Portable Curiosities (14 page)

‘It was the most nutrient-rich food available in the Republic,' he says when I wake. ‘Feeding you was like fattening up a foie gras duck.'

Fresh from my stupor, I discover that the owner's secession movement has begun to depart dramatically from its original intent.

Realising that his micronation lacks natural resources, the owner has resorted to tourism as a main source of national income. He has started operating a backpackers' hostel upstairs, complete with a pool table and a karaoke machine.

The first backpackers to arrive present their passports and dump their backpacks at the door of the Republic.

‘Phwoar,' the men say, ogling the girls in the cafe as much as the cats. They did not expect to encounter such cute young things here.

Tourism in the Republic soon ramps up. The girls, enjoying the attention but wanting even more, request plastic surgery to maximise their cuteness. The owner agrees to pay a surgeon to visit the Republic. The surgeon helps the girls grow cat ears and cat tails, so that they can out-cute their feline friends.

‘I don't understand,' I say to them. ‘What is happening?'

‘Analysis is paralysis,' the girls reply as they climb off the operating tables. ‘Go with the flow.'

Surgery over, they strut the floor of the Republic swishing their new tails. They curl up in the laps of the backpackers. They brush the backpackers' cheeks with their cat whiskers.

Increasing numbers of men flood in. In addition to the backpackers, a large cohort of awkward, pallid men arrive, travelling the world for some exotic loving. They have heard about the strange ‘sexy-cuteness' of the citizens of the Republic, and have come to see what all the fuss is about.

The men get drunk on a mix of vodka and Red Bull, which the owner has recently added to the beverage list. Panting, they chase the cat girls around the cafe.

The place becomes a destination not just for tourism but also for sex tourism – an arena of titillation, with per-hour pricing for petting in the rooms upstairs.

The owner continues to sit at the front door, encouraging the girls now and then with two thumbs up. He busies himself with stamping his military cat on anything and everything, and delighting in the mounting piles of cash from visitors passing in and out of the cat nation.

Now that the girls are far cuter than the cats, they realise that the cats have become redundant. The cats are using up precious food and space. The cats aren't earning their keep.

The girls divide the cats into two groups. They skin the first group and wear the fur around their necks. The second group is taxidermied for the planned Museum of the Republic of Cat Cafe, which is to feature an exhibit charting the physical evolution of the Republic's citizenry.

The remaining flesh is cooked on a portable spit and served to guests with a side of nachos.

The girls take the names of the cats. I am forced to start calling fully-grown humans Duchess Ragamuffin and Lady Mumbles.

After the last of the cats has been consumed, the Duchess points at me and then at a broom in the corner of the cafe. ‘If you're too good for sex,' she says, ‘you can clean.'

She tells me to start in the middle of the cafe and extend outwards in a widening spiral.

I shrug and get the broom. I guess I have nothing else to do.

‘Walking meditation will be good for your troubled mental state,' says Lady Mumbles, ‘as well as for the general upkeep of the Republic.'

As I sweep, I try to work out the parsimonious theory of the Cat Cafe. It's a real mess.

A month of waiting turns into a year.

The owner takes to standing outside the entrance of the cafe on a milk crate to drum up even more business.

Two policemen show up. Someone has alerted them to a man with wild eyes loitering in front of a cafe asking passers-by to apply for visas to his imaginary nation, and threatening them with a fire extinguisher when they refuse.

‘What do you think you're doing?' one of the policemen asks the owner. He points to the cafe. ‘Is this your establishment?'

The owner asks to see their passports. He won't talk to them unless he sees a valid visa.

‘Be serious,' says one of the officers. ‘You could be in a lot of trouble here, mate.'

‘What?' says the owner. ‘Are you going to invade my Community of Cute?'

He picks up the fire extinguisher and holds it above his head with both hands. He charges at the policemen, declaring war on Australia.

‘Never seen a Chinese terrorist before,' says one, dodging him.

We watch from the cafe as the policemen subdue the owner and take him away.

For the first time ever, I am alone with the stupid cat girls. I put down my broom and sit quietly with them on the floor of the cafe, staring at all the dead cats. The girls look stunned, as if only just realising we've all been held hostage for a year.

I suggest that it's time for us to abandon this place. That this could be our chance to leave behind the failures of the Republic and to resume our previous lives.

‘But we have nowhere to go,' say the cat girls. ‘Haven't you noticed no one's come looking for us, wondering where we've been?'

‘I've got nowhere to go either,' I say. ‘At least you have each other, in your own murderous bubble of cuteness.'

They purr and lick my hand.

I tell them that I am lonely. I tell them this is probably because I still don't understand the parsimonious theory of friendship.

‘Think bigger, my friend,' says an unfamiliar voice. The voice belongs to a taxidermied tabby sitting in one of the baskets nailed to the wall. ‘First you have to understand the parsimonious theory of your life. That theory is simple. You want everyone else to be perfect. But take a look at yourself. You're a nutcase who turns up to lectures and parties without being invited. Accept that you yourself are completely stuffed, and you won't feel so alone. Obviously, you're shit at friendships. But you could be good at the opposite of friendship. After all, your key personal strength is going places where you aren't welcome. Embrace anarchy. Move into bigger territories. Annex some shit. There are two kinds of people in this world – power-makers and power-takers. Which kind are you?'

The tabby is making a lot of sense. I jump to my feet.

‘Where are you going?' ask the cat girls.

‘I'm seceding from the Republic. I'm starting a micronation called the Republic of the Parsimonious Theory of Cat Cafe. I'm the new President.'

I point at the taxidermied tabby. ‘Your new name is Kenneth Waltz. You're coming with me.'

‘Fine,' she says.

I tuck her under one arm. ‘Let's play pool.'

The cat girls secede with us.

Upstairs, the backpackers, fresh from afternoon naps, breathe down our necks, their fingers reaching out to stroke.

Princess Mittens produces the kitchen knife. She slaughters them all.

One falls lifeless across the pool table, spurting blood, sinking the eight ball.

The cat girls hiss. They pull the body off the table.

I wipe the blood from the eight ball and reposition it.

I execute the break shot and watch where the balls roll.

Inquiry Regarding the Recent
Goings-On in the Woods

Introduction

We had a number of requests from the public to review the recent goings-on in the woods. These requests voiced the grievances of members of the local village – grievances we take extremely seriously.

Concerns

Many villagers did not appreciate the way the woods made them feel.

I hear a pounding at night
, wrote one villager,
like someone is galloping through the undergrowth. But when I look, I can't see anyone.

Every time I go in there
, wrote another,
it sounds like I'm being stalked by a serial killer.

Fairies
, wrote yet another.
That incessant tinkling gives me the shits.

This collective concern about the woods was not unfounded. Our investigations suggested, however, that the classes of suspects identified in the letters were not the sources of the auditory disruptions. Instead, we discovered that the forest was harbouring an exiled Russian orchestra, which had made a pastime of accompanying visitors through the woods.

Background

Older folk in the village were not surprised.

‘The conductor was the start of the troubles,' said an old woman with a beard. ‘He arrived in the village with just a stick. Not even a suitcase! Kept waving his arms round like a lunatic. One day, he went into the woods. We didn't see him again. Probably pointing that bloody stick at the woodpeckers.'

‘Sounds like he's gathered up forces,' said an old man behind her, his arms folded over vast, flat breasts. They nodded in unison.

‘I should warn you now.' The old woman shook her finger at the Review Committee. ‘You must never look into the eyes of a musician.'

‘Or what?' asked one of the Committee members, a nervous young man.

But the woman had already shuffled off into the background and we all scribbled on our notepads that the young man's question had been lost to the wind.

Definition

We resolved that the public was not obliged to tolerate the guerilla orchestra. Our reasoning was as follows:

1. By definition, the woods were a collection of trees.
   
2. The official function of a collection of trees was neither:
   

1. the confusion of local citizens; nor
   
2. the withdrawal of ‘musicians' from the productive economy.
   

Offensive Strategies

(A)

At first, we tried to smoke the Russians out. We waited from daybreak until the moon was up but no one emerged. By midnight, all that was emanating from the woods was bawdy laughter and dirty jazz.

Intelligence later came through that members of the orchestra, particularly the woodwind players, were mighty fond of smoking.

On hearing this, the President of the Committee punched a tree.

He had always been an overly dramatic man. Decades ago, his presidential office was conferred on him as punishment for attempting to run down his wife's lover with a tractor. This attempt had been unsuccessful because the top speed of the tractor could not match the top speed of its prospective victim. The magistrate had been so appalled by the man's lack of foresight on this point that he condemned him to a lifetime of reviewing on request the wayward actions of fellow villagers.

But we digress. This time, we note, the President's run-in with the tree was somewhat warranted. He had also just been informed that his daughter had eloped from the family home. A fresh trail of cigarette butts led from the President's doorstep to the forest entrance.

(B)

By sunrise, a dare had materialised around the edges of the woods in the form of a perfect white chalk circle.

The musicians were taunting us.

They knew that wherever there was a line we would want to cross it.

(C)

‘Cover!' screamed the President.

We dove behind trees and cowered there until it became clear that the orchestra was merely feigning a battle scene. Drums raged, violins were on the attack and cymbals hung about like snipers. All we had walked into was a harmless musical ambush.

We were being mocked by a guerilla orchestra and we didn't like it one bit.

The musicians changed tack with a Gilbert and Sullivan retrospective. Some of our men, who had joined the Committee to meet other men, couldn't help themselves. Suddenly they were Modern Major-Generals, pinafored sailors and petite Japanese maids. The noise from their dancing and singing impeded our advance, so the decision was made to sedate them. We left them strewn all over the forest, creating the impression that we had assassinated the cast of a musical mashup.

‘Success is within reach,' declared the President at sunset, despite all evidence to the contrary. But he was struck immediately by an incredible yawn. The rest of us fell about yawning sympathetically and were all soon in a pile, fast asleep, in the midst of a lullaby.

(D)

Dawn lit up the thousands of gramophones we had placed at regular intervals around the chalk circle.

We had mustered the village's entire supply of music-playing devices.

This was possible due to the villagers' complete support of our new strategy. To them, the sound of a French horn was a threat. They liked only the sounds with which they were familiar. The village butcher was in charge of maintaining a centralised list of favoured sounds, which he kept for public viewing in a small ledger in the community hall.

Among the sounds with solid followings in the village were those of:

• forms of transport, such as tractors; and
  
• beer gushing from the tap in the local pub.
  

We began the siege at seven o'clock in the morning, confident that the gramophones would deafen our opponents and render them unable to prepare new accompaniments for combat. The din was almost unbearable but we persisted. After all, we were striking at the heart of the orchestra's tactics.

By lunchtime, however, the villagers were cursing the very invention of the gramophone. They filed an official request that we rid them forever of their musical devices.

Once our gramophonic inferno had subsided to a slow burn, the orchestra returned fire with a rendition of Beethoven's ninth symphony.

(E)

Equipment dwindling, we started to create more effective ammunition. Our key strategy was to compose scathing reviews of the orchestra and nail them to the trees at the outskirts of the woods. The reviews contained remarks such as:

These people are testament to the fact that just because you can count to twelve doesn't mean you should play an instrument.

And:

Attending a performance by this lot is worse than listening to a site of builders drilling and farting.

Then the President of the Committee picked up a loudspeaker and repeated for an entire day and night the bullet points set out on a piece of paper he had prepared earlier. The document contained the following assertions:

• Musicians are failed professionals.
  
• A real musician never hides behind an orchestra.
  
• We are concerned that some of you are experiencing depressive tendencies because your lives are useless.
  
• We note that today is Are You Coping Day and we are wondering if You Are Coping. You may wish to avail yourself of a number of brochures on mental health that are currently in our possession.
  

A bassoonist, long plagued with guilt about his membership of the group, gave himself up. The second he crossed the chalk line we swaddled him in blankets and took him to the nearest accounting firm, where he was put in a sharp suit and tie and placed in the next Excellerate intake.

(F)

For immunity and a favourable salary package, the bassoonist had marked on our map the locations of the pits where the rest of the orchestra was hiding.

We donned noise-cancelling earmuffs and fanned out. Our priority was to pick off the double bass players: even with their instruments strapped to their backs, they moved slower than the rest.

We sawed our trophy instruments into pieces and added them to the gramophones, listening to their dying melodic crackle as we warmed our hands against the fire.

(G)

Gradually, we hunted the orchestra down to a chamber orchestra. Then a quintet. A quartet. A trio, then a duo.

In the end, just one musician was left. A member of the second violins.

We circled him in a clearing. There was now a chalk circle surrounding the woods and a concentric human circle at its heart.

The violinist wore an open shirt and a gold medallion that nestled on his white chest hair. We disliked his flamboyant dress sense and his insufferable attitude.

‘So what?' he said. ‘I will be a great soloist.'

We broke his violin against a tree.

‘So I will sing,' he said.

We cut off his ears.

‘So I have perfect pitch.'

We took out his voice box.

He started to conduct in 3/4 time.

We severed his arms.

He tried to dance a jig.

We crushed his legs and strung him up by the neck with his violin strings.

Results

Recalling the old woman's warning, the President of the Committee ordered us to turn away from the scene after our work was done. But the nervous young Committee member, whose question had been lost to the wind, climbed a ladder so he could look into the violinist's eyes.

We heard the young man begin to cry.

Then we heard a shot.

He had put the barrel of his gun into his own mouth.

I retreated from the woods wearing my earmuffs.

I could not listen to the silence.

Conclusion

A week later, we cut down the corpse of the violinist and gave it a funeral, which we had decided was the right thing to do in so tragic a situation as this. We even imported the sister from a neighbouring village for the occasion.

Upon our strong suggestion, the woman lamented to the congregation the day her brother had first picked up the violin, as the instrument had been the direct cause of his death.

Prior to the burial, we were inundated with letters from members of the public requesting a funeral march, which they thought appropriate to commemorate their grief upon the unfortunate death of the violinist. We were unable to meet these requests as we had exhausted the village's supply of gramophones and instrumentalists. We planned to substitute the funeral march with a choral work but realised during the procession that none of the Review Committee members knew how to sing.

The debacle drew the infinite anger of the public. In response to our disrespectful conduct, every one of their initial requests for a review of the woods was withdrawn and alternative requests issued.

We question the necessity of the most recent goings-on in the woods
, said one letter,
in light of the almost total massacre last year of a troupe of ink and wash artists in exile from China, who were, in fact, those responsible for painting the woods into existence with the intention of providing the villagers with a space for spiritual escape.

The alternative requests demanded to know how the eradication of the Russian orchestra had occurred, which is the subject of the present inquiry.

Recommendation

We are at pains to emphasise that the key figures responsible for the recent goings-on in the woods must be brought to justice.

Our suspicions as to their continued existence are based on investigations into a further request from a villager still uncomfortable with the way the woods have been making him feel.

I hear a pounding at night
, he complains,
like someone is galloping through the undergrowth. But when I look, I can't see anyone.

Testimonials have confirmed sightings of a black ink horse moving in sync with a galloping bass drum, under the combined spell of a master brush and a master baton.