slaughterhouse. Finally she has to fight her way between them.

16. INT. AFTERNOON. CORRIDOR.

Philip’s standing alone in the corridor outside the door to the school doctor’s. He bends down and peers through the keyhole. Philip sees his mother sitting inside listening to the doctor. She’s clinging to the handbag on her lap.

Suddenly he sees that the room is filling up with water. It’s like an aquarium. His mother and the school doctor leave their chairs and float around in the green water, bubbles coming out of their mouths.

Then everything goes dark.

Immediately afterward he sees the nurses face. She puts her lips over the keyhole as if she’s kissing his eye.

The door is opened and Philip comes tumbling in.

SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: The boy must be put at once on Weir Mitchel’s Remedy!

17. EXT. MORNING. EAST END STATION.

Philips standing on the platform. He’s holding a heavy suitcase. His mother pulls the zipper of his jacket right up to his throat.

SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: Or fattening, a remedy availed of by the undernourished, the nervous, the anemic, the emaciated and convalescents, to get them back on their feet again.

Philip’s mother hugs him. She’s sobbing. The sound of the train whistle is shrill and close by. She lets him go. Philip climbs aboard the train.

His mother is left standing on the platform. The train starts moving out of the station. She lifts her hand and waves.

SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: The remedy consists of a twelve-day diet, as prescribed by Professor Burkart.

18. EXT. DAY. RAILWAY STATION.

Philip tumbles off the train and onto the platform, suitcase in hand. He’s immediately swept up by a man, the
FARMER,
who’s wearing his local costume.

FARMER: Oh, yes, here we have a city kid in need of some feeding!

The farmer takes his suitcase from him and leads him over to a truck. He throws the suitcase into the back and lifts Philip into the cab.

19. INT. DAY. TRUCK.

Philip sits beside the farmer as he drives. The farmer whistles contentedly and now and again looks at Philip, a smile on his face. The truck rattles and bounces along the uneven road surface. Philip clings to the door and can only just see over the dashboard.

The farmer hits the brakes. A flock of all sorts of creatures
—
sheep, cows, steers, pigs and hens
—
is crossing the road ahead of them. The farmer slaps Philip on the back and points.

FARMER: You’ll eat these, Philip. The whole lot.

The farmer puts down his foot and drives straight through the menagerie.

20. EXT. DAY. TRUCK.

We see, from above, the truck driving along a narrow road between two fields, where the corn ripples gold in the wind and sunlight. Norwegian flags fly from flagpoles on all the farms. Beautiful people, full of health, wave at them.

The suitcase is lying in the back of the truck.

A boys’ choir sings
now our land is living.

Soon we’re so high that we can barely see the vehicle in the farmland. We disappear into the clouds and everything is transformed into swirling mist and utter silence. A hand parts the mist. We’re blinded by a mighty light.

SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: You will love your food as yourself.

21. EXT. DAY FARM.

The truck drives into the yard where the
WIFE,
a large woman, also wearing local costume, is waiting. Philip clambers down from the cab. The farmer fetches his suitcase from the back of the truck and carries it inside. Philip goes over to the farmer’s wife to greet her. She pumps his whole arm.

WIFE: Welcome to the farm, Philip. Now you’re going to get fat.

She follows him inside. In a window on the first floor two
FAT BOYS
stand looking down at him.

SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: Day one. At six-thirty — a pint of milk to be drunk slowly over three quarters of an hour.

22. INT. MORNING. FARM.

An assortment of boys are sitting at a long table in a dining room drinking warm, lumpy milk. Some are as thin as Philip, others have put on weight. They’ve been put in a kind of order
—
the thinnest at the bottom, the fattest at the top. Philip’s right at the bottom. All attention is focused on him as the new boy.