The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje Page B

staring at the desert sun, and he wandered slowly about for the rest of the film. As for the subtler issues of jingoism and cowardice in a time of war, those were blown away by the strong winds into the passing ocean. The sound system was not good, besides which we were not used to atonal English accents. We simply followed the action. There was also the possibility of an additional subplot: for our ship was approaching a storm zone, and if we turned our heads away from the drama on the screen we could see forks of lightning in the distance.
    The movie, as we rolled under the gradually disappearing stars, was being shown in two locations. It had begun half an hour earlier in the Pipe and Drums Bar in First Class, projected to a quieter group of about forty well-dressed passengers; when the first reel was over, that segment of the film was rewound and carried in a metal container down to our projector on deck for its alfresco showing, while the First Class audience watched the second reel. As a result, there were confusing fall-outs of sound that merged the two screenings. The volume on every speaker was turned to maximum because of the roar of the sea winds, and we were constantly assaulted by contrapuntal noises; while watching a tense scene we could hear rousing songs in an officers’ mess. Still, our alfresco showing had the atmosphere of a night picnic. We were all given a cup of ice cream, and as we waited for the First Class reel to be over and then threaded onto our projector, the Jankla Troupe performed. They were doing a juggling act with large butcher knives just at the moment we heard the bloodthirsty screaming of attacking Arabs from the speakers in First Class. The Jankla Troupe was parodying these yells with comic body movements, and then The Hyderabad Mind stepped forward to announce that a brooch someone had lost the day before could be found hanging over the projector’s lens. And so, just as First Class was witnessing the brutal massacre of English troops, exultant cheers rose from our audience.
    Our film proceeded on the seemingly live canvas of a flapping screen. The plot was full of grandness and confusion, of acts of cruelty that we understood and responsible honour that we did not. Cassius would go around for days claiming to be part of ‘the Oronsay tribe – irresponsible and wiolent.’
    Unfortunately, the anticipated storm burst loose over the ship, and as the rain hit the projector the hot metal began hissing. A steward attempted to hold an umbrella over it. A gust ripped the screen loose and sent it skittering over the ocean like a ghost, and the images continued to be shot out, targetless, over the sea. We never learned the end of the story, not on that journey. I did a few years later, by reading A. E. W. Mason’s novel in the Dulwich College library. He turned out to be an old boy of the school. In any case, that night saw the beginning of violent storms that assaulted the Oronsay . It was only after this was over that we escaped the turmoil of the ocean and landed in the real Arabia.

 
    THERE ARE TIMES when a storm invades the landscape of the Canadian Shield, where I live during the summers, and I wake up believing I am in mid-air, at the height of the tall pines above the river, watching the approaching lightning, and hearing behind it the arrival of its thunder. It is only from such a height that you see the great choreography and danger of storms. In the house, a few bodies are asleep, and near them the hound, her ears tormented, shaking, as if her heart is about to collapse or be flung out. I have seen her face in the half-light of such storms as if within the velocity of some space-travel experiment, the normally beautiful features thrust back. And while the others sleep, rocked in this wild nature, only the river below looks stable. During the rips of light, you see the acres of trees capsized, everything tilted in a biblical palm. A few times every summer this happens. I expect