The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje [66]
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 C.I.D., 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 C.I.D. had put forward a plainclothes officer, so that if there were any conspirators on board they would not know who else was watching them. So