The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje [87]
“How long are you here, in the West?”
“Just another day,” I said. “I fly tomorrow.”
“Where? Where to?”
I was embarrassed. “To Honolulu, actually.”
“Hon-o-lu-lu!” She sounded it out wistfully.
“I’m sorry.”
“No it’s okay. It’s okay. Thank you for coming, Michael.”
I said, “You helped me once. Do you remember?”
My cousin said nothing. Either she remembered that morning in her cabin or she did not. Either way she was silent, and I left it at that.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked, and she looked over at me with a smile that conceded this was not a life she had expected or chosen.
“Nothing, Michael. You won’t make me understand all this. I don’t think you can love me into safety.”
We ducked under the cedar branches, returned down the wooden steps, and entered the cottage through the green door. We were both tired, but wanted to stay awake. We went onto her deck.
“Without the ferries, I would be lost. There’d be no time at all….”
She was quiet for a moment.
“He died, you know.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I just need to tell someone who knew him … who knew what he was like. I was supposed to fly back for his funeral. But I don’t even belong there anymore. I’m like you.”
“We don’t belong anywhere, I guess.”
“Do you remember him? At all?”
“Yes. There was nothing you could do that was right. I remember his temper. But he loved you.”
“I was scared all through my childhood. The last time I saw him was when I left as a teenager….”
“I remember you told me your nightmares.”
She began to turn away, as if she wished to think about it by herself now. She was turning but I did not want her to let go of the past. So I tried to talk again about our time on the ship, about what happened near the end of the voyage.
“On the Oronsay, do you think you saw yourself in any way in that girl you got close to? The prisoner’s daughter. She too was caught up with her father’s life.”
“It’s possible. But I think I just wanted to help her. You know.”
“That night, when you were beside the lifeboat, with the undercover policeman—Perera—I overheard you. I heard what happened.”
“You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did tell you. I came to you the next morning. You couldn’t remember anything. You seemed drugged, half asleep.”
“I was supposed to try and get something from him … for them. But I was so disoriented.”
“The man was killed that night. Did you have the knife?”
She was silent.
“There was no one else there.”
We were close to each other, huddled up in our coats. In the darkness I could hear waves on the shore.
“Yes, there was,” she said. “There was the daughter, Asuntha, and Sunil nearby. I was being protected by them….”
“So they had the knife? Did they give it to you?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point. I’m not sure what happened. It’s vile, isn’t it?” she said. She lifted her chin.
I waited for her to say more.
“I’m cold. Let’s go in.”
But once inside, she was apprehensive.
“What did they want you to take from the man who was killed? From Perera?”
She got up from the sofa and went to the fridge, opened it, stood there for a moment, then returned with nothing. It became clear that she was living on her nerves.
“There were apparently only two keys on the ship that could open the padlock on the prisoner’s chain. The English soldier, Giggs, had one. Mr. Perera had the other. Sunil suspected the man who turned out to be Perera was interested in me, so he asked me to arrange to meet him at the lifeboat. By then, of course, Sunil knew I would do anything for him. I was in his thrall. I was the lure, I suppose.”
“And who was it? I thought no one knew who the undercover man was, as he moved about the ship.”
“It was someone who never spoke to anyone. It was your tailor at the Cat’s Table, Gunesekera.”
“But he never spoke. He couldn’t speak. And I heard a man talking with