The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje [41]
There had been no card game the night before, and I was curious as to why. Although since the millionaire’s death, many schedules and habits seemed to have been altered. Now Mr. Hastie proceeded to inform me he had been relieved of his duties. He was no longer in charge of the kennels. The Captain had been looking for someone to blame and now believed it was one of the hounds from Mr. Hastie’s kennels that had escaped its cage, slipped into the Emperor Class cabin, and bitten Hector de Silva to death. Since the man’s death, a curious thing was occurring. The de Silva knighthood seemed to have fallen away, and was no longer mentioned. People began referring to him as “the dead man.” The knighthood was turning out to be as mortal as the body.
I stood in front of Mr. Hastie, listening with sympathy to this false accusation, but did not say a word. The little mongrel from Aden had not been found. The demotion of Mr. Hastie meant he would now be on paint-and-varnish duty in the noonday sun, while his kennel assistant and fellow bridge player, Mr. Invernio, took charge of the dogs. “I wonder how he is getting on with the O’Neal Weimaraner?” Mr. Hastie murmured.
Later that day, after a random search for Ramadhin’s dog, the three of us strolled over to the kennels. Out on B Deck, along their twenty-yard runway, were several dogs moving slowly, as if with sunstroke, blank looks on their faces. We climbed over the barrier and walked into the kennels, where every dog was barking to be let out. Invernio was trying to read one of Hastie’s books in the midst of the racket. He recognized me when we came up to him, having seen my head peer down at him from the top bunk, and I introduced him to Cassius and Ramadhin. He put down The Bhagavad Gita and walked around the kennels with us, flinging pieces of meat at those who were his favourites. Then he brought out the Weimaraner. He removed the collar, stroked the grey egg-smooth head, and ordered the dog to walk away from him, to the far end of the mote-filled room. The dog was not eager to leave Invernio’s company but followed the commands of “Get! Get! Get! Get!” walking away silently, its long legs tossing themselves to the left and to the right. At the far end of the kennel the dog turned and waited. “Hola!” Invernio yelled, and the dog charged towards him in a slim gallop and when two yards from him leapt for his head. All four paws simultaneously landed on Invernio’s shoulders and chest, hard enough that the kennel keeper fell back, the dog overpowering him with scrabbling claws and loud barking.
Invernio struggled to get on top of the animal and growled into the creature’s ear. Then he started kissing the dog, which responded like a woman who loved the kisser but did not want to be kissed. They rolled over each other several times. It took only a second to recognize the affection. Both of them were clearly besotted with each other. They bared their teeth. They laughed and barked. Invernio blew into the dog’s nose. All the caged dogs were now silent, watching enviously as the two of them roughhoused in the dust.
We left in mid-competition, and I went off alone to C Deck and stayed there for most of the afternoon. Mr. Invernio and the dog had reminded me too much of our cook, Gunepala, and I was missing him, how he was always attended by a lunatic choir of rice hounds at mealtimes, howling in unison as he waved a piece of meat to and fro before eventually flinging it into their midst. In the afternoons I would come across him asleep with them in his arms. At least Gunepala slept, while the dogs lay politely beside him watching one another, twitching and raising their eyebrows.
THE PRISONER’S NIGHT WALKS RESUMED. We did not see him between the night before landing in Aden and the evening we left the city. There must have been some reason he had been kept in his cell. Now, as we travelled farther north in the Red Sea, we saw that an extra chain had been added, linking the metal collar at his neck to a strut bolted to the deck twelve yards away. We saw him shuffle up and down.