Portable Curiosities (13 page)

Ralph was dying.

Two sat on a metal chair next to his bed in the nursing home and on the radio Ella Fitzgerald was singing how she couldn't give him anything but love, baby. Two wasn't sure Ralph could hear her. Ralph's eyes were open and unseeing. An infection was in his brain and there wasn't a pill for it. His head jerked from left to right to left to right all day and all night.

*

Two woke from the warmth of the sun on his eyelids. He shifted in his chair. First he saw the window he forgot to close in the night. Next he saw his father, motionless. He crept up to watch Ralph's chest for movement.

There was nothing.

Two felt like a little boy standing over the cage of a dead bird, knowing that this was a calamity that could not be fixed. He wondered if his father had been too hot in the night from the extra blanket Two had used to tuck him in, or if he had been too cold from the winter chill breathing through the window.

Maybe in the end, he thought, everything is about temperature, not speed. He supposed that, if Ralph had chosen this as his arbitrary philosophy, Two might have been raised in a climate-controlled chamber, or even warm in an oven like a loaf of bread.

He laughed.

A nurse who had run in to attend to Ralph was horrified that a son could be sniggering at a time like this.

Two didn't notice her in the room.

Sand was drawing away from under his feet, sucking him below to the seabed and into the heavy folds of the ocean. The weight of all that water was sitting on his chest and in his throat.

Somewhere up above, nurses and doctors and more nurses were trying to talk to him. He couldn't hear any of it. There was too much water between them.

The water scared him. He was the little boy again with the weak arms, crying to Mary and Moses and Allah and Ganesha and the Monkey God to take it all away, to drink up the sea because he couldn't breathe.

Then he saw Ralph lying next to him, still shrouded in blankets.

Two stopped struggling.

He rested his hand on Ralph's shoulder and sat by him for the longest time until there was no water anymore, just the two of them and the open window and the winter air.

The more Two watched, the more he realised that this dead body had little in common with his father. Whatever made Ralph Ralph was no longer in this room.

When the bed had been cleared and Two was sitting wordless under the pergola next to the UFO Ambassador, a nurse put an envelope in his hand.

‘It was under his pillow,' she said.

‘Ah,' said Two. ‘The list.'

*

Two is standing on the cliff where Ralph used to beat his chest.

He has come here to cross off Ralph's final, unwritten item and to burn the list, leaving its ashes to vanish with the wind.

But when he opens the envelope, the list isn't there.

In its place is the defaced jack of hearts.

Two holds the card to the light to see it better. Then he sets the jack down against a rock, so that its one blue eye can look out over the ocean.

He steps back and regards it with a smile.

A win-win combo, he thinks.

Following the jack's gaze across the water, Two squints at the rising sun.

He puts his fingers to his mouth and gives a sharp whistle that he imagines One can hear somewhere out there.

Once he is done, Two takes himself to the local pool to swallow salt water and weep salt water and be his own saltwater system.

Then he floats on his back and spreads his alien tentacles over the world.

Slow Death in Cat Cafe

A cat cafe in Strathfield, in the state of New South Wales, is seceding from the Australian nation.

The owner of the cafe, a balding Chinese man, declares his intention to secede over a loudspeaker while I'm sitting on the blond wood floor of his establishment eating a slice of Meow Meow Mud Cake.

The man wants to transform the cat cafe, called Cat Cafe, into a micronation called the Republic of Cat Cafe.

He has a list of justifications, which he reads out.

First, he objects to local council's obsession with hygiene, in particular its draconian ban on the presence of cats in areas where food is served.

Second, the international community is in dire need of a nation that exists solely for the benefit of cats, to protect them from the vagaries of human nature.

Third, people everywhere are crying out for an imagined Community of Cute in the midst of a world gone mad.

The owner folds up his list and declares the Republic of Cat Cafe to be the greatest utopian project in the history of mankind.

‘Is this a marketing stunt?' I ask. ‘I mean, to create an actual nation you'd need your own territory, right?'

I'm pretty certain that the land on which this cafe stands, in the busiest part of Strathfield, is territory that Australia is unlikely to give up any time soon.

‘I pay the rent,' says the man. ‘Renting is basically owning.'

Although wobbly on his territorial claim, the cafe owner has thought of everything else. He's surprisingly well-prepared. He has a cartoon flag and coat of arms ready, both emblazoned with the motto ‘Community of Cute'. He has boxes filled with hot-pink Cat Cafe passports and newly minted Cat Cafe coins.

The national anthem, in Japanese, is a bouncy super-cute pop song. The owner plays it on the sound system as he trots around the cafe introducing the members of cat royalty, one by one.

‘Princess Mittens, Lady Mumbles, Duchess Ragamuffin …'

Once he's done, he turns to the humans in the cafe.

‘You are all citizens of the Republic of Cat Cafe,' he shouts. His shout is positively Hitlerian.

‘Will we have to pay taxes?' I ask.

‘We're a tax heaven.'

‘How are you going to defend the Republic? Do you have an army?'

‘I
am
the army,' he shouts.

He strides to the front door and locks it. He takes a large knife from the kitchen and installs himself at the cafe entrance.

‘You're either with us or against us,' he shouts. ‘I henceforth declare a state of martial law.'

‘Can you really enforce cuteness using violence?' I ask.

I realise I'm the only citizen in the cafe asking questions. The Republic's population comprises me, in funereal black, and a bunch of other Asian girls in pretty polka-dot rompers. They're regulars and appear to be untroubled by the owner's crazed proclamations. They like the idea of hanging here for free – a newly declared perk of citizenship – so are on board with the whole project. Besides, the three hours they've already paid for, flying by at a rate of eighteen dollars an hour including complimentary drink, aren't up yet.

‘From now on,' shouts the owner, ‘tourists will be required to apply a week in advance for a visa to visit the Republic of Cat Cafe.' He holds up the self-inking stamp he intends to use on foreign passports. The stamp is in the shape of a cartoon cat wearing a military uniform and a handlebar moustache.

‘Hang on,' I say. ‘You can't secede right now. I'm meeting a friend. How's he going to get in?'

‘But you've been waiting here for hours,' says the owner.

‘So?'

‘Sorry to break it to you. But you've been stood up.'

It only dawns on me now, after two slices of Meow Meow Mud Cake and three Longhair Lattes and a Cutiepie Cupcake and a large bowl of Napoleon Nachos, that Michael, my best friend, might not be coming.

The owner and his knife settle down on a stool by the front door. Activity in the cafe continues as normal.

This is my first time here. To get in, you have to leave your shoes at the door. It's a bright space with a skylight, and the walls are decorated with cat murals in pastel colours. Attached to the walls are baskets and play equipment for the cats. Plush cat houses and cat-sized four-poster beds lie scattered around the floor. The cafe soundtrack is a mix of bossa nova and Yo-Yo Ma, with a slow jazz cover of ‘My Favorite Things' recurring every half-hour or so.

The cute Asian girls with their dainty pink feet pursue the cats around the cafe, trying to get the perfect photo.

‘Lady Cookie,' they coo. ‘Lady Cooo-kiiiie.'

When in need of a rest, they return to their assigned coffee tables. They sit on cushions on the floor, drinking tea, pecking at desserts, taking selfies. They snap themselves wearing cat ears and cat masks, doing peace signs. One girl takes at least a hundred photos of herself hugging her pouting face against a pillow that has been digitally printed with the face of a Siamese cat.

After exhausting their selfie options, the girls ask me to take photos of them with the cats. I oblige, keeping their faces out of frame. The results confuse them.

Having watched everyone for the past two hours, I have come to the conclusion that, secession or no secession, the cafe is a special kind of hell for cats.

It isn't that I even care about cats: I have zero interest in them. It's just that they clearly aren't having a good time.

None of the girls seem to notice that the cats keep trying to get as far away from them as possible. They've abandoned their play equipment and beds, and are waiting near the door, in the hope that they can make a dash for it. The girls creep up to the cats and squat over them, shoving their iPhones and full-frame DSLRs in their faces.

‘Hey,' I tell the owner. ‘You want to secede from Australia? These cats want to secede from your cafe!'

He responds by pressing a button on a remote control. An instrumental version of ‘The Girl from Ipanema' starts playing.

If the Cat Cafe is hell for cats, it's some sort of suspended reality for sweet young girls. They're all so distracted by the cuteness of the cats, they don't even realise that they – like everyone else ever born – are slowly dying.

This is how they are passing their allotted time, drinking tea and eating cake in a place that reeks of cat.

I sit here in the newly announced cat republic thinking about the first time I met Michael.

I was at university, in the first lecture of a unit called World Politics.

The lecturer was introducing us to neorealism, a theory of international relations first expounded by a man called Kenneth Waltz. The lecturer had a sonorous voice and a Scottish accent. I was entranced.

‘In this course you'll be learning about several theories of international relations,' the lecturer had said. ‘But the most seductive one by far is Waltzian neorealism. Why? Because of its stunning parsimony. What do I mean by parsimony? I mean that this theory is a veritable striptease. Right before your eyes, it strips the complexity of international politics down to one determining factor: the anarchic international system.'

He paused for effect. ‘And what do I mean by the anarchic international system?' He paced two steps to the right, then two to the left. ‘Imagine, if you will, the Hobbesian “state of nature”. The great man, Thomas Hobbes, argued that before the modern nation-state came into being, there was a state of nature where all men were at war with each other. Why was this the case? Because no man had security. There was no higher coercive authority like the state to which a man could agree to give up his freedom in return for security.

‘Similarly, in the international system, there is no powerful world government – merely anarchy. So states find themselves in a situation just like that of Hobbes's poor, insecure men. Without security, and with the threat of war ever present, states must reject cooperation and only help themselves. In order to survive in this realm of violence, states must compete against each other, pursuing their own interests.

‘The best way to think about this is to imagine that nation-states are like billiard balls bumping around against each other within an anarchic realm, where it's every state for itself.'

As he spoke, I began to feel an incredible elation. Every cell in my body vibrated. My mind cleared. It left my body and rose above the heads of the students in the lecture theatre. I saw suddenly that if I could deduce the elegant, parsimonious theory of every aspect of life – not just of the international system – I could solve the hitherto unsolvable world.

A phone rang somewhere near the front of the lecture theatre, jolting me out of my reverie. We looked around for the culprit.

‘Whoopsy daisies, it's mine,' said the lecturer. He picked up a banana yellow mobile phone and walked out.

No one knew what to do. I introduced myself to the student next to me. His name was Michael.

The lecturer returned.

‘That was the Prime Minister,' he said. ‘I'm babysitting his Persian cat while he's in Sweden. I hate cats. This particular cat is called Tickles. The Prime Minister wanted to inform me that Tickles has a discerning palate. Tickles eats just one flavour in the Kitty Supreme Deluxe Premium range. You will all be pleased to know that the favoured flavour is Lobster Mornay.'

I sat next to Michael for the rest of the semester.

Michael was extremely good-looking. He had the aura and academic transcript of a person who was going places. He was perfect. The only problem was that Michael was perfect in the eyes of many, and divided his attention accordingly.

Now, ten years after university, Michael works for the United Nations in New York. The woman he's marrying, from Brussels, is an intern there.

He flew back to Sydney for his engagement party last year, which was held in a restaurant overlooking the harbour.

They had neglected to put me on the guest list at the door. Embarrassed, his aunt wrote my name at the bottom of the list and added a neat tick next to it.

I was slotted in at a table of couples from the United Nations who had flown in from all over the world – handsome people who spoke in flawless sentences and drank Moët like water. They talked about the bureaucratic politics of their agencies, and compared notes on their experiences in Tegucigalpa and Monrovia and Vientiane. They complained about how difficult it was, practically and emotionally, to have to travel for work two hundred days out of every year.

Unable to contribute to the discussion, I memorised the menu.

Later, I sidled into a conversation Michael was having at another table. He looked at me with mild surprise, as if he had not really expected me to turn up to the party. He asked what I was up to these days.

I told him I had a casual job doing mail-outs for my local council.

‘Do you supervise a team of some sort?'

‘No,' I said. ‘I fold brochures and put them in envelopes.'

‘Oh,' he said, eyes wandering.

‘They're making me redundant, though. They've invented a robot that can do it all instead.'

His fiancée glided over and introduced herself.

‘I went to uni with this guy!' I told her. ‘Remember the time Lippman answered that call about the Prime Minister's cat?'

‘We took one undergraduate class together in first year,' Michael explained.

‘You should absolutely come and visit us in New York,' she said. ‘We have a spare room in our apartment. You are
always
welcome. We
love
visitors. If you like cats, you can meet our two gorgeous Abyssinians. Michael and I text each other snaps of them doing the most adorable things.'

‘You'll have to excuse us for a minute,' Michael said, guiding her away, two fingers on the small of her back.

Michael is back in Sydney visiting family.

We were meant to meet at 10 a.m.

It's past lunchtime.

The owner of the cafe sits at the door, with a kitchen knife in one hand and now a fire extinguisher in the other, jibing me about being stood up.

‘Maybe he was in an accident,' I say.

‘Face it,' he says. ‘He forgot you.'

One of the girls says I should check Facebook to see when he was last active.

He liked a link posted four minutes ago by UNDF.

An idiot I found on a dating website once said to me, ‘You and I, we're creating memories. Creating memories is crucial to maintaining strong relationships. We have to tend to this love like topiary.'

He wasn't a gardener.

We'd be on a roller-coaster at Luna Park, or lying on a picnic blanket staring at clouds, and he'd turn to me and say, ‘What a memory!' Then he'd point at his temple and say, ‘I'm filing it away up here.'

He talked incessantly about marriage and making babies.

‘Everyone needs a support team,' he'd say. ‘That's why people have families. They are literally creating their own teams. You and I, we're in the same league. Don't you want to be on my team? Don't you want to be a team player?'

Time passes quickly in the cat cafe.

I fall into a stupor I can't seem to escape.

In my stupor, I'm back in that lecture theatre in first year, at the very second the lecturer answers that call about the Prime Minister's cat. The lecture comes to an end. While Michael and the other students pack their bags and go forth into the world, I am the only one who remains behind, wondering why anyone would want to keep living in a world that is ultimately anarchical, and trying to reconcile the chaos of the international realm with that of a highly intelligent man agreeing to babysit a spoilt cat.

How did this factor into the parsimonious theory of life?

My stupor goes on for a day, then two days, then a week, then a month.

One morning I cast it aside to discover that the owner, scared of losing a citizen, has been pouring a liquidised mix of carrot cake and potato salad down my throat to keep my body working.