January 8, 2000

Part III

—  1  —

            We begin again, as a new epoch opens—new, let us hope, in more than name and numbers only.  For the history of the human race, with which I have been closely connected, has been brutal beyond belief.  Still, most humans refuse to include themselves in the category of animals, no other species of which has had a chronicle even remotely comparable to the bestiality of the Homo sapiens.

            Yet, who am I to judge?  It is true that human beings are also capable of displaying great talents, wisdom, and nobility, more of which, if I might indulge in a little wishful thinking, could find a way to become manifest, as this new chapter of the future unfolds.  Perhaps the intimate association of people with cats will prove mutually beneficial.  After all, Petrarch died by the side of his best loved feline pet; and, during the entire creation of The Divine Comedy, there was a cat on Dante's lap.  But, lest I continue to wax philosophical, for the moment, we must regress to the past.

            If my narrative seemed jumbled before, it will most certainly zigzag even more now, as I traverse the events and anecdotes of my late life from such a far distant vantage point.  It may be hoped that my present perspective has rendered my vision clearer, more insightful, and that I will not overload whatever faithful readers have remained with my episodic adventures thus far, with superfluous details and irrelevant happenings (that is, irrelevant to humans).  But that is for you to say, not I.

—  2  —

            To resume in a cultural frame of mind, there is a profusion of works of art, around the world, painted by what are, apparently, cat fancying artists.  From the Egyptians, who endowed goddesses with feline heads, through Classical Greek and Roman artistry and artifacts, on down to the present, cats have frequently been featured in primary positions and central roles.  And wherever cats appear they upstage (so to speak) all others, calling attention to themselves—away from whatever additional elements have been portrayed alongside them.

            This is evident in a painting by Albrecht Dürer (1508), titled "Young Girl Weaving a Garland", as well as in Willem van Mieris's "Woman Fishmonger" (1713), where the calico cat clearly takes the spotlight, even though she is located at the bottom of the picture.

            Among the impressionists, the incomparable Auguste Renoir has one with a young woman, for which no commentary is needed, since the cat, who is standing on her hind legs, is obviously the main attraction.

            To continue, there is "The Cat's Breakfast" by Marguerite Gérard, in which the cat is enthroned, as she laps milk from a hand held plate, with a dog watching enviously from below.  This is perhaps a visual testimony to the natural superiority of cats over dogs.

            Many are the magazine covers and posters featuring cats, with one of the latter by the French artist Toulouse-Lautrec, of the English singer May Belfort, painted in 1896. Toulouse-Lautrec has illustrated her in the act of performing her famous song, "I Had a Little Kitten", while holding a small black one.

             Among the examples in Spanish art, we find Francisco de Goya's portrait of a young boy, a detail of which shows three cats, one barely visible, intently observing a bird, which the boy has leashed on a string.  And, in 1899, the prolific Pablo Picasso made a drawing of the celebrated artists' café "Els Quatre Gats" in Barcelona, in which, for some odd reason, no cats are in evidence.

            Closer to home, there is a huge seventeenth century painting, on the refectory wall of the Carthusian Monastery in Granada, depicting “The Last Supper”, at which dinner the menu is fish.  The man, who especially esteemed this work, insisted that even a quick look would cause one's eye to be drawn away from the pious scene above to the real action under the table.  There a cat has puffed up, in response to the machinations of a dog.

            Yet I shall let the Americans have the last word with an unforgettable photograph by Harry Warnecke.  The scene, an afternoon in 1925, on Center Street in New York, dramatically captures a mother cat literally stopping all traffic, with the aid of a smiling policeman, as she carries each of her kittens across the highway.  It inspires me, my name being Mama-cat, to meditate on this image and let my imagination meander freely through a society in which ethical standards such as these are given priority.  The photo says it all!

—  3  —

            Let me here interpolate that I had a number of special attributes, shared with other felines, which most humans find unfathomable.  For instance, my whiskers served as antennae, that is, extra sensing devices that enabled me to gauge areal dimensions more accurately, especially in the dark.  In addition, these stiff bristles extended my intimate space, distancing me that much further from unwelcome intrusions on my person.

            I realize that I just applied the word 'person' to myself.  The truth is, in the latter years of my existence as a tabby, I had virtually no contact with other cats anymore (except to observe them in the street below from my front balcony).  Therefore, I began to regard myself as more human than catlike in many of my emulated habits and patterns of daily life.  But here I am wandering far away from the very feline topic of whiskers.

            One of their distinct advantages is to aid and augment the functions of smell in detecting prey and in determining the direction of the wind or air currents in the hunt. Though this may not seem terribly important for us house-cats, we are still expected to be mousers. And don't forget we are close relatives of the lion and tiger.  Furthermore, these wiry hairs have often served the purpose of stopping gnats from entering our noses and barring other flying insects which are fond of buzzing around the face.  In short, whiskers could be considered the perfect integrating factor of eyes, nose and mouth, certainly much more utilitarian than the abundant beard and mustache the man usually had, which are not located in a very strategic spot and seem to interfere somewhat with eating.

            Insensitive people, however, consider whiskers created especially for them to run their fingers over, so as to make our faces twitch.  Once again, children are the worst offenders, though sometimes the man fell into this category as well.  No matter how fiercely we glare our annoyance and disapproval, many of their kind simply refuse to control their prankish impulses.

—  4  —

            To continue in a similar vein, I have heard the words finicky and fussy used in association with the dietary preferences I developed over the years with my lady and the man.  But I regard my behavior as the natural refinement of taste that went hand in hand with the plusher life (to which I had become accustomed), which distinguished the rank and social order of being a house-pet.

            By the way, the cliche about cats and milk is false when it comes to me.  It is true that if given the trite saucer of milk, I would eagerly lap it up, but I always got a terrible case of the runs from cow's milk.  And I am by no means the only one of my kind on whom milk has a deleterious effect.

            As for my moods, I believe I can honestly say that equanimity was one of my assets.  I loved the simple, ordered routine of domesticity and had no need for sporadic bursts of excitement, as do some humans, (although once in a while my curiosity got the best of me).  I was contented when our home-life was relatively stable and peaceful, but agitated when it was not.  And, as I have affirmed earlier, my lady's happiness or melancholy were also mine.

            My lady and I even had our own unique gesture of affection, in which we lovingly put our heads together—in this case, our foreheads—and maintained this silent contact, devoid of the clutter of other details that are often added to caresses, with only the slightest pressure, until we were both satisfied that we had felt the full warmth of our expression of demonstrated devotion.  Most assuredly, I learned to enjoy her very human kisses as well.  I sometimes ask myself if I could be crossing out of my species into hers.  But that is a question I am not sage enough to answer.

—  5  —

            "Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail?  If you look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate."  So said Ralph Waldo Emerson.

            I believe I left off my account just having begun to mother my new litter of infant kittens, whose appearance, and subsequent disappearance, I previously alluded to.

            I am endowed with extraordinarily well-functioning self-protective instincts, which extend, of course, to my offspring, too.  We cats know very well how to throw our enemies off the scent (both figuratively and literally), and we can be very adept at eluding detection.

            This being the case, a great inner categorical imperative began to dictate that I must move my infants to an unknown location.  So, one morning, when my lady and the man were not around, I carried them, one by one, by the nape of the neck, to the prime location of the bed.  Carefully I nestled each of my babies under the covers, where I could be sure they would be warm and comfy.

            When my lady returned, she discovered my hiding place, and, although retaining her humor in the midst of being astonished, she undid all my difficult labor and returned the kittens to their former box, ignoring my vehement protests.

            What could I do?  In fact, I tried again, moving my babies back to the bed (which was firmly not permitted), into the closet (also nixed), and various low shelves (forbidden as well).

            At length, my lady, in a strategic effort to contain my sundry shifts, relocated the former nursery, now filled with different neutral-smelling cloths, putting it in their bedroom on the floor just next to her side of the bed.  This appeared acceptable to me, and so I acquiesced to letting my infants stay there, until they were able to climb out on their own.

            And yet—alas and alack!—I was to remain in the dark for several weeks more, as to the frightful suffering in store for me.  How could I foresee the black days ahead, when each of my kittens was to vanish, leaving me with an agonizing void nothing could fill—that is, until the passage of time served to dull the pain.

—  6  —

            As my little darlings became more and more mobile, they began to investigate every corner of the upstairs. The baby girl, in imitation of my own feisty, inquisitive nature, even ventured to scramble down the stairs, in spite of my chiding meows. Needless to say, I could not allow this at her tender age.

            The fact is, my tiny female feline seemed particularly drawn to my lady, and vice versa.  My kitten would seek her out and, in strongly voiced cries, insist on being picked up or, failing that, would climb up her clothes, to take what she seemed to consider her rightful place on my lady's lap.  And my lady appeared to be enchanted with all these special attentions as well, since she always kept up a steady stream of the most affectionate phrases, while the two were together.

            Still, inseparable as they seemed to be, my charming little daughter mysteriously disappeared, along with the gentlest of her brothers, never to be beheld by me again. My lady, when pressed, reluctantly related that they had been taken to live in a country house with a large garden and a great deal of land surrounding it.

Having tried my best to teach my children to be good survivors, I continue to exercise a mother's prerogative in refusing to entertain the notion that they could have perished in the wild.  Rather I prefer to imagine that a new strain of black and white, mixed with tiger-striped, cats has emerged in this area and is still flourishing to this day.

            Oh yes, while the subject of the fates of my last litter of offspring is still fresh in my mind—their awful evaporation into thin air as it appeared to me—I was informed by my lady and the man that one of my cute salt and pepper sons had been taken to live in a city apartment with, horror of horrors, a little boy.

—  7  —

            But, to back up a bit, it so happened that a black and white baby of mine had found a special place in the man's heart.  This kitten was particularly frisky and sweet (indeed, each one was wonderfully sprightly and frolicsome), and the man had wanted him to remain in the household.  This lovable little one was dubbed Wilbur by the man, and, as destiny would have it, Wilbur also became the immediate favorite of some neighbors down the street, who had decided to adopt one of my kittens for the amusement of their three children—certainly not for the betterment of my child.

            So off he went to their house.  The man was disappointed at Wilbur being the first to go, but he and the lady reassured themselves, and a distraught me, that he had found an especially happy home close by and that we could all visit Wilbur frequently.  I, of course, would never have set foot in that house.

            Be that as it may, the unhappy fact is that things did not turn out as they had hoped.  First of all, his name was changed to Blanquito (an odd name for my black and white boy, it seemed to me) and he backslid into the pitiful protective mechanism, so they ventured to tell me, of huddling under couches, behind chairs, or in corners, to try to escape the terrors inflicted on him by the three little monsters and their shouting mother and father.  These young girls and their parents seemed to lack even the most elementary understanding of how to treat a small feline.

            For one thing, he was shown absolutely no respect—that is, his feelings were totally ignored.  In addition to the trauma of having been separated from me, sweet Wilbur, as he will always be to me, was subjected to being handled like a toy.  He was pushed and pulled, fought over, cornered—in short, dealt with in the thoroughly reprehensible manner of many humans who consider themselves superior to all other lowly creatures.  Also, his diet deteriorated abominably to whatever was left over from the family's meals—remnants I would have shunned—which usually lacked the nutritive ingredients necessary for a youngster's healthy growth.

—  8  —

            Yet the most miserable termination imaginable of this abysmal state of affairs occurred months later, when the neighbor woman, claiming to have discovered that she was allergic to cats, returned one morning with the ill-starred Wilbur.  Melancholic to remember, something went terribly wrong with my sensory system.  It must have been the suffocating smell of the scarf drenched in perfume, in which Wilbur had been wrapped, that sabotaged my ability to even rudimentarily recognize my own son.

            I here vehemently denounce all types of the perfumed smells which humans love to splash all over themselves.  Rather than believe that the bond between my dearest Wilbur and me ever could have been broken, I prefer to blame that odious odor in which my precious son had been soaked.  I feel strongly that my sensing mechanism was subverted by the natural fragrance of my little one being drowned by the stench of that stinking perfume.  As far as I am concerned, no other explanation for my own traitorous behavior toward my offspring contains any plausibility whatsoever.  Oh humans, how can you have so dulled and obscured the subtleties of smell that are absolutely essential to our inter-relatedness in the animal kingdom?!

—  9  —

            Poor Wilbur was so overjoyed to find himself once again in my presence that he could not contain his delight and, with a bounding leap, rushed up to me.

            And how did I return my son's great affection?  To my everlasting shame, horror, and remorse, I failed to know my own Wilbur, and I lashed out with my claws open and hissed at him, as though he were my most hated enemy.

            Wilbur was completely crushed, though to his great credit, and our excellent genetic inheritance, even in his utmost dejection, the brave little tyke never shied away from his pitiless mother, until he eventually won me over and I realized lamentably late that I had been cruelly rejecting my very own child.  Finally, we were united in a true embrace, licking each other and cuddling together once again.

            But, sad to say, my heroic little Wilbur, in all his natural exuberance and curiosity, ran out of the house one day, never to return.  All our cries were to no avail; all our combing the streets could not bring him back.

            We all suspected, and still do to this day, that Wilbur was stolen.  Friendly, innocent little guy that he was, it would have been easy enough for someone to snatch and sequester him.  It is even possible that some well-intentioned person supposed that he or she was improving my kitten's lot in life.  Well, the three of us, my lady, the man, and I, mourned his loss for a long time and tried to imagine that he might, at least, be in happy circumstances somewhere else.

            But a year or so later, a woebegone Wilbur look-alike, scrawny and dirty—a shadow of his former self, if indeed it was he—in an unguarded moment when the front door was open, slunk silently into the kitchen, and, making straight for my dry food, ate furtively though voraciously what he could in a moment, only to dash out the door and disappear once again.  We all hoped with all our might that it hadn't been Wilbur.  The tragic truth is that we never saw him again.

This marked the end of my mothering days.  From now on, I was to be Mama-cat in name only.

Yet, the longing for my lost children remains as an ache.  Only a grieving parent will truly appreciate the feeling that compels me to seek some resolution with the following addendum.

My lady has a cat calendar for the year 2000, and the picture for February is a perfect likeness of me, back then, and Wilbur, grown to his full stature.  It is the happily-ever-after finish that I always wanted us to have, as does every mom for her child.  Thus, I am including it here, with the wish that my son, Wilbur, and I will enjoy this future together in the great unknown that lies ahead.