The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje [57]
I was standing with Flavia Prins one afternoon, talking listlessly. Looking down the side of the ship, I saw Mr. Hastie straddling a raised anchor, and painting the hull. There were other sailors cradled in rope ladders around him, but I could recognize his bald spot, which I saw whenever I looked down during his card games. He had his shirt off, and his torso was sunburned. I pointed him out to my aunt.
“They say that man is the greatest bridge player on the ship,” I told her. “He has won championships in places as distant as Panama….”
She raised her eyes from him, up to the horizon. “What is he doing there then, I wonder.”
“He is keeping his ears open,” I said. “But he plays professionally every night with Mr. Babstock, and Mr. Tolroy, and Mr. Invernio, who is now in charge of the dogs on the ship. All of them are international champions!”
“I wonder …” she said, and looked at her nails.
I separated myself from her and went down to a lower deck, where Ramadhin and Cassius were. We watched Mr. Hastie work until he happened to glance up, and then we waved to him. He pushed his goggles onto his forehead, recognized us, and waved back. I hoped my guardian had stayed where I had left her, to witness the moment. The three of us continued on, a slight strut to our walk. Mr. Hastie would never know how much that gesture of recognition meant to us.
IT COULD HAVE BEEN HER GROWING social success, or perhaps my false testimony after the storm, but Flavia Prins appeared to be less interested in being my guardian. She now wished our meetings to take place briefly, on an open deck, where she ticked off two or three questions like a parole officer.
“Is your cabin pleasant?”
I dragged out a minute of silence. “Yes, Auntie.”
She gestured me closer, curious about something.
“What do you do all day?”
I did not mention my visits to the engine room, or the excitement of witnessing the wet clothes on the Australian when she showered.
“Luckily,” she responded to my silence, “I was able to sleep through most of the Canal. So very hot …”
She was fingering her jewellery again, and I had a sudden thought that I should inform the Baron about my guardian’s cabin number.
But the Baron had already left the ship. He had disembarked at Port Said accompanied by the daughter of Hector de Silva. I had heard someone remark that he had been consoling her, so I assumed he had coaxed her to join him in further gentlemanly crimes and fed her cakes as well as good tea in the privacy of his room. He had been carrying a flat valise that may have contained valuable papers and even perhaps the portrait of Miss de Silva herself, which I knew he had in his possession. He gave me a farewell nod from the top of the gangplank and Cassius nudged me—I had told him of my participation in the robberies, enlarging the significance of my role. The de Silva heiress moved beside him in an envelope of silence. That may have been grief. Or was she already hypnotized by the charms of the Baron?
We ourselves did not go ashore at Port Said. We stayed to witness the Gully Gully man, and watched from the Oronsay railing as he arrived by canoe and began pulling chickens from his sleeves, his trousers, and out from under his hat. He sneezed, pulled a canary from his nose, and released it into the harbour air. The canoe rocked in the wash below us while he leapt up and down in pain, as a rooster revealed its combed head out the front of his trousers. Then we were treated to snakes falling out of his sleeves. They curled into two perfect circles at his feet, undisturbed as coins rained down into the canoe.
We left Port Said early the next morning. A pilot rode out in a launch,