I Am a Cat (28 page)

Outside it must still be hazy. Having filled my stomach with that dinner of rice with fish gravy which O-san had provided in my abalone-shell, I feel that a little shut-eye is precisely what I need.

It has come to my ears that
haiku
poets have taken to using the phrase “cat’s love” as a means of indicating that a poem is concerned with the season of spring. Indeed, I have myself observed that there are nights in early spring when my fellow cats in this neighborhood set up such a cat-erwauling that sleep is well-nigh impossible. As it happens, I personally have not yet experienced such a derangement of my senses.

Nevertheless, love is a universal stimulant. It is the way of all things, from Olympian Zeus right down to the very humblest of the earth-worms and mole-crickets that chirrup on this earth, to wear themselves out in this exhausting field of endeavor. It is, therefore, only natural that cats, too, dreamily joyful, should indulge themselves in the risk-fraught search for love. Indeed, on looking back, I remember that I myself once pined away for love of Tortoiseshell. I hear that even Opula, that gormandizer of rice-cakes dusted with bean-flour, that daughterly extension of the very baseline of the triangled technique, old man Goldfield, I hear that even she is smitten with love for the unlikely person of Coldmoon. I, consequently, would not dream of sneering at those tomcats and their lady consorts who, throughout the whole wide world, are so inspired by the ineffable magic of these evenings of the spring that they run amuck under the excruciations of their lusts and loneliness.

However, and to my infinite regret, even when invited to participate, I just don’t have the urge. In my present condition all that I need is rest.

I am so utterly sleepy that I simply couldn’t perform. Accordingly, I sidle sluggishly around the children’s bedding, set paw on that forbidden territory at the end where their own feet lie and, finding a suitable space, curl up comfortably and drop off into slumber.

I happen to open my eyes and, looking round, find that my master is lying asleep inside the bedding spread beside his wife’s. When he goes to bed, it is his invariable habit to bring along some small Western book from his collection, but I’ve never seen him actually read so much as two consecutive pages. Sometimes he just brings the book, places it beside his pillow, and makes no faintest attempt to read it. Though it seems peculiarly unnecessary to bring a book of which not one line will be read, such actions are quite typical of my master. However much his wife laughs at him, however suasively she begs him to give up this stupid habit, still he persists. Every evening he makes a point of going to bed with a book which he does not read. Sometimes he makes a positive beast of himself and shuffles in with three or four books tucked under his arms. For several days until a little while ago, it was his nightly practice to tote in
Webster’s
whacking great dictionary. I suppose this behavior reflects some kind of psychological ailment. Just as some men of peculiarly extravagant taste can only get to sleep to the gentle simmering singing of one of Ryūbundō’s special iron kettles, so too, perhaps, my master cannot sleep without a book beside his pillow. It would seem that for my master a book is not a thing to be read, but a device to bring on slumber: a typographical sleeping-pill, a paginated security-blanket.

I take a peep to see what he’s brought tonight and find that he’s fallen asleep with a slim, red volume lying half-open on his chin, with its top edge almost brushing his moustache. Judging by the fact that his left-hand thumb is sandwiched between the pages, he must tonight have made a praiseworthy improvement on his usual performance to the extent of reading at least a line or two. Beside the bed, in its accustomed place, its cold, gray surface a dull reflection of this warm spring night, his nickel watch lies gleaming.

My master’s wife, the nursling baby tumbled about a foot away from her, lies open-mouthed and snoring. Her head has slipped down from the pillow. In my opinion, there is nothing more unbecoming in the human type than its indecent habit of sleeping with the mouth left open.

Never in a lifetime would a cat be caught in such degenerate conduct.

The mouth and the nose have their separate functions: the former is provided for the making of sounds and the latter for respiratory purposes.

However, in northern lands the human creature has grown slothful and opens its mouth as seldom and as little as possible. One obvious result of this muscular parsimony is that northern style of tight-lipped speech in which the words would seem to be enunciated through the nostrils.

That is bad, but it’s even worse when the nose is kept closed and the mouth assumes the respiratory function. The result is not only unsightly, but could indeed, when rat shit drops from the rafters, involve real risk to health.

As for the children, they too, small-scale reproductions of the indignities of their parents, lie sprawled about on their bedding. Tonko, the elder daughter, as if to demonstrate the monstrous regiment of elder sisters, lies with her right arm stretched out full so that her fist is firmly planted against her sister’s ear. In a kind of sleeping counterattack, Sunko lies flat on her back with one leg flung across her elder’s stomach. Both have managed to revolve through ninety degrees since, properly positioned, they drifted off to sleep. But, perfectly at ease in their unnatural dispositions, they slumber deeply on.

There is something peculiarly moving about the faint illumination of a night-lamp in the dark hours of the spring. Over the unpretentious, but sadly inelegant interior-scene of our dwelling, it casts a flickering radiance so sweet and gentle that it seems to be inviting our gladdest marvelment at the beauty of this night. Wondering what the time is, I look around the room. Dead silence reigns, broken only by the ticking of the wall clock, the snores of Mrs. Sneaze, and, despite the distance, the relentless grinding of the servant’s teeth. Whenever they tell that Osan woman of her grinding ways, she swears it isn’t true. Obstinately, flatly, she takes her oath that, never from the day since she was born, not that many babies turn up tusked, has she ever ground a tooth. She neither apologizes nor attempts to break the habit, just stubbornly insists that she doesn’t remember ever having done such a thing. Since she does it in her sleep, it’s probably true that she doesn’t remember doing it. But facts, remembered or not, are all, alas, still facts. There are persons in this world who, having perpetrated villainies, remain assured of their own absolute saintliness. They really do convince themselves that they’re pure of any guilt. Such utter self-deception is, I dare say, a form of simple-mindedness, but however genuine the self-deception, if the actuality is objectionable to other people it should be put down. As I lay there thinking that there’s no real difference between our grinding skivvy and those evil-doing gentlefolk who think themselves so righteous, the night wore peacefully on.

Suddenly I hear a light double-tapping on the wooden shutters of the kitchen entrance. Odd. People would hardly come visiting at this time of the night. It must be one of those damnable rats. So let it bump. As I mentioned earlier, I long ago decided never to catch rats. Then, once again, I heard a double-tapping. Somehow it doesn’t sound like a rat. If it is a rat, it must be an extremely cautious one. For the rats in my master’s house, like the students at his school, devote their entire energies, both day and night, to the practice of riotous behavior and seem to believe that they were only brought into this world to disrupt as violently as possible the dopey dreamings of that pitiable man. No rat of ours would make such modest noises. No, it is not a rat. Far too timid.

The other night we had a rat come boldly into my master’s bedroom, nip off a snippet from the tip of his already stunted nose and then depart in squeaking triumph. It just can’t be a rat. As if to confirm my suspicions, the next sound that I hear is the scraping creak of the wooden shutter being lifted from its groove, and then I hear the sliding screen being eased sideways as quietly as possible. Beyond all doubt, it’s not a rat. It can then but be human. Even Waverhouse or Suzuki would hesitate at this late hour to lift the latch and walk in unannounced, and neither, I think would go so far as to dismantle a wooden shutter. Could it, I wonder, be one of those gentleman-burglars of whom I’ve heard so much? If it really is a burglar, I’d like to see what he looks like.

As far as I can judge, two steps with muddy feet have so far been taken across the kitchen floor. The third step must have been planted on one of the removable floorboards for there was a sharp thwacking sound loud enough to echo through the silence of the night. I feel as if the fur on my back were being rubbed in the wrong direction with a boot brush. For a while there was no further sound, not even the stealthiest footstep. Mrs. Sneaze snores gently on, sucking in and blowing out through her gaping gob the beneficent air of this peaceful era. My master is probably dreaming some dream in which his thumb is trapped in a scarlet book. After a while, there comes the sound of a match being struck in the kitchen. Even a gentleman-thief cannot, as I can, see in the dark. It must be very inconvenient for him.

At this point I crouched well down and tried to work out what moves the intruder would next make. Will he proceed hither from the kitchen by way of the living room, or will he, turning left through the hall, make his way to the study? I hear the sound of a sliding door, and then footsteps on the veranda. He’s gone to the study. Dead silence followed.

It then occurred to me that it would be kind, while there was still time, to wake my master and his wife. But how? A few impractical notions spin around inside my skull like water-wheels, but I am not visited with any sensible ideas. It struck me that I might possibly rouse them by tugging at the bedcovers. Two or three times I tried, worrying away at the lower end of the material, but my efforts had no effect. I then thought I might do better if I rubbed my wet cold nose against my master’s cheek. I accordingly put my muzzle to his face, but all I got for my trouble was a sharp smack in the snoot. He didn’t even wake but, lifting his arm in his sleep, rapped me hard on the nose. The nose, even in cats, is a vulnerable area and I suffered agonies. Nevertheless, I persisted. Since I could think of nothing else, I tried miaowing at them.

Indeed I tried. At least twice, but somehow my throat just failed to function and no sound emerged. When at long last, and by enormous self-discipline I did manage to emit a single feeble mew, I was quickly shocked back into silence. For, though my master continued just to lie there like a log, suddenly I heard the interloper once more on the move.

I hear the little creakings of his inexorable approach along the veranda.

This, I think, is it. There’s nothing more I can do. So, slipping in between the sliding door and a wickerwork trunk, I get myself into a position suitable at least for this stage of the proceedings: a hidey-hole from which, in the safety of concealment, I can spy upon a criminal at work.

The footsteps advance along the veranda until they are immediately outside the paper-door of my master’s bedroom. There they stop dead.

I dare not even breathe. My every nerve is at full stretch as I hunch down waiting for the thief’s next move. I realized later that my feelings at that time were precisely those which I could expect to feel if I ever hunted rats. It was as though my very soul were about to pounce from my eyes.

I am indebted to this thief that, though long ago I resolved never to turn ratter, nevertheless I have been enlightened, this once in my lifetime, as to the nature of the hunting thrill.

The next moment a tiny area in the very middle of the third frame of the paper-door began to change color, to darken as though it had been struck by a raindrop. As I stare at that dampened spot, I can see behind its darkening an object of pale scarlet. Suddenly the paper gives and through it pokes the bare length of a wet red tongue. The tongue seems just to pulse there for a second, and then it vanishes into the darkness. In its place a shining thing, something menacingly glittery, appears in the tongue-licked hole. The eye of a thief. Strangely enough, that gleaming eye seems to disregard all other objects in the room and to be concentrating its gaze directly upon the place where I lurk behind the wickerwork trunk. Though that terrifying inspection cannot have lasted for even so much as a minute, I have never endured a stare so baleful or intense.

So to be stared at burns away whole stretches of one’s life-expectancy.

The scorching of that eye became intolerable, and I had just made up my mind to jump out from behind the trunk when the paper-door slid gently sideways and the thief was at last disclosed to my fascinated sight.

Though at this point it would be normal, in accordance with the established customs of the storyteller’s art, to offer a description of this rare and unexpected visitor, I must beg the reader’s indulgence for a small digression of which the point and pertinence will, in due course, become clear. My digression takes the form of a statement of my humble views upon the nature of omnipotence and omniscience, both human and divine; views upon which I would invite the discerning comment of all my honored readers.

From time immemorial God has been worshiped as omniscient and omnipotent. In particular, the Christian God, at least up until the twentieth century, was honored for his alleged possession of those qualities.

However, that alleged omniscience and omnipotence could well be regarded by the ordinary man in the street as, in fact, their precise opposites: nescience and impotence. I believe that, not since the world was first created, has anyone preceded me in identifying this extraordinary paradox. It is consequently unavoidable that I should feel a certain pride of self-discovery, pride in this revelation that I am indeed no ordinary cat. It is accordingly to drive home to numbskull human beings the unwisdom of sneering at cats that I offer the following analysis of the paradox which, if I had a name, would be named after its inimitable discoverer. I am informed that God created all things in this universe, from which it must follow that God created men. In fact, I am advised that this proposition is specifically stated as a fundamental truth in some fat book which human beings call the
Bible
. Now, mankind has been engaged for several thousands of years in the accumulation of human observations about the facts of humanity. From which mass of data one particular fact has emerged which not only causes human beings to wonder at and admire themselves, but also inclines them to acquire ever-deepening credence in the omniscience and omnipotence of God. The particular fact in question is the fact that, although mankind now teems upon this earth, no two human creatures have identical faces. The constituents of the human face are, of course, fixed: two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth. Further, the general dimensions of those constituent items are, more or less, the same. Nevertheless, though the myriads of human faces are thus all constructed from the same basic materials, all the final products differ from each other. The human reaction to this state of affairs is not only to rejoice in how bloody marvelous it is that each and every one of them commands an individuality of appearance, but also to admire the miraculous skill of the Creator who, using such simple and uniform materials, has yet produced such an infinite variety of result. For surely only a power of infinite originality of imagination could have created such almost incredible diversity. Even the greatest of painters cannot produce, however strenuously he exerts himself in pursuit of variety, more than twelve or thirteen individual masterpieces. So it is natural that mankind should marvel at God’s astonishing and sin-glehanded achievement in the production of people. Since such a pro-tean creativity cannot be matched by men as themselves creators, inevitably they regard the process as a manifestation of divinity and, in particular, of divine omnipotence. For which reasons human beings stand in endless awe of God, and, of course, considered from the human viewpoint, it is entirely understandable that they should.