The Blue Cat

by Ursula Dubosarsky

  Finally she found what she was looking for. She laid a ringed finger on one of the pictures. There were words underneath it.

  ‘Archangel Blue Cat,’ I read out loud. ‘What’s an arch-angle?’

  ‘Ark-angel,’ Miss Hazel corrected me. ‘That’s a word for a very important angel.’

  ‘A fine specimen should be even in colour, of a bluish–lilac tint,’ I read out loud with some difficulty.

  I glanced down. Was the cat really blue? To me it was the colour of the blade of a knife in the dark.

  ‘Actually, I think one of those archangels came to a bad end,’ said Miss Hazel, musing. ‘Fell like lightning from heaven. Or something like that.’

  She nudged the cat under us on the carpet with the toe of her shiny leather lace-up shoe.

  ‘Spitting image if you ask me,’ she said. ‘Could be his mother. What do you say about that, Columba?’

  I looked at the drawing. I looked at the cat.

  ‘Or his father,’ I suggested.

  Miss Hazel closed the book with a thwack.

  ‘If that cat could speak,’ she said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling, ‘imagine the stories he would tell.’

  Personally, I felt I would rather not know.

  ‘There’s a new boy at our school,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t speak.’

  ‘Doesn’t speak?’ said Miss Hazel. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘He’s from You-Rope,’ I said.

  ‘Ah,’ said Miss Hazel.

  She seemed about to say something more, but changed her mind. I looked at the emu egg on the mantelpiece. It always looked as though it was just about to roll off.

  TWANG. Another string of Miss Marguerite’s harp snapped in two.

  CHAPTER VI.

  ‘JANUARY, February, March, April, May!’

  At school, in the playground, Hilda was at the big rope. You had to jump in when the chant reached the month of your birthday. When everyone was in, the rope was spun faster and faster and faster.

  ‘One! Two! Three! Four! Five!’ cried the girls who held each end of the rope, bringing it down smack! as the others jumped and tripped and fell over, until there was only one skipper left.

  ‘Six! Seven! Eight! Nine!’

  Hilda was born in October. Hilda was the best skipper. Hilda was fast and strong and determined. Hilda wanted to win. But at last she was out.

  ‘Did you hear what happened?’ she said, red-faced and sweaty, running over to where I stood in the shade of the fig tree. She dropped her voice and hissed: ‘The Strangler!’

  Instantly, a group of girls gathered around her.

  The Strangler?

  ‘A lady was nearly strangled last night,’ said Hilda, warming to the crowd. ‘She was just walking home by herself and then this man jumped out from behind the letterbox.’

  We knew the letterbox she meant – the red letterbox on the corner near the shops, round like a lighthouse, and nearly as tall as me. What happened? said all our eyes.

  ‘She was standing there,’ said Hilda, ‘minding her own business and a man jumped out in the dark and tried to strangle her.’

  Then what happened?

  ‘She had a leg of lamb in her shopping bag,’ revealed Hilda, ‘and she swung it up and hit him over the head with it.’

  The Strangler was so surprised by this turn of events, Hilda said, he fell flat on his face and then got up at once and ran away.

  ‘She’d been to the butcher that afternoon, you see,’ explained Hilda. ‘She was still carrying it. Which was lucky for her. If she’d been to the baker, she would have just had a loaf of bread and he might have strangled her to death.’

  ‘Wasn’t there anyone else around?’ I asked. ‘To help?’

  ‘It was dark,’ said Hilda. ‘It was the blackout. Nobody was around.’

  ‘Why was she by herself?’

  ‘Perhaps she was meeting someone,’ said Hilda, mysteriously.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Hilda. She paused. ‘But I’ll find out.’

  I tried to imagine the Strangler hiding behind the letterbox, waiting for someone to come past. Because of the blackout, there would be no street lamps or light coming from the houses or even passing cars, who were not supposed to use their lights either. Just the occasional bobbing torch…

  The bell rang, for the start of school. Half of our school was boys, and the other half was girls. We marched in our separate lines, girls and boys, into our separate classrooms. When the bell rang again for the morning break and then for lunch, the boys rushed out with their balls and bats, while the girls made a more leisurely exit and headed for hidden recesses of their own part of the playground. The boys banged drums made of old tins and scanned the skies for enemies, tore around, pushed each other over. The girls skipped and hopped and played jacks. Then dong dong dong, up we all got and marched back into school in separate lines, separate worlds.

  There was no mark where the division was made between boys and girls in the playground. It was an invisible fence that nobody crossed over, or wanted to. But a wide old fig tree stood on this border and formed a kind of no-man’s land, with a thick trunk and leaves so dense it was like the shade of a tent. Next to the tree, perhaps on the boys’ side, perhaps on the girls’, was a short wooden bench.

  That’s where I saw Ellery at lunchtime. He was sitting, reading a book. When he turned the pages, he did it so quickly as though he could hardly wait for the words coming next, like gulps of food.

  The big rope in the girls’ playground swung round and round, hitting the asphalt with a crack. The boys were throwing tennis balls, targeting each other. One of the men teachers paced up and down, watching. I was afraid of those stern men that taught the boys, with their sticks and their angry eyes.

  I sat down under the tree, leaning back against one of its giant sprawling roots. I pulled off my socks, which had filled themselves with dirt and bits of leaves, and I turned them inside out and shook the earth about like magic dust. I knew Ellery was watching me. His eyes caught mine for a moment, then quickly slid away back to the book on his lap. But that was enough.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  I stretched my newly-dusted socks over my feet carefully, one at a time, wriggling my toes. I got up and went over to the bench and sat next to him. I peered over his shoulder.

  Such spiky black writing – how could he read it? It looked like something in a very old Bible. I tapped the cover of the book and raised my arms in the air, like a question.

  ‘What’s it called?’

  He lifted it up to show me the cover. It was not in English.

  I could only understand the three fierce letters ‘DIE’.

  He lowered the book, holding it to his chest.

  ‘Was it hard to sleep on the ship?’ I asked.

  I bent down and picked up a gumnut from the ground. I tossed it into the air and caught it again. I pressed it against the soft skin on the front of my hand. It made a shape like a star. I showed it to Ellery. He smiled and looked away again.

  The sun shone down through the branches of the fig tree, onto our heads. I pulled from my pocket the brown paper bag of Sao biscuits spread with butter that my mother had packed for me. I had sat on them, so they were all broken into bits.

  ‘Do you want one?’ I said, holding open the bag. ‘A Sao?’

  Ellery looked in the bag doubtfully. He shook his head.

  ‘Are you a German?’

  Ellery blinked.

  The bell ran, a long series of hollow clangs. The boys and girls threw down their ropes and pocketed their balls and marbles, and began to make their way into their classrooms for the afternoon lessons.

  I got to my feet. So did Ellery. He bowed at me, and nodded, then quickly walked away, into the crowd of boys.

  CHAPTER VII.

  AT DINNER that night I said: ‘Ellery doesn’t like Saos.’

  ‘Who’s Ellery?’ asked my father.

  ‘How do you know?’ said my mother
. ‘Did you give him yours?’

  ‘I offered him one,’ I said. ‘But he made a face.’

  Through the wall that divided the two houses, we heard Miss Hazel whistling.

  ‘Miss Hazel is a good whistler,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t say,’ said my mother.

  ‘It’s better than that bloody harp,’ said my father.

  My father was allowed to say ‘bloody’.

  ‘I like the harp,’ I said.

  ‘I suppose it takes her mind off things,’ my father conceded.

  He stood up. He had finished his meal.

  ‘Things, things,’ said my mother, with a kind of despair.

  But where did your mind go, I wondered, if it went off things?

  ‘What is your mind, anyway?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, Columba,’ said my mother.

  I put my dirty plate to soak in the kitchen basin. It made a glug as it sank. My father went outside to sit on the balcony to smoke his pipe. We heard him banging it to dislodge the burnt tobacco, and the scratch of the match being lit. Then came a strong, sweet smell.

  ‘Never heard of a child who doesn’t like Saos,’ said my mother.

  There was a tap on the back door. It was Miss Hazel. She sometimes dropped around after dinner, to chew the fat with my mother, she said, although she only ever asked for a cup of tea.

  ‘Mind if I take a seat?’ said Miss Hazel, easing her way in.

  She lowered herself into one of the kitchen chairs. The tea was already brewed. I never understood how my mother managed to do so many things at once. Now she poured tea into four pale green cups. She took one out to the balcony for my father, and came back and sat with me and Miss Hazel at the table. We three sipped for a moment in silence.

  ‘So,’ said Miss Hazel. ‘Who doesn’t like Saos?’

  ‘Ellery,’ I said.

  ‘Who’s Ellery?’ asked Miss Hazel, just as my father had.

  ‘The little boy from Europe that’s come to the school,’ said my mother. ‘You know, the one I told you about.’

  A cloud entered the room.

  ‘The Jewish child,’ said my mother.

  The cloud moved closer. It was thick and cold.

  ‘Ellery’s a German,’ I said.

  ‘Did Hilda tell you that?’ asked my mother.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I asked him.’

  ‘How can you ask him?’ sighed my mother. ‘He doesn’t speak English.’

  ‘He doesn’t speak at all,’ I said.

  Miss Hazel raised her eyebrows. They were very thin lines, just like Thelma Todd’s.

  ‘What’s Jewish?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a religion, dear,’ said Miss Hazel.

  ‘What sort of religion?’

  Miss Hazel and my mother eyed each other, wondering themselves.

  ‘Well, they believe in,’ began Miss Hazel. ‘They believe in…’ She looked around the room, searching for an answer. ‘Moses,’ she said at last.

  Moses? I frowned.

  ‘It’s so dreadful,’ said Miss Hazel in a soft voice, not to me. ‘What’s going on over there.’

  ‘You mean Moses in the Bible?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t interrupt, Columba,’ said my mother.

  ‘Yes, Moses in the Bible,’ said Miss Hazel, placatingly. ‘Can’t say I know too many others.’ She shook her head at my mother. ‘It’s like some horrible film.’

  Moses. He was a baby, hidden by his sister in a basket in the bulrushes. The king was going to kill him. Not just him, all the little baby boys. I had learnt about it in Scripture class.

  ‘I believe in Moses,’ I said. ‘Don’t I?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Columba!’ said my mother. ‘I’m trying to have a conversation.’

  I took my cup of tea and slid under the kitchen table. I knew if I kept out of sight and very quiet I would hear more, things that nobody would tell me, things even Hilda did not know. Miss Hazel and my mother would go on talking and completely forget that I was there.

  I waited. The teacups above my head clinked in their saucers.

  ‘I don’t know anything about this kiddy, this friend of Columba’s,’ said Miss Hazel, in the same soft voice. ‘But I’ve heard about another one. Little girl came out here all by herself. Not a word of English. All eyes and woolly socks. You know what I mean.’

  ‘All by herself?’ said my mother. ‘How can these children come alone?’

  ‘Who knows?’ said Miss Hazel. ‘Needs must.’

  Under the table, Miss Hazel’s pointy shoes were crossed, one over the other, like ballet slippers.

  ‘This little one got a couple of letters, you know, at first,’ said Miss Hazel. ‘Her mother wrote to her. From one of those camps. You know.’

  The back door of the kitchen blew open in the night wind from the ocean.

  ‘And?’ said my mother.

  Through the door, out in the moonlight, I could see the blue cat. He sat silent and composed in the middle of our yard, his tail curled like a snail.

  ‘And – nothing. The letters stopped coming.’

  ‘You mean…’

  I felt the vibrations of my own heart thumping steadily, with the turning of the waves, over and over and over.

  ‘How do such things happen?’ said my mother.

  I slid my fingers down the bones of my ribcage, hidden under my skin. Don’t be true, said my fingers. Don’t be true.

  Everyone said I had too much imagination. If you imagine too much, my teacher said, you will forget what is real. But there were some things I couldn’t imagine.

  She’s dead, whispered Hilda in my ear. That’s the story.

  My mother stood up and went over to the sink.

  Hitler killed her.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  NEXT morning, my father was at the kitchen table with his tea and toast, reading the newspaper.

  ‘No more hot baths!’ he called out, shaking the paper backwards and forwards to stop it flopping over.

  It hadn’t rained, not really rained, for a very long time. Years and years. Nearly my whole life. The big dam was empty because there was no rain. The grass was grey-yellow and dry as raffia. It scratched our bare feet and limbs. There was no more water.

  We were already used to having to save the morning washing-up water for the afternoon, and not watering the garden and things like that. But now, no more hot baths.

  ‘Would you believe that?’

  My father often said, would you believe that? Usually followed by a coughing fit, before heading out to the balcony to smoke his pipe.

  ‘Listen to this,’ said my father. ‘All permits for the watering of rare plants to be withdrawn immediately, except in the case of the Botanic Gardens.’

  He paused, and swallowed a mouthful of toast. ‘Looks like it’s curtains for our friend from Brazil,’ he said with a wink at my mother.

  He was talking about Miss Hazel and Miss Marguerite’s special plant that sat in a glossy blue pot next to their front door, like a guard dog. It was from Brazil and had bright orange flowers that came out in the wintertime. They had permission to water it. But no more. I thought of the plant, waiting patiently, getting thirstier and thirstier, slowly shrivelling to death.

  ‘It’ll die without water!’ I said. ‘They can’t just let it die!’

  ‘I won’t be crying,’ said my mother, who thought the plant ugly even when it was in flower.

  ‘But that’s – that’s like murder!’ I said.

  ‘I suppose you could slip it a cup of tea,’ said my father, winking at me, ‘when nobody’s looking.’

  At school that morning, we stood to attention in the playground, the wide sky above us, the headmaster before us.

  ‘Children, the dam is nearly empty,’ he intoned severely, as though it was something we had done. ‘This is the worst drought we have ever lived through. The worst in history. There is hardly any water left to drink!’

  But our world is full of water, we thought. We could smell the
harbour from where we stood. We could hear it. There was water everywhere…

  ‘Nil desperandum, children!’ said the headmaster, his hands raised. ‘Remember the story in the Bible? In Egypt there were seven lean years, and then seven fat years. We must live in hope of the fat years. In God’s good time, the rain will come and the fat years will return.’

  I dutifully repeated this to my parents.

  ‘The headmaster said we must live in hope of the fat years,’ I said. ‘After that God will come.’

  ‘God’s got nothing to do with it,’ said my father.

  ‘Shh,’ said my mother.

  It was true, though, that there was something holy about water. When Hilda’s neighbours had a new baby, the parents told Hilda’s mother they weren’t going to have him baptised. Hilda’s mother was scandalised. So was Hilda. So one afternoon she crept into their house while the mother wasn’t looking, carrying a teacupful of water. She tiptoed down the hallway to the baby’s room where he was lying fast asleep in a drawer, and poured the water all over his soft baby head.

  Of course he woke up at once and began screaming and his mother came running in from the kitchen where she’d been chopping up pumpkin so she still had the carving knife in her hand and Hilda was sure she was going to stab her to death and she was never allowed to go over to that house again, never ever.

  ‘But I saved the baby,’ said Hilda smugly. ‘They will thank me when he gets to heaven.’

  Why didn’t it rain? The sun was so bright. Everyone knew that if you looked directly at the sun your eyes would burn up and you would go blind. I covered my eyes with my fingers and peeped through. The light lit up the blood of my hand so it turned a glowing pink and there was the sun, a shadow of blood, moving soundlessly through my fingers on its way across the sky, like one of the ships in the harbour sailing off to war.

  The sun looked angry to me, angry and burning. What did it think when you turned the clock forward?

  ‘The sun doesn’t care what we do,’ my father said, shaking his head. ‘It doesn’t know what a clock is. Clocks are a modern invention. The ancient Romans didn’t use our kind of clocks.’

  Well, I wasn’t impressed by that. The ancient Romans were peculiar, in my opinion. They lay down on the floor to eat dinner. And for clothes they just wore white sheets. They would have kept falling off. My father had shown me pictures in one of his books.