One evening, the cat had been stretched out on its stomach at the edge of the children’s bedding for a while when he suddenly let out a throaty groan, as if he had caught a fish only to suddenly have it snatched away. I thought it strange at the time, but no-one else noticed it. The children were sound asleep. My wife was engrossed in her sewing. A short time later, the cat groaned again. My wife’s hands finally paused. —What’s wrong with him? I asked. We don’t want him biting the children on the head or something during the night. —Oh, he would never, my wife said, and went back to sewing the sleeve of her juban.7 The cat kept up his occasional groaning.
He then spent the entire following day groaning as he lay at the hearth. Tasks like making the tea and bringing in the kettle, I understand, were rather unsettling that day. But once night fell my wife and I both forgot about the cat entirely. In fact, that very evening was when the cat died. The maid found his body when she went to get some firewood from the shed in the yard the following morning, already stiff and lying on top of an old stove.
My wife made a point of going out to see the cat’s body for herself. From that point on, her previous indifference was replaced by industrious concern. She sent one of our regular rickshaw boys out to buy a square grave marker, which she asked me to write something on. I wrote “HERE LIES THE CAT” on the front, and composed a short poem for the back: Comes the lightning/ Here beneath/ As evening falls. —Can I bury it as it is? asked the rickshaw boy. —What else are we going to do, have it cremated? said the maid witheringly.
The children, too, suddenly found a new fondness for the cat. They adorned his grave marker with glass bottles on either side, stuffed with bush clover. They also filled a small rice bowl with water to place before the grave. Both flowers and water were both changed daily. On the evening of the third day, I watched from the window of my study as one of our girls, almost in her fourth year8, approached the grave alone. After staring at the plain wooden marker for a while, she dipped a toy ladle she was carrying into the water that had been offered to the cat, scooping some up to drink. Nor was this the only time she did this. That little splash of water strewn with clover blossom petals quenched Aiko’s thirst any number of times in the quiet of the evening.
Each month, on the anniversary of the cat’s death, my wife makes sure to place a bowl of rice topped with dried bonito and salmon before his grave. She has yet to forget a single month. Lately, though, rather than taking the offering out to the garden, she seems content with leaving it on top of the chest of drawers in the living room.
* * *
1. Engawa: A wooden veranda running around the edge of a traditional Japanese house.
2. Shōji: Translucent paper screens stretched over a light wooden framework and used in place of walls and partitions in Japanese architecture.
3. Tatami: Woven, stuffed mats used for flooring.
4. Futon: A quilted mattress used for sleeping.
5. Zabuton: A smaller cushion used for sitting.
6. Hōtan: A patent medicine for stomach ailments.
7. Juban: An undergarment worn under kimono.
8. Almost in her fourth year: By the traditional Japanese system of reckoning ages; as calculated by the Western system, she was just over two-and-a-half years old at the time of this story.
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