The Devil Tree by Jerzy Kosinski Read Free Book Online Page A

by plane or helicopter, then, in the winter, to Chamonix, St. Moritz, Crans-Montana, Cortina, Val d’Isère. With this kind of rapid training, you would have to wear specially constructed devices to help protect you in high-speed falls. A battery-powered gyroscope—a model no larger than a bicycle wheel, which you’d carry while skiing—would have to be ordered right away. It would help you learn the turns. Throughout your training we would employ two assistants and two video cameramen, all expert skiers themselves. During every run you’d be filmed from different angles, and we would analyze your progress on a portable video screen. At the end of the day we would examine the tapes on a larger screen, to see you in greater detail.
    “Barring a chance accident, by spring you could hire some of the past national downhill finalists and try to keep up with them. Then we’d hire some of the best French, Austrian, and Swiss professional downhillers—past Olympic and World Cup stars—to race against—or with—you.” He stopped, convinced by his own arguments. “Yes, Mr. Whalen, I think it can be done, and I’m at your disposal.”
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    My fear of violence began when as a boy I lay in bed and listened to my father rage. I couldn’t bear it, and I think everyone, including my mother, my governess, even Anthony, felt the same way. Those few times I dared to disagree with my father, he struck me even if others were around. One night in our summer house, I wakened to the howling of Mesabi, my little dog. I put on my bathrobe and went outside. In the garden I found Mesabi with its legstiedtogether, and towering above it was my father, kicking the animal again and again. Seeing me, he explained that the dog had to be punished for disobedience and that the pain would break its future will to resist its master. I watched in silence, torn by pity for the dog, anger at my father, and hatred for my own weakness. After that, my defense against my weakness was to retreat to a world where I was the victor. I began to collect toy soldiers, and later, army and commando single-and doubled-edged knives and bayonets, among them many Nazi and Soviet World War II relics. I subscribed to
Soldier of Fortune: The Journal of Professional Adventurers
and read biographies of the great political, military, and business leaders, as well as stories about famous rogues, outlaws, and traitors, admiring only those among them who were orphans or who grew up alone, abandoned, or fatherless.
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    As children, Karen and I discovered sex together. We made up nicknames for genitals: chink for hers, bobolink for mine. She wanted to know where my bobolink was when I cycled. Did it lie along the top of the bicycle saddle or fall down on one side? Did it flatten when I lay on my stomach? I wondered how deep her chink was and whether it filled with water when she swam. Could it be sealed by tape? Could she hide money in it? Karen can still remember how one afternoon, as we played in the woods with other children, I put a branch inside her chink. One of the girls told Karen’s mother about the episode, and Karen was spanked. Karen’s mother, taking the fifty-cent piece I had given Karen to store in her chink, said it was dirty money from a dirty boy for a dirty thing. Another time, Karen triedto snatch my bobolink while I tried to deepen her chink with my hand. At first she screamed; then, as my fingers rested inside her, she grew silent and simply stared at me. Touching each other, we discovered sensations of desire that gave us far more pleasure than any plaything had ever given us. The desire was insistent, and it grew more insistent with each new opportunity for kissing and petting. Exploring each other gave way to feelings that demanded expression, that needed a language of love and devotion we had not yet acquired or developed. And so, to give drama to what we felt, we pretended to be characters from an