Towards the end of The Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith, a man with two identities walks into a restaurant and asks for a table for two, proceeding to order for himself and his wife, even though he's alone. He believes his wife is present and, if I remember correctly, engages in some conversation with her. It's an unlikely scenario, though I'm sure it's something that could happen. The issue for me was the any plausibility in the novel had stretched and snapped way before.
It came to mind when I read Fat. Here's why.
Fat is one that has me lost in the fog. As much as that is the case, I also feel I'm putting together the pieces of patterns in the collection.
It's another that has me in awe and made me uncomfortable, which is an impressive achievement given that it's only four pages long.
This might easily be a companion piece to They're Not Your Husband. It's set in a diner, there's a human size issue at the heart of it, there are waitresses as the central characters and each of them is in a problematic marriage. There's also a quiet desperation and dignity about the victims, which is what I'm going to hold on to as one of my takeaways.
In this case, the waitress is the narrator. She's explaining to a friend about her Wednesday shift. Sitting in her station is a huge man, 'the fattest man I've ever seen'. Enormous fingers. Makes a puffing sound as he speaks.
The man is well presented. He's gentle and thoughtful and likes his food. He speaks well and frequently uses the form we when talking about himself.
It's the we thing that reminded me of Highsmith. I wondered if it were possible that the man believed he was with someone else. That idea was quickly dismissed. My next thought, it might be an equivalent to the use of the pronoun one. That makes more sense. And there are more abstract ideas. Does he reference himself in the plural because of his size? Is he internalising something from outside? Reaching out for acceptance? Is he acknowledging or hoping to create a bond with the waitress?
I don't have an answer. Perhaps when I've progressed through the book I'll find a clue somewhere else. Maybe you understand it better and can share your ideas in the comments.
Regardless of this, the customer is charming and the waitress becomes defensive about him when her colleagues poke fun. It's touching.
When the waitress returns home, she tells her husband about it. His response demonstrates something of a cruel streak.
They go to bed. He wants sex, she doesn't. There's only one way it's going to play out. During intercourse, she has something that's the opposite of an out-of-body experience, reimagining herself as a huge person and seeing the man on top of her as tiny. In some ways, I think she's identifying with the plight of the customer in the diner, his sense of being an outsider and a figure of fun. I imagine that in seeing her husband as a small man, she's creating a distance between herself and the reality of the situation. It's a bad marriage. The power balance is wrong. Maybe if she can visualise him as tiny, she'll find a way to cope with the problem.
I hope she made it.
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