Geoffroy Delorme - Deer Man: Seven Years of Living in the Wild

First published in North America in English by Greystone Books in 2022

Originally published in French as Lhomme-chevreuil: Sept ans de vie sauvage, copyright 2021 Les Arnes, Paris. Published by special arrangement with Les Arnes, France, in conjunction with their duly appointed agents Books and More Agency and 2 Seas Literary Agency.

English translation copyright 2022 by Shaun Whiteside

22 23 24 25 26 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright license, visit accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Greystone Books Ltd.

greystonebooks.com

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

ISBN 978-1-77164-979-7 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-77164-980-3 (epub)

Editing for original edition by Nicolas Torrent

Copy editing by Paula Ayer

Proofreading by Alison Strobel

Jacket and text design by Jessica Sullivan

Jacket photo composite: JMrocek/iStock.com;

fotooboi_kld/Shutterstock.com

Interior photographs by Geoffroy Delorme

Greystone Books thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government of Canada for supporting our publishing activities.

To Chevy, my best friend.You taught me to live, to feel, to love, to believe that everything was possible, and to become myself.

Nature is all that we see,

All that we want, all that we love.

All that we know, all that we believe,

All that we feel within ourselves.

It is beautiful for those who see it,

Good to those who love it,

Just when we believe in it

And respect it within ourselves

Look at the sky, it sees you,

Kiss the earth, it loves you.

The truth is what we believe

In nature its yourself.

george sand

IS IT A MAN OR A WOMAN? My eyes long ago lost the ability to spot that kind of detail from more than thirty yards away. Is that an animal running along beside them? Oh no, please, not a dog! Ive got to stop them before they scare my friends away.

Like them, Ive become very territorial. Anyone who enters my territory is seen as a threat. I feel as if my privacy is being violated. My area of the forest has a radius of three miles. As soon as I see somebody I follow them, I spy on them, I collect information. If they come back too often, Ill do everything I can to scare them off.

I emerge from the undergrowth, determined to keep the walker from advancing any farther. A strong smell of very sweet violets assaults my nostrils. My walker must be a woman. As I climb back up the little forest path, I realize that its been months since I last addressed a word to a human being. Ive been living in the forest for seven years, communicating only with animals. For the first few years I went back and forth between human society and the wilderness, but over time I ended up turning my back once and for all on what they call civilization to join my real family: roe deer.

As I advance along the path, feelings rise up in me that I thought I had completely eliminated from my life. What must I look like? My hair hasnt seen a comb for years, and its been cut blind, with a small pair of sewing scissors. Luckily my face is beardless. So thats something. My clothes? My pants, completely covered in soil, could stand up all on their own like a sculpture. Well, at least its dry today. At the beginning of my adventure I would sometimes check my reflection in a pocket mirror that I kept in a little round case. But over time, with the cold, the damp, the mirror tarnished and, to tell the truth, I no longer know what I look like.

Its a woman. I have to be polite so as not to frighten her. But stay on your guard, you never know. What word should I start with? Hello; hello is good. No, maybe good evening. Its already the end of the day.

Good evening...

Good evening, monsieur.

AS A CHILD, even as I sat in the warmth of my primary school classroom discovering the foundations of my future human lifehow to read, to write, to count, and to behave in societyI could easily find myself looking out the window, contemplating the nobility of life in the wild. I observed sparrows, robins, blue tits, any animal that passed through my field of vision, and I thought about how lucky those little creatures were to enjoy such freedom. While I was shut away in that room with other children who seemed to like it there, at all of six years old I already aspired to that freedom. Obviously I was aware of how rough life out there must be, but when I observed that existence, simple and serene despite all its dangers, I felt a tiny germ of mutiny stirring within me, resisting a vision of human life in which I already felt they were attempting to confine me. Every day I spent by that window at the back of the class took me a little further away from so-called societal values, while the wild world exerted an attraction on me like a magnet on a compass needle.

Only a few months after the end of the summer holidays, a seemingly banal event would give shape to that germ of rebellion. One fine morning I learned as I got to class that a trip to the swimming pool was planned. Somewhat timid by nature, I was already apprehensive. When we got to the pool itself I froze with horror. It was the first time Id seen so much water, and never having swum in my life, I was filled with an instinctive fear. All the other children seemed perfectly at ease, while I was gritting my teeth. The instructor, a red-haired woman with a long, severe face, asked me to get into the water. I refused. Her face tightened, her voice hardened, she ordered me to jump in. I refused again. Then she walked heavily toward me like a military officer, took me by the hand, and hurled me violently into the pool. I swallowed great gulps of water, of course, and not knowing how to swim, I started to go under. Between two desperate gesticulations I saw my tormentor swimming in my direction. I panicked, certain that she was going to kill me. My survival instinct led me to do the impossible. I doggy-paddled to the middle of the pool and dived below the divider separating me from the larger pool, with a view to reaching the other side. Having reached the edge, I climbed the ladder and ran as fast as I could to seek refuge in the changing rooms. I put my pants and my T-shirt back on. Once she was back out of the water, the instructor looked for me everywhere. The sound of her footsteps on the damp tiles suggested to me that she was coming up the little corridor that runs between the stalls arranged on each side. I had locked myself in the third one on the left. She flung open the second door, which closed again just as violently. An infernal din that made me think she was smashing in each door in turn. Seized by panic, I started crawling from stall to stall, slipping through the spaces between wall and floor. Having reached the end of the row, I took advantage of a few seconds during which she was peering inside one of the stalls to cross to the other side and slip discreetly out of the exit. Once outside I went charging down the street, running straight ahead, my eyes blurry with tears and chlorine, until a familiar-looking man stopped and asked me to follow him, taking me by the hand. It was the bus driver. He had seen me coming out all by myself and had the presence of mind to follow me. Between hiccupping sobs I told him what was happening, and why I never wanted to go back to the pool. His voice and his words reassured me a little. Once my little adventure was over and the teacher had been told how my escape had ended, I found myself at the back of the bus, alone, being stared at by both teachers and classmates, like a dangerous wild animal that needed to be treated with care. After that incident, the decision was made to take me out of school. I would pursue my education at home thanks to the National Centre for Distance Education.