'He's moulting!'
That was it. The signal. It confirmed - if I needed any confirmation - all my fears and forebodings about this snaky character. It was like the shadow of the approaching priest falling on the poor sod in the condemned cell. However, it was no use staying there frozen rigid in a state of shock and desperation; I had to nip this in the bud and add a little something extra to the enemy's first impressions of me. It was true, your old friend Francis was moulting a bit. But that was as nothing to the spectacular hair loss she was about to sustain.
Functioning like a steel catapult, my powerful hind legs launched me off the sofa and right into her face. She acted as if she'd been struck by a cannon ball and staggered back, screeching. I'd expected the skin of her face to come off in flakes, considering its owner's age, but I was extremely surprised, and delighted, to find that the claws of both my forepaws sank into her as easily as if they'd been the prongs of a large chrome fork, raising her shrill screams by several satisfying decibels. Then she was kind enough to tip her head back too, so now I was standing four-square on her face, in a position to start on the real plastic surgery.
However, my adversary knew a thing or two as well. Whether in panic reaction, or because she'd learnt the grips as part of her training to be an all-in mud wrestler, she instantly grabbed me by both flanks, squeezed my ribs together and tried to squash the life out of me. But I slipped nimbly out of her fingers, got tangled up in her sticky coiffure, hissing, and shredded it like a cotton gin gone crazy. As the blood began to flow, I saw Gustav out of the corner of one eye. He was standing in the doorway, in imminent danger of a choking fit, waving his arms helplessly in the air. His flushed face, his eyes wide with terror and the silent scream issuing from his mouth really got on my wick. Apparently his alarm wasn't for me at all. Good heavens above, it wasn't as if I was remodeling his dear old mother's head!
The witch did the only thing she could in this chaotic situation: she fell backwards with a gurgling cry for help, demanding the police, the fire brigade, and a decision by the UN Security Council in favour of military intervention. Myself, I was so confused I simply wanted to do a runner and cool down a bit. So I let go of the lady, who had theatrically fainted away at what, when you stopped to think of it, was a suspiciously convenient moment, and raced for the underpass formed by my traumatised companion's legs planted on the floor wide apart. All I had to do after that was turn sharp left at the doorway into the corridor, and then I could get out of the flat through the front door. I hoped it was open.
We're probably the best accelerators in the world. In proportion to body size and weight, even the smartest Ferrari can't compete. So I got off to a flying start which made everything moving around me seem to be in extremely slow motion. But flashes of inspiration are known to move even faster than we do. And during the millisecond it took me to reach Gustav's legs, a couple of revealing snapshots from the very recent past flashed into my mind. The scales fell from my eyes ...
The witch wasn't Gustav's mother. Nor was she the judge of the Claw of the Year contest come to present me with a cup. Memories, memories, memories ... Hadn't my poor lonely friend come home from the wine bar in the next street at a most unchristian time of night a few weeks ago, all boozed up, warbling a slushy waltz to himself at inconsiderately loud volume and of course horribly out of tune - and guess what, hadn't he been reeking of some heavy, nauseating perfume? He seldom went to the wine bar at all in the usual way, and when he did he was always back before midnight, because drinking on your own is no fun. This time, moreover, he'd strutted round the whole flat in a very odd way, sort of impassioned and prancing about in imitation of a prima ballerina. In view of his tubby figure, this performance had me rolling in the aisles. Before he collapsed into bed and fell asleep babbling blissfully, like a baby doped with morphine, he undressed in the manner of a megalomaniac baron, puffing out his chest and flinging his shirt, his trousers and even his underwear all round the room (his underpants landed on the plaster cast of Nefertiti). I put this conduct down to the demon drink, although Gustav had never sunk to quite this level before.
And over the next few weeks, hadn't he spent hours sitting in his study with a faraway look in his eyes, writing letters on hand-made paper to the accompaniment of great yearning sighs? I should have asked myself who those letters were to. Because after putting them in their envelopes he licked the gummed strip as worshipfully as if he were trying to breathe life into them. And there'd been phone calls, oh yes! But as usual I'd been careful not to listen, since his infuriating habit of uttering meaningless exclamations of 'Really?' and 'You don't say!' the whole time during phone calls brought me to the brink of murder. All the same, my suspicions should have been aroused by the fact that during some of these conversations his voice performed acrobatics which changed his usual growl into a ridiculously soppy, velvety tone, while he dwelt ominously on words like 'you' and 'we'. And to crown my ignorance, I should mention the most striking change of all: Gustav's brand-new wardrobe. I'd mistakenly ascribed this to his advancing senility, which I first noticed coming on in 1985. Sometimes it was a canary-yellow summer suit, sometimes silk shirts with full sleeves - in themselves, of course, the last word in bad taste, but omitting to notice these clues was striking evidence of the failure of my famous analytical capacities.
Well, we really were up the creek now! The old fool was in love! And not content with that, he was even letting this tart desecrate the temple of what had once seemed our eternal partnership! Jealous, me? Not a bit of it! At that bleak moment, however, I realised that things would never be the same between us again.
Gustav made a desperate effort to catch me as I slipped past through his legs. It can't have been a serious attempt, since his gigantic paunch, guaranteed to act as a lifebelt and keep him above water in any shipwreck, made him incapable of swift reactions. The thought: 'I've done it!' shot through my head before I turned the corner and kept right on going - kept right on going, sad to say, for ever and ever.
The last thing I saw after that was a shining mountain. It consisted of metal suitcases stacked on top of each other and covered with stickers saying things like 'Kennedy Airport' and 'Sydney', suggestive of wide cosmopolitan experience. They reflected the sunlight flooding in from the study. So that was it! This wasn't just a one-off visit to Romeo's pad, oh no, Juliet was about to take the whole place over. But I had no time to explode with anger. My flight reflex and my disillusionment had wound me up to such an amazing speed that I could have smashed my way right through a wall at that suicidal tempo, had a wall suddenly appeared in front of me. It's one thing to think up fantastic comparisons, something else entirely to face them when they turn real. Because the wall had in fact been there for quite some time, in the shape of that mountain of suitcases. I didn't even try to slam the brakes on, and before I could work out further the meaning of this turn Fate had taken, my skull collided full tilt with the heftiest of the suitcases, which was standing up lengthwise. It looked more like a tombstone than a suitcase, such was my brain's last conscious thought: my own tombstone with a particularly cogent comment by Schopenhauer carved on it: 'The truth is that we are meant to be miserable - and miserable we are!'
CHAPTER 2
I should have lingered in my faint, because no state of unconsciousness, however profound, can be worse than the sudden disruption of all a person's cherished daily routines. And nothing can do more devastating damage than a female descending like a biblical plague on the life of a confirmed bachelor, a life which you could only have described as blissful. To put it as a politician would, the alliance between Gustav and me, founded on liberty, equality and fraternity but even more on cosy congeniality, was being shattered by a totalitarian usurper employing all the relevant methods of administrative terrorism. Under this new rule of terror, the slightest misdemeanour was mercilessly punished. The real tragedy of it, however, was the fact that my companion, having reached the absolute nadir of debility, was not in a state to
put up much resistance.
No sooner had I come round again - and I was surprised to find the two of them had put me on the bed in the bedroom instead of chucking me straight in the dustbin - no sooner had I come round than I heard, as if from distant battlefields, our new generalissima in the process of seizing power. Hers was a really low-down strategy. She thought everything was wonderful, just wonderful - I heard words to that effect in tones suggesting the lengthy application of a goods train's emergency brakes - but hadn't Gustav noticed how sterile those white-painted walls made the flat look? Just like a man! No notion of the psychosomatic interaction of wall colour with personal well-being. Herself, she could never bear to live in a place that wasn't painted apricot-pink. As for the replica of a Babylonian frieze ornamented with gold leaf on the wall - good heavens, were we living in a museum? A Lichtenstein might be expensive, but still, it would be an investment. Of course tastes differed, but the study really had all the charm of a Calcutta pawnshop. To call it chaotic was too kind a description. Gustav had better go straight into town and buy a stack of files so that she could organise his papers. If he thought she'd failed to notice the half-eaten chop in the sink, he was wrong. And did he know that eating meat could actually kill a person? Well, diet wasn't the only thing about to change around here. And as for that br - that animal, even living creatures of 'extremely low intelligence' should be trained to do certain things. No, no, she didn't bear a grudge because of the contretemps just now, but after all Gustav wasn't Tarzan, still less was she Jane, and she had no intention of spending the rest of her life as some kind of Mother Teresa of domestic pets. To be honest, she really preferred dogs ...
Was anything more needed to show me that my days in the Garden of Eden were numbered? The answer was obviously yes. For the perception of misfortune usually goes hand in hand with lazy compromise; the mammalian brain seems to be so constructed as to make the best of even the most hopeless situation. At such times you tend to play the optimistic clown, even when you'd need potatoes instead of eyes not to notice you were in deep trouble. You start deceiving yourself and coming to terms with disaster. And that's what I did too. Things are never as bad as they seem, I thought - a surprising lapse into the sententious which was the first step towards lowering my standards. I even went to the trouble of trying to put myself in her emotional situation, although robot warriors don't have one. A woman is not a man, I told myself with grim logic, and she'd be a pretty poor representative of her sex if she didn't drag her fool of a companion into the wonderful world of flowers on the dining table, Easter walks together, and the nagging about clothes and haircuts that ends only in the grave. Admittedly Gustav wasn't a man in his twenties, assailed by turbulent hormones, leading a cave-man life in student digs surrounded by foil ready-meal trays and the poisonous gases from his dirty socks. Over the years, however, despite the high cultural level of our life together, a certain lackluster element had crept in. It frequently does when an all-male society gets set in its ways. Wouldn't the hand of a loving woman bring a little freshness and sunshine into a pedestrian existence, which might function smoothly but was gradually fossilising, what with all the rituals of the bachelor life? I asked myself that question in all seriousness ... and next moment I yelled back the answer: Nooooooo! Good heavens above, was the curse this tarted-up cow - I bet she used mouth spray - was the curse this silly old moo had laid on my poor friend affecting me too? How come I was regarding a sour old dragon who obviously wanted me up in front of a firing squad as a self-sacrificing newly-wed bride?
Over the next few days my fears were to be confirmed, indeed far exceeded. Here are some extracts from the wrathful diary I kept in my mind, reproduced by kind permission of my photographic memory.
Day 1
Didn't sleep a wink all night. Horrible woman keeps making noises in her sleep. Noises like squeals of torment from King Kong's cage. Wondered if grotesque parody of snoring was just to annoy me. Came to no conclusion. Stupid man snores too. His version, however, more like the comfortable burping of grizzly bears in hibernation; have always found something soothing, even beneficial to quality of sleep, about it. Now, however, two kinds of snoring united in frightful duet, symphony of horror fit to rival rutting cries of aurochs.
Horrible woman is fanatical early riser - sign of horrible people in general. The moment her old red alarm clock starts clattering, like Satan calling his followers to deeds of sin, woman sits bolt upright in bed. Waking process therefore noisy too. Woman's figure not bad, but general appearance rather skinny. Inadequate concealment of wreckage left by innumerable crash diets. Makes stupid man get up early too and have breakfast with her. Breakfast celebrated with as much ceremony as Ascension Day Mass in the Vatican. Takes about as long too. Stupid man goes to endless trouble to seem awake. Well, no choice, has he? Non-stop chatter inflicted on us by Archaeopteryx rules out morning meditation anyway.
In melancholy mood, indulge in memories. Before era of dark power, day began with loving customs, aforesaid love able to thrive only when partners mutually respect and inspire each other. First, opening my tin of food, frying a few bits of liver, addition of liver to my dish, or maybe fish with a beaten egg in a separate saucer. Fragrance of freshly brewed coffee filling our cosy kitchen. During Gustav's lavish breakfast, all kinds of delicious tidbits jumping off the table entirely of their own accord, straight into my waiting mouth. Those were the days! Days of joy and tenderness. But now ... Had to shout several times in very undignified manner to attract attention. Either horrible woman's hypnotic power causing dereliction of duty, or he daren't make me centre of his life as before, since consequence would be criminal jealousy. If latter supposition correct, have not only been deceived in him for years, have also been deceiving myself. Which is much, much sadder.
A heart is breaking ...
Day 2
Stupid man out at work all day, so had chance to observe horrible woman in private. Feel like Einstein of anthropology, since all my hypotheses dead right. Woman may make self out fanatical vegetarian (don't ask me why; woman hates animals even more than her wrinkles, misuses every variety of fruit and vegetable on God's earth as face masks to do away with those). However, caught her ordering five kebab skewers from snack delivery service at lunch-time, devouring same with bestial greed of cannibal. Noticed me watching; was so cross threw huge can of hair-spray at me.
Woman also chocaholic. OK, spends hours preparing pygmy-sized dishes to strict calorie counts, but also frequently subject to attacks of acute sugar addiction. Chocolate bars concealed in cunning hiding-places all over flat, like mines, or no, more like secret drinker's treasured supplies. Woman makes straight for hidden chocolate if above-mentioned attacks come over her. Have to hand it to her powers of memory; even dog of genius couldn't remember that many buried bones. Expression on woman's face as fangs sink into poor innocent chocolate in no way inferior to grimaces during kebab orgies.
No end to woman's repellent habits: serious historians now know telephone invented especially for human female. Almost erotic relationship of women in general to that great achievement in communications technology offers fruitful field of study to anthropologists. Real world-beaters, however, to be found among research subjects as a whole. Horrible woman streets ahead of all rivals. Sure bet for gold medal in competitive rabbiting on. Couldn't easily be beaten at random picking of numbers from address book - result of pure boredom - or amazing idiocy of conversation then conducted, idiocy being proportionate to length. During said conversations, everyday incidents like purchase of plastic earclips at very reasonable price analysed in their every metaphysical aspect, likewise harmless encounters with men blown up into astounding Arthurian sagas. Long-suffering man who pays phone bill, proper Charlie in my view, needs to have brought off business coup of his life today. One of many conversations, lasted over an hour, was with girlfriend in Florida. All at stupid man's expense. And stupid is the word.
Murderous plans taking shape in mind ...
&n
bsp; Day 3
Made two observations; said observations flatly contradict each other. Surreptitious rustling and gurgling in night, made me think Creator inflicting ghosts on us as well as that beast, as if she wasn't enough. Guessed wrong. Man and woman making love! Jumped straight up on bedroom chest of drawers to make close observations of unique phenomenon. In light of stupid man's bizarre anatomy, process not without problems. Was flabbergasted: process apparently worked perfectly well, though no detailed study possible because duvet hiding much from view. Main points, however, as follows: 1. Judging by unrealistic sexy noises, horrible woman simulating deep feeling throughout. Faked orgasm verging on ludicrous. Genuine version of similar salvo of moans possibly heard on occasion by Richard Gere but never by stupid man, you bet your life. 2. Though fascinated by entire show, had good reason to fear stupid man might suffer heart attack any minute. Several times previously had been obliged to witness grunting of Homo masculinus during sexual act (when stupid man, using remote control, inadvertently switched to down-market commercial channels), so was to some extent familiar with subject. But euphoric wheezing emitted by globular mound under duvet more reminiscent of loud whimpering of patient on operating table when medical staff going easy on anaesthetic. Could hardly tell whether sounds of pain or pleasure predominant during whole show. Revolting business, all things considered, even if supposed to be love! How nonchalantly, by comparison, my own kind propagates the species! But they never learn! Got no thanks for purely scientific curiosity but to come under fire from horrible woman again. Woman became aware of my interested observation of unilateral climax, screeched, grabbed chrome tissue-box holder, slung chrome holder at me with muscular force of doped female Romanian shot-putter. Missed again, though got closer than last time; no damage except to antique mirror on chest of drawers behind me. Hysterical little idiot!
Felidae on the Road - Special U.S. Edition Page 2