In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje [3]
The cow shifts and water soaks into the boy’s coat, through to his chest. His father pulls back and the two of them kneel on either side of the cow and swing their wet arms, beating them against their chests. They don’t speak. They must work as quickly as possible. His father puts his ungloved hand against the cow’s ear to collect the animal’s heat. He lies down sideways on the ice and plunges his arm down again, the water inches from his face. Patrick, in a mirror image, swirls his hand underwater but again there is nothing to touch. “I’m going under now. You’ve got to get it fast,” his father says, and Patrick sees his father’s trunk twitch and his head go into the icy water. Patrick’s hand clutches his father’s other arm on top of the cow, holding it tightly.
Then Patrick puts his head into the water and reaches out. He touches his father’s wrist under the cow. He dares not let go and moves his hand carefully until he grips the thick braided rope. He pulls at it but it won’t move. He realizes his father in going down deeper has somehow got his body over the rope, that he’s lying on it. Patrick will not let go, though he is running out of air. His father gasps out of the water, lies on his back on the ice, and breathes hard past the ache in his eyes, then is suddenly aware of what he is lying on and rolls away, freeing the rope. Patrick pulls, using his foot now to jerk himself up out of the water, and he slithers over the ice away from the cow.
He sits up and sees his father and puts his arms up in a victory gesture. His father is frantically trying to get water out of his ears and off his eyes before it freezes in the air and Patrick uses his dry sleeve and does the same, shrinking his hand back into the jacket, prodding the cloth into his ears. He can feel the ice on his chin and neck already forming but he doesn’t worry about that. His father scuttles back to shore and returns with a second rope. This one he attaches to the first rope, and Patrick hauls it towards himself under the cow, so both ropes are now circled around the animal.
Patrick looks up – at the grey rock of the swimming hole, the oak towering over the dirty brush that spikes out of the snow. There is a clear blue sky. The boy feels as if he has not seen these things in years. Till this moment there was just his father, the black and white shape of the cow, and that terrible black water which cut into his eyes when he opened them down there.
His father attaches the ropes to the horses. The face of the half-submerged cow, a giant eye lolling, seems unconcerned. Patrick expects it to start chewing in complete boredom. He lifts its lip and puts his cold fingers against the gums to steal heat. Then he crawls to the bank.
Holding each of the horses by the halter he and his father yell encouragement to them. The horses do not even hesitate at the weight they are pulling. From the bank he sees the cow’s tongue slide out, its complacent look for the first time replaced by concern as it is dragged towards the shoreline, breaking ice as it cuts a path. About ten feet from the bank where the ice is thicker the body tightens against the ropes. The horses stop. He and his father switch them, and they break into a trot. Then the whole cow magically emerges out of the ice and is dragged on its side, its four legs straight and hard in the air, dragged uncompromisingly onto the shore over the brown mulleins.
They let the horses go. He and his father try to untie the ropes on the cow but it is too difficult and his father brings out a knife and cuts the ropes away. The animal lies there snorting its steam into the cold air, then stumbles up and stands watching them. More than anything Patrick is surprised at his father who is obsessed with not wasting things. He has lectured the boy several times on saving rope. Always unknot. Never cut! Bringing out his knife and slicing the rope to pieces is an outrageous, luxurious act.
They begin