The Cat's Table

by Michael Ondaatje

  She spoke with difficulty, with her already slurring words. She appeared to be in a state of worthlessness, her talent no longer in her. He stayed in her room all evening, not letting her out of his sight, and the next morning he took her, as had been planned, to the prison where her father was being held. He waited outside when they let her in to see him.

  Her father leaned forward, and spoke a name. ‘Oronsay,’ he said. ‘Sunil and others will be on the same ship, to look after me.’ The vessel was going to England and they would help him escape. Then he put his face almost between the bars and continued speaking to her.

  Outside the prison, she saw the slim figure of Sunil waiting for her. She came up to him, held the back of his neck and spoke into his ear, told him what she felt she had to do, that her life was no longer for herself, but for her father.

  The Mediterranean

  RAMADHIN POSITIONED HIMSELF in the shadows.

  Cassius and I were crouched in a lifeboat that hung in the air. And on deck below us, Emily was whispering to the man named Sunil. We had guessed correctly where they might be, and could hear each word, their whispers magnified within the shell of the lifeboat. Any sound they made filled our darkness, while we crouched there in the claustrophobic heat.

  ‘No, not here.’

  ‘Here,’ he said.

  Some rustling.

  ‘Then let—’

  ‘Your mouth. So sweet,’ he was saying.

  ‘Yes. The milk.’

  ‘Milk?’

  ‘I ate an artichoke during dinner. If you eat an artichoke and then drink milk, the milk tastes sweet … Even if there is wine, I ask for milk. If I have eaten an artichoke.’

  We did not understand what they were talking about. Perhaps the conversation was in a special code. There was a long silence. Then a laugh.

  ‘I must go back soon …’ Sunil said.

  Whatever was occurring was not understood by us. Cassius leaned over to me and whispered, ‘Where is the artichoke?’

  I heard the strike of a match, and soon could smell her cigarette smoke. Player’s Navy Cut.

  Suddenly, as if they were now strangers, a more cautious conversation started between them. It was confusing. The artichoke dialogue had left us in a different place. Now it was talk about schedules, how often the night watchman patrolled the Promenade Deck, the hour the prisoner had his meals, and when he was given his walks. ‘There’s something I want you to do,’ Sunil was saying, and then they were whispering quietly.

  ‘Can he even do such a thing?’ Emily’s voice was suddenly clear in the darkness. She sounded scared.

  ‘He knows when the guards will be most relaxed, or tired. But he’s still weak from the beating.’

  ‘What beating? When did that happen?’

  ‘After the cyclone.’

  We remembered then how the prisoner had missed some of his night walks shortly before Aden.

  ‘They must have suspected something.’

  Suspected what?

  It was as if Cassius and I could hear each other thinking in the dark, the slow machinery of our young brains attempting to cope with this brusque information.

  ‘You must make sure he will meet you here. Tell us when. We’ll be ready.’

  She was silent.

  ‘He will be eager for you.’ He said this and laughed. ‘You must not dissuade him.’

  I thought I heard him mention Mr Daniels’s name, but then he began talking about a man named Perera, and after a while I could barely keep my eyes open. When they left I wanted to sleep where I was, but Cassius shook me and we climbed out of the lifeboat.

  Mr Giggs

  THE PRESENCE OF an English official on board the Oronsay had been of little importance to the passengers during the first part of the journey. We would see him wander the decks alone and then climb to the narrow terrace in front of the bridge, where he sat on a canvas chair as if he were the owner of the vessel. But gradually it became known that Mr Giggs was a high-level army officer who’d been sent out to Colombo and – so rumour had it – was twinned with a person from the Criminal Investigation Department in Colombo, now travelling undercover. Both were in charge of escorting the prisoner Niemeyer to face trial in England. It was said the investigator from Colombo was billeted somewhere in Tourist Class. We had no idea where the Englishman slept. It was assumed he had grander quarters.

  Mr Daniels announced to the Cat’s Table that Mr Giggs had been seen talking furiously with the guards sometime after Niemeyer was badly beaten. No one was sure if Giggs was accusing them of brutality or if he was simply angry that knowledge of the assault had got out. Or possibly, Miss Lasqueti argued, Giggs was upset because the attack might have given the prisoner a way out, a loophole, in his oncoming conviction and punishment.

  What I noticed most about the English official were his arms, which had curling ginger hair on them, and which I found difficult to look at. He wore ironed shirts and shorts and calf-length socks, but that red hair was disturbing to me, and when during one of the ship’s dances he sought out Emily and began a waltz with her I was outraged in an almost paternal way. Even Mr Daniels, I thought, would be better for my beautiful cousin.

  I cornered Miss Lasqueti about Mr Giggs’s connection with the prisoner.

  ‘If the prisoner did kill an English judge, it is very serious. They won’t let him stand trial on the island. They had a hearing, and now the case moves to England. Why do you care? Anyway, this man Giggs is in charge of him, along with an investigator, Mr Perera, to make sure he actually gets there. Niemeyer has got a talent for escaping, supposedly. The first cell he was put in had a heavy wooden door and he actually managed to burn it down and escape, though he was burned in the process. Once he leapt out of a train with a guard handcuffed to him and had to carry the struggling man with him until he found a blacksmith. He’s probably not the sweetest chocolate in the box.’

  ‘Why did he kill the judge, Auntie?’

  ‘Please do not call me Auntie … I don’t know for sure. I am trying to find out.’

  ‘Was it a bad judge?’

  ‘I don’t know. Are there such things? Let us not assume that.’

  I walked away from this brief chat, not sure how to assume a position on what was happening. I saw Miss Lasqueti change direction suddenly and approach Mr Giggs, and I saw that she held his interest and attention with whatever she was saying to him.

  At our next meal she told us all what she had learned. The entire ship apparently had been ‘traversed’ by Giggs and Perera before any of us had even come on board. Accompanying the prisoner also meant overseeing minutiae on every level of the ship. They sealed possible escape routes, removed otherwise innocent objects – a sand bucket for fire drills, a metal pole – that could be turned into weapons. They scrolled down the passenger lists for any known cohorts of the prisoner. They hired guards from the Maldive Islands who would have no connection to anyone in Ceylon. They had spent two days on a comprehensive search of the vessel. Now they were being excessively watchful, and this was the reason for Mr Giggs’s observation point in front of the bridge, where he could oversee as much of the activity on board as he wished. He had also told Miss Lasqueti that the seriousness of the crime had governed the level of the accompaniment: Mr Perera was supposedly the very best man from the Colombo CID, and Mr Giggs, though he said so himself, was the best available man from Britain. So it was that they, along with the Maldive Islands guards, watched every step and gesture of the prisoner named Niemeyer.

  The Blind Perera

  IF GIGGS HAD now become the most discussed and witnessed man on the Oronsay, his partner in attempting to prevent the prisoner’s escape was discussed but never in evidence. We never saw Mr Perera, the police officer from Ceylon. Besides, Perera was a common name. All we knew was that he was a ‘blind’ Perera – from that branch of the family so called because they spelled their name without the letter i; for there were Pereras and Pereiras. It was evident the CID had put forward a plai
nclothes officer, so that if there were any conspirators on board they would not know who else was watching them. So while Giggs strutted about, then parked himself prominently by the bridge, his high-ranking Asian counterpart was invisible. The two of them had boarded the ship and given it a comprehensive search. But by the time we came on board, Mr Perera was simply one of our fellow passengers, anonymous, possibly travelling under another name. Some even began to believe that there might be two undercover Pereras.

  We spoke often about the mysterious CID man. Who was he? What did he look like? For one whole afternoon Cassius and I followed any strange-looking personality on the boat, watching for abnormal behaviour. ‘There are two types of undercover,’ Miss Lasqueti explained. ‘The social and the private. If you are undercover you make your friends quickly, compulsively. You enter a bar and you get to know every waitress and bartender. You sell your invented character, as quickly as possible. You know everyone’s first name. You have to be quick-witted and also think like a criminal. But there are the other undercover workers, who are more devious. Like this Perera, perhaps. He’s probably slithering around. It is just that we don’t recognise him yet. Giggs is the public side. And Perera – who knows?’

  Apparently this invisible and ‘blind’ Perera was a master of what was later called the ‘bump scenario’. This happens when an undercover policeman attaches himself to a criminal, befriending him and simultaneously instilling fear in him by revealing that he, the undercover policeman, is even more manic and dangerous. The gossip was that there had been a case where this Perera, in reality a mild-mannered family man, had walked a suspected gang member into the royal forest in Kandy and made him dig a grave. He insisted it be four feet long and three feet deep, so the body could be folded. There was to be an execution, he said, early the following morning. Assuming from this that Perera was intricately involved with high-level crime, the young gang member revealed his own criminal connections.

  This was the kind of work Perera supposedly did on an average day or night for the CID. But we knew none of this back then.

  How Old Are You?

  What Is Your Name?

  WHENEVER WE GOT close enough to speak with authorities, we found we had to spend our time answering questions. During the interrogation after the storm, while we shivered from cold more than fear, the Captain kept asking us how old we were. And when we answered he took it in, forgot it, and a minute later asked us again. We assumed he was slow or too speeded up, for he was on to that next question before even listening to our replies. Gradually we realised he was saying the line with a syrup of scorn all over it. That it had within it the invisible question: How foolish are you?

  We felt we had simply committed a heroic gesture. Weren’t the hours we spent spreadeagled in the cyclone equal to that story where the sinner was blinded on the road to Damascus? Later in life it was comforting to discover that heroes such as Shackleton had been expelled from my school, probably for such things. ‘How old are you, sir?!’ barked by the headmaster to that too-ambitious and disobedient boy.

  It was clear to us the Captain was not fond of his Asian cargo. For several nights he performed what he felt was a rollicking piece of verse written by A. P. Herbert, about growing nationalism in the East, that ended:

  And all the crows in all the trees

  cried ‘Banyan for the Banyanese!’

  The Captain was proud of this party piece, and that was probably the time when my distrust of the authority and prestige of all Head Tables began. As well, there was the afternoon with the Baron when my eyes had gone back and forth between the noble bust of Hector de Silva and the seemingly lifeless body asleep on the bed. So that I found myself, shortly after his funeral, approaching the trestle table where the de Silva bust remained, as if forgotten. Cassius and I managed to lift it (he by the ears, me by the nose) and roll it over to the edge of the railing and let the graven image drop overboard to follow the corpse.

  Perhaps we had by then outgrown our curiosity about the powerful. We were preferring the gentle Mr Daniels, after all, obsessed with the care of his plants, and the pale figure of Miss Lasqueti, who wore her pigeon jacket replete with cushioned pockets for the transporting of her birds. It would always be strangers like them, at the various Cat’s Tables of my life, who would alter me.

  The Tailor

  THE MOST RESERVED diner at our table was Mr Gunesekera, the tailor. He had introduced himself, when he settled among us that first day, by simply handing out his card. Sew Gunesekera. Prince Street, Kandy. In this way he announced his profession. During all our meals he remained silent and content. He laughed when the rest of us laughed, so there was never awkward silence from his seat at the table. But whether he understood what was being joked about, I don’t know. I suspected not. Still, he was the gracious and courteous one among us, even if he felt we were raucous at times, especially when Mr Mazappa’s horse laugh got activated. He’d be the first to pull out a chair for Miss Lasqueti, and simply by reading our gestures would pass the salt, or would fan his mouth to warn us the soup was hot. And he always appeared to be interested in what was being said. But so far, during the whole journey, Mr Gunesekera had not said a word. Even if we spoke to him in Sinhala, he would give a complex shrug and circle his head to excuse his evasion.

  He was a slight, thin man. While he ate I’d watch his graceful fingers that could sew up a storm somewhere on Prince Street, where perhaps he was jocular with his chosen company. One evening at dinner, Emily had come over to our table with a livid welt near her eye; she had been hit that afternoon by a badminton racquet. And Mr Gunesekera, his face showing alarm, swivelled in his seat and put out his hand to touch around the swelling with those delicate fingers, as if searching for the cause of it. Emily, suddenly moved by this, put her hand on his shoulder and then held those fingers briefly. It was one of the rare quiet moments at our table.

  Mr Nevil later pointed out that there appeared to be a more serious wound across Mr Gunesekera’s throat, which he kept covered with the red cotton scarf he always wore. Now and then, if the scarf slipped, we could sometimes see the scar. After this was noticed we did not bother Mr Gunesekera with questions. We never asked him why he was going to England, if it was because of the loss of a relative or for some specific medical treatment regarding his vocal cords. It seemed unlikely he would be going there for a holiday in a condition where he would not or could not communicate with anyone.

  EACH MORNING, THE sun barely up, I licked salt off the ship’s railings, believing by now that I could distinguish between the taste of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. I dived into the pool and swam frog-like under the surface, tumbled over at the end of a length and returned underwater, testing the limit of my lungs, my two hearts. I witnessed Miss Lasqueti becoming irritated with the thriller she was rushing through, preparing to fling it into whatever sea we were in. And with the others, I drank in the presence of Emily as she sauntered by and talked with us.

  ‘You must never feel unimportant in the scheme of things,’ Mr Mazappa told me once. Or it may have been Miss Lasqueti. I am not sure who it was any more, for by the end of our journey their opinions had dovetailed. Looking back, I am no longer certain who gave me what pieces of advice, or befriended us, or deceived us. And some events sank in only much later.

  Who was it, for example, who first described to us the Palace of Ship Owners in Genoa? Or is it possibly a memory of my own from later, when as an adult I entered that building and climbed the stone stairs to each new level? Because there is something about the image that I have held on to for all these years, as if it explains how we approach the future, or look back at the past. A person begins on the ground floor of that palace, looking at a few naïve maps of local harbours, the neighbouring coasts; and then, as one climbs higher, from floor to floor, more and more recent maps chart the half-discovered islands, a possible continent. A pianist somewhere on the main level is playing Brahms. You hear it as you ascend, and you even look down into
the central well where the music comes from. So there is Brahms, and paintings of vessels lurching newborn out of the docks in some prelude of a merchant’s dream where anything could occur – an eventual wealth or a disastrous storm. One of my ancestors owned seven ships that burned between India and Taprobane. He had no wall of maps, but like him, these ship owners could predict nothing of the future. There are no portraits of humans in the paintings that cover the walls on the first few levels. But then, arriving at the fourth level of the Palace of Ship Owners in Genoa, you find a gathering of Madonnas.

  At the Cat’s Table they were discussing Italian art. Miss Lasqueti, who had lived in Italy for a few years, was speaking. ‘The thing with Madonnas is, they have that look on their faces – because they know He is going to die when young … in spite of all the hovering angels surrounding the child with the little spurt of bloodlike flame coming from their heads. Somewhere in the Madonna’s given wisdom, she can see the finished map, the end of His life. No matter that the local girl the artist is using cannot attempt that knowledgeable look. Perhaps even the artist cannot portray it. So it is only we, the spectators, who can read that face as someone who knows the future. For what will become of her son is provided by history. The recognition of that woe comes from the viewer.’