The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy

by John Waters

  One day the Crown Prince learned that Madame Lenore had lost the last of her favorite cats. The Prince immediately decided to send her a new one, but he knew this one should be not only the most beautiful cat in his kingdom but the brightest and most gifted.

  The Prince scoured his realm looking for a cat worthy of so eminent a singer. He went to over a hundred shops in his search. At long last he found the cat he was looking for in an out-of-the-way bazaar run by a young Abyssinian youth named Abdullah. Abdullah pointed out to his majesty that although the cat he presented to the Prince was only a few months old it already displayed extraordinary mental powers and under his careful tutelage could speak fluently in human language.

  The Prince was carried away with enthusiasm for his find and immediately struck a bargain to purchase so splendid a puss.

  “There is only one thing I must warn you of, your majesty,” Abdullah said as the Prince was about to leave with his purchase. “This cat must not be allowed to keep company with other ordinary cats, but he must remain always close to his human owner and guardian. For in my opinion he is only a cat in his exterior, his soul is that of a higher being.”

  The Prince was even more delighted with this new information from Abdullah, and he promised he would obey the instructions to the letter, and with that he set out with the gifted cat.

  On their way to the palace the Prince was suddenly dumb- founded to hear the cat speaking to him in a soft but clear and unaffected voice.

  “My Prince, my name is Kitty Blue,” the cat began, “and I am honored that you should wish to adopt me into your royal household. You may depend, your majesty, on my always being a faithful subject who will never disappoint you or leave your royal company.”

  “Thank you, Kitty Blue. I am most touched by what you say,” the young Prince replied. “But unfortunately,” he stammered, “unfortunately . . .”

  “Unfortunately what?” the cat inquired, for he saw his royal owner was upset. “Please tell me what is worrying you.”

  “Dear Kitty Blue, the fact is I have promised you to another.”

  “To another!” Kitty Blue raised his voice. “How can that be?”

  “I promised you, dear friend, to the most beautiful and most talented opera singer of our day, Madame Lenore.”

  The cat said nothing, and the Prince saw that the gifted creature was deeply hurt that the Prince had promised him to someone else.

  “I cannot very well go back on my promise, can I?” the Prince spoke in anguished tones.

  “I suppose not, your highness,” the cat said hesitantly. “But it will be hard to leave your royal presence even for so gifted and beautiful a person as Madame Lenore.”

  “But I will always be near you, Kitty Blue, and you can always call on me at any hour. Remember that.”

  The Prince noticed a few tears falling from the cat’s wonderfully blue eyes, and he remembered that Kitty Blue had the name he was known by because of the beautiful blue color of his eyes.

  Hugging the cat to him, the Prince tried to comfort his unusual pet with many sweet words, but he saw, alas, that nothing he said could console the cat for having to leave his royal protection and company.

  The next day the Prince summoned Madame Lenore to the palace to receive the gift he had promised her.

  It was a beautiful June evening. The odor of jasmine was in the air, and the sky was a cloudless blue over which songbirds flew in countless numbers, and the many trees surrounding the palace stirred in a faint breeze.

  Madame Lenore came accompanied by a young attendant who was extremely devoted to the famous singer and who almost never left her side.

  The Prince forbade Madame Lenore to bow to him.

  “You are the sovereign here this evening,” the Prince said and took her hand in his, “and I shall bow to you.”

  When they had all taken their seats, the Prince slowly began speaking.

  “I have a gift for you, dear singer,” the Prince informed her. “A gift such as I myself would be thrilled to accept for my own.”

  He clapped his hands, and an attendant brought in a great silver box with tiny windows, the top and sides of which sparkled with precious gems.

  “Kitty Blue,” the Prince said, rising. “Will you now come forth, and meet your new mistress.”

  “I will, my Prince,” a small but clear voice resounded. And Kitty Blue, attired in a handsome suit with small diamond buttons, emerged from the box and immediately after bowing to the Crown Prince advanced toward Madame Lenore and said in perfectly articulated tones, “Good evening, esteemed Madame Lenore.”

  Madame Lenore was so overcome with surprise and joy at hearing so beautiful a cat address her she came close to fainting. Immediately a servant brought her a glittering glass of refreshment which she quaffed quickly and so regained her composure.

  Kitty Blue then leaped into her lap and looking up into her eyes, exclaimed: “You’re just as beautiful and charming as the whole world says you are.”

  “How can I ever thank you, my lord,” Madame Lenore cried, turning to the Prince. “You have given me the one gift I have longed for day and night.”

  There was all at once a clarion call of brass instruments summoning the Prince to leave so that he rose hurriedly and kissed the singer’s hand by way of leave-taking.

  He then turned to Kitty Blue. “Be good and considerate, Kitty Blue, to your new mistress, for no one except for myself will love you so devotedly. But should you ever need anything, remember I too am your loving friend.”

  Having said this the Prince bowed low to the wonderful cat and his new mistress and then surrounded all at once by his guards left the room.

  Just before he got into his horse-drawn carriage the Prince remembered the warning of Abdullah, and he wrote out a note which he asked one of his attendants to hurry back and give to the singer.

  The note read:

  Under no circumstances, dear Madame Lenore, are you to permit Kitty Blue to associate with common cats. He must speak only to persons such as ourselves.

  The Crown Prince

  Madame Lenore read the Prince’s note carefully several times and afterwards put it away in one of her voluminous pockets. But she was still so captivated by the gift of the wonderful cat the Prince’s message of warning soon slipped her mind.

  Madame Lenore had never known such a devoted companion as she found in Kitty Blue. Because of his fluency in speaking, there was no subject on which she could not converse with him. He asked a thousand questions about her life and her career as a singer. They often spoke far into the night and fell asleep together in the singer’s sumptuous four-poster bed. If Madame Lenore awoke during the night and did not find Kitty Blue by her side, she would call out to him, and then to her relief and joy she would find him at only an arm’s length away from her.

  Madame Lenore began taking Kitty Blue with her to the opera house. He would wait patiently in her dressing room during the performance of the music drama, and during the intermission the two of them would confer lengthily.

  The public and the singer’s countless admirers had never remembered her to sing so beautifully or look so stunning as she interpreted her various operatic roles.

  It was indeed a new Madame Lenore who appeared before the operatic stage.

  The singer gave full credit to Kitty Blue for her resurgence, and she was not ashamed to tell her manager and the conductor of the orchestra that it was Kitty Blue who often coached her in her interpretation of her roles.

  She was at the acme of her happiness.

  One day an invitation came from the ruling monarch of Constantinople, requesting the favor of her appearing in a series of private performances at the royal court. She was about to accept so important an invitation when she learned from an official of the court that she could not bring any pets or animals.

  “But Kitty Blue is not a pet or an animal,” she spoke to the delegate of the King.

  But the delegate was adamant.

  At f
irst Madame Lenore declined the invitation, but Kitty Blue then spoke up to her. “Madame Lenore, your career is your life, and you must go to Constantinople without me. I will be waiting for you here, and you will be gone in any case only a few days or a week or so at the most.”

  But Madame Lenore could not be consoled. She wept and sobbed, and kept repeating that she could not stand to be without her tried and true companion Kitty Blue.

  Finally, at the insistence of her manager and the representative of the royal court of Constantinople, she made the hard decision and agreed to go.

  She entrusted Kitty Blue to her faithful attendant, beseeching him to look after her prized and beloved cat.

  Their parting was heartbreaking for both the singer and the marvelous cat, and Madame Lenore had almost to be carried out to the ship waiting in the harbor.

  Kitty Blue was if possible even more unhappy without the companionship and love of Madame Lenore than the great singer was without her wonderful cat. The young man who was to keep him company, Jack Morfey, treated Kitty Blue kindly but only as he would any cat, seldom spoke to him and never sang to him as did Madame Lenore. True, Jack fed him excellent meals, brushed his fur and changed his suits, often three times a day, but otherwise ignored him.

  One day in his lonesomeness, Kitty Blue observed that off the large drawing room was a great window overlooking a spacious garden. From then on the cat took his position always in front of the window to gaze longingly out at all the trees and flowering plants and the butterflies and birds flying endlessly across the sky. He was almost happy then.

  Because of his sitting in front of the window so many hours, he attracted the attention of a great monarch of a cat who considered himself in fact the king of the garden.

  One day Great Cat strode up to the big window and addressed Kitty Blue: “What are you doing here so close to my garden?” he inquired, and he flashed his coal black eyes with indignation.

  Now Kitty Blue had never spoken with a cat before, for he had learned only human language, so for a moment he was not sure what Great Cat was saying, but being so bright he soon deduced what his visitor had said.

  “I am Kitty Blue, sir, friend and companion to Madame Lenore, the famous diva.”

  Great Cat was nearly as bright as Kitty Blue, and he soon had figured out what Kitty Blue was saying in human language.

  “I see,” Great Cat spoke in a slightly sneering tone. “Well, you certainly have on pretty clothes, don’t you, and ribbons besides, and is that by chance a jewel in your left ear?”

  Kitty Blue nodded and looked wistfully out at all the trees, flowers, butterflies and dragonflies.

  “Would you care to take a stroll in my garden?” Great Cat spoke coaxingly.

  “I am forbidden to leave this room, Great Cat.”

  “By whom are you forbidden, may I ask?” his visitor wondered contemptuously.

  “By the Crown Prince.”

  Great Cat showed utter indifference for this explanation.

  “Kitty Blue, think what you are missing. Look out way over there,” Great Cat said, pointing with his paw to a wildflower garden in the rear of the garden proper. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful. And you want to stay cooped up in this stuffy room because some Prince says you must! When we cats all know royalty don’t give a hoot about us, and in the first place the Prince has given you away to Madame Lenore, and Madame Lenore herself can’t care too much about you since she has gone gallivanting off to Constantinople leaving you behind.”

  Kitty Blue was so pained by this last remark that two fat tears dropped from his very blue eyes.

  “See here, Blue,” Great Cat said, “supposing I come by here tomorrow at ten o’clock and by then maybe you will have made up your mind to visit my garden. Toodle-oo.”

  And Great Cat having given this speech rose loftily and without another word departed.

  Kitty Blue could not think of anything but the words of Great Cat, and though he tried to speak with Jack Morfey, Jack paid little or no attention to what Kitty Blue said. Jack confined his attentions to serving Kitty his meals punctually and changing his costumes every few hours. (He had a morning costume, an afternoon costume and finally a sumptuous evening wear suit.)

  The forlorn cat kept looking out at the beautiful garden all that day and all evening too, and when night came instead of going to his bedchamber he lay in front of the window and watched the stars come out in the eastern sky as a lazy, red moon rose over the sycamore trees.

  He made up his mind then and there he would accept Great Cat’s invitation and go for a stroll with him in the garden.

  True to Great Cat’s promise, he arrived the next day punctually at ten o’clock.

  “Well, what is your decision?” Great Cat said in an offhand and curt manner. “Are you coming with me to the garden or aren’t you?”

  “I would like very much to, but isn’t the window tightly bolted?” Kitty Blue said anxiously.

  “What’s bolted can always be unbolted,” Great Cat responded, and putting all his considerable weight against the window pane, he pushed it wide open.

  “Coming?” Great Cat spoke in a scolding tone.

  Kitty Blue cast one look behind him at his room and the different velvet cushions on which he reclined, and then with a sigh followed Great Cat out into the immense outdoors.

  Kitty Blue could not help exclaiming about the marvelous variety of things the garden had to offer. He had never seen such an abundance of trees, shrubs, and climbing vines, or so many birds, chipmunks, and bluejays and crows.

  “And beyond the garden, Kitty Blue, are even more wonderful things waiting for you! Why you want to live in that old house crowded with antique furniture, bric-a-brac and thick dusty carpets I will never know.”

  Great Cat then proceeded to give the younger cat a complete and comprehensive tour, pointing out all the different varieties of trees, bushes, creeping vines and flowers, and drawing attention to the many gray squirrels and last of all to a number of huge crows who watched the two cats with extreme suspicion. And all around them there was a constant moving circle of butterflies, dragonflies and small twittering wrens.

  “Excuse me a moment, Kitty Blue,” Great Cat said suddenly. “I see a friend over there near the tulip tree who I am sure would like to meet you. Stay here until I speak with him.”

  Great Cat rushed over to the edge of the garden where a gray tomcat with only one eye and massive jaws and paws had been observing them.

  Kitty Blue watched with considerable uneasiness as the two large cats spoke together. From time to time they would both look over in his direction and grin.

  All at once Kitty Blue heard someone call him by name. Looking up toward a rhododendron bush, he caught sight of a very pretty mourning dove who now addressed him: “Kitty Blue, if you know what is good for you, return at once to Madame Lenore’s house. You are keeping the worst possible company by coming out here with Great Cat and his friend One Eye. They are both bad actors and will get you into plenty of trouble if you are not careful. Mark my words.”

  The mourning dove then flew up to the roof of an adjoining church where his mate was waiting for him.

  Kitty Blue was so frightened by the dove’s warning he hurried back to Madame Lenore’s house, but not only was the window now tightly closed but an enormous shutter had been placed over the window preventing entry.

  All at once a strong even melodious voice said: “So you are the Kitty Blue we have all been hearing about.” A young man, dressed as if for a pageant wearing a high hat and a feathered vest with rings on almost all his fingers, was addressing the unhappy cat.

  Kitty Blue had barely enough strength to say yes.

  Great Cat and One Eye now approached also and began speaking, but the young man severely warned them to be quiet, and better still, be off.

  “You alley cats have served your purpose, now skidoo!” he cried. Both Great Cat and One Eye made a great caterwauling until the young mountebank (for this
is what he was) threw them several helpings of catnip which the cats greedily seized and then ran off into the bushes.

  “Let me introduce myself, Kitty Blue,” the young man said, and all at once he took hold of Kitty Blue and sitting down on a bench held him in his lap. “My name is Kirby Jericho,” he said, “and I am a long-time friend of your mistress, Madame Lenore. I happened to hear those two alley cats by chance talking about you, for I understand puss language since I am in the pageant and theater business. They brought me straight to you.” As he spoke Kirby fondled Kitty Blue gently and then carefully touched him on the ear.

  “I don’t suppose you noticed, but Great Cat robbed you of your earring and your necklace.”

  Kitty Blue gave out a short sob when he realized this was true.

  “Madame Lenore,” Kirby Jericho went on, “has been detained in Constantinople. The young sovereign there has absolutely refused to let her leave for another month or so. Since I am one of her friends of long standing I am proposing you come and stay with me until she returns. Meantime I want to train you for appearing in the theater of Herbert of Old Vienna, who is also a former friend of Madame Lenore.”

  Kitty Blue was so miserable at having been locked out of Madame Lenore’s apartment and of being robbed by Great Cat, he barely heard anything Kirby Jericho said to him, but being in a desperate mood, he reluctantly allowed himself to be persuaded to go with his new protector, for that is what Jericho said he was.

  Kitty Blue was considerably surprised to see that a brand new roadster was waiting for them beyond the garden walls.

  “Sit in the front, if you please, so we can talk on the way to my studio, if you don’t mind,” Jericho advised.

  Kitty Blue took his place beside Jericho, and in one second or two off they went through the lonely deserted streets on the way to the vaudeville and dance theater, and to what Kitty Blue was later to learn would be a new and entirely different life.