The Cat at the Wall

THE CAT AT THE WALL

DEBORAH ELLIS

Groundwood Books

House of Anansi Press

Toronto / Berkeley

Copyright © 2014 by Deborah Ellis

Excerpts from “Desiderata” from
The Poems of Max Ehrmann
, Crescendo
Publishing Company, Boston, 1948, p.83.

Published in Canada and the USA in 2014 by Groundwood Books

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We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Ontario Arts Council.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Ellis, Deborah, author
          The cat at the wall / written by Deborah Ellis.

Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-55498-707-8 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-55498-491-6 (bound).—
ISBN 978-1-55498-492-3 (html)

           I. Title.

PS8559.L5494C38 2014                 jC813’.54               C2014-900974-7

                                                                                         C2014-900975-5

Cover illustration by JooHee Yoon
Design by Michael Solomon

To those who bring kindness to chaos

One

—

My name
is still Clare.

That much is the same, although no one calls me Clare anymore.

No one calls me anything anymore.

I died when I was thirteen and came back as a cat.

A stray cat in a strange place, very far from home.

One moment I was walking out of my middle school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Then there was a period of darkness, like being asleep. When I woke up, I was in Bethlehem — the real one. And I was a cat.

I don’t know if it was an accident, like some sort of cosmic wires getting crossed, or if God is playing a joke on me or if this is all a nightmare and I’m really in a coma back in St. Luke’s Hospital.

Nobody has told me anything.

But I went to Sunday school for as long as my grandmother was alive, and I never heard of anything like this in all their tales of heaven and hell.

Something happened a few days ago. I can’t stop thinking about it, and I’m not used to thinking very much about things.

It started off with me sitting on the Big Wall.

This wall looks a little like the ones that go beside freeways to cut down the noise and to keep drunks and idiots out of traffic, although the wall here is bigger and runs through neighborhoods. There are guard towers here and there, and in some places the wall is shorter but has more barbed wire on top.

I spend a lot of time sitting on top of that wall. I like to look down on people. From the top I can look down on people on both sides. They don’t do anything all that interesting, but it helps to kill time.

As a cat without a television, I have a lot of time to kill.

The other night I was on the edge of a village, not far from Bethlehem city. The night was one of the dark ones. No moon. Stars not much help. The darkness was no problem for one side of the wall, where lights shone bright in the windows. On the other side of the wall it was all dark. The power over there was not working. The only lights shining on that side were the spotlights from the watch towers, and they mostly shone down on the wall. They made the graffiti bright, but everything else looked darker.

I was sitting on the wall after getting away from a bit of a mess that had happened on the ground a couple of hours before. I was getting hungry and dropped to the dark side of the wall to find something to eat.

The darkness didn’t bother me. Since I became a cat, my eyes see better in the dark than they did when I was a girl. My nose works better, too, which is not always a good thing. The world is a very smelly place.

I went looking for something to eat in the long stretch of weeds that runs along the wall. I’ve been a cat for a while, maybe a year, but I’m still not any good at catching mice, and I stay far away from the rats. That leaves handouts, garbage and whatever I’m fast enough to steal.

The weeds were full of garbage. Bags and bags of it, most of them torn open. I went up to each one and sniffed it, hoping to find a bit of kebab or chicken. I wasn’t coming up with much, just whiffs of what had once been there. Any food had already been eaten by the other cats.

Greedy cats. They never leave me anything.

There were cats all through those weeds that night, hiding among the trash and bedded down in the tall grass. Their smells were all part of the general stink I had to sort through.

I didn’t realize I was in the king tom’s territory until I saw his giant head loom up from behind a clump of clover. The spotlight from the tower made a halo around his ears.

I froze. He froze. We stared at each other, still as statues.

For a second I hoped that he might let me pass. After all, I’m very scrawny, no threat to him at all. Attacking me would not be very much of an accomplishment. I even thought he might take pity on me.

But there was a hiss and a yowl, and then I started to run.

He came after me. I ran faster.

He was bigger but I was scared. I ran and I kept running.

Our running disturbed the other cats. I stepped right on top of some of them. Others were hit by boards or tin cans I knocked over as I ran. They joined in the chase, and soon I had a whole pack of cats running after me.

I don’t know what they would have done if they’d caught me. They probably didn’t know, either. Cats aren’t great planners. I don’t think they would have killed me, but they could have hurt me pretty bad, teeth and claws being what they are. There were lots of cats around with one ear or no tail or missing an eye.

If I got injured, who would take care of me? Nobody. I’d be in pain and all alone.

So I kept running.

I swerved suddenly off the grass and down a narrow street into the village. The cats kept chasing me. We ran around corners and over the tops of cars. I scrambled up to the flat roof of one of the little houses and was able to pause for a breath before the pack found me again.

Run, run, run. Up one hill and down another. It’s all hills in that area. I prayed that the cats who were chasing me would get bored and stop. But they didn’t.

At the top of one hill, not quite as high as some of the others, I saw a little house. It stood beside a vacant lot full of rocks, weeds and more garbage.

Two soldiers in full battle gear were at the door, trying to get in.

They were being quiet about it. No shouting or banging, like soldiers sometimes do. Just pushing and shoving. The door wasn’t budging.

I ran toward them, thinking they might give me some sort of protection.

The gang of cats was getting closer. I was getting really tired.

The soldiers pushed at the door. It would not open.

The cat behind me yowled. It was right at my heels, and the soldiers in the doorway still seemed very far away.

I was on the edge of giving up and letting the cats get me. After all, I already died once. The first death turned me into a cat. The next might turn me back into a girl.

But I put out one final burst of energy.

At the same moment, the soldiers gave the door one great push.

The door opened. In the breath of a second I dashed through the soldiers’ legs and scooted into the dark, low space under a sofa.

I heard the soldiers enter the house and close the door behind them.

I was safe.

Two

—

Or was I?

I did a quick sniff-scan to see what else was in the house. No other cats, no dogs. Just humans. And where there were humans, there was bound to be food.

I inched up to the front of the sofa to watch what was going on.

The two soldiers moved quietly, placing their duffel bags gently on the floor and walking with silent boots around the house. It was one of those one-room houses. I’d sat in the windows of others, looking in and begging for table scraps.

The house was tidy. So tidy that I could see at one glance there was not much that would interest me. There was a shelf full of books in Arabic, a bed off to one side, a little table with three chairs, and the sofa that was my hiding place. A low window had a sill that would be wide enough for me to sit on if I felt like doing that. On top of a shelf lay a violin and a bow, gathering dust without a case. My music teacher would have had a fit. He was always on us about taking proper care of our instruments. They weren’t even ours — we just borrowed them from the school for the year — but he went on and on about it.

There wasn’t much more than that in the little house. A couple of cupboards, a couple of low tables, a few cushions. Nothing matched, and the walls probably hadn’t been painted since Jesus was born.

The kitchen was just a kerosene stove, a small sink and a shelf with a few dishes. I noticed an old coffee jar holding dried chickpeas. There were some little jars of spices, a box of tea and a couple of onions that had sprouted.

Not much of value to a little cat.

Beams of light from the soldiers’ flashlights swept like brooms into the corners and along the walls. They looked behind curtains and inside the tiny bathroom.

“There’s nobody here,” I heard a soldier whisper.

“Good. I don’t want to deal with them.”

“They don’t want to deal with you, either, Private.”

The other soldier put his finger to his lips. He tiptoed across the rug to a pile of boxes along one wall. When he got there, he suddenly kicked out, scattering them and pointing his rifle at the debris.

“Come out! Hands up!” he shout-whispered in Arabic.

Nobody appeared.

“Big man, Private Simcha. You’ve just destroyed some kid’s art project.”

He shone his flashlight on a note-paper sign taped to the wall.

“I don’t read Arab,” Simcha said. “Can’t speak it, either, except for
Come out! Hands up
!
”

“Arabic, not Arab. It says City of Dreams.”

I stuck my head out from the bottom of the sofa to get a better look at what they were talking about.

Against one wall, spread out and arranged in an orderly fashion where it hadn’t been kicked apart, was a toy city built from trash. Biscuit and salt boxes had been made over into houses and shops with cut-out windows and doors. Tin cans were set on top of the boxes to look like water tanks on rooftops.

“City of Junk is more like it, Aaron.” Simcha kicked out at the boxes again.

“That’s Commander to you,” Aaron said. “Don’t trash the place. We may be stuck here for a few days.”

“We’re supposed to be thorough.”

“We’re supposed to use our brains,” said Aaron.

Then he suddenly dropped to his knees and shone his flashlight under my sofa. The light was bright in my eyes.

I hissed and swiped out at him, then dashed to the back of the sofa, out of reach against the wall.

Aaron jumped. He cried out and dropped his flashlight. I smelled blood.

Got him! I smiled.

I never knew before all this that cats can smile. But we can.

Simcha clicked his rifle. He repeated his Arabic phrases. “Come out, hands up!”

“Relax,” said Aaron. “It’s just a cat.”

“A cat? The way you jumped, I thought it was a terrorist.”

“I didn’t jump,” Aaron said, which was a full on lie because he full on did.

“This will be easier without the family here,” said Simcha. “It must be kind of awkward to take over a house that people are living in.”

“Stop talking so much,” Aaron ordered. He lowered himself to the sofa, then rose right up again, as if he remembered that I, Killer Cat of the Middle East, was lurking beneath, ready to strike. That’s what I told myself, anyway. Like I said, I’m a cat without a TV. I have to entertain myself any way I can.

Aaron knelt down on the carpet, took a map out of his pocket and unfolded it on the floor. He shone his flashlight down on it. I wiggled to the front of the sofa to watch.

“We were here,” he said, pointing with his finger. “Then we went up here and turned right here, down through Shepherds’ Field.” He moved his finger on the map as he talked.

“What’s wrong?” Simcha asked. “Are we lost?”

“I said be quiet.” Aaron continued to stare at the map.

He had my sympathy. It’s easy to get lost in this place. Small streets, tiny lanes that twist and turn and have no names, hills that all look alike.

Aaron looked from the map to the window, trying to figure out which direction it faced.

“It must be the right house,” he said, more to himself than to the other soldier. “A house on a hill next to a vacant lot, east of the refugee camp, south of Bethlehem. This must be it. It should give us a good vantage point.”

“We’ve seen nothing
but
houses on hills,” said Simcha. “But what do I know? I’m fresh off the boat from America. You were born here.”

“I was born in downtown Tel Aviv,” Aaron said. “You think I hang out in the Territories? My last post was Jenin. This might as well be the moon.”

He took out a little pocket voice recorder, pressed a button and spoke quietly into it.

“Unit 37 entered the home at 4:15 a.m. As far as we know we have not been detected by the neighbors. The residents of the home are not in as we begin our surveillance of the community. All is quiet.”

He clicked off and put the recorder back in his pocket.

Simcha bent down and opened his duffel bag. My ears perked up. I hoped they were about to have breakfast.

“I don’t see what you’re so worried about,” Simcha said as he reached into his bag. “There are no wrong houses here. These people are always up to something.” He pulled a tripod stand out of the bag and set it up by the window.

“Yeah, like raising their families, going to school and minding their own business. You Americans come over here and join the IDF and think it’s the Wild West. It’s not that simple.”

“You don’t know me at all,” Simcha said.

Aaron stood at the window, even though it was way too dark to see anything.

“We’ll know at first light if this house will work. It should give us a good view of the neighborhood. If not, we’ll radio in and get further instructions.”

Simcha attached a telescope to the tripod. “All I’m saying is that if we catch a terrorist, the brass won’t care if it’s the terrorist we were supposed to catch or another one. Either way, we’ll be heroes.”

“Just what the world needs,” Aaron said. “More dumb-luck heroes.” He moved two chairs over to the window by the telescope. “It’s not about catching terrorists. It’s about keeping people safe.”

“Us or them?”

“On a good day, both.”

“You sound like my parents. All you need is love …” Simcha sat on the chair in front of the telescope. He lowered the tripod so they could spy on the neighbors without having to stand up.

The windows were already draped with lace-type curtains. Aaron arranged the curtains over the telescope, hiding it from the outside view.

My ears started to itch.

Fleas. I hate fleas.

I never got lice when I was in school, not even in the fourth grade when almost every other kid in the class was sent home to get the nits picked out of their hair.

Crawlers
, I used to call them. The kids, not the lice. “Here comes another Creepy Crawler,” I would say, pointing and laughing at the kids with the lice.

I never once became a Crawler myself.

It’s not right that I should escape lice when I was a girl but have to deal with fleas now that I’m a cat. People who have lice when they’re alive should be the ones to get fleas in the afterlife because they already know how to deal with them. Fleas to them would be no big deal.

That’s just my opinion.

I tried to twist my body so that I could bring up one of my hind legs for a good scratch, but the sofa was too low. There wasn’t enough room. I rubbed my ears on the carpet. That helped a bit, but not much.

I could feel myself sliding into one of my frustration fits. Well, who wouldn’t, in my situation? It was all so unfair! Bad enough to be dead at thirteen, but then to come back as a stray cat in this awful place, full of rocks and shooting and ridiculous heat and way too many other cats.

If I had to come back as a cat, why couldn’t I be like my sister Polly’s cat? Ty-kitty was fed roast beef from the table and snoozed on the sofa all day, waking up only to eat and watch TV. I wouldn’t have minded that so much.

I absolutely needed to scratch, and I wanted to get away from the carpet, which stank of cigarettes and tear gas. I wanted to move to a higher place where I could breathe in less-smelly air, be out of the reach of the soldiers and keep a good eye on whatever was going on.

But I wanted to eat more than I wanted to scratch. If I was up high and they brought out some food, I might not get down in time to snatch it away.

If they decided to eat.

And if they dropped any food.

I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait for food, and I hate waiting. I never liked it. And there was so much waiting around when I was a girl! Waiting for the Monopoly game to end so I could escape from Family Game Night. Waiting for my father’s client to finish his will-writing appointment so that I could watch TV in the study instead of in the rec room with my sister. Waiting for my mother to get off the phone and drive me to the Westgate Mall.

I hated all of it. My heart would start to pound and I’d want to wring someone’s neck.

“It’s not good for me to have to wait,” I told my parents. “Really, it isn’t healthy. I’m not kidding.”

But they just went on making dinner or mowing the lawn or talking on the phone to Grandma, even though it would have taken them No Time to do what I wanted.

I wonder if they’re sorry now.

Sometimes I was able to get what I wanted by being really, really bratty about it. I’d unplug the lawnmower or I’d stand right in front of my mother while she yakked on the phone.

“If I drive you this one time will you promise to settle down and not act like this again?”

Of course I promised. And of course I did it again.

Now I either wait or I go do something else. And nobody cares. It’s terrible. Nobody ever thinks about the wants and feelings of a stray cat.

I rubbed my ears on the smelly carpet again, then closed my eyes. Cats can nap anywhere.

My ears perked up at the sound of a package being opened. My nose twitched. I smelled cheese. One of the soldiers had unwrapped a hunk of cheese and was cutting it into pieces.

In a flash I was out from under the sofa. I grabbed a big piece of cheese and bounded up to the top of a cupboard.

“Hey!”

I held the cheese in my teeth and raised my hind leg to my ear and gave those fleas a good hard scratch. It felt like heaven.

I scratched, then I ate. The cheese stuck in my throat a bit, but I didn’t care.

Simcha, laughing, reached out to grab the rest of the cheese. I hissed and swiped at him, scratching his hand.

He stopped laughing and backed off.

Now both of them were scratched. I wasn’t a bit sorry.

When my breakfast was done, I enjoyed a long session of grooming. I’ve learned that grooming my fur is as soothing as brushing my hair used to be when I was a girl. I used to love brushing it and looking at the shine of it in the bathroom mirror, no matter how often it made my mom late for work. I don’t think that’s vanity, to admire something beautiful, even if the beautiful thing was me.

I had another good scratch. Then I settled down on my perch for a nap. I was feeling so good I almost decided to purr.

Then my nose told me something I hadn’t paid attention to before.

There were three humans in the little house.

Two of them were the soldiers.

The third was a boy. And he was hiding.