World without Cats

by Bonham Richards

  “Well take one. I’ll be right over.” Vera shook her head. Dottie and her cats, Vera mused. She must realize that with so many—I counted thirty once—there is a high probability that at any given time some will become ill or die.

  Vera asked Kal to take charge while she was away from the clinic. She hopped into the Porsche and headed for Lewis Road. Poor Dottie. So many of her friends think she’s a crackpot; she’s just a lonely widow. It’s her business if she wants to keep cats. I don’t know anyone who’s as kind, intelligent, and quick-witted. Sure, she’s eccentric … Vera switched to gas and headed for the nearby community of Somis.

  The two women had met shortly after Vera set up her practice in Camarillo. Several of Dorothy’s cats had come down with enteritis. She’d driven into Camarillo, looking for a veterinarian who would make the trip to her home in Somis, north of the city. Vera, unlike many vets, often did make house calls. She agreed to drive over to Dottie’s after the woman pleaded with her, contending that she had too many cats to transport to the clinic. Three other vets had declined to make the trip. Vera drove to Somis the very next day.

  Over time, Dorothy and Vera had become good friends. Occasionally, Dottie would invite her to dinner, and the two women would converse at length on a variety of topics, from cats to casseroles. Vera valued her companionship. She enjoyed the tasteful, rustically furnished living room. Sometimes Dorothy would play the harpsichord after the meal, and Vera would lean back in an antique bentwood rocker, close her eyes, and lose herself in the music.

  Turning into the driveway, Vera saw that Dottie was waiting in front. The chubby, middle-aged woman manifested a pathetic aspect, standing there in her cotton-print dress. Her hands hung by her sides, a kerchief clutched in the right one. Her graying hair was unkempt, and her usually smiling eyes were puffed and red. The two women hugged.

  Dorothy immediately burst into tears. “Oh, Vera, I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “Well, Dottie,” Vera responded, assuming a brisk professional mien, “I’ll just have to take a look at the cats, won’t I?”

  Accustomed to animals as she was, Vera nevertheless marveled at the profusion of felines as they went inside.. Vera made a quick, surreptitious count of twenty-two. She knew there were others in and around the house. The vet hardly noticed the musk-ammonia odor permeating the living room. Vera had once warned Dottie that she was probably in violation of laws prohibiting so many felines in one residence. Dottie had not seemed concerned.

  They sat on the overstuffed sofa whose sides were frizzy from years of clawing. Beside Vera was a kitten pulling at the corner of an antimacassar while another looked on with interest. The once-fine handmade burl coffee table, legs scratched and clawed to bare wood, bore gilt-framed photographs of relatives. The largest was an eight-by-ten of Dorothy’s late husband, who had died of prostate cancer over twenty years ago.

  One item of furniture which, except for its legs, showed little evidence of cat damage was the exquisite hand-painted harpsichord by the front window. Vera knew that, although Dorothy allowed her babies the run of the house and never punished them much when they climbed on chairs, tables, sofas, and the like, no cats were allowed to venture onto the harpsichord. A squirt of water from a spray bottle that Dorothy kept within reach was enough to keep most of them off the instrument.

  Her husband Dave had given her the harpsichord on her thirty-third birthday. She’d taken lessons for three years from Madame Lubitzovna, who’d maintained a studio in the nearby town of Ojai. Building on her years of playing the piano, Dorothy learned to play quite well for an amateur. Vera recalled that, once, when Dottie was playing for her, a thin mongrel tabby accompanied the delicate music with a discordant yowl that both women found hilarious, if cacophonous. Dottie had named the singer Dietrich, after the German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

  Vera noticed at once that many of the animals appeared lethargic. “All right, hon, I want you to tell me everything that has happened since the first cat became ill.”

  “It started a couple of weeks ago,” Dorothy began. “Three of the cats were just lying around. I could see they were sick. A few days later they were dead. I wasn’t upset much at first. I’ve had cats get sick and die before. Why, just last July a calico named Quilt and an old tom that had no name died on the same day, within four hours of each other.” Her voice wavered. “But now, four more cats are dead and about half of the others are ill. One of dead ones is precious Lucy, the seal-point Siamese.” Dorothy burst into tears.

  Vera took Dorothy’s hand. “Did you notice anything else?” she asked. “Anything at all in those cats before they died? Their appetite? Did they eat? Were they frothing at the mouth?”

  “Well, yes. For the last week or so, quite a few of them haven’t been eating much. Lucy and Aristotle weren’t eating at all before they died. Even Martin there hasn’t been eating.” She pointed to a large tom sprawled on the carpet. “He usually eats the food left over by the others. And they haven’t been as active as usual. Some of them have diarrhea, some have been vomiting, and I saw blood coming from the noses of two of them.” Dorothy stopped speaking; the tears resumed.

  Dorothy regained some composure and said, “Oh, and they seem to be very thirsty. At first, I didn’t think too much of it because the cats often get sick with one thing or another. Maybe fleas are responsible.”

  Vera observed that some of the cats were showing their haws—the membranes under their eyelids that, in healthy animals, are generally hidden. She also noticed streaks of blood in their eyes. She took the rectal temperature of several of the sick pets. “They all have high fevers,” she remarked. “No question that it’s some kind of infection.” The vet stroked the back of the animal she’d been examining. But the cat made an evasive movement and yowled loudly. Hmmm. sensitive to touch. She scratched her head. “Are there more fleas than usual right now?”

  “No,” Dorothy replied. “It’s still early for fleas. They don’t get real bad until summer.” Dorothy had stopped crying. “I thought it might be distemper, but you gave most of them shots for that.”

  Vera nodded thoughtfully. “I think you should consider putting your cats on one of the long-lasting flea inhibitors.” For years, she had urged Dottie to use an anti-flea regimen, but the woman refused to use any medications on her cats unless it was absolutely necessary.

  Dorothy continued, “Most of the cats died at night. I found their dear little bodies when I got up in the morning. But one, a cat named Clyde that Pete Wingate brought over, was eating up a storm yesterday around ten in the morning … he purred so loud when I scratched him under the chin … then I found his furry body about two thirty in the afternoon.”

  Vera listened for possible clues to the illness. Her attention, however, was caught by the strange antics of a jet-black cat over by the grandfather clock. The cat, one Vera knew as Sabrina, was having trouble walking. She was making the same awkward movements that a kitten does when it first ventures to use its limbs. But Sabrina was fully grown. Vera rushed over and tenderly folded the animal in her arms. The cat protested weakly. Blood was dripping from her nose and mouth. Soon she was convulsing, her body jerking spasmodically. Within minutes Sabrina was dead. Dorothy and Vera exchanged horrified glances.

  Vera shook her head. “You might swab down the floor around the food and water dishes with bleach,” she suggested. “I don’t know what we’re dealing with, but bleach is a pretty good disinfectant.”

  Vera put the lifeless bodies of Sabrina and two other cats in a large plastic bag, and then gave Dorothy a hug. “I’ll do my best to find out what this is.”

  The drive back to the clinic allowed her time to digest the afternoon’s events. What the hell is this? An epidemic? The symptoms point to a rapidly developing viral disease—maybe panleukopenia is involved. But the speed with which the disease passed from animal to animal didn’t jibe with any sickness she
could think of.

  Vera spent the rest of the afternoon performing necropsies on the three cats. The dead felines were quite emaciated and had enlarged spleens and lymph nodes. She noticed extensive internal bleeding, which she found both puzzling and alarming. Her pulse raced, and her hands started to shake. She closed her eyes, leaned back in the chair, and forced herself to relax. When she examined the blood of the deceased cats under the microscope, she saw that all three showed very high white-blood-cell counts. Panleukopenia would have shown low counts. Her preliminary diagnosis had to be wrong. She wondered if it might be a new disease with which she was unfamiliar. Kal Forstner was a recent graduate of vet school; Vera considered that he might have encountered this new affliction in one of his courses.

  “Kal, would you come in here a minute, please?”

  “What’s up?” Kal said as he entered the lab.

  Vera described the disease affecting the cats. “Does this sound like anything you studied at Davis?”

  He put his fingertips to his forehead and closed his eyes. After a minute, he said, “No, I can’t think of any infectious disease that spreads so fast.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.” She tried to dispel a growing feeling of unease. Calm down, Vera, she told herself. This is probably some obvious sickness you haven’t thought of.

  She called Noah at the institute. “Noah, it’s Vera. I’ve got a problem.” She told him of Dorothy’s sick cats. “Is there someone at the institute who could do some diagnostic bacteriology on these cats? I’m not set up for that, and it’s kind of urgent. My regular lab service would take too long.”

  “Sounds serious,” Noah replied. “We don’t do much of that here—wait a minute! They teach a course in medical microbiology in the biology department. I’ll call Dr. Morton, the guy who teaches the course, and get back to you.”

  Vera thanked him and went back to her feline corpses. She went over to the bookshelf she called her reference library and pulled down a few books on infectious disease. After an hour, she still hadn’t found any mention of an illness such as she’d seen at Dottie’s.

  On Saturday, Vera drove up to the campus with three small, chilled vials of clotted blood from the three dead cats. Arriving at the lab of Dr. P. Merrill Morton, Vera encountered a balding, ruddy man wearing a starched lab coat. He looked up from the microscope and greeted her with a concerned smile. “I understand you have some sort of epidemic on your hands.” He took the samples and told her that it would take several days to isolate and identify any bacteria. “One suggestion, Dr. Barnett; you might call that woman—what’s her name, Mrs. Knowland—and tell her to keep all her cats locked up in the house.”

  “You think it might be serious enough that a quarantine is called for?”

  “I don’t know. I just suggest we err on the side of safety.”

  Vera took a deep breath. “I have to admit, I’ve never seen such an aggressive set of symptoms in any animal.”

  As soon as Vera got back to the clinic, she telephoned Dorothy.

  “But Vera,” Dorothy protested, “even if I close all the windows and doors, there are ways the cats can get out of the house. There’s an opening into the wall behind the kitchen stove.”

  Vera sighed inaudibly. “Well, do the best you can, hon. See if you can find a way to close up those holes.”

  That night, Vera and Noah took in a 3D movie, but Vera had trouble following the plot. Her mind kept wandering back to Dorothy’s cats. Later, at Noah’s, she settled down on the sofa while Noah fiddled with the stereo. Bastette jumped onto her lap and, in response to her caresses, began kneading the vet’s tummy. Noah sat down beside Vera.

  “She’s smiling,” she said.

  “Cats can’t smile.”

  “Sure they can. A purr is an audible smile.”

  “Oh. Right. Never thought of it that way.”

  Vera was silent. Distractedly, she ran her hands through her hair.

  “Are you okay?’ he asked Noah.

  “Noah, I’m worried about Dorothy’s cats.”

  He took her hand. “I would be too. Are you sure you can’t identify it with one of the common feline diseases?”

  “Yes,” Vera replied. “ I’ve gone over and over it in my mind and can’t peg it to anything I’m familiar with.”

  “You don’t suppose you could have picked up the infectious agent from the Knowland cats, do you? I wouldn’t want Bastette to get sick.”

  “I guess that’s a possibility. I did shower when I got home. Besides, most infectious feline diseases are transferred from cat to cat, not from cat to human to cat.”

  Noah frowned. “Are you sure it’s not distemper?”

  “It doesn’t seem to be. I considered panleukopenia—that’s what vets call distemper—but the white-cell count is up, not down. It looks more like a virulent bacterial infection of some sort.”

  Noah leaned over Bastette and planted a chaste kiss on Vera’s cheek.

  “What’s that for?” asked Vera.

  “I love it when you talk dirty like that.”

  “What, panleukopenia? Let me tell you about urolithiasis or calicivirus,” she responded.

  “Ooh! In some countries you could get arrested for using provocative words like that.” Noah continued the game, and Vera leaned over the cat and kissed him.

  “And what’s that for?” he asked.

  “Because you’re you, that’s all.” For the rest of the night there was no more talk of feline diseases.

  Sunday morning, they shared breakfast while Bastette fished with her paw for imaginary creatures in her water dish. Vera shook her head. “I’d better call Dorothy.”

  She learned that another cat had died during the night; Vera was bewildered. She looked up at Noah. “I better get back to Dorothy’s and check her cats again.” He shrugged.

  When she arrived at the Knowland house, she put on latex gloves and a disposable paper smock. She wrinkled her nose. Bleach and urine … unpleasant mix … Vera looked around the house and saw that almost all of the pets were sick. Some could hardly move.

  Vera examined over half the animals. She palpated their abdomens and listened to their hearts and lungs; she took their temperatures and noted their pulses. Without exception, they were feverish. Their gums were pallid, and their haws were showing. Some had blood trickling from their ears or noses or mouths. Several had diarrhea, making their examination a messy, difficult job. Vera was deeply disturbed. She couldn’t recall a feline disease with such a high rate of transfer and mortality.

  Dorothy sat silently in a corner, staring at nothing. Vera took more blood samples from some of the cats for additional examinations.

  Back at the clinic, Vera asked Kal if he would assist. When they examined the blood samples, they again found a high white-blood-cell count. As with the earlier specimens, she again thought she saw bacteria. The telephone rang. Vera expected to hear Dorothy’s voice and was surprised when it turned out to be Mrs. Amend, the wife of City Councilman Amend. Her cat was ill, and would Vera mind if she brought her in, even though it was Sunday? Of course, Vera could not deny her.

  The blue Persian, whose mistress normally kept her carefully groomed, was a mess. Her hair was matted, and her hindquarters were soiled with diarrheic stool. The cat’s eyes were dull. Vera realized that the symptoms were the same as those exhibited by Dorothy’s cats. “You don’t let Madame run loose, do you?” she asked.

  “No, she is strictly a house cat,” snapped Mrs. Amend. “We never let her out.”

  Vera’s brow wrinkled. If Madame had the same illness that all of Dorothy’s cats did, how did she contract it? “Have there been any other cats in your house in the past week or so?”

  “Why no. Of course not,” the woman answered. Her tone displayed resentment that Vera would even ask such a question.

  “I have to tell you,
Mrs. Amend, that the prognosis is very poor. I think your cat has a bacterial infection and …”

  “But you gave Madame a shot for enteritis in September!” Mrs. Amend accused.

  “I know. But I don’t think she has enteritis. It’s something else. You’d better leave her with me and I’ll do what I can.”

  Mrs. Amend frowned, eyeing Vera with suspicion. “All right.”

  By Monday morning, Madame was dead, the phone was ringing nonstop, and the two vets were exhausted. Cats were dying all over the city.

  M. J. Pettit, professor of clinical microbiology in the UCLA medical school, ended his lecture on plague and tularemia. As his students bustled and chattered, he prepared to depart.

  “Dr. Pettit, do you have a second? I have a question.” The professor looked up. It was Marilyn Sturtevant, a studious blonde—one of the top achievers on exams.

  “Sure, What is it?”

  “Before today’s lecture, I thought plague was a disease of the past like smallpox—wiped out. But you say it’s still with us.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You also said it’s common in wild rodents in Southern California.”

  Pettit nodded.

  The woman shook her head. “I guess I’m kind of shocked. I had no idea we had plague locally,”

  “Most people don’t … not until there’s a case reported in the news or a campground is closed because plague bacteria are found in squirrels or other animals. Do a web search. You’ll be amazed.”

  “I guess what I want to ask is, what is the probability of a black plague epidemic like that in Europe in the fourteenth century?”

  “Excellent question, Marilyn. The odds are nearly zero. Why? Because the virulent genetic strain of Yersinia pestis responsible for the black death is thought to be extinct.”

  “Oohh. So there are different strains of plague bacteria that vary in their pathogenicity.”

  “Exactly. Remember, however, that under the right conditions, even a relatively benign strain can become virulent.”