The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy

by John Waters

  After a while Jericho slowed down and turned to the cat, and after stammering badly, he managed to get out the following: “Kitty Blue, do you realize the danger you were in trespassing in Great Cat’s garden?”

  Kitty Blue was so miserable and unhappy without Madame Lenore he barely heard what Jericho said. Finally however he managed to say, “I suppose so.”

  “I see you don’t,” Jericho sighed. “But let me tell you another thing. Madame Lenore could not have cared very much about you if she up and left you without anybody to watch over you. No, don’t interrupt, don’t defend her. She is a fickle woman. On the other hand if you will come live with me in the Vaudeville and Paradise Theater, you will find a true home and what’s more, a profession. I will teach you to be a dancer and performer, and a guitar player. Doesn’t that sound like the real thing now?”

  Kitty Blue nodded, but he was so heartbroken to hear that Madame Lenore was fickle and had deserted him that he burst into tears.

  “There, there now,” Jericho comforted him and handed him a handkerchief to dry his tears with. Jericho started the motor again, and they were soon across the river and into the backstreets of a district given over to acrobats, dancers, jugglers and other entertainers.

  They drove up to a theater ablaze with pink and violet lights, and over the front entrance shimmered a great marquee with the words:

  THE VAUDEVILLE AND MUSIC HALL

  OF HERBERT OF OLD VIENNA

  “Don’t be upset that my name is not in lights,” Jericho said, helping Kitty Blue out of his car, “it will be one day soon, for Herbert is longing to retire. By the way did you know Madame Lenore got her start in this very vaudeville and music hall? Well, she did, and Herbert was her maestro. They quarreled of course, and Madame Lenore went on to be a famous diva.”

  Kitty Blue dried his tears and with a great sigh allowed himself to be ushered into Herbert of Vienna’s Vaudeville and Music Hall Theater.

  Madame Lenore’s appearance in Constantinople was thought to be a stunning success by everybody except the singer herself and her manager, a young man from Milan who had watched her progress from her early days. “Something was missing,” she confided to him one evening as they sat together in their spacious hotel suite. “Don’t tell me I was perfect for I was not!”

  “Correct me if what I am going to say is wrong,” the manager said, “but, Madame Lenore, strange as it may seem, you miss Kitty Blue. Being away from him has taken something out of your voice.”

  Madame Lenore sadly agreed. “How perceptive you are, my dear friend. Not only do I miss him but I have had terrible dreams and a presentiment something has happened to him while I have been away.”

  “I am sure everything is all right with him,” her manager replied, “for you left him in the company of your most trusted servant. So don’t worry on that score. You are homesick and homesickness is one of our greatest sorrows.”

  Madame Lenore tried now to look on the bright side, but she noted again the next evening that her voice, despite the rapturous applause greeting her, was lacking in a certain strength and conviction. She knew then how much she loved Kitty Blue and that she could not be happy without him.

  After her performance that evening the stage was filled with hundreds of large bouquets and wreaths of flowers of every kind, but their perfume and beauty failed to touch the singer’s heart, and her eyes were streaming with tears.

  All the way back on the ship she could think of nothing but Kitty Blue and his amazing gift of speaking to her in her own language.

  “As soon as I set eyes on him,” she told her manager, “my heart will be lifted up and then, you see, my voice will again have all its former resonance and power.”

  The next day they arrived home, and Madame Lenore flung open the door with fervent expectation and called out the name of the cat.

  The young attendant appeared immediately. As she looked at his troubled face, Madame Lenore’s worst suspicions stirred in her mind.

  “What is your news?” she inquired in a chilled, weak voice.

  “Madame Lenore,” the attendant began as he helped her off with her coat, “something very upsetting has occurred.”

  “Is it Kitty Blue?”

  He nodded. “Kitty Blue has disappeared,” he explained. “We have made every effort to locate him, but he has left without a trace except for the little scarf which he sometimes wore around his neck. This we found in the garden outside.” And the attendant produced the scarf which was the same color as the eyes of the cat.

  Madame Lenore lay back in her chair, closed her eyes, and shook with choking sobs.

  All kinds of dire fears and suspicions tormented Madame Lenore’s mind. After realizing Kitty Blue had disappeared without the least clue to where he had gone, the great singer took to her bed, refused food and lived on ice water and an occasional glass of champagne. Within two weeks she had lost so much weight and was so frail she could scarcely rise from her sumptuous four-poster. She canceled all of her appearances to the anger and bitter disappointment of the great Gatti-Casazza, the director of the opera house.

  Against the advice of her manager and her friends she summoned many world famous detectives. Only the enormous amount of money the singer promised them prevailed upon the detectives to take a case involving the disappearance of a cat, despite the fact the cat had been the gift of the Crown Prince.

  One of the detectives who listened to her story was a more humane and benevolent man than his colleagues who merely had taken huge sums of the singer’s money and produced no results.

  The detective, named Nello Gambini, listened quietly as Madame Lenore poured out all her sorrow together with the few facts she had gathered about Kitty Blue’s last days.

  “What you need, my dear lady,” Nello Gambini finally said, “is not a detective but a seeress.”

  “A seeress!” Madame Lenore exclaimed and sat up in her bed for the first time in days. “I think, Signor Gambini, you are absolutely right, but . . .” and her voice quavered, “where on earth can I find a seeress who will not be dishonest and grasping.”

  “Ah, but there is one, and only one. The difficulty, however,” Signor Gambini said, as he accepted a cup of coffee, “the difficulty is Señora Cleandra no longer will see anybody.”

  “Then why have you given me her name,” the anguished singer broke into new weeping.

  “Listen to me, dear Madame,” Signor Gambini comforted her, “if I call her she will see you, for I once located her lost diamond necklace.”

  Madame Lenore smiled.

  The famous detective handed her a card with the name and address of the seeress.

  Rising, the detective wiped his mouth carefully with a linen napkin and said, “Be sure to tell her that I arranged for you to meet one another and under no circumstances is she to refuse to help you.”

  Madame Lenore was too ill and weak to go to Señora Cleandra’s home, and only after emphasizing it was a matter of life and death did the old fortune-teller agree to visit the singer though, as Señora Cleandra remarked on the phone, it was against her considered better judgement to leave her own domicile.

  Señora Cleandra’s appearance was astounding. She was nearly seven feet tall and her hands were laden with jewels and a strong herbal odor emanated from her person. Besides this she was so heavily veiled from head to foot one could scarcely see her eyes. She said she would only partake of a raw onion as refreshment, but after chewing thoughtfully on the onion for a while, she changed her mind and said she would take a cup of beef broth.

  “And now, dear Madame Lenore, tell me what person so beloved of you is missing, and I will attempt to locate him.”

  “When you say person, dear Señora, you are speaking the truth. Yet I must tell you the loved one, whose absence has brought me to my death bed, is a cat. . . .”

  Señora Cleandra hearing who the missing party was stood up in all her seven feet and gave out an ear-splitting shriek followed by a volley of curses.
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br />   “Pray be seated, dear Señora,” Madame Lenore begged her.

  “You have brought me here to locate a cat for you,” the seeress cried. “Have you no realization of what an insult that is to me, the Señora Cleandra who has hitherto only been a consultant to members of royalty and other crowned heads. A cat! Indeed!”

  “Dear Señora, listen to me,” Madame Lenore whispered, shaking in a fit of trembling. “Though he has, it is true, a cat’s body, he is not a cat but a young Prince I am convinced. He speaks the language of aristocracy and not the mewings of an ordinary feline. And he loves me, and I love him. If he does not come back to me I shall die.”

  “Have you any spirits in the house?” Señora Cleandra inquired of one of the attendants. “Some eau-de-vie perhaps,” she added.

  The servant immediately brought the seeress a snifter of the finest brandy, and after sipping the liquor lengthily, Señora Cleandra lowered her veil and, looking closely at Madame Lenore, said, “If he is not a cat but as you claim a Prince, I could extend to you my services. But first I must have an article the disappeared one often touched—I suppose in his case something he held in his paw.”

  “Bring the Señora Kitty Blue’s velvet breeches,” Madame Lenore commanded, and for the first time in weeks the singer rose and painfully walked over to the largest chair in the room.

  Madame Lenore was about to add some more information to Señora Cleandra about her missing pet when she saw that the seeress had fallen into a deep trance: her head had leaned to one side and the veils about her face had fallen away so that one saw her chin and upper lip were covered with a heavy growth of beard.

  The seeress then began speaking in a greatly altered voice: “Your beloved Kitty Blue is a prisoner, dear lady, of the notorious live-animal trainer and pantomimist, Herbert of Old Vienna. Kitty Blue was handed over to Herbert by the notorious rapscallion Kirby Jericho, and your dearly beloved is required to appear nightly as an entertainer and guitarist and is also forced to dance and perform acrobatics.”

  Señora Cleandra now opened her eyes and adjusted her veils so that her growth of beard was no longer noticeable. She stared balefully then at Madame Lenore.

  “You should eat nothing but rare beef for the next two weeks,” she advised the opera singer.

  “But where, dear Señora, can I find Herbert of Old Vienna?” Madame Lenore entreated the seeress.

  “You, a singer, have never heard of Herbert of Old Vienna? Then I pity you.”

  Señora Cleandra hurriedly wrote out the showman’s address and handed it to the bereaved Lenore.

  “How much am I indebted to you for, Señora?” Madame Lenore inquired after getting possession of herself and reading again and again the address of Herbert of Old Vienna.

  The seeress had moved toward the door. Then turning around she said in a voice as low as that of a bass baritone, “Owe? Are you crazy! Nothing. Do you think I would accept money for locating a cat, whether he is a Prince in disguise or maybe a goblin? Señora Cleandra does not receive pay for locating animals.”

  She opened the door and rushed out.

  Weak as she was, Madame Lenore followed after the seeress and cried, “You must have some recompense, dear lady. Please come back and accept any gift you may desire.”

  But Madame Lenore was too late. The heavy outer door had slammed behind the visitor and a cold current of air came in from the street, causing Madame Lenore to cough and sneeze.

  Madame Lenore was filled with hope on hearing Señora Cleandra’s words that Kitty Blue might be found at Herbert of Old Vienna’s, but this information also caused her great pain. Madame Lenore now recalled that many years ago she had been a pupil at Herbert of Old Vienna’s Ventriloquist and Vaudeville Studio as it was then called. He had been very fond of her and she was his favorite student in that long ago epoch. But they had quarreled violently because Herbert, who was once world-famous in Vienna, had proposed marriage to Madame Lenore. She had refused his suit, and as a result he had become her bitter enemy. She realized that it would be very difficult to return to the Ventriloquist and Vaudeville Studio, especially when her coming was to beg the favor of returning Kitty Blue to her. But Madame Lenore was now only too aware that unless she could find Kitty Blue again she would never recover her health or her operatic career.

  Herbert of Old Vienna had already been alerted by Señora Cleandra that Madame Lenore would be coming to his studio and would attempt to abduct Kitty Blue.

  Although the singer was heavily disguised the evening she paid her call to the Vaudeville Theater, she knew Herbert who was also clairvoyant would spot her, even if she appeared as a bundle of brooms.

  Nonetheless she took her courage in her hand and boldly walked into the small theater and sat in a prominent place near the stage.

  A young man dressed in lemon-colored tights was juggling what appeared to be a hundred brightly colored balls, but of course clever use of lights had made one ball appear many. It was easy to believe the young man was throwing countless balls in the air and catching every one with more ease than the best trained seal.

  He bowed to Madame Lenore at the end of his act and blew her several kisses.

  Next a young girl dressed as a mermaid appeared and again through Herbert’s clever use of lights she gave the illusion she was swimming in a beautiful green sea. She too recognized Madame Lenore and bowed low after her act.

  Giuseppe Fellorini, the strong man of Herbert’s troupe, now came thundering out. He raised one heavy object after another in his brawny arms, including what looked like a grand piano, and a Fat Lady reputed to weigh 500 pounds. He was too proud of his strength however to bow to Madame Lenore and barely would look at her, but instead he blew kisses to the audience which was applauding him fervently.

  Then the lights dimmed, and soft if slightly sad music from the cello and the harp sounded. Madame Lenore knew her “prince” was about to appear, and she had to reach for her smelling bottle to keep from fainting.

  Kitty Blue dressed in a suit of mother-of-pearl and diamonds came forward with a guitar. He did not seem to recognize Madame Lenore at first, and began strumming his guitar and then sang the famous words:

  In your sweet-scented garden

  I lost my way.

  Your window once full of light

  Closed forever against my beating heart,

  I lost my way because you had gone away.

  But here Kitty Blue’s paws trembled and his voice became choked. He had recognized Madame Lenore. He rose from the shining silver chair in which he was seated and cried out: “Madame Lenore, is it after all you? Tell me what I see is true.”

  Madame Lenore could not contain herself. She rose from her own seat and rushed upon the stage. The cat and the great singer embraced and kissed one another and burst into tears.

  “You must come home with me at once, dear Blue,” Madame Lenore managed to get these words out.

  But at that moment they heard a terrifying voice of such volume that the chandeliers of the small theater vibrated and shook.

  “You shall do nothing of the sort, Madame Lenore—for it is you, isn’t it? Take your hands off my star performer, and you, Kitty Blue, go to your dressing room!”

  It was of course Herbert of Old Vienna.

  “How dare you interrupt a performance here!” he shouted in the most terrible rage Madame Lenore could recall.

  But she was no longer the cringing young pupil she had been in Herbert’s vaudeville and burlesque house.

  Madame Lenore almost spat at the great ventriloquist as she cried, “Kitty Blue is mine, not yours. He was a gift from the Crown Prince, and you have no claim on him.”

  “If you so much as touch this cat,” Herbert shouted in an even louder tone, “I shall have both you and him arrested and sent to the Island. You are in my theater, and furthermore you are still facing charges for having run out on me years ago, owing me thousands of pounds sterling and gold guineas. And once you are jailed you shall stay there till y
ou are turned to dust!”

  “Jail me? You shall do nothing of the sort, you low mountebank,” Madame Lenore cried.

  Because she was living in a dangerous city Madame Lenore always carried a pearl-handled pistol. And so she drew out this pistol from one of the voluminous folds of her gown.

  Now Herbert of Old Vienna had an almost demented fear of firearms, possibly because both his third and fourth wives had shot him, seriously wounding him.

  When he saw Madame Lenore leveling the gun at him, he fell on his knees and burst into an unmanly series of sobs.

  Still holding the gun in his direction, Madame Lenore, walking backwards, reached the stage door and then the dressing room. She found Kitty Blue hiding under a player piano. Kitty Blue, hearing the singer’s voice, rushed into her arms.

  They hurried into the back part of the theater and went out the stage door where fortuitously one of the horse-drawn carriages was waiting for the Strong Man. They jumped in and, as Madame Lenore was still holding her pearl-handled pistol, the driver was too terrified not to obey her and started in the direction of the singer’s palatial residence.

  Herbert had recovered partially from his fear and raced out after them, but at this point Madame Lenore fired her pistol in the air, and when the mountebank heard the gunfire he fell in a dead faint to the pavement thinking he had been shot.

  The carriage was soon rushing away and within minutes had reached the residence of the famed opera singer.

  Exhausted from his ordeal, Kitty Blue was easily persuaded to be ensconced in his comfortable place in Madame Lenore’s four-poster, but sleep was out of the question. And the singer was avid to hear of the cat’s adventures.

  But before he could begin, the new servants (Madame Lenore had dismissed all her former help on the grounds they had neglected the safety and person of Kitty Blue) brought his favorite dessert of candied deviled shrimp and strawberries in brandy and anise cream.

  He had barely begun to enjoy the repast when all the doors of the chamber were flung open and in strode the Crown Prince who had got wind of the rescue of the cat.