The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje Page A

meals in your pockets, pencil cases, sheet music off some Forest Hill piano for me.’
    She speaks into the darkness of his face, a shadow of leaves washing over his mouth like a rich woman’s lace. ‘You like women, don’t you? You liked them.’
    ‘I like them. Why the past tense?’
    ‘It seems unimportant now, with the war and such things.’
    He nods and the pattern of leaves rolls off him.
    ‘You used to be like those artists who painted only at night, a single light on in their street. Like the worm-pickers with their old coffee cans strapped to their ankles and the helmet of light shooting down into the grass. All over the city parks. You took me to that place, that cafe where they sold them. It was like the stock exchange, you said, where the price of worms kept dropping and rising, five cents, ten cents. People were ruined or made fortunes. Do you remember?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Walk back with me, it’s getting cold.’
    ‘The great pickpockets are born with the second and third fingers almost the same length. They do not need to go as deep into a pocket. The great distance of half an inch!’
    They move towards the house, under the trees.
    ‘Who did that to you?’
    ‘They found a woman to do it. They thought it was more trenchant. They brought in one of their nurses. My wrists handcuffed to the table legs. When they cut off mythumbs my hands slipped out of them without any power. Like a wish in a dream. But the man who called her in, he was really in charge – he was the one. Ranuccio Tom-masoni. She was an innocent, knew nothing about me, my name or nationality or what I may have done.’
    When they came into the house the English patient was shouting. Hana let go of Caravaggio and he watched her run up the stairs, her tennis shoes flashing as she ascended and wheeled around with the banister.
    The voice filled the halls. Caravaggio walked into the kitchen, tore off a section of bread and followed Hana up the stairs. As he walked towards the room the shouts became more frantic. When he stepped into the bedroom the Englishman was staring at a dog – the dog’s head angled back as if stunned by the screaming. Hana looked over to Caravaggio and grinned.
    ‘I haven’t seen a dog for
years
. All through the war I saw no dog.’
    She crouched and hugged the animal, smelling its hair and the odour of hill grasses within it. She steered the dog towards Caravaggio, who was offering it the heel of bread. The Englishman saw Caravaggio then and his jaw dropped. It must have seemed to him that the dog – now blocked by Hana’s back – had turned into a man. Caravaggio collected the dog in his arms and left the room.
    I have been thinking, the English patient said, that this must be Poliziano’s room. This must have been his villa we are in. It is the water coming out of that wall, that ancient fountain. It is a famous room. They all met here.
    It was a hospital, she said quietly. Before that, long before that a nunnery. Then armies took it over.
    I think this was the Villa Bruscoli. Poliziano – the greatprotégé of Lorenzo. I’m talking about 1483. In Florence, in Santa Trinità Church, you can see the painting of the Medicis with Poliziano in the foreground, wearing a red cloak. Brilliant, awful man. A genius who worked his way up into society.
    It was long past midnight and he was wide awake again.
    Okay, tell me, she thought, take me somewhere. Her mind still upon Caravaggio’s hands. Caravaggio, who was by now probably feeding the stray dog something from the kitchen of the Villa Bruscoli, if that was what its name was.
    It was a bloody life. Daggers and politics and three-decker hats and colonial padded stockings and wigs. Wigs of silk! Of course Savonarola came later, not much later, and there was his Bonfire of the Vanities. Poliziano translated Homer. He wrote a great poem on Simonetta Vespucci, you know her?
    No, said Hana, laughing.
    Paintings of her all over Florence. Died of consumption at