The Golden Cat

by Gabriel King

  The noodles were messy, and eating them fast resulted in a certain amount of nose-bumping, but everyone agreed it was the best food they’d ever tasted.

  Afterwards, as they groomed each other’s fur, Sealink regaled them with stories of food she’d stolen on her travels; and as she did so the eyes of her daughters grew round and admiring. She reminisced about oysters in Detroit, lasagne in Los Angeles and alligator sausage here in N’Awlins. She had eaten beef enchiladas in Guadalajara, prawn soup with lily buds in Phuket, pork and pumpkin curry in Rangoon; galbi jim in South Korea and cullen skink in South Shields—

  ‘—food like that,’ she concluded, as if completing an old mantra, ‘makes you proud in your flesh.’

  She looked around. The cats who gazed back at her were still proud, even if their flesh hung a little loose and pendulous, and some of them were drooling. They were the last free cats of the French Quarter, and she needed their help.

  ‘Bad things been happening for some time,’ she said abruptly. Her voice echoed round the tomb. ‘And now we’re seeing bad things go to worse. We don’t do something to stop all this, there won’t be nothing good left.

  ‘I came back here from another country, an old country across the sea. While I was there I seen some real scary stuff…’

  And she told them about the Alchemist, and his pursuit of the Queen of Cats, how he had subverted the wild roads, and used cats to do his bidding; how he had determined to steal her kittens, believing one of them to be the famed Golden Cat.

  ‘And now one of those three kittens is here, in New Orleans. And I think I had a part in delivering that very kitten to its fate.’ She regarded her two daughters steadily. ‘You might remember a certain package—?’

  There was a sharp intake of breath. Venus stared at her mother, aghast.

  ‘Kiki’s cadeau.’ It was less a question than a statement of fact.

  ‘Kiki’s cadeau. The package you two offered up to me. The one I dragged through the streets of the Quarter. The one Red tried to persuade me to open. And I, stupid and uncomprehending, refused to do so; gave him a darned good bite for his pains and hurried off to present it to Madame Kiki nice and intact. And when I laid it down on the ground at her feet, it squirmed, right there in front of me! And what did I do?’ She laughed bitterly. ‘I ran away. It’s something I’ve become damn good at lately.’

  ‘We didn’t know it was a kitten.’ Even Sappho, the snootier of the two, looked shocked. She stared at her sister. ‘We wouldn’t have given her a kitten. Let alone a golden kitten…’

  ‘A golden kitten is sacred to the Great Cat…’

  ‘It is a powerful being…’

  ‘Enough of the metaphysics,’ Sealink said briskly. ‘All I know is I got a job to do, and it starts with Kiki La Doucette. I met up with her mother in the bayous—’

  ‘Eponine Lafeet!’ Celeste’s tail twitched rapidly.

  Hog looked surprised.

  ‘Kiki’s the Mammy’s daughter?’

  ‘Chéri, you just too young to remember,’ admonished the colourpoint.

  ‘Honey,’ Sealink addressed herself to the big stripy cat. ‘Don’t you go strainin’ your brain none.’ She raised her voice. ‘Yep. The Mammy. She said to me, amongst a load of nonsense I can’t understand, something about seeking a sun of fire in the Fields of the Blessed. Now I don’t know what the hell that means, but it seems to me that if Kiki ain’t in any of her normal haunts, these fields is where I might find her.’

  Sappho laughed. ‘Paradise? Kiki La Doucette in the Happy Land?’

  Sealink looked puzzled. ‘Ain’t that a bar down on Bourbon—’

  Venus giggled behind a paw.

  The calico turned on her. ‘What’s so funny?’

  Sappho sniffed in a superior sort of way. ‘It’s from Greek poetry. A translation of the Elysian Fields, where the blessed souls gather. I think it’s in Homer—’

  Sealink stared at her daughter, unsure as to whether or not she was being mocked. She wondered how she ever came to have daughters who knew about Greek poetry. The nearest she had come to it herself was a sultry night on the beach at Kos…

  ‘I heard that somewhere before. Elysian Fields.’ She screwed her face up. Then her eyes brightened. ‘Shine. Shine the mule. Ain’t it where the mules go when they retire?’

  Sappho curled her lip. ‘I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve never spoken to a mule.’

  *

  Decatur Street was quiet that night. Five cats of various colours crouched under the wheels of a dented dark blue Plymouth and watched the road. Ahead of them, stretching up towards Jackson Square, the mule-carts were lined up, waiting their turn for the passing tourist trade.

  ‘Stay here,’ hissed Sealink. ‘I’ll go find Shine.’

  Easier said than done. She dodged in and out of the parked cars, slipped silent and apprehensive between slow feet, in and out of the colourful chassis and spoked wheels. The first two mules she checked out sniffed cautiously at her, then blew air noisily out of their nostrils. Sealink ran on. The third mule skittered sideways. The next one tried to kick her. On down the line she passed, but none of them was Shine. At the head of the queue she stopped and stared around. No further cover. She crouched beneath the mule-cart with her heart pounding.

  A curious head peered between its legs at her, failed to get a proper view and tried to twist around.

  ‘Who are you, cat? What you want?’

  Sealink shuffled closer to its head, keeping a wary eye on the human feet passing on the sidewalk.

  ‘I’m looking for a mule called Shine.’

  The mule snorted.

  ‘What you want with dat old bag of bones?’

  The calico persisted. ‘Do you know where I might find her?’

  ‘Sure, if you wants a ride in a cart that overturns. Maybe get kicked in the stomach if you’re real lucky. Besides, what’s a cat doin’ out on the streets of this city, as bold as a mutt?’

  Sealink didn’t feel all that bold at the moment.

  ‘Don’t you know there’s a price on your head?’ the mule continued mercilessly. ‘If Shine don’t get you then the Pestmen will!’ It whinnied its amusement. ‘Humans, they don’t like cats none at the present time. Burned one down near the Cabildo yesterday. Boy, did that smell bad.’

  ‘Look. I’m risking my neck here. Do you know where Shine is or not?’

  No reply.

  ‘Or the Elysian Fields?’

  The mule bent its head round and gave her a hard look.

  ‘I ain’t speaking to you of such things. You’s a cat.’ In case Sealink hadn’t noticed. ‘But if you want Shine you might go right the way back down Decatur, by the market, where you’ll find a café servin’ Creole food. Can’t recall the name, but you’ll have no problem findin’ it. Its window gets all steamed up. That’s where Joe goes when trade’s bad, parks the cart right outside. Old Shine, she give us all a bad name, so we don’t make room for her in the queue. I hear old Joe’s going to retire her soon. Won’t be before time. No, ma’am.’

  Sealink didn’t even hear this last remark: she was already haring up the street to her companions.

  In the shadow of the parked car, they stared out at her, round-eyed.

  ‘Did you find her?’ Hog asked.

  ‘Follow me.’

  *

  Past the Margaritaville and on towards the crossroad with Barracks, the north end of Decatur street was a quiet and seedy place at this time of night. This suited Sealink’s purpose fine, since, where it was darker, there were generally less people. And, indeed, pulled up at the side of the road was a familiar sight: a black and red cart, and a mule with its ears poking through an old felt hat.

  Shine the mule stood outside Enrico’s café, listening to the dull murmur of the men inside in the warm. Her breath steamed in the air. It wasn’t a cold evening, but Shine had found a way of superheating her breath so that it came out as a satisfying white vapour. If she kept her mouth shut tight and drew t
he air up out of her lungs very, very slowly it worked best. She blew another jet. After a while she grew bored with that and started to paw the ground, tracing patterns in the dirt with her hooves. The gaudy neon of the café lights struck off the brasses on her harness.

  As the five cats approached she looked up in surprise.

  ‘Remember me?’ Sealink touched noses with the mule.

  Shine sniffed at her, velvet muzzle twitching with sudden interest.

  ‘Sure I do. You were nice to me once.’

  ‘I came here to ask you a question,’ Sealink said without further preamble. ‘I was told by a friend of mine that you spoke of one day going to the Elysian Fields—’

  The mule’s long pink lips stretched into some approximation of a smile. ‘Fields of the Blessed. Oh my. Ah, yes. Green grass there, long green grass and the shade of sweetsmelling trees.’ She blinked, long-lashed lids covering eyes of liquid night. ‘The Elysian Fields.’

  ‘Do you know where they are?’

  The mule regarded her obliquely. ‘Honey, if I knew where they were, why do you think I’d be standin’ here, watchin’ my life ebb into the night outside Enrico’s café?’

  There was no answer to that. The calico’s disappointment must have showed in her face, for after a moment or two the mule said, ‘Don’t be so downcast. Ain’t that what you advised me? Life can’t be that bad, honey, can it?’

  ‘I’ve kinda hit a dead end,’ Sealink said softly. She looked back over her shoulder at the four cats watching this exchange. ‘Thought I had an answer to a mystery, but it didn’t lead nowhere. That’s what you get for following your hunches.’

  The mule dipped its head conspiratorially. ‘Want to go for a ride?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come for a ride – you and your friends. I ain’t tied up.’

  Sealink hesitated, then she grinned. ‘Hell, why not? We got nothing to lose.’

  And so it was that some minutes later a small black gig with a fringed canopy and wheels gaily painted in red might have been seen disappearing smartly up Esplanade, heading lakeside with a crew of five cats. As they went, the calico sat on the mule’s back, her claws buried anxiously in the leather harness, and explained their situation to Shine: how a cat called Kiki La Doucette had betrayed her own kind; how people were paying for cats to be caught and killed; how they had burned a cat at Jackson Square; and how a very special kitten – and a great deal more – was at risk.

  Shine was philosophical. ‘Man is a fierce wild animal at heart,’ she opined. ‘We usually see him only in that tamed condition of restraint known as civilization, and so,’ she turned her head in order to make eye contact with the cat on her shoulder, ‘the occasional outbreaks of its true nature terrify us.’

  *

  Some time later they crossed a turning bounded by clapboard houses with peeling blue shutters and came upon a yellow dog sitting by the side of the road. It had no collar and its tongue lolled cheerfully out of its mouth. As they approached it looked up and did a double take. Its lower jaw hung suddenly slack.

  ‘Hi there, honey!’ Sealink declared cheerfully.

  The dog gazed at her. ‘Oh my Lord,’ it said. ‘Do I truly see a mule-cart full of cats driving up Esplanade?’

  ‘You sure do, son.’ Sealink was enjoying herself.

  The dog started to trot alongside. ‘May I be so bold,’ it said, keeping pace with Shine, claws tapping on the sidewalk, ‘as to enquire why that might be?’

  The calico laughed, a little bitterly. ‘Honey, it’s a nice night.’

  The dog cocked its head at her. The moonlight glinted off his full black eye. ‘That’s not what I’d heard.’

  ‘Now what can you mean, honey?’

  The dog looked shifty. During the silence that followed, Sealink noticed that he was quite an old animal; that his coat was rather unkempt and that his claws were blunt with road-travel.

  ‘You ain’t from around here, are you?’ she asked softly.

  ‘No ma’am. I’m something of a traveller, myself. I’ve taken a truck ride here, a bus ride there. I’ve crossed the country from east to west and back again. I’ve been to New York and New Mexico, Old Forge and Ocean City—’

  Sealink found herself grinning. ‘Ah, the journey is the life, hon. You and me must be soul mates beneath the skin!’

  ‘—but I’ve never been to New Orleans before,’ he continued, ignoring the calico’s interruption, ‘and I don’t think I’ll be coming back for a while.’

  Sealink gave him a hard stare.

  ‘What I mean – what I heard,’ he said, returning the look, ‘is that it may not be such a nice night for some. Some cats, anyhow.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I heard there was something going on; some kind of gathering to do with cats up on the Elysian Fields. Didn’t sound too pleasant.’

  A sharp electrical current ran the length of the calico’s spine. The raw tip of her tail twitched involuntarily.

  ‘The Elysian Fields. Do you know where they are?’

  The dog opened his mouth to answer, and, as he did so, a car came round the corner, blaring its horn as if it were a weapon.

  Shine bucked, one lashing hoof catching the back bumper as the vehicle sped past. Then she started to run. Shine had never in her life run while pulling her cart, even at Joe’s insistence had barely broken into a trot, but now she took the corner at such speed that two wheels of the gig came clear off the ground. Sealink, slung sideways by the momentum, found herself flying suddenly and spectacularly through the air, arms and legs pinwheeling. She tumbled over a broken picket fence, through an untidy privet hedge and at last came to rest in a heap amongst a clutter of terracotta and pelargoniums.

  With the adrenalin of outrage combating any immediate sense of physical injury, she sat up and looked around. It would be hard to pretend that ploughing through a hedge had been deliberate. Had anyone seen her ignominious descent? The yellow dog was still at the junction, his sharp muzzle turned in her direction. Sealink ducked away from his steady gaze and started to groom furiously, noticing as she did so that her head hurt and one eye was already beginning to close.

  ‘Hell of a day,’ she muttered.

  Satisfied with the cursory licking, she shook out each leg in turn and a shower of privet twigs, dirt and geranium petals scattered from the long Maine Coon coat. Everything appeared to be in working order. Sealink nodded grimly, then clenched her teeth and leapt the fence to follow the disappearing buggy.

  The yellow dog watched all this with a quizzical expression on his face. This was a crazy place. Still, that big old calico cat sure had some grit. Grinning lopsidedly he followed the strange cavalcade as it rounded the bend into the long, wide, nondescript boulevard known as the Elysian Fields.

  *

  ‘Work: The Great Liberator’ read the proclamation in rusted wrought iron on either side of the black-barred gates. Raised after the fire that swept the city in 1794, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the building behind these gates had been in its time a mill and a cotton warehouse, stuffed with bales for export to the Old World; a slave market, a poorhouse and latterly the place where the broken-down working horses and mules of the city were sent to be despatched into the great blue beyond; or, more likely, into a thousand cans of dogfood. Down the generations, borrowing from the road on which it resided some of the sense of the original Greek, it had passed into mythology as a place of well-earned peace: the fields of the blessed.

  It had not operated as a knacker’s yard for some time now.

  But it still smelled of old blood.

  And some more recently spilled.

  *

  As Shine and the buggy, containing four cats clinging to the cracked leather seat with their claws buried up to the hilt, emerged at the junction with Hope, the calico cat and the yellow dog caught up with them.

  The mule hung her head. ‘I got spooked,’ she explained to Sealink. ‘Sorry. Climb aboard again, chile, and I’ll cont
inue my tour.’ She scanned the lifeless avenue. ‘Though it ain’t exactly the scenic route.’

  Sealink turned to bid farewell to the dog, but it had wandered off to nose around the base of a rusted iron gatepost further up the street. Venus shook her head. ‘Canines,’ she enunciated with disdain. ‘They just can’t resist making their own scent-mark wherever another dog has pissed.’

  But the yellow dog, having completed his study of the iron post, left it unblemished and slipped through the open gates. He walked cautiously up to the flaking wooden doors of the building and started to sniff around. The hackles rose down his back like the crests of a small dinosaur. Then he recoiled as if his nose had been assaulted, and, as Sealink was wondering what could smell so awful that a dog would be repulsed, he turned and fled back to the buggy.

  ‘Welcome to the Fields of the Blessed,’ he announced, panting. ‘I think we found that gathering. There are humans in there. And cats. A lot of cats—’

  Hog and Celeste leapt down from the cart.

  ‘—not all of them alive.’

  Venus and Sappho stayed rooted to the seat.

  ‘Get back on the buggy,’ Shine ordered. ‘We’re going in!’

  And so it was that a renegade mule with a spitting calico cat on her shoulder and a buggy full of ferals cannoned through the main doors of the old knacker’s yard on the Elysian Fields, straight into a scene out of nightmare.

  The last time Sealink had witnessed anything similar it had been in a decommissioned warehouse in another country, a warehouse lying between Carib Dock and Pageant Stair, a warehouse that stank of terror and human sweat, smoke and friar’s balsam; where a defiant queen and her brave king had faced off the Alchemist and an army of cats with eyes as empty as glass.

  She stared. There was smoke here, too: a lot of smoke. Some came from exotic incense and vast candles burning in brass dishes; but the stuff that stung her eyes came from the pyre that dominated the centre of the great stone floor. As the smoke eddied and whirled, Sealink could make out a pile of bones, higher and more newly rendered than the last she had seen, a great heap of skeletal remains spitting out flame and reeking vapour.