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Mark was born 32 years ago,at Ste-Justine Hospital. .
As a boy he was docile, timid.
His parents separated when he was three.
From that time his only memories are a dog barking,
and a bed coming out a window during the move.
One day he told his mother “I want a turtle”,and they got him a hamster.
He drowned it by accident in the bath.
He lived for a while with his grandparents.
He went to a public primary schooland always got good marks.
At the same time his mother sent him to painting and drawing classes
where he showed a natural talent.
At that time he drew a picture which he called “Morning”.
It showed everyone he knewat the moment they woke up.
He lived for half the week with his motherand the other half with his father.
He spent his holidays camping inMaine or with his grandparents in Florida.
When he was 11 he was selected in a competition for young artists
and spent three months in workshops with established painters.
He went to a private secondary school, he rebelled as a teenager,
always wore blackand edited an anarchist magazine.
He had a girlfriend to whom he once told :“There’s nothing much to hope for in life”,
although deep down he thought the opposite.
He left school before finishing.
He continued painting and little by little hegot interested in installations and other
forms of visual art.
He moved in with a girl who worked in a bookshop.
They didn’t get on well but didn’t separate.
He got work giving private painting classesin a cultural centre.
He broke up with the girl he was living with.
At 25 he got a scholarship to go to Italy
so for a few months he toured Europe,meeting people and seeing exhibitions.
When he got back he felt different, like a better person.
He got a tattoo on his right armwhich said “No Fear”.
He went out with various girls and put on exhibitions of his works.
He began to work as an art director for various publications and from this he started to earn
some money.
He lived in a comfortable apartment in Mile End with a dog called “Ketchup”.
And then one morning his lifechanged completely.
After work one day a group of masked men cornered him in the street and kidnapped him.
They locked him up in a dark cellarand for a month they beat him and raped him.
Try as he might, Mark could donothing to stop them.
He thought they had him confused with someone else
but there was no way of reasoning with the kidnappers.
They only fed him so that they could continuebeating and raping him.
And so the weeks went by.
Eventually they let him out,brought him to a place he didn’t know
and showed him, from a distance,a very pretty girl.
They said “Her name is Monica”.
They said “You are going to marry her”.
They introduced the pair and made them chat.
A week later they were married in the registry office of the Palais de Justice.
Then the masked guys told him: “This will be your home”,
and they left him living with the girl in an apartment.
The one they’re in now.
Every time he tries to leave the apartment,or the job they got him at a gym,
the masked guys take him back to the basementand beat him savagely and rape him.
The girl they’ve made him live with, Monica, is a very sweet girl,
she likes Chekhov and listens to Mahler.
She tells him she’s with him because she loves him
and appears to have nothing to do with the kidnappers.
One day he tells her “There are several masked men who beat the shit out of me”
and she looks at him like she doesn’t understandand then kisses him tenderly.
Mark tries to communicate with his familyand his friends,
but every time he tries they punish him again.
He abandons the idea of calling the police.
So he has no alternative but to adaptto his new life, his house, his wife…
He only ever leaves here to go to workand then come home, while a car follows
at a distance.
At the gym, as well as working, they make him train.
From the first day, they gave him a program of hardcore exercises that he had to complete.
If he didn’t, he’d be punished again.
He thought of killing himself, but at the end of the day his life isn’t so bad…
although it’s not the one he’d have chosen.
He tried to find explanations for what’s happening, for why they’re doing this,
but deep down he feels there is no explanation. It’s happening because it’s happening.
Little by little his former life, his painting, his classes, his family,
it all seems like a dream, something that never happened.
The tattoo which he still has on his arm is the only thing he’s kept from his past.
He’s been here for two years already.
Yesterday Monica suggested that they have a child, and he’s thinking of agreeing.
Sometimes he’ll see on tv a show about painting,
or something that reminds him of his former life,and he’ll feel like a stranger.
Other than that, everything is normal.
Whenever he has any doubts, he repeats to himself “Everything is normal, everything’s
sufficiently normal”.
In the morning, the sunlight in the apartment is gorgeous.
