The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje [71]
The biting to death of Mr. de Silva by an animal.
The complete lack of safety for children during a dangerous storm.
Bad and rude language in front of children.
Unfair dismissal of Mr. Hastie, Head Kennel Keeper.
The recital of a very insulting poem at the end of a dinner ceremony.
The misplacing of the valuable bronze statue of Mr. de Silva.
The loss of a prize-winning Weimaraner.
Miss Lasqueti: A 2nd Portrait
RECENTLY I SAT IN ON A MASTER CLASS given by the filmmaker Luc Dardenne. He spoke of how viewers of his films should not assume they understood everything about the characters. As members of an audience we should never feel ourselves wiser than they; we do not have more knowledge than the characters have about themselves. We should not feel assured or certain about their motives, or look down on them. I believe this. I recognize this as a first principle of art, although I have the suspicion that many would not.
In our first impressions of Miss Lasqueti, she had appeared spinsterish and cautious. The worlds she spoke of had no interest for us. She enthused about brass rubbings and tapestries. But then she had revealed she was responsible for two dozen messenger pigeons billeted somewhere on the ship that she was “bringing over for a plutocrat,” a neighbour of hers in Carmarthenshire. What, we wondered, would a plutocrat want with pigeons? “Radio silence,” she had said enigmatically. When we heard later of her contacts with Whitehall, the link to the pigeons became clearer. The plutocrat had been a fiction.
But at the time we were more interested in what appeared to be her affection for Mr. Mazappa. We were less aware of her growing curiosity about the prisoner and the two officers (one of them still unseen) who were escorting Niemeyer to England. “The prisoner is just my baggage,” Mr. Giggs had remarked to a group of his admirers during dinner, claiming his authoritative role with a false modesty. But what was Miss Lasqueti’s “baggage”? We didn’t know. Was it something I might have witnessed during a visit to her cabin earlier in the journey, when she had wanted to discuss my affiliation with the Baron? For if there was ever an unusual moment in my dealings with Miss Lasqueti, it happened one afternoon, when she asked me to come to her cabin at tea-time.
So I make my way along an almost forgotten path to that indelible afternoon. I am surprised to find Emily there with her, as if Miss Lasqueti has invited her to join us in order to discuss something serious with me. There is tea and biscuits on the table. Emily and I sit upright on the only chairs in the room, while Miss Lasqueti positions herself at the foot of the bed, leaning forward to talk. The cabin is much larger than mine, full of unusual objects. There is something like a heavy carpet beside her. I am told later that this is a tapestry.
“I was telling Emily that my first name is Perinetta. I believe it is a type of apple, found in the Netherlands.” She murmurs the name to herself again, as if it has not been used enough around her. Then she begins to talk. About herself when she was young, her love of languages, how she got into trouble in the early days, “until something happened that allowed me to save myself.” When Emily questions her about it, she says, “I’ll tell you about that some other time.”
In retrospect, I see that this description of her past must have been presented in order to ease herself into warning me about my involvement with the Baron, which somehow she had learned about. Beside her, Emily’s serious look and constant nodding seem to emphasize that this is most important. But I am hardly listening. I have caught the eye of another face, in a corner of the room. It belongs to a mannequin-like statue with a few of Miss Lasqueti’s clothes draped over its bare shoulders and arms. As she continues speaking, I make out a scar on the alabaster belly that looks as if it has been drawn or painted by a recent hand. But it is the face that searches me out, looking openly at me, as if