Cross My Path

by Clea Simon

  Still, she is courteous. Her patter done, she waits. In the quiet, I hear the visitor shuffle on the sofa. She is settling herself. Readying to speak.

  ‘I want to hire you,’ she says at last. Her voice is calm and sad. Her case is not immediate, not pressing. ‘A man – a person I knew well – went missing sometime last year, and he had something of mine. Something I had loaned to him.’

  ‘I can attempt to find him.’ Care’s voice ends on an upward lilt: a question. Even she hears that the woman has left something unsaid.

  ‘I don’t think you will,’ the woman says. ‘I think – I’m pretty sure that he’s gone. But I would like to recover his effects, and such.’

  Sitting on the windowsill gives me a particular vantage. The sun has topped the buildings now. It streams in behind me to brighten the room before me. It warms the face of the girl at her desk, playing up the shadows as her eyebrows bunch in a question. She is confused. Saddened too, but she knows to wait. The woman is not done.

  ‘I don’t have much for you to go on,’ the visitor says. ‘We weren’t close. Not anymore. But this matters to me.’

  Care nods. In these times, families are strained, even beyond the norm. The slight catch of her breath prefaces the question that I know must follow.

  ‘His effects.’ She uses the woman’s words, repeating them for surety. ‘You have reason to believe he has died?’

  She leaves it open, an invitation for the woman to continue.

  She nods, once. From where I sit, I cannot see her face. No matter, to one such as I, the posture, the way a body is held, breath taken or released, provides as much information as a frown or pursed lips.

  ‘Yes, he’s dead.’ Her voice is flat, the words clipped. ‘I’m sure. We had a bond.’

  She raises a hand, although I do not believe the girl was going to interrupt. ‘Please, I know what that sounds like,’ the woman says. ‘He dismissed the idea himself. And yet, when we were younger – he was younger than I – I would always know. If he were hurt, if he were hungry. We came up in better times, days you wouldn’t remember, but we were close, once upon a time.’

  Care nods slowly, taking this in. She is thinking of the boy Tick, I believe. She worries about him, and this concern is keeping her from the most obvious question. The one I would have her ask.

  ‘So you’re now out of touch. You were, that is,’ she says, correcting her mistake. The woman nods, and Care reaches for a sheet of paper. Her contract, such as it is. I can see it in her movement, as surely the visitor can as well. She has decided to take the case, and her diligence has been faulty.

  She begins to write. Her pen scratches at the paper, as I jump to the floor and saunter forward, making my way between the couch and desk. Care is distracted, caught up in her work, and does not notice, but the woman cocks her head. Regards me as I pass on my way to the girl. I would have her notice me. Notice my preoccupation.

  ‘Is this your cat?’ It is the woman who draws her attention, speaking up even as Care writes. ‘I met him on the stairs.’

  ‘Blackie?’ Care responds. Despite our current situation, she was gently raised and answers from force of habit. ‘Yes, he – we found each other.’ She smiles at the thought, although our meeting was anything but genial. ‘He looks out for me.’

  ‘I thought as much.’ Care looks up at those strange words. Sees me at last, the way I stare, and then, finally, follows my line of sight to the woman on the couch.

  ‘You did?’ She keeps her voice light, but I hear the strain in it. She’s reevaluating her potential client. Her sanity, perhaps. And finally, I hope, her motivation. ‘Maybe you can give me some more information, then, Miss—’

  ‘Call me Augusta,’ the visitor says. ‘I was a summer baby.’ She smiles at something far away, and I relax. This is the posture of the storyteller. The visitor readies herself to explain. ‘But, of course, you’d want to know his name as well, I’m sure.’

  Care nods. Holds her pen ready.

  ‘Well, that’s the question.’ The woman sighs and nods her head. ‘When we were growing up, I called him Panther. I was Blaze, then, my hair the brightest red. That was here, in the city, back before things got bad.’

  I remain in place, seated halfway between the sofa and the desk. To walk away would draw attention to myself. Disrupt the flow of words. Her words compel me, but I do not want to appear conspicuous. I reach around with an agility that belies my years, and I begin to groom my lean left flank.

  ‘His name, originally? That’s long gone. Nobody knows it now. He went by many names. But he kept in touch. I’d get notes – letters and little gifts – all with a mark. A seal, of sorts, that he would make using a small carving he kept on his watch chain. They stopped about six months ago, and it has taken me this long to get back here. To try to trace where he – and where that seal – had gone.’

  My flank shines where I have licked it, each guard hair lies flat against its neighbor. I lift one foot and stretch to separate the pads.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Care speaks again. ‘Without his name, I don’t see how—’

  ‘He was a singular individual,’ the woman interrupts. Even as I work, biting at a claw that has grown too long, I prick up my ears. The visitor’s voice is rising slightly; her breathing tightens. She is working up to the crux of her story.

  ‘An extremely private man.’ She swallows. ‘His only confidante, when I knew him, was one of these so-called keepers, some kind of scribe. I went to see this man immediately upon arrival. It was from him that I received your name. He told me what you do.’

  She pauses and shifts. From the corner of one eye, I see her looking at me, almost as if she can tell that I am listening. Almost as if she knows. With feigned disinterest, I begin work on my other paw. I bite another claw, the act allowing me to conceal the emotions roiling inside me. This woman – who is she? Why has she come here? But before I can find a way to voice these questions, Care begins again.

  ‘And did he tell you that I could find what you seek?’ Her voice is low, as if she would not break the spell. ‘A watch fob from a man without a name?’

  ‘Not exactly, no.’ The woman sighs again. ‘But the scribe – the keeper – said you’re good at finding things. And maybe, if you spoke to him …’

  She stops. We all do. The girl, at her desk, holds her breath. I sit, one paw raised to dry.

  ‘His last missive was a warning,’ she says at last, and I sense her eyes on me. Running over my midnight fur and my outstretched paw as if feeling for a gap, a break where the fur, the black leather, will give way to something other. I find the scrutiny disconcerting, and I turn to walk away.

  It is enough to make her pause again, but as I pass by the sofa where the old woman sits, she begins to speak again.

  ‘He wanted to take care of me, and he did,’ she says. ‘He sent me funds for me to make my escape. So I can pay, if that’s your other question. Only I can’t leave without knowing what has happened, and for that I need his seal. It’s more than just a watch fob or an heirloom. It’s – it’s who he was, you see. The last remnant of my baby brother, whom I loved.’

  FIVE

  Her words catch me up and I freeze, the hairs along my neck bristling.

  ‘Brother,’ she has said. This woman who has seen me. Who seems to recognize in me some semblance of consciousness. Some kind of kinship. Brother?

  I am a cat. A predator, though one of diminutive stature. Both roles require me to be alert to my surroundings, a state I had considered mastered. And yet this – this woman, this human – has taken me by surprise. A thought, suggested by her words and yet – no, it cannot be.

  Does she refer to me? Do I – did I – have a sister? I have no recollection of such, but neither do I recall any of a prior feline life. My head reels with the possibilities, with all I do not know, as I try to make sense of what I have heard.

  Above my head, the women talk – one young and dear to me. The other – what? A sister? Despite th
e keenness of my velvet ears, I hear nothing, I am so lost in thought.

  Confused, I wash, frenetically wiping away at my face, my whiskers. I am not some human, prone to sentiment. Ties of blood do not bind creatures like the one I have become. Nor, I suspect, as my grooming slows into a reassuring rhythm, did such connections matter much to me in my previous incarnation. The hunt – the tracking – this is what drew me on. The case, as I would have termed it then. And this …

  I blink as my mind clears. Resume the calming ritual of bathing once again. But more slowly now, the strokes of paw and tongue on fur a slow self-soothing. My mind, as much as my fur, begins to settle and smooth out. I have been jarred, but I remain myself. I require information to make sense of what I’ve heard.

  My ears are up now, listening to more than mere conversation. I take in the woman’s breathing and the girl’s, inhale their distinctive aromas. Both are sad, weighted down by grief and trouble, and, now that she has unburdened herself, the woman’s sighs, a long susurration of relief. Perhaps Care can hear this too, the release of tension after a long trial. For she appears to believe this woman and speaks to her of process and of timing.

  She accepts her story of a brother dead and gone, at any rate, if not of funds left that will finance an investigation – or of some keepsake long sought after. I know her well enough to spot the clues – a sympathy, if not hope of an accounting. In truth, the larger loss fits more with the kind of employment she has been getting. In these days, people are more likely to be sought than items, or perhaps it is simply that clientele such as the girl attracts do not have much in the way of possessions to lose. The bauble sounds a poor thing, anyway, serving no useful function that I can ascertain.

  My fur now sleek and shining, I feel myself restored. I turn to take in the old woman, apparently our newest client, and see that she regards me as well. Perhaps she is admiring my glossy coat. Her eyes are cool, though not as cool as mine, and with the morning sun behind her, I cannot make out their color. Beside us, the girl is scribbling. The contract, I assume. Or more notes, pursuant to the start of a case, as she asks the woman about the keeper who referred her – about this object that she seeks.

  I am a cat, and as such I know myself to be beautiful, perhaps especially to an aged, heavy creature like this woman is. My fur, once ragged, has grown full. My eyes must be reflecting emerald in the early light. Still, I find this woman’s gaze disconcerting as she speaks, and with a shiver that runs over my hide, I realize why this is so. Without intending to, I have crossed directly in front of this woman, and yet she, of an age to recall a different time and different mores, does not flinch. Does not mutter nor make the sign to ward off evil. So accustomed to such gestures am I even among those that would befriend my kind that I am left ill at ease. At odds, and wondering if, indeed, our paths have crossed before.

  ‘Here.’ Care stands to pass a page to the woman on the sofa. A contract, then. The case has been accepted. We both study the woman as she reads. Even I can see how her eyes scan the paper. Her mouth tightens slightly as she weighs some word or legal point, a nod as she finishes another. She is educated, then, her story not some fable in this particular at least.

  ‘I agree,’ she says at last. ‘Shall I sign?’

  Care’s brows go up, but she covers, turning quickly for the pen. We have come to this, in this city of ours. Literacy is a rarity, with most of the populace as dumb as beasts in such matters. As dumb, but lacking the acuity of senses that such as I enjoy.

  The woman rises, passing in front of me, to take the pen and, leaning on the desk, scratches out a name.

  ‘Huh.’ The girl accepts the page back. ‘It’s funny …’

  ‘Yes?’ The visitor waits.

  ‘When you said your name, I thought—’

  ‘I told you what I am called – what he called me,’ the woman says. ‘But for a contract, I’ve signed my legal name.’

  ‘That explains it.’ The girl adds her own name to the page and shakes her head. ‘I think I may have seen your name once. Long ago, or maybe something like it. Now, to get me started …’

  Coins change hands, and more information. At the name of the keeper, the scribe who passed along the last message, I look up. We know this man, and that is good. A reference surpasses currency for putting my mind to ease. The woman has little else to offer, though she has talked of funding, and as they talk of meetings and reports, I confess I stop listening. Although my ears are set as wide as an owl’s – fit for hearing the slightest scrabble of tiny claws – my mind is elsewhere. I have garnered what information I can. I have ascertained the honesty of this woman’s claim to come from afar. The mud on her shoes does not stink of the river, or not entirely; a drier, older soil clings deep, beneath the oily ooze that seeps from these city streets. That she has lived in cleaner air is apparent from her body. Simply to reach such an age, she must be strong, though time now drags her down. Her skin wears the ravages of time, but not of smog and stress.

  No, her body confirms what she has said, but what preoccupies me is not her person. It is her words – her words and that strange moment on the stairs – that perturb me. Did this woman see in me more than an animal? More than a former feral, who age and some atavistic memory have driven into partnership with a girl? Did this woman know me? Am I, in fact, the brother she has lost? And if that is so, what has brought her here? To me and to the girl.

  The girl. I turn to face this young, thin female, for whom I would give much. They are still discussing terms. The woman has no fixed abode as yet, she is explaining. Not in this city at this time. She will come back in a few days’ time, and if more is needed they will talk. She offers Care her hand. I envy that contact, knowing I could make more of it than the girl, and reach to sniff her skirts, her leg. She moves to leave before I can fully take her measure, although as I pass once more before her I am able to gauge her reaction to my presence – to me.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she says, as I stare up at her worn face. It is not familiar to me, although age and distance, the changes I have undergone, have made more than one memory fade.

  ‘What?’ Care looks up – looks over at us.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ the woman responds. She shakes her head, ever so slightly. ‘It’s only … your cat. I almost thought …’ She shakes her head once more and then is gone.

  ‘Blackie, what is it?’ The girl is staring. Time has passed. A bemused smile is playing on her lips, making me realize how ridiculous I must appear with my mouth slightly open, tail lashing. I have been thinking, deep in private reverie, but I must seem absurd. I still my tail, that traitor to my privacy, and stifle the low growl that would protect my dignity. I am not some clown – a pet made to amuse. My concerns are serious. Profound. And yet, the girl has little enough of levity in her life. If I can incite her to laugh, even at my own expense, I should not begrudge it.

  My ears, which I confess had begun to lever flat, spring up and I approach, rubbing my cheek against her leg. ‘Mew,’ I say. For all that I cannot.

  No matter. We have no time. Word must be spreading. The girl’s competence gives her a minor kind of fame. For before she can start out on her investigation, a soft knock interrupts her preparations.

  ‘Come in,’ she calls without looking up. Distracted, she cannot hear the difference in the rap against the door. Does not hear the heaviness of the tread, and believes that her client has returned.

  I am not so deaf to these unspoken signals, but I am also not alarmed. Something in the way the newcomer hesitated, a slight shuffle in his step, assures me that he is a supplicant rather than a threat. Still, it does no harm to be alert.

  ‘May I help you?’ The girl is good. She hides her surprise rather well, though I can hear the tightening of her voice, the added warmth that comes as her pulse quickens. The man who has come in, pushing the door open just enough to slip by, is small for his kind, but larger than she. Although he sways as he steps in, his muscular arms must more than compensate for
his bowed legs. Only the worn cap he holds in both his hands, working it like a kitten kneads her dam, discloses his assumption of the subordinate position. His understanding that he is the petitioner, come here to ask for aid.

  ‘Miss Care?’ His voice reveals his station. Harsh, a little cracked, it has been weathered by outdoor work on the docks or in a field. His words speak of another time, when certain norms still held. ‘You are Miss Care?’

  ‘I am.’ She stands to greet him and to usher him to the sofa. She lost her family young, this girl, and yet some innate sense of dignity or poise directs her into hostess mode. He sits gingerly, perched on the sofa’s edge, and looks down as if newly aware of the coarse dungarees he wears. For a change, she sits beside him. This does not make him more at ease, but it is a kind gesture, and for that I love her more.

  ‘My name is Peter,’ he says. I note, again, the formality of his speech, uncommon in these difficult times. ‘I hear that you – that you find people.’

  ‘I can try,’ she says, her voice soft. She begins her patter: ‘I find that which is lost, I right the wrongs …’ He nods as she does, as if in recognition. Or, no, it is a test.

  ‘That’s right,’ he says, when she has finished. ‘That’s what I heard.’

  She looks at him, the question in the tilt of her head.

  ‘I asked around,’ he says. ‘When he went missing. I asked for who could help.’

  She waits, as do I, my ears pricked up to catch whatever he does not say aloud. But the man only looks down at his knees again, where his cap rests, and at his hands, which now clasp and wrestle each other like kittens in a litter. I watch those hands, as does the girl, but when I hear the intake of her breath, I glance up. She is readying to speak.

  ‘You are looking for someone?’