A young boy who looks like a sumo wrestler, very fat and with a ponytail, kneels and crawls to get closer to a white Japanese Bobtail with black ears, one of those domestic cats with a short tail like a bunny, orange with brown spots. The sumo wrestler extends his hand, the cat looks at him and allows itself to be petted, then comes close and sits at his side. To the left, a young man walks in wearing torn jeans, the kind that have been ripped on purpose, and a white business shirt like mine; he has on dark glasses and a surgical mask; most likely he’s got the flu, or maybe he’s one of those people who are afraid of germs; he’s wearing the classic gray slippers they offer you when you come in, if you don’t want to go around in stocking feet. It’s not that I know this from personal experience, because I’ve never been inside a neko café, but I have an office mate who sometimes goes to these places, and apparently they’re all similar: when you walk in there’s a hall with cubbies, where you leave your shoes, and there’s a piece of furniture with slippers that are part of the service if you want to put them on; then you need to wash your hands with antiseptic gel in order not to bring bacteria or germs into the place; then you get a card that shows the time you arrived, because you pay by the hour, in addition to paying for whatever you consume; and finally you reach a place that’s like a café, where the cats are, too.
I’m startled by a light tap against my leg; another cyclist has entered the scene; I look at him, annoyed; bicycles swarm around here and there, and pedestrians too; he shrugs and continues on his way. Two more cats, a Manx and a mixed-breed, have climbed up on the sofa where the couple is and watch the Ragdoll eat from a feeding bowl, delicately, what I imagine to be chicken or fish, while the couple drinks their coffee. Now I see that it’s definitely chicken; from the way the Ragdoll chews and swallows, you can infer its texture, more compact than fish, which easily falls apart in the mouth. The truth is that I’m very good at deducing, imagining, hypothesizing; I should have continued my education instead of being a simple office worker, chosen a career where confirming theories and keeping one step ahead of the facts can prove useful.
The blonde server, in her loose white tee shirt, short black skirt, white anklets, and red slippers, waits on other customers who are away from the window, more toward the inside of the place. A very tall, red-haired man has just arrived and takes a seat on a large cushion on the carpet, next to the library. The young man in the dark glasses and surgical mask also walks toward the library to choose a book; from what I’ve been told, all the books in these places have to do with cats, I don’t know how he’s supposed to read in those glasses he never takes off. The redhead pulls out a cell phone, another server comes over swiftly and explains something to him, the man nods, presses a button, then takes a picture, without a flash, of a Serengeti that’s poised before him like a miniature leopard, its face raised, its tail hanging. You’re not allowed to use a flash in these places, so that the animals won’t get frightened or nervous. My office mate didn’t tell me that; I know because I read it in a magazine in a waiting room. The Ragdoll has finished eating and is stretched out next to the young woman of the couple, who’s now rubbing its belly. Ragdolls adore their owners and don’t like to be alone.
A Persian cat jumps down from an individual perch on one of the side walls and looks like it’s about to come my way. The redhead gets up and walks over to another cat, with tiger-like fur, who’s asleep on a perch, with the idea of taking a photo, I suppose. It seems he prefers cats with fur like the larger felines. You’re not allowed to wake or disturb sleeping animals; my office mate didn’t tell me that, either, we don’t talk all that much. I read it recently on the Internet. The Persian comes over to the window and stays there, watching me; it’s not one of my favorite breeds, maybe because I prefer stylized cats with long legs and short hair, like the Devon Rex, but I haven’t seen one of those here, or the exotic Havana Brown, which for a while now has been following the blonde server around. Now she leans over toward him, strokes his head; he arches his back and lifts his tail; she places a little bowl of milk on a low table for him; the Havana leaps on the table, brings his nose over to the milk but doesn’t drink. A couple of cats have gathered around the table, eager, no doubt, for that milk, though it doesn’t look as though they’ll dare fight him over it. The Havana Brown has a bearing and an expression that impose respect. Meanwhile, the Persian cat has arrived at the window and plants itself next to a sign that says: “1000 yen or 10 dollars an hour.” Just now it lifts its paw in the air as though beckoning me to come in; it looks like a copy of the gold maneki-neko that stands on a display table against the window, to the right of the sign, inviting customers inside. Seeing that it’s gotten no response, the Persian turns around indifferently, returns to the center of the place and walks over to a system of tubes that rise to the ceiling, covered in layers and layers of sisal, to which a series of cushion-lined baskets are connected. It leaps up, reaches the first basket, scratches the rough fabric covering the section of tubing within reach of its claws, gathers momentum, takes another leap and rises to the second basket, sniffs it, jumps onto the cushion that covers it and stretches out. The Havana Brown has climbed down from the little table and walks away; then the cats who were anxiously waiting both scramble up and start to drink from the bowl. The Havana Brown jumps on the counter and there he sits; from here I can admire his perfect, effigy-like profile.
Two girls dressed in high-school uniforms, blue blazer with a shield, white shirt, little blue-and-white kerchief around their necks, and short, pleated skirts, are having fun in an area to my left, playing with a gray British Shorthair that resembles a stuffed animal with huge, fat cheeks and round, intensely yellow eyes. One of the girls dangles a cord with tassels and colored ribbons at the end. The cat flips onto its back on the carpet and lifts its front paws to catch the tassels and ribbons. The other girl watches them, laughing, apparently finding it very amusing. The boy with the dark glasses and surgical mask has taken a seat at one of the rear tables with a book he selected from the library. From here I can see that he’s wearing thin latex gloves, the kind nurses or doctors use. I don’t know when he could have put them on, no doubt at some point when my attention was elsewhere. He opens the book at random and, instead of reading, starts observing the other people around him. He’s the strangest of all the characters in the place. I have the idea he’s one of those hypochondriacs who are always on alert, discovering threats to their health everywhere. I find his presence disturbing and at the same time contradictory: if you’re afraid of catching something, the logical decision would be not to go to a relatively small place crowded with people and cats.
Two smartly dressed middle-aged women walk in, cross the room in front of the masked boy, and sit down at a table quite close to the window, and by extension, to me. Then I lower my eyes for a moment so as not to attract attention, pretending I’m going to reorganize the things I’m carrying in my bicycle basket. The blonde server comes over to take their order; she has green eyes and a minuscule piercing, which I hadn’t noticed before, in her nose. She’s very pretty and chats pleasantly with the women, in Japanese I deduce, judging from the movement of her lips. How strange, I say to myself, and I like her even more. Suddenly the Havana Brown gets up, leaps off the counter, walks straight ahead, crosses paths with the blonde server, who’s heading toward the counter to turn in the newly-arrived customers’ orders. With the airiest of leaps, he lands on the women’s table, and sits on something like a round plastic placemat bearing the black silhouette of a cat in the center, also seated, like the Havana’s shadow. The women, one with a round face, the other with a slender one, regard him with joy and astonishment and there the animal remains, calm and erect as a king, or rather a god, ready to receive all the praise they may want to lavish, and in fact are lavishing, on him, with smiles and gentle movements of carefully manicured, beringed hands. Behind the tableau of the women, the red-haired man walks up to the counter on the left, a few meters from the collection of cat
books, shows the blonde server the card indicating his time of arrival, takes out his wallet, and pays. The ponytailed sumo wrestler reclines on the carpet, his head resting on the cushion he had been sitting on earlier. The Japanese Bobtail he was petting a few minutes ago and a mixed-breed cat, which I hadn’t noticed before because it was probably asleep in a corner, come up to him, climb on top of his body, and are now walking on him; they march up and down their improvised, padded catwalk, moving their tails sensuously. He laughs and strokes them. The boy in dark glasses, mask, and latex gloves is still sitting at his table in the back, with the open book in his hands; there are no cats around him, and I repeat something I’ve always told myself: I don’t trust people who animals reject or avoid. The couple that was sitting on the sofa with the Ragdoll gets up and walks toward the counter, crossing paths with the redhead, who is heading to the right of me, most likely to the entry hall, to leave his slippers and put on his street shoes. Maybe it’s almost closing time; I should go, too, and yet I stay here watching the blonde server approach the women’s table again, this time bringing a tray with two shakes that she drops off in front of them, and a blue ceramic bowl that she deposits on the placemat beside the Havana Brown, who, stubbornly maintaining his idol pose, doesn’t budge. One of the women, the one with the plump face, pushes the bowl up to the cat’s nose; he sniffs the contents but doesn’t eat, as if he were beyond the needs of any living being. The woman puts the bowl down, exchanges a look with her companion, they both smile, raise their glasses in unison and take a sip of their foamy, white shakes.
The high school students are surrounded by three cats—the Manx and the Ragdoll have joined the British Shorthair they were playing with and who haven’t stopped jumping on and off the sofa where they’re hanging out, stimulated by the ribbons and toys the girls are using to prod them. When a Ragdoll is picked up it has a tendency to loosen its muscles and relax completely, becoming soft and inert like a rag doll, but that can’t be demonstrated here because they don’t let people pick up the cats in their arms. This was once explained to me by a supplier who comes to the office and frequents these places; it’s one of the rules of neko cafés.
The other server goes over to the guy in glasses, mask, and gloves, to take his order, I guess, though I can’t be sure; he refuses whatever she asked him by shaking his head and lowering his gaze toward the book he’s still holding, open to the same page as when he first picked it up, I’ll bet. The server walks away from his table and approaches the beefy wrestler, who, seeing her from the floor, quickly rises, sits, smiles at her; the cats climb onto his lap and he orders something. The server continues on her way to the counter.
Again I focus my attention on the young man in the surgical mask; then he lifts his head and looks in this direction, as if he knows I’m watching him or as if he can read my mind and understand what I’m thinking about him, though to tell the truth, those dark glasses of his prevent me from knowing if he’s fixing his gaze on the women who are finishing their shakes, on the glass window, the now-illuminated street lamps, the vaguely Egyptian profile of the Havana Brown, the maneki-neko, which he’s probably seeing from the back, or on me. He closes the book, stands, takes a few steps; I think he’s going to come over here to intimidate me or call attention to me, or maybe he’s signaling to one of the servers that I’m out here, looking in. Instead, though, he walks over to the library and carefully replaces the book on one of the shelves. Unexpectedly, the Ragdoll, who a few moments ago was playing with the students, is now walking around over there and approaches him; the boy looks at him, barely touches him with the tip of his toe, and just as I’m beginning to doubt my previous suspicions, once more turns his head in my direction: his appearance is so unusual and he acts so strange that I briefly imagine at any moment he might pull out a weapon and kill any animal or human that crosses his path. And everything would become a desperate, human-animal cry that would be extinguished, swallowed by the street noise and its indifferent din, and me, stuck here to this spot, unable to move or to do anything. They would all fall, one after another, like in a Shakespearean tragedy: the sumo wrestler with the ponytail, laid out on the carpet, surrounded by his now motionless cats; the other server with her torso splayed across the counter; the couple a few steps from the front door; the fallen students, one on top of the other, their floppy arms suddenly releasing the little toys with which they so joyfully amused the cats and themselves; the ring-bedecked women, their heads drooping forward beside the overturned, broken milkshake glasses; animals scattered like stains on the dark carpet; the blonde girl, liquid and spilled upon a table, her long, slender white legs, now flaccid as rags. And then will come the abandonment of the print-free weapon on the counter, the dash to the entry hall, the retrieval of sneakers and the quick escape, slippers held in gloved hands and feet wrapped in socks to avoid wasting time or leaving footprints. In the commotion, the door to the place will of necessity be left open so that the Havana Brown, slightly stunned, can escape, and before choosing his route he will stop for a moment on the opaque sidewalk, less trafficked at this time of day, right in front of me, so that at last I can study him, without glass between us, dark and beautiful as the shadow of a cruel god.
AS IF THE WORLD WERE ENDING
ENNIO’S ARRIVAL WAS a miracle, as if someone or something had told him that we needed him in this house. The day before, Señor Esteban, who for years had taken care of the garden, was attacked and beaten and ended up in the hospital, poor thing. Señora Andrea was terribly worried, because you know how she gets when spring is on its way: the plants seem to go crazy, growing and growing relentlessly and taking over everything. She used to tell anyone who was willing to listen that she had moved from the apartment to the house so that she could have plants and be in contact with nature, that it relaxed her when she came home from recording hours and hours of soap operas for TV.
I remember I was in the upstairs bedroom, changing the sheets on Señora Andrea’s bed, when the intercom buzzed. I flew downstairs; the house is big, and the señora doesn’t like it when people keep buzzing; it makes her nervous. A peaceful household is very important to her. I answered the door, of course, and I could see him through the peephole: he had come to offer his services as a gardener. He was nice-looking, and said, in a kind of strange accent, that he had references. I asked him to wait while I went to ask the señora.
I don’t know what they talked about a little later, when the señora had finished bathing and received him, or what kind of reference papers he showed her, if, in fact, he showed her any, but she told me that Ennio would come back that same afternoon to start working on the garden. I was to let him in through the garage entrance, which was the one I used for coming and going, as did the dog walker, the seltzer man, and the supermarket delivery boy.
He slept with me, it’s true, in the room where I sleep, because I’ve been a live-in maid here for years. Well, not really all that long in this place because Señora Andrea moved here two years ago. But I had already been working for her at the apartment. At first the señora didn’t know that Ennio spent his nights here. It’s just that when he told me the things that had happened to him and that he had nowhere to go, I couldn’t refuse, and so I let him stay. It was so nice to listen to him, with his strange way of speaking. Besides, he told me things that were so … and he looked at me in a way that’s hard to explain, but later I found out why Ennio was the way he was, with that strength he had in his whole body and that wild sort of smell that made me think about nothing but taking him to bed with me. He would brush against me as he passed by, and the rest of that day I couldn’t think of anything else. I wished with all my soul that the hours would pass quickly and soon it would be time for him to go, so that Señora Andrea would see him leave, and later that night, I would secretly open the door for him so he could come in and stay. Together we ate whatever I brought up to my room, and when we were done we’d climb into bed.
Later on we stopped pretending that he w
as leaving, and he stayed behind in my room. Till one day Señora Andrea found out, got very angry, and called him over to have a talk with her. I don’t know what explanation he gave her, because in the end Señora Andrea made me take everything out of the little room where she used to store boxes of photos, boxes of her films, and cut-out articles from old magazines and trophies and plaques for the prizes she’d won, carry the boxes up to the attic and make up a bed for him in the emptied space. He accepted the offer, but in fact he always stayed and slept with me.
At first I didn’t even pay attention to what was wrong with Ennio; he made me so hot I couldn’t think, he made me blind, he had a way of touching me that even now I can’t think about it without wanting him here, close to me, again. It must have been about a week later that I woke up needing to pee and then I saw him and realized that he had gone to bed in his sneakers. They were sticking out from under the slightly lifted sheets. It seemed strange, of course, but I thought he had collapsed after working all day among the plants, with the shovel, the pruning shears, climbing up and down trees, lugging rocks in the wheelbarrow for some new flower beds, and, on top of it all, everything we’d done in bed. But honestly I didn’t say anything to him because I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable and go away. My life had changed so much since he arrived … Why would I want to ruin everything with my big mouth?
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