Read Online Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Ondaatje
Tags: Fiction
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charts and spread them over the central table. ‘So tell me how I can help you. . . .’
‘I’ve got a skeleton, partially burned. Can one still pick up information about pupae from it?’
Chitra covered her mouth and burped, as she had been doing continually since the meal. ‘It helps if it is in situ.’
‘That’s the problem. I’ve got earth from the location where we found it, but we think it was moved. We don’t know the first location. I’ve got earth only from the last site.’
‘I could look at the bone. Some insects are attracted to bone, not flesh.’ Chitra smiled at her. ‘So there might be pupae remains from the first location. We could reduce the site possibilities by knowing the type of insect. It’s strange, it’s just those first couple of months when bone attracts some creatures.’
‘Unusual.’
‘Mmm,’ Chitra said, as if eating chocolate. ‘Some butterflies also go to bone for moisture. . . .’
‘Can I show you some of the bone?’
‘I go up-country tomorrow for a few days.’
‘Then later tonight? Is that all right?’
‘Mmm.’ Chitra sounded unconcerned, preoccupied with a clue, a timing on one of her charts. She turned from Anil to an array of insects, then selected one of the right plumpness and age with her forceps.
T hat night within the ship’s hold Sarath poured plastic that had been dissolved in acetone into a shallow dish, and brought out the camel-hair brush he would use on the bones. A diffuse light, the hum of the generator around him.
He moved to the lab table where a skeleton lay, picked up the alligator-clip lamp—the one source of focussed bright light here—and walked with it and the long cord, still lit, to a cupboard at the far end of the deep room. He opened it, poured himself three-quarters of a tumbler of arrack from a bottle and walked back to the skeleton.
The four skeletons from Bandarawela, revealed now to the air, would soon begin to weaken.
He loosened a new tungsten-carbide needle from its plastic container and attached it to a hand pick and began cleaning the bones of the first skeleton, drilling free the fragments of dirt. Then he turned on a slim hose and let it hover over each bone, air nestling into the evidence of the trauma as if he were blowing cool breath from a pursed mouth onto a child’s burn. He dipped the camel-hair brush into the dish and began painting a layer of protective plastic over the bones, moving down the spine and ribs. After that he carried the alligator-clip lamp to the second table and started on the second skeleton. Then the third. When he came to Sailor’s table he turned the heel bone sideways to find the centimetre-deep chip Anil had furrowed out of the calcaneus.
Sarath stretched and walked out of the light into the darkness, his hands out feeling for the arrack bottle, which he brought back with him to Sailor under the cone of light. It was about two in the morning. When he’d coated all four skeletons, he made notes on each of them and photographed three from anterior and lateral views.
He drank as he worked. The smell of the plastic was now strong in the room. There was no opening for fresh air. He unlocked the doors noisily and climbed up with the bottle of arrack onto the deck. Colombo was dark with curfew. It would be a beautiful hour to walk or cycle through it. The fraught quietness of the roadblocks, the old trees a panoply along Solomon Dias Mawatha. But in the harbour around him there was activity, the light from a tug rolling in the water, the white beams from tractors moving crates on the quay. Three or four a.m. He would lock up and sleep on the ship for the rest of the night.
The hold was still full of the smell of plastic. He pulled out a tied bundle of beedis from a drawer and lit one, then inhaled its rich mortal thirty-two rumours of taste. Picked up the clip lamp and walked over to Sailor. He still had to photograph him. Okay, do it now, he said to himself, and took two
‘I’ve got a skeleton, partially burned. Can one still pick up information about pupae from it?’
Chitra covered her mouth and burped, as she had been doing continually since the meal. ‘It helps if it is in situ.’
‘That’s the problem. I’ve got earth from the location where we found it, but we think it was moved. We don’t know the first location. I’ve got earth only from the last site.’
‘I could look at the bone. Some insects are attracted to bone, not flesh.’ Chitra smiled at her. ‘So there might be pupae remains from the first location. We could reduce the site possibilities by knowing the type of insect. It’s strange, it’s just those first couple of months when bone attracts some creatures.’
‘Unusual.’
‘Mmm,’ Chitra said, as if eating chocolate. ‘Some butterflies also go to bone for moisture. . . .’
‘Can I show you some of the bone?’
‘I go up-country tomorrow for a few days.’
‘Then later tonight? Is that all right?’
‘Mmm.’ Chitra sounded unconcerned, preoccupied with a clue, a timing on one of her charts. She turned from Anil to an array of insects, then selected one of the right plumpness and age with her forceps.
T hat night within the ship’s hold Sarath poured plastic that had been dissolved in acetone into a shallow dish, and brought out the camel-hair brush he would use on the bones. A diffuse light, the hum of the generator around him.
He moved to the lab table where a skeleton lay, picked up the alligator-clip lamp—the one source of focussed bright light here—and walked with it and the long cord, still lit, to a cupboard at the far end of the deep room. He opened it, poured himself three-quarters of a tumbler of arrack from a bottle and walked back to the skeleton.
The four skeletons from Bandarawela, revealed now to the air, would soon begin to weaken.
He loosened a new tungsten-carbide needle from its plastic container and attached it to a hand pick and began cleaning the bones of the first skeleton, drilling free the fragments of dirt. Then he turned on a slim hose and let it hover over each bone, air nestling into the evidence of the trauma as if he were blowing cool breath from a pursed mouth onto a child’s burn. He dipped the camel-hair brush into the dish and began painting a layer of protective plastic over the bones, moving down the spine and ribs. After that he carried the alligator-clip lamp to the second table and started on the second skeleton. Then the third. When he came to Sailor’s table he turned the heel bone sideways to find the centimetre-deep chip Anil had furrowed out of the calcaneus.
Sarath stretched and walked out of the light into the darkness, his hands out feeling for the arrack bottle, which he brought back with him to Sailor under the cone of light. It was about two in the morning. When he’d coated all four skeletons, he made notes on each of them and photographed three from anterior and lateral views.
He drank as he worked. The smell of the plastic was now strong in the room. There was no opening for fresh air. He unlocked the doors noisily and climbed up with the bottle of arrack onto the deck. Colombo was dark with curfew. It would be a beautiful hour to walk or cycle through it. The fraught quietness of the roadblocks, the old trees a panoply along Solomon Dias Mawatha. But in the harbour around him there was activity, the light from a tug rolling in the water, the white beams from tractors moving crates on the quay. Three or four a.m. He would lock up and sleep on the ship for the rest of the night.
The hold was still full of the smell of plastic. He pulled out a tied bundle of beedis from a drawer and lit one, then inhaled its rich mortal thirty-two rumours of taste. Picked up the clip lamp and walked over to Sailor. He still had to photograph him. Okay, do it now, he said to himself, and took two
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