Portable Curiosities

by Julie Koh

  ‘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.

  ‘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:

  By definition, the woods were a collection of trees.

  The official function of a collection of trees was neither:

  the confusion of local citizens; nor

  the withdrawal of ‘musicians’ from the productive economy.

  Offensive Strat
egies

  (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.