“I don’t know that there’s any backward or forward to it,” I said. “Some children walk early, some late. You were walking at eleven months, and Ben is barely a year old. I’ve heard of perfectly normal babies who never took a step ’til much, much later.”
“Why, of course, Mother. I didn’t mean to imply . . . Peter and Ann both walked at nine months.”
“I know.”
“It may simply be that Ben’s just making up time.”
“Making up time?”
“Between when he was born and was able to eat properly. No development. Normal development, I mean—because all his energies went into just staying alive. So there’s always a lag. Maybe not always; perhaps his progress will become faster later on until he catches up and everything will turn out perfectly all right. Incidentally, Mother, I think one of the cats has been crawling into the crib with him.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. They like babies because they’re warm and clean.”
“But Mother . . .”
“I hope you’re not thinking of the old superstition about cats’ snuffing out babies’ breaths. There was usually a cat sleeping with you when you were Ben’s age.”
“Perhaps that’s why I don’t particularly care for them,” said Stephanie, adding vaguely, “trauma . . .”
###
Not quite soon enough to discredit Stephanie’s theory, and not quite late enough to confirm it for sure, Ben began to walk. He walked with a rolling, sidling, straddling gait which was deceptively fast; and he rarely resorted to the up-and-down, half-walk, half-crawl that children who are inclined to be timid or uncertain indulge in. In fact he seemed to have little conception of either timidity or uncertainty; persistence and curiosity were his most noticeable traits. He explored fearlessly, tirelessly, bumps or knocks being no more than momentary distractions.
From the first, he took to the cats. Naturally, we kept kittens and nursing mothers out of his way, but the toms, as toms will, indulged him tolerantly. I had seen him pound his tiny fists on the gray tom’s skull until the dazed animal must have seen stars, squeeze its sides relentlessly, and wind up by pulling on its tail, all of which the cat endured with patient dignity—it would have abandoned forever the house of an adult taking a fraction of such liberties—until, bored at last, or possibly feeling its temper beginning to fray, Tom yawned, stretched, flirted the abused tail, and leapt out of reach.
Stephanie was afraid Ben would be scratched or bitten or infected by his habit of grasping a loose roll of skin and fur and chewing on it. “And Mother—what is that funny noise he’s learned to make? It sounds something like a bird trill.”
“Rrrrr, rrrr,” murmured Ben obligingly.
“Oh that,” I said, proud of Ben but slightly embarrassed for Stephanie’s predictable reaction. “He’s just speaking cat.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Mary Borden or somebody wrote a story about it. Years ago. Speaking cat, I mean. Cats have a very limited vocabulary, you know, and Ben seems to have picked up a little of it.”
“That’s perfectly absurd,” said Stephanie.
“Rr, rr,” said Ben.
“Rrrrrr-owr,” said the gray tom.
“Mother, listen. I understand, or I think I understand, now I’m older, why you and Father are eccen . . . unconventional, that is. I realize the value of some people having unusual outlooks and different values. But Mother, children don’t like their parents to be whimsical. It makes them uncomfortable.”
“I know, dear. I’m sorry. But Ben really does speak cat.”
There was no doubt in my mind that he was increasing his proficiency all the time. As all know who have been allowed to house and feed cats, there are only a few basic—well, one hesitates, and not just in deference to the opinion of those who think communication is limited to humanity, to call them words—a few basic idea-sounds in cat. These are all shorter or longer variants of the root, rrr, with a couple of prefixes—prrr and mrrr—and a few suffixes, notably owr, rrm, and rrmh?, but the language is highly inflected, capable of fine distinctions conveyed by rising or falling tones in different places. I don’t understand cat myself, except for the obvious phrases one just can’t help picking up, such as prrruh prrruh, which seems to mean, “Come quickly, I’ve something you’ll like,” and MrrrrROWrrr!, apparently a frightful curse uttered preparatory to a fight to the death—not to be confused with Mrrrow, Mrrrow, Mrrrowh?: “Stay me with apples, comfort me with flagons, for I am sick of love.”
###
There are undoubtedly subtleties which escape, not merely the alien human ear, but the average tabby, surfeited with milk and mice. Whenever I hear some particularly dramatic outburst from a feline throat straining to articulate an anguish of desire which shakes the poor thing, I can’t help but wonder if the party addressed really appreciates the felicities of phrasing or the niceties of expression. We come to take so for granted the downright, straightforward, purr-and-rub-against-your-legs-for-a-saucer-of-milk side of the cat—because generally that’s the only one we’re permitted to see—that we have to adjust ourselves to the idea of a feline Cyrano, Villon, or Byron.
###
I don’t want to give the impression that Ben spent all his time trilling cat or exploring its nuances. Often he played silently—those esoteric, amorphous games of infancy which require intense concentration, and which completely baffle adult logic—or gurgled, grunted, and made experimental noises with his lips which didn’t seem necessarily intended to convey meaning. He played car or airplane, adding the proper background sounds, and at night before falling asleep, or in the morning on waking, he hummed softly and cheerfully to himself. Still, several times a day he greeted a cat with a happy, “Rrrrh?”, or, after its retreat upon much mauling, called in farewell, “Rrrrrrrmh?”
At the same time there were indications he was rapidly picking up the meaning of human speech, even though he didn’t seem interested in using it himself. It was as if English were an impediment we suffered, or a crude method of communication he was forced to understand because we lacked a more sophisticated one. He did not appear to recognize any biological or cultural imperative in it for him, personally.
Much as I tried to discount maternal pride I was sure he was unusually bright. I had every evidence he was quick and sensitive, easily bored—never the sign of a dull baby—but as his second birthday approached I had to admit that an ability to pile blocks or open successive nests of boxes or turn the pages of a book in solemn imitation or a growing fluency in cat were not adequate substitutes for intelligible speech. I had no defense against Stephanie’s tactful: “We must remember Einstein was an abnormally late talker. Two-and-a-half, or even three, I think.”
However, I was not moved to brood over Ben’s idiosyncrasy. There had been no rain that year after the middle of January; the spring grass withered early, and the fire hazard here in the mountains was great. Deer and cottontails from higher in the hills came down hopefully seeking something green, the gray soil petrified and cracked, the water table kept falling; unless we got an unusually early rain we’d be in trouble. The sky was a blazing blue from dawn to sunset; we were too high and too far from the ocean for fogs ever to drift in and relieve the terrible heat. To cap everything, some predator, evidently following the deer, began attacking the goats, mauling and tearing newborn kids.
Stephanie drove for her bimonthly visit the day Jack found what was left of another carcass and decided it was not coyotes as he had first thought, but a mountain lion. “Coyotes would’ve picked the bones clean; mountain lions gorge themselves while the meat is warm and fresh, and leave what’s left for the buzzards. Never come back to it.”
“If you kept dogs, Father, they would have driven it off.”
Jack is firm in his conviction that if Stephanie hadn’t married Peter Gordon, she would have been an individualist. This ingenuous doctrine completely ignores a long line of markers stretching back to the moment when Steph
anie, aged thirty seconds, yelled a yell which was precisely and exactly the norm of all yells given by newborn babies. He gave her a quick hug that lifted her off the floor, and set her down gently. “Maybe you’re right, Chick. Only I don’t enjoy that senseless yapping at every shadow.”
“But Father, there’s something comforting in the bark of a watchdog. I’m sure Mother would feel safer . . .”
“Not me,” I interrupted. “Neither safer or more important. Just mad at having the baby wakened.”
“Oh Mother, every farm has a dog.”
“Except this one, Chick,” said Jack. “Anyway I’m going to stay up and lay for the lion with the rifle. There’s a full moon tonight.”
Ben, clad only in a diaper, shoes and socks, toddled into the kitchen and handed me an empty spool which showed signs of hard usage. “Thank you,” I said. He looked doubtfully at the spool, then lay down flat and began drumming his heels in complex syncopation. Stephanie, glancing at him, said, “Mother, you and Ben better come home with me until Father disposes of the creature.”
It was a temptation, the thought of getting away from the heat and into the land of Venetian blinds, ferns on the mantelpiece, unlimited water in recessed tubs, street noises, TV, and smog. It wasn’t entirely loyalty to Jack and the goats that stopped me: I’d have to iron and change and make all sorts of preparation for an absence and get Ben ready. And when we got to Stephanie’s, he would be fretful and unhappy confined to crib or playpen, uneasy on spotless rugs, probably frightened of the spaniel, and unsolaced by the companionship of the cats.
“No, dear. I can’t leave your father to do all the chores.”
Ben finally stopped his drumming and crawled under the sink, emerging triumphantly with a sauce pan I hadn’t seen for a week.
“I can manage all right; why don’t you go?” Jack encouraged.
“No,” I repeated. “I’m not afraid of mountain lions. At least, not more than lots of other things.”
“Nothing to be afraid of,” Jack reassured me over his shoulder as he went out. “They never bother humans.”
Ben banged the saucepan experimentally against the nearest chair, discovered the water heater gave off a more satisfying noise. He looked up at Stephanie for some sign of approval, then he caught my eye and broke into a charming smile.
“Very well,” she said firmly. “If you’re going to be obstinate, I’ll stay, too. Overnight, anyway.”
She was at her admirable best now, phoning to arrange care for Peter and Ann, explaining to Peter senior, ridiculing the thought of any danger (“They’re terrible cowards, really, and run away from people”; I wondered how she got this bit of information, and whether it actually was information, an elaboration of Jack’s casual remark, or just a soothing fiction), going through the house in spite of the afternoon heat, setting things to rights so I knew it would be weeks before they lapsed into their accustomed state and I could find whatever I was looking for.
“I’ll sleep in the bedroom with you and the baby ’til Father kills the thing, then I’ll move to the couch.”
I hadn’t her confidence in Jack’s marksmanship, but I was glad at the prospect of her nearness. Mountain lion is an alarming term; possibly that’s why our great-grandparents spoke jocosely of varmints, painters and catamounts, trimming the object of apprehension down by derision. Exactly what Stephanie could do if the beast decided to visit the house instead of the goat pens I had no idea, but I was sure it would be cooler and more reasonable than any reflex of mine.
As soon as the sun set, the promise of bearable temperatures made it possible for us to get supper while Jack fed the chickens and rabbits and milked the goats. Catching Ben at the moment his energies began to flag and before he got too tired to go right to sleep, I whisked him to bed, paying no more than polite attention to Stephanie’s “Really, Mother, do you think it’s good for Ben to be having a bottle still? It may give him an oral fixation.”
Jack brought in the milk. I filtered it into quart bottles, setting out the foam and residue in a large pan for the cats.
Stephanie voiced the thought that had been in my mind. “Father . . . suppose it decides to come in the house instead of bothering the goats?”
“He won’t; why should he? He’s after food, not company. He’d kill the cats if he stumbled across them, out of meanness, or jealousy, or something, but he’d never go looking for them because he wouldn’t eat them. Goats are another story—they taste like his favorite meat, deer.”
“I hope he knows this as thoroughly as you do,” I said.
“If you’re nervous, I’ll put a couple of shells in the shotgun,” he offered. “Only don’t fire it—your shoulder will be lame for a week.”
About nine o’clock Jack took up his post, wearing his leather jacket; for the night was already cool and would be positively cold before dawn. Stephanie and I sat up for a couple of hours talking about Peter and Ann and Ben. Very delicately, she hinted at the desirability of some sort of psychiatric examination. Not, I understood, that she thought anything was really wrong with Ben, but these queer little symptoms . . .
“You mean, like talking cat?”
“I mean like making animal noises instead of learning to speak. I do think you owe it to him, Mother, to get a competent opinion right away. Before he gets any older.”
“You sound as if he were some sort of defective who would have to be institutionalized, and that I ought to know it before I get too attached to him.”
“Mother! How can you say such horrible things? If I must be utterly frank, what I meant was that babies of older parents are more likely to have weaknesses, or failings, or susceptibilities than those of young people. Like the pyloric stenosis he had. Whatever else there is we don’t know, except that it shows up in retarded speech. It’s quite possible something can be done about it; there’s no use blinding yourself . . .”
“I don’t think I’m blinding myself. In the first place I was forty-two and your father fifty when Ben was conceived. Believe me, that’s not outrageously old. Sarah was ninety and Abraham a hundred when Isaac . . .”
“Oh, the Bible!”
“Don’t forget you’re a Christian, Stephanie dear. And in the second place, I see no ‘little symptoms’, as you call them. Ben is very bright and understands what you say to him. He can make all his wants known—and he does—by gestures, pointing, holding out his arms, bringing things to me, tugging at my dress. He doesn’t have to speak yet in order to be understood.”
“But that’s exactly what I mean, Mother. Don’t you see . . .”
“No, I don’t. I only see that when the time comes when he has to speak, or wants to badly enough, he will. In the meantime he chooses to talk cat. Why shouldn’t he? No doubt it’s a very limited language; it doesn’t contain phrases like, ‘for your own good’, ‘disagreeable necessity’, ‘stern measures’, ‘economic adjustment’, ‘gravest consequences’, ‘weeding out’ or any of the thousand expressions humans use when they’re about to do something mean and nasty while taking a lofty tone about cats torturing birds or mice. Why, if everyone talked cat, most of the diplomats would be out of jobs, likewise lawyers; the Congressional Record would be pocket-size; demagogues would be cured of laryngitis; soap opera would burst like a bubble. Perhaps Ben, instead of being retarded, is really homo superior, the man of the future, who will talk cat instead of gobbledegook.”
“How fanciful, Mother,” said Stephanie. “Let’s go to bed.”
###
I didn’t sleep; I don’t think she did either. After moving and turning restlessly for a long time, Ben gave a whimper; I knew he wouldn’t sleep properly again until he was dry.
“You can turn on the light, Mother. I’m awake.”
“I’ll change him in the dark,” I whispered back. “I’m used to it, and a light would only disturb him.”
Dark was only a formal word; as Jack had said, the moon was full. Ben’s crib was under an open window giving out on the nakedly pol
ished yard that ought to have been a garden if we’d had water to spare for growing things. I could see the goats in huddled heaps within the pens and, beyond, Jack sitting on a box, his back turned to the house, the stock and barrel-tip of the rifle visible as it lay across his knees.
Usually, if I changed Ben at night, he babbled a little and went back to sleep. Now, perhaps because of Stephanie’s presence, or the tension in the air since Jack went out, he stayed wide awake, quietly but firmly resisting my efforts to lay him down, standing in his crib and peering with me out of the window.
I had just about decided to warm a bottle for him regardless of Stephanie’s disapproval, when a cat slunk across the yard. A tom on the prowl, I thought, waiting for the raucous call and marveling how the tricky light magnified and distorted familiar figures.
And then I realized, deceptive moonlight or not, that this thing was the size of three toms—three good, hefty toms. And we had no cat whose color was that of dirty sulphur or whose tail was disproportionately long and of perfectly even thickness all the way to the curl just sweeping clear of the ground.
I could not frighten Ben or Stephanie. Moving as casually as I could with my knees trembling so, I went back to the bed and groped for the shotgun. It was much heavier than I remembered.
“What is it, Mother?”
“Shush,” I said, carrying the gun to the window.
I heard her get out of bed softly and follow me, and I hoped she wouldn’t scream when she caught sight of the mountain lion. Ben, holding on to the sides of the crib, was dancing silently up and down in nervous excitement.
The animal outside had crept closer while my back was turned; the two eyes reflected like thick, flawed glass in the moonlight. It was maddening to regard the impassive back of Jack’s head; he should have known instinctively that we were in danger and discovered the intruder. I dared not call out to him for fear of what might happen before the rifle could be brought up to an angle which wouldn’t make us targets as well as the mountain lion. It was all very well to talk of what cowards the beasts were, but suppose this particular one happened to be an exception—and with a taste for two-year-old baby? I leveled the shotgun out of the window.
MAGICATS II Page 9