My Body in Nine Parts (4 page)

I don't remember why I had to take a medical examination, but I found that explanation for my crooked nose so convincing that ever since I've often given it to those who wanted to know why my nose is crooked.

But the best story about my nose being deviated is the story of when my older sister Sarah overturned the baby carriage in which I was sleeping like an angel when I was only a few months old.

I think I was three months old when that happened. My mother found me lying on the ground in our courtyard my face and nose pressed hard against the cement.

My mother often told that story when my sister Sarah and I had a fight. She would say that Sarah did that to me because she wanted to be an only child.

This is how the story goes. It was a beautiful summer day. Nice and warm. My mother had brought my baby carriage outside into the yard in the front of the house so that I could be in the fresh air and in the sun, and she sat in the shade of a tree, a little further away from me. She was knitting me a woolen
passe-montagne
, you know, one of those things that covers most of your head and face, a cap-comforter, I think it's called, to wear during the winter to protect my head, and my nose, from the cold. My mother always protected my nose. She knew she was responsible for what it was.

So that day, concentrating on her knitting, she didn't notice my three year old sister Sarah topple the carriage, and how I ended up flat on my stomach, my head pressed against the ground.

I don't know how long I stayed like that before my mother lifted her head from her knitting and saw the carriage upside down. I could have suffocated.

Because I remained like that for such a long time, still asleep, according to my mother, is the reason why my nose got crooked. The pressure of the ground against my still tender nose at such a young age caused the deviation.

Of course, even if I don't see that my nose is crooked when I look into the mirror, I am forced to believe what people say. People always tell the truth when something is ugly, and usually lie when they comment on something beautiful.

But me, I know the real reason why my nose is the way it is. I have never told anyone. It is such a dumb reason, I am ashamed to reveal it.

Usually I say that I don't really know to which side of my face my nose deviates since when I look at it in the mirror I do not see the deviation. But me I know which side it could be. That's why, when someone takes my picture, I always say,
Make sure you get my good side
. I assume that the good side is the side that makes my nose look straight.

Once, I even said that to the cameraman when I was being interviewed live on television. It was in Africa. In Kenya. A beautiful young African lady journalist was doing the interview. And while she was making her introduction before asking me questions, I turned to the camera man and said, patting my nose with my hand,
Make sure you get my good side
.

The people of Kenya thought it was very funny. And I understand that even today, they are still talking about what the American writer Federman told the camera man. Especially now that I've been translated into Swahili.

But I was going to reveal the real reason why my nose is crooked. OK, I'll say it, even though it will undoubtedly depress me, and put my nose in a bad mood. It doesn't like it when I tell this story. My nose is very sensitive.

It's normal. Noses are naturally sensitive. And mine is hyper-sensitive because it is bigger than just an ordinary nose. The run of the mill. Its dimension and its shape make my nose unique. I would even say that it is a noble nose. An aristocratic nose. It may not be a perfect Roman nose, but it has its own style. And the fact that it is crooked makes it even more unique and original.

OK, enough procrastination, I now will tell why my nose leans to one side. It's because when I was a boy my nose was always running, and I was constantly sniffling, even during the summer. My nose was naturally humid. It's not a crime. That's how it was.

It was not my fault if my nose had a tendency to run. I could not control it. And what made it worse, is that I never had a handkerchief to blow my nose. So I would wipe my runny nose with my sleeve. The reason I had to wipe my nose with my sleeve when I was a boy is because we were so poor we couldn't afford to buy handkerchiefs. So the other boys in school, who had handkerchiefs, always made fun of me because I used the sleeve of my shirt or of my coat as a
tire-jus
. That's what we called a handkerchief in school.
Un tire-jus
. Roughly translated, a juice-puller.

You cannot believe how poor we were. We were so poor we couldn't even afford to buy toilet paper. So when we had to go, we wiped ourselves with pieces of newspaper. And let me tell you, it's not always comfortable. It's rough to be poor.

Okay, you're going to tell me that this toilet paper digression has nothing to do with my nose.

Well, I'll replay, it's in the toilet that my nose smells better than ordinary noses simply because it's bigger. My nose smells more deeply. It inhales more fully.

In any case, because my nose was always running I constantly had snot in my nose, and that's why I had to wipe it with my sleeve since I didn't have a handkerchief. The older boys always called me
petit morveux
. Snotty brat.

Well, so now you know the real reason why my nose goes to one side of my face. I should perhaps specify that it was always with my left sleeve that I wiped my nose because when I was a boy I was left-handed.

It's my mother who decided that I should be left-handed when she was shaping me in her womb. She must have known that someday I would be some sort of artist, and she believed that all great artists are left-handed. That's what she believed. I suppose because she had married an artist.

That's probably why my nose deviates to the left since I always wiped it on my sleeve in a quick right to left motion. At least, it's logical to assume that it deviates to the left, even though I cannot see it myself in the mirror.

When I broke my left arm at the age of nine, I was forced to become right-handed. I broke my left arm when I fell from a cherry tree, and it was in a cast for many months. But that's another story which I will tell another time.

For the time being let's stay with the story of my crooked nose, and forget the broken left-arm.

I must emphasize that my nose does not only serve me to smell odors in toilets. It smells all kinds of other odors. Pleasant odors. The smell of flowers, for instance. Or the smell of cheeses. My nose loves to smell cheeses. Especially le Pont-L'Évêque when it's well done. My nose loves smelly cheeses. And it loves the scent of good wines. And of course, the smell of women. Ah yes, the odor of a woman. My nose loves to smell perfumed women, especially young women who smell like fresh flowers. And also my nose likes to smell itself, its own body, well my body, since it is part of it, especially after I take a bath.

My nose used to like the smell of cigarette smoke when I let it out through my nostrils. This was before I gave up smoking about twenty years ago. But my nose remembers that smell. Sometimes my nose craves the smell of a good Gitane. The French cigarette my nose preferred.

Oh, I also have to tell how my nose takes itself for Cyrano's nose. In fact, and this is true, because of my nose I was once chosen, among several aspirants, by a theater director to play the part of Cyrano de Bergerac with my own nose.

Okay, it was not a major Broadway production, but still I played the part. You should have seen me in the role of Cyrano, dressed like a musketeer. My nose was so proud on opening night. So proud that it became even redder than normal when the people in the audience stood up to applaud our performance.

Of course, I have often been called Pinocchio because of my nose. But also because, according to certain people, I have a tendency to exaggerate when I tell stories. Perhaps even the tale of my nose may not be totally factual.

One day a man called Gaston insulted my nose publicly. He was a poet. So he claimed. I don't know what caused him to want to attack my nose, but I had to defend it. This is what transpired:

Gaston
– You have … you have … Mister Federman … huh! A very big nose.

Federman
– Very big, you say.

Gaston
– Yes, quite big. Enormous in fact.

Federman
– That's all? That's all you have to say? This is the best you can come up with? How pathetic.

Gaston
– BIG … very BIG! HUGE! And crooked.

Federman
– Ah, my dear Mister Gaston, no, you must do better than that. Don't worry my nose can take it. You could have said so many things, in so many different styles, in so many different tones of voice. For instance:

Aggressive:
Me, Sir, if I had such a nose I would have it demolished on the spot. Exterminated!

Friendly:
It must drown into your coffee when you drink, you should perhaps drink it out of the saucer.

Descriptive:
It's a boulder! It's a mountain peak! It's a volcano! What am I saying. It's an asteroid. When does it collide with the Earth?

Curious:
What use do you make of this elongated oblong box? Do you use it as a writing table or a pedestal?

Gracious:
You must love flying saucers very much to offer so openly to their wheels such a solid landing pad.

Truculent:
Tell me Sir, when you smoke your disgusting French Gitanes and you exhale the vapors through your nostrils, do people shout Fire! Fire!?

Considerate:
Be careful not to lean forward too much when you walk, the weight of this promontory might make you topple over.

Pedantic:
The ugly giant monster that the Japanese invented, called Nozigodla, must have on his forehead as much flesh and bone as your nose.

Tender:
Why don't you have a little parasol, or better yet a tent made for it so that it doesn't get burned by the sun?

Cavalier:
What! This type of instrument is now in style to probe into secret places. How convenient. How useful.

Emphatic:
There is no wind, no storm, no blizzard, no tornado, no volcanic eruption strong enough to make such a nose sneeze or catch a cold, except perhaps a piece of freshly cut hay. Even the most powerful succumb to grass.

Dramatic:
When it bleeds do certain people think it's the Red Sea and try to go across?

Admiring:
What a great publicity sign this nose would make for a perfumer. Just the nose surrounded by a myriad of beautiful perfumed women in negligees.

Lyrical:
Is it a train? A boat? A dirigible? A spaceship? When is the launching?

Naive:
This topological monument, when is it open for public visitation?

Well, I could have gone on teaching Gaston a few more tirades about my nose. But poor Mister Gaston had already disappeared into the crowd, his tail between his legs, never to be seen again. Never to be heard again. For once, my nose was victorious.

Today I want to talk about my toes. I want to tell you the amazing, and disconcerting discovery I made last night while cutting my toe-nails.

Are you interested?

Well, this is what I discovered. By the way, I was wearing my eye-glasses. I always wear my glasses when I cut my nails, toe-nails as well as finger-nails, so as not to have an accident. I bleed easily. So I was really eyeing my toes very closely.

I was stark naked. Just out of the shower.

You're going to tell me, Federman who cares whether you cut your toe-nails naked or fully dressed as long as you take your shoes and socks off. That's good enough for us.

Agreed. Forget the fact that I was naked.

I had one foot on the edge of the bathroom sink. This way I could see myself cutting my toe-nails in the large mirror above the sink.

I had, one might say, a double image of what I was doing. Cutting my nails while watching myself cutting my nails. I was, in other words, watching myself both outside and inside the mirror. If that makes sense to you.

I know you're going to tell me, Federman you're getting to be a bore with your narcissistic redoubling. Tell the story of your toes, and forget the image in the mirror.

Okay, I continue. When I clip my toe-nails, I always start with the little toe, the pinkie on the left foot, and I proceed, if I may venture an anatomic neologism,
chronotoegically
towards the big toe. Yes, I always start with the little toe of the left foot, it's a ritual with me, and I finish with the big toe. But I don't skip a toe, I don't jump around. I go from one to the next.

From small to big, from easy to more difficult because the nails of my toes get harder as the toes get bigger. I don't know if this is the case with everyone, but that's the case with my toe-nails.

Well, last night I discovered that each of my toes have a particular character. A unique shape and personality.