The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje [0]
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2011 by Michael Ondaatje
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
A portion of this work was previously published in slightly different form in The New Yorker.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Hal Leonard Corporation: Lyrics from “Winin’ Boy Blues,” words and music by Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton, copyright © 1939, 1940, 1950 by Tempo Music Publishing Co., copyright renewed by Edwin H. Morris & Company, a division of MPL Music Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
University of California Press: Excerpt from “Echo” from The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1975–2005 by Robert Creeley, copyright © 2006 by the Estate of Robert Creeley. Reprinted by permission of the University of California Press.
Originally published in Canada by McClelland & Stewart Limited, Toronto, and in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, an imprint of the Random House Group Limited, London.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ondaatje, Michael, date.
The cat’s table / by Michael Ondaatje. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
“This is a Borzoi book.”
ISBN: 978-0-307-70011-7 (alk. paper)
eISBN: 978-0-307-70045-2
I. Title.
pr9199.3.o5c38 2011
813'.54—dc23 2011020820
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover photograph by Angela Grauerholz
Cover design by Carol Devine Carson
First United States Edition
v3.1
For Quintin, Griffin, Kristin, and Esta
For Anthony and for Constance
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2 - Departure
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9 - Mazappa
Chapter 10 - C Deck
Chapter 11 - An Australian
Chapter 12 - Cassius
Chapter 13 - The Hold
Chapter 14 - The Turbine Room
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17 - A Spell
Chapter 18 - Afternoons
Chapter 19 - Miss Lasqueti
Chapter 20 - The Girl
Chapter 21
Chapter 22 - Thievery
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25 - Landfall
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30 - Kennels
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35 - Ramadhin’s Heart
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38 - Port Said
Chapter 39 - Two Violets
Chapter 40 - Two Hearts
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44 - Asuntha
Chapter 45 - The Mediterranean
Chapter 46 - Mr. Giggs
Chapter 47 - The Blind Perera
Chapter 48 - How Old Are You? What Is Your Name?
Chapter 49 - The Tailor
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53 - Miss Lasqueti: A 2nd Portrait
Chapter 54
Chapter 55 - The Overheard
Chapter 56
Chapter 57 - The Breaker’s Yard
Chapter 58 - The Key in His Mouth
Chapter 59 - Letter to Cassius
Chapter 60 - Arrival
Author’s Note
A Note About the Author
Also by Michael Ondaatje
And this is how I see the East…. I see it always from a small boat—not a light, not a stir, not a sound. We conversed in low whispers, as if afraid to wake up the land…. It is all in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle with the sea.
—JOSEPH CONRAD, “YOUTH”
HE WASN’T TALKING. He was looking from the window of the car all the way. Two adults in the front seat spoke quietly under their breath. He could have listened if he wanted to, but he didn’t. For a while, at the section of the road where the river sometimes flooded, he could hear the spray of water at the wheels. They entered the Fort and the car slipped silently past the post office building and