Seven Lives and One Great Love, Memories of a Cat

by Lena Divani

  His proverbial devotion to vitamin C (and his utter indifference to career, money and the rest of it) had even caused a legendary quarrel between daughter and father when the Damsel became a doctor of History after a great deal of toil, bibliographies, hardship, sleepless nights, self-doubting and footnotes. After she passed the orals without getting a heart attack, it was him she called first with the good news. There ensued the following exchange:

  FATHER: “Hello, my child, how are things?” (In a voice filled with anxiety because he always anticipated you were calling to announce some irredeemable health problem.)

  The Damsel: “Fine, dad! I’m calling to say I passed with honors. I am now a doctor!” (In a voice which, to be truthful, was unabashedly triumphant.)

  FATHER: “Well done, my child, well done.” (In a rather lukewarm tone.) “Did you squeeze yourself some oranges?” (In a tone of voice avid with interest.)

  The Damsel: “%&?$#@ GRRRRRRRRR @%&#!!!!!!” (Unprintable comment!)

  This, assuredly, was the Father’s trademark: the unconditional love with which he had been dousing his daughters since birth. They didn’t need to be talented or widely acknowledged or persuasive or clever or rich for him to love them. It was enough that they were healthy and happy, a combination which, as is well-known, no doctoral dissertation can provide. Fresh orange juice does.

  You might wonder how come, in all the years I was around, I never did happen to see the Father? Where was I when he came to Athens? Why, here is the crux, my dears. The Father staunchly refused to set foot in the capital. This rule was subject to exception on only two occasions. The first was the christening of his grandson—I unfortunately missed the party as I hadn’t yet been born. Ever since then, no matter if there was a marriage, a christening or a funeral, the Father had pulled back and adamantly refused to visit the human rubbish dump called Athens. He was, you see, a steadfastly monogamous lover of Volos, his native city. “Listen, folks, I live by the sea and near a mountain. I get on my bike and I am king of the world. Why would I want to leave here?” he murmured in consternation every time he suspected anyone of intending to pressure him into visiting the smog capital.

  So I had completely given up on ever seeing him, when the miracle happened! Christina decided to marry and her Father, though no fan of the institution of marriage, decided, nevertheless, to be present at the wedding. Naturally, he refused to stay longer than twenty-four hours. (That would have been a third miracle, but one mustn’t be greedy.)

  The Damsel was overjoyed and determined to make the best of this unique, historic conjunction. She outdid herself and prepared all her best dishes. She laid out a festive table in all the colors of the rainbow and invited the entire crazy family over, to witness the rare appearance of the paterfamilias. When they did all gather round the table, finally, I understood how the legend had been born. Apart from being larger than life, the Father made the funniest and most moving toast to the newlyweds. While his words were something to the effect of “What on earth were you thinking?” his eyes were wishing them the big wide sky with all its birds and the sea with all its fish. Next, he derided the unhealthy habits of everyone (to the Damsel, for instance, he pointed out she would do well to cancel her trip to Vietnam because the war was still going on down there, undeclared), he bade them not forget that vegetables save lives and all the while, he was casting smiling looks my way. He was very much an animal lover—in Volos he was feeding three stray cats, in addition to his own!

  The three daughters had puffed up like balloons with pride and joy over having him with them, haranguing them for all the oranges they hadn’t squeezed in a lifetime. I had settled in a corner unobserved amid the crowd and was carefully observing his expressions, all the things he wasn’t putting in words, which is to say all the nicest bits. It was plain to see that he was taking mental photographs all the time of children and grandchildren eating and exchanging silly talk—he knew he wouldn’t see them again all gathered around a table. That very knowledge made the night unforgettable. I always saw what humans couldn’t see, you know that, my dears. That night I saw with perfect clarity above the table, the umbilical cords, the bonds connecting each to the rest, woven together inextricably over their heads, with the Father at the very middle. I was moved. So, that was why if you tripped one of them, they all fell. So, that is what we talk about, when we talk of love. Suddenly, I wanted my dad, too, but I had no idea who he might be or how to find him. My mom, on the other hand, I knew very well where she could be found, but I had no such desire, thanks very much. I leapt into the arms of the Damsel and snuck under her sweater. She was my mother. I was just keeping the news from her so she wouldn’t get scared. I simply let my umbilical cord unfold outward and weave in with the rest of theirs.

  THE VALLEY OF TEARS

  The marriage took place and they lived happily ever after, and I, with my Damsel, lived even happier. Days passed that gathered into months, months passed that gathered into years, until one day in March when the phone rang in a very strange way. The Damsel ran to pick up. “Yes?” she said anxiously. “Mom?” I got worried. Her voice broke. Her face broke up. I hardly want to remember it, so I’ll cut to the chase: Some foolish driver, the kind that speaks on her cell phone while driving, crossed into the oncoming traffic and hit him as he was taking his walk. The Father was rushed to intensive care and, as if by a fairy’s magic wand, the whole family was immediately transported to his bedside, in the hospital in Volos. Under the general direction of Smaroula, who is a doctor there, the umbilical cords were woven again above his head, creating an invisible shield to keep death at bay. Left by myself, about three hundred kilometers away, I was trying to stretch my own, in case it managed to reach all the way there . . .

  When the Damsel came back to our home, she was all wrapped in a black cloud. I was puzzled, I couldn’t figure out her darkness. The Father managed to pull through, came out of intensive care and amazed everyone by how quickly he got out of bed, leaning on his walking frame. It didn’t surprise me. He was a fanatic round-the-year swimmer, an all-weather cyclist, a man who never stood still. He knew how to live, as he himself put it. Well, after days and weeks of closely monitoring the Damsel and her conversations, I realized that this was precisely the problem that darkened our sun this spring of 1999. It was precisely because the Father knew how to live that he didn’t want to live like this. He detested helplessness, being bedridden, pain, crutches, the smell of decay. And so he decided to die. He didn’t do it at once, to give his girls time to prepare. He even told them: “My children, I was fooling time. It couldn’t reach me because I was speeding away on my bike. Now, what needed to happen, has happened. I’ve been made to stand still and time has caught up with me. It’s over.” That is why on the night of October 8, after he fell asleep reading his newspaper in bed, he decided not to open his eyes again on this world. The country’s financial and social crisis had been on its way for some time and there was no certainty whatsoever that vitamin C could provide an adequate defense.

  Her mother woke her up at seven in the morning to tell her. (Now I understood why she had been sleeping with her cell phone by her pillow. She was waiting.) They only exchanged a couple of phrases. They were both shaking. The Damsel got up and started doing weird things. She spent about five minutes kissing me. Then she chose her best black clothes and started dressing very slowly. She was still shaking but for some strange reason, she was singing out of tune a song that went something like “J’attendrais le jour et la nuit, j’attendrais toujours ton retour . . . ” I was meowing dolefully, rubbing against her legs—I didn’t know what else to do. “That’s the song he used to sing for us when we were little, my Zach,” she said and kissed my ear. Then she went and threw the damned cell phone in the rubbish bin. Someone had to be punished for the bad news.

  The world as we knew it was over.

  GAME OVER

  As I waited for her to come home after the funeral, I
was wringing my head for ideas on how to bring her back to the present, as I knew with utter certainty she would come back a ten-year-old kid, all tearful and inconsolable. Indeed, when she came back, she was like an onion someone had started to peel. And as the peel fell away, the tears would come. You cannot imagine, my dears, the tricks I put to use to keep her afloat. I was wily, I did acrobatics, I pulled out all the stops. A doctor is what I turned into, to see her through. And when things became impossible, I would jump on the fruit bowl with the oranges and meow loudly. Have an orange juice, Damsel, you’ll be yourself again.

  Thus focused on her, I didn’t see the signs. I was thirsty, my dears. All of a sudden, I would become very thirsty. My bowl kept emptying. The Damsel would absentmindedly fill it and I kept drinking on and on. I didn’t have time to think about myself and she didn’t suspect anything. And you know what someone is like who doesn’t want to think of the worst. As impenetrable as a wall.

  But a day came when I was forced to confront it, whether I wanted to or not. I had become heavy. And the thirst had become unbearable. So, that was it? Have you grown old, my boy? How did my days on earth pass so quickly? When was all my time used up? Impossible to conceive. April isn’t the cruelest month, October proved worst, despite what my beloved T. S. Eliot says. (And, by and large, that poet knows what he’s talking about, my dears, he’s no idle talker. He’s taken up all the truly great subjects: the loneliness of contemporary man, cats, the existential despair of postindustrial civilization et cetera.) The funny thing is that both she and I thought we had all the time in the world. Cats, see, aren’t aware of the concept of time and humans ignore the facts that don’t suit them. We were certain, as a result, that we had days and nights ahead, followed by more days and nights, all at our disposal to caress and bond with each other, to open up and close up again, to love and be willful with each other. We were possessed of this secret certainty that we would always be together, dancing our interminable waltz of war, with an inexhaustible fund of love always at our disposal. But no. Of course not. Everything is as illusory as a dream. All who loved us are as shooting stars that light us up momentarily, change us and are gone. Great haste makes great waste, is what I used to believe. Now, I didn’t have that much time anymore.

  That is how the great downhill course began. I was rotting on the inside, while on the outside my Perfect Whiteness remained resplendent. I was like the apple with the worm. A magic picture. I jumped two meters in the air, I teased and did backflips—I was acting the eternal youth though I was a fifteen-year-old senior citizen. I intentionally overturned my bowl of water so she wouldn’t realize I was emptying it with alarming frequency. I was praying for the picture to hold up for as long as possible, the wrapping. She mustn’t see that I, too, would be leaving her. A bit of time is what I needed, just a small reprieve. She wouldn’t be able to take any more peeling back just at that moment. Besides, I didn’t want her mercy. What I had always wanted was her love. Total and unconditional. Enough so that it would open a road for me to get inside her, finally. Give me a bit more time, I was praying to the unknown gods. I wanted to give my all, now that I could hear the frozen footsteps of the end approaching, to be more sugar-like, more lovable, more smart and wily. Will I be able to make her see me at last, as a character in a novel? How did Puss in Boots manage it? The Cheshire Cat? Sylvester? Tom? What did Fritz the Sly have that I don’t? Why the hell hadn’t I managed, in all the years, to make something of myself—a Greek version of a Robin Hood for cats, which would fit in with my altruistic personality?

  But the signs were multiplying fast. My ignominious body was betraying me. I started going to the toilet on the carpet. Thankfully, instead of worrying, she scolded me. She thought it yet one more of my whims. “You little bastard, do that again and I swear I’m going to kill you,” she yelled, throwing a slipper. Instead of ducking I went to her and looked her in the eye. You don’t need to trouble yourself, Damsel, I’m on my way out anyway, I said. Only she couldn’t hear me.

  Until, finally, I admitted it. I had no more time. I wasn’t going to get her to love all of me nor would she let all of me get in one of her books. That’s alright, I said inwardly. I loved you, Damsel, and that will be your punishment when I am no longer around. It is now time for us to begin our parting waltz.

  PRANA? WHAT PRANA?

  When you ask for something, it comes, as you well know. So, to our home that night came Cassandra, an accomplished actor and, as it turned out, a veritable animal lover. The Damsel didn’t know her very well, she had come over to discuss business. But fate, my dears, always does arrive in disguise, does it not? Cassandra sat on the couch, paid me the appropriate attention and, then, they starting talking about their professional plans. I didn’t leave their side for a moment. I knew what they didn’t, you see, so I waited. When they were done, the Damsel announced to Cassandra that she was going to be out of Athens for seventeen days. It was Christmas and the next day she was leaving for the Gran Sabana in Venezuela. The hateful backpack and the rest of the accessories were packed and safely stashed as always in the bedroom, to keep them safe from my spiteful scratching. She was so excited that she would be climbing on the mythical Indian tepui Roraima that she spent half an hour talking about it to poor Cassandra, leaving her dazed.

  In her turn, Cassandra told her that she was also going away, to Thailand, not for holidays or for an acting gig, but to do some training in prana healing! The Damsel looked at her askance. What on earth was that? Cassandra patiently explained that the aura, the energy field that surrounds all creatures, bears the imprint of every problem of the soul and body and that healers can make a diagnosis and, often, effect a cure. The Damsel listened, impressed though unconvinced.

  “Well, how exactly do you do the diagnosis?” she asked. “Can you do one with little Zach here so I can see it?”

  I took a step forward, offering myself. Here is the moment you’ve been waiting for, my boy, I thought. Be strong now. Cassandra stroked me to calm me, spread her hands and started feeling my aura beginning at the head and moving to the tail. She was smiling at first and nodding encouragingly at the Damsel, who was biting her nails. Everything fine. Everything perfect. But when she reached my lower legs, she started frowning. She was a good woman, I could feel it in her hands.

  “Please, you need to take him to the doctor, first thing tomorrow,” she said to the Damsel.

  The poor love was completely unprepared. Going into a mild shock, she sank back in the couch. In order not to let the bad omen in, she started on a barrage of questions:

  “The doctor? But why should I take him to the doctor? Can’t you see he is fine? He eats and he drinks and he frolics like always. He’s as healthy as can be. Besides, tomorrow I’m leaving for Venezuela, first thing in the morning. I don’t have the time. But why take him, anyway? Can’t you see he’s bursting with health?”

  Fine, Damsel, we get it. You are only human. You believe that if you declare me healthy a dozen times in a row, then that’s what I’ll be.

  Seeing her response, Cassandra realized she had no other option. She needed to be direct with her.

  “I have no choice but to be frank with you; Zach has a serious problem with his kidneys. The left one is no longer working, and the right is only partly functional.”

  I shall never forget the stages of the Damsel’s mental reaction when she heard the bad news. I saw on her face surprise, doubt, sadness and denial succeed one another like masks. Naturally, denial carried the day.

  “Prana? What prana?” she told me next morning as she was zipping up her pack and saying goodbye. “You are just fine, my Zach!”

  GOODBYE AND FARE THEE WELL

  Seventeen horrid days went by. The house was empty without the Damsel and I, too, was being emptied out of life. I became unrecognizable. What a joke to see it so suddenly: She had been keeping me together. That’s how it always happens. We live holding on to the love o
f the others. As soon as they leave us, we fall.

  On the night of her return I heard, as always, the car stopping in front of the building and the unloading of her stuff. I heard her come in the front door downstairs, call the elevator and come up the five floors. But I didn’t have the strength to go meet her meowing happily like I had done all these years. The ritual of her return had always been the same. I would meow myself hoarse and she would hear me from the elevator and laugh. “Stop yelling, fatso, I’m coming”, she’d say as she unlocked the door. As soon as she came in, she would glance at me and then scan the house. She had a sharp eye, alright, that took everything in. The flowers I had chewed, the sand I had trailed into the living room, one revengeful little turd on the carpet, a book dragged under the table, a snowstorm of hairs on all the living room pillows. “You wrecked the place again, fatso, didn’t you?” she grumbled instead of hugging me. She wanted to, I could tell, but she always played high and mighty and hard to get. She used my hair to avoid admitting, at long last, that she adored me, that she missed me, that she was overjoyed I always anticipated her return so eagerly. I, of course, kept it up undeterred. I clung to her like her shadow, meowing, “Here I am, silly, give me a hug, you’ve left me all these days by myself.” Sometimes, in order for her to see me, I leapt up onto the kitchen table and called to her from there. That always made her break up: “Look at you, little pest, finding just the spot to watch me all the better,” she’d say. And then, finally, she’d plant a kiss on my ear. My favorite!