The Cat Who Played Brahms (3 page)

Qwilleran shook his head in disbelief. All these mysterious pleasures of nature, this peaceful country scene—they were his for three months.

A ship’s bell in gleaming brass bung at the entrance to the porch. Its dangling rope tempted him to ring it for sheer joy. As he walked toward it, something slimy and alive dropped off a tree onto his head. And what was that hole in the screened door? Jagged edges bent inward as if someone had thrown a bowling ball through the wire mesh. He pressed the thumb latch of the door and stepped cautiously onto the porch. He saw a grass rug and weatherproof furniture and antique farm implements hanging on the back wall—and something else. There was a slight movement in a far corner. A beady eye glistened. A large bird with a menacing beak perched on the back of a chair, its rapacious claws gripping the vinyl upholstery: A hawk? It must be a hawk, Qwilleran thought. It was his first encounter with a bird of prey, and he was glad he had left the Siamese in the car; the bird might be injured—and vicious. Powerful force had been necessary to crash through that screen, and the piercing eyes were far from friendly.

The implements hanging on the wall included a primitive wooden pitchfork, and Qwilleran reached for it in slow motion. Quietly he opened the screened door and wedged it. Cautiously he circled behind the bird, waving the pitchfork, and the hawk shot out through the doorway.

Qwilleran blew a sigh of relief into his moustache. Welcome to the country, he said to himself.

Although the cabin was small, the interior gave an impression of spaciousness. An open ceiling of knotty pine soared to almost twenty feet at the peak, supported by trusses of peeled log. The walls also were exposed logs, whitewashed. Above the fieldstone fireplace there was a moosehead with a great spread of antlers, flanked by a pickax and a lumberjack's crosscut saw with two-inch teeth.

Qwilleran's keen sense of smell picked up a strange odor. Dead animal? Bad plumbing?

Forgotten garbage? He opened doors and windows and checked the premises. Everything was shipshape, and soon the cross-ventilation brought in the freshness of the lake and the perfume of wild cherry blossoms. Next he examined the window screens to be sure they were secure. Koko and Yum Yum were apartment cats, never allowed to roam outdoors, and he was taking no chances. He looked for trap doors, loose boards, and other secret exits.

Only then did he bring the Siamese into the cabin. They advanced warily, their bellies and tails low, their whiskers back, their ears monitoring noises inaudible to humans. But by the time the luggage was brought in from the car, Yum Yum was somewhere overhead leaping happily from beam to beam while Koko sat imperiously on the moose head, surveying his new domain with approval. The moose—with his long snout, flared nostrils, and underslung mouth—bore this indignity with sour resignation.

Qwilleran's approval of the cabin was equally enthusiastic. He noted the latest type of telephone on the bar, a microwave oven, a whirlpool bath, and several shelves of books. The latest issues of status magazines were on the coffee table, and someone had left a Brahms concerto in the cassette slot of the stereo. There was no television, but that was unimportant; Qwilleran was addicted to the print media.

He opened a can of boned chicken for his companions and then drove into Mooseville for his own dinner. Mooseville was a resort village stretched out along the lakeshore. On one side of Main Street were piers and boats and the Northern Lights Hotel. Across the street were commercial establishments housed largely in buildings of log construction. Even the church was built of logs.

At the hotel Qwilleran had mediocre pork chops, a soggy baked potato, and overcooked green beans served by a friendly blonde waitress who said her name was Darlene. She recognized him from his picture in the Daily Fluxion and insisted on serving second helpings of everything. At the office he had frequently questioned the wisdom of publishing the restaurant-reviewer's photograph, but it was Fluxion policy to print headshots of columnists, and at the Fluxion, policy was policy.

It was not only Qwilleran's moustache that made him conspicuous at the Northern Lights Hotel. In the roomful of plaid shirts, jeans, and windbreakers his tweed sports coat and knit tie were jarringly out-of-key. Immediately after the gelatinous blueberry pie he went to the General Store and bought jeans, sports shirts, deck shoes. . . and a visored cap. Every man in Mooseville wore one. There were baseball caps, nautical caps, hunting caps, beer caps, and caps with emblems advertising tractors, fertilizer, and feed.

Qwilleran chose hunter orange, hoping it would prove an effective disguise.

The drug store carried both the Daily Fluxion and its competitor, the Morning Rampage, as well as the local paper. He bought a Fluxion and a Pickax Picayune and headed back to the cabin.

On the way he was stopped by a police roadblock, but a polite trooper said: "Go right ahead, Mr. Qwilleran. Are you going to write about the Mooseville restaurants?"

"No, I'm on vacation. What's happening here, officer?"

"Just routine war games," the trooper joked. "We have to keep in practice. Enjoy your vacation, Mr. Qwilleran.”

It was June. The days were long in the city and even longer in the north country.

Qwilleran was weary and kept looking at his watch and checking the sun, which was reluctant to set. He slipped down the side of the dune to inspect the shore and the temperature of the water. It was icy, as Riker had warned. The lake was calm, making the softest splash when it lapped the beach, and the only sound was the humming of mosquitoes. By the time Qwilleran scrambled frantically up the hill he was chased by a winged horde. They quickly found the hole in the screen and funneled into the porch.

He dashed into the cabin, slammed the door, and made a hurried phone call to Pickax.

"Good evening," said a pleasant voice. "Francesca, just want you to know we arrived safely." Qwilleran talked fast, hoping to get his message across before her attention wandered. "The cabin is terrific, but we have a problem. A hawk crashed through the screen and left a big hole. I shooed him off the porch, but he had messed up the rug and furniture."

Aunt Fanny took the news calmly. "Now don't you worry about it, dear," she growled sweetly. "Tom will be there tomorrow to fix the screen and clean the porch. No problem at all. He enjoys doing it. Tom is a jewel. I don't know what I'd do without him. How are the mosquitoes? I'll have Tom get you some insect spray. You'll need it for spiders and hornets, too. Let me know if the ants invade the cabin; they're very possessive. Don't kill any ladybugs, dear. It's bad luck, you know. Would you like a few more cassettes for the stereo? I have some marvelous Chicago jazz. Do you like opera? Sorry there's no television, but I think it's a waste of time in the summer, and you won't miss it while you're busy writing your book."

After the conversation with Madame President, Qwilleran tried the cassette player. He punched two buttons and got the Double Concerto with excellent fidelity. He had once dated a girl who listened to nothing but Brahms, and he would never forget good old Opus 102.

The sun finally slipped into the lake, flooding the water and sky with pink and orange, and he was ready for sleep. The Siamese were abnormally quiet. Usually they indulged in a final romp before lights-out. But where were they now? Not on the moose head or the beams overhead. Not on their blue cushion that he had placed on top of the refrigerator. Not on the pair of white linen sofas that angled around the fireplace. Not on the beds in either of the bunkrooms. Qwilleran called to them. There was no answer.

They were too busy watching. Crouched on a windowsill in the south bunkroom they stared out at something in the dusk. The property had been left in a wild state, and the view offered nothing but the sand dune, underbrush, and evergreens. A few yards from the cabin there was a depression in the sand, however—roughly rectangular. It looked like a sunken grave. The Siamese had noticed it immediately; they always detected anything unusual.

"Jump down," Qwilleran said to them. "I've got to close the window for the night."

He chose the north bunkroom for himself because it overlooked the lake, but—tired though he was—he could not sleep. He thought about the grave. What could be buried there? Should he report it to Aunt Fanny? Or should he just start digging. There was a toolshed on the property, and there would be shovels.

He tossed for hours. It was so dark! There were no street lights, no neon signs, no habitations, no moon, no glow from any nearby civilization-just total blackness. And it was so quiet! No rustling of trees, no howling of wind, no crashing of waves, no hum of traffic on the distant highway-just total silence. Qwilleran lay still and listened to his heart beating.

Then through his pillow he heard an irregular thud-thud-thud. He sat up arid listened carefully. The thudding had stopped, but he could hear voices—a man's voice and a woman's laughter. He looked out the window into the blackness and saw two flashlights bobbing on the beach at the foot of the dune, bound in an easterly direction. He lay down again, and with his ear to the pillow he heard thud-thud-thud. It had to be footsteps on the packed sand. The sound gradually faded away.

It was well after midnight. He wondered about the prowlers on the beach. He wondered about the grave. And then there was a crackling in the underbrush—someone climbing a tree-footsteps on the roof, clomping toward the chimney.

Qwilleran leaped out of his bunk, bellowing some curse he had learned in North Africa.

He turned on lights. He shouted at the cats, who flew around the cabin in a frenzy. He punched buttons on the cassette player. Brahms again! He banged pots and pans in the kitchen. . . . The footsteps hurried back across the roof; there was scrambling in the underbrush, and then all was quiet.

Qwilleran sat up reading for the rest of the night until the sun rose and the birds began their dawn chirruping, tweeting, cawing, and skreeking.

-3-

Mooseville, Tuesday Dear Arch,

If I get any mail that looks personal, please forward it c/o General Delivery. Will appreciate. We arrived yesterday, and I'm a wreck. The cats yelled for four hundred miles and drove me crazy. What's more, I bought a car to fit their sandbox, and they didn't use it once! They waited till we got to where we were going. Siamese! Who can figure them out?

This is beautiful country, but I didn't sleep a wink last night. I'm suffering from culture shock.

Fortunately Mooseville gets the outstate edition of the Fluxion. The Pickax Picayune is just a chicken-dinner newspaper.

Qwill Looking haggard, but buoyed by the excitement of a new environment, Qwilleran drove into Mooseville for breakfast. On the way he was stopped by another roadblock. This time a friendly character in a moose costume handed him a Welcome to Mooseville brochure and urged him to visit the tourist information booth on Main Street.

At the bank Qwilleran opened a checking account. Although the log building was imitation antique, he could detect the characteristic aroma of fresh money. The teller was a sunburned blonde named Jennifer, almost unbearably friendly, who remarked that the weather was super and she hoped he was going fishing or sailing.

At the post office he was greeted by a young woman with long golden hair and a dazzling smile. "Isn't this gorgeous weather?" she said. "I wonder how long it will last.

They say there's a storm brewing. What can I do for you? I'm Lori, the postmistress."

"My name is Jim Qwilleran," he told her, "and I'll be staying at the Klingenschoen cabin for three months. My mail will come addressed to General Delivery."

"Yes, I know," she said. "Ms. Klingenschoen informed us. You can have rural delivery if you want to put up a mailbox."

Precisely at that moment Qwilleran's nostrils were assaulted by the foulest odor he had ever encountered. He looked startled, mumbled "no thanks," and bolted from the building, feeling sick. Other postal patrons who had been licking stamps or unlocking numbered mailboxes made their exit quietly but swiftly. Qwilleran stood on the sidewalk gulping fresh air; the others walked away without comment or any visible reaction to the experience. There was no explanation that he could imagine. In fact, there were many unexplained occurrences in this north country.

For example, everywhere he went he seemed to be haunted by a blue pickup truck. There was one parked in front of the post office, its truck-bed empty except for a rolled tarpaulin. There was another in front of the bank, hauling shovels and a wheelbarrow. On the highway the driver of a blue truck had tooted his horn and waved. And the truck that had followed him on the Pickax Road the night before was blue.

Tugging the visor of his orange cap down over his eyes he approached a log cabin with a freshly painted sign: Information Center—Tourist Development Association. The interior had the pungent odor of new wood.

Behind a desk piled with travel folders sat a pale young man with a very black beard and a healthy head of black hair. Qwilleran realized that his own graying hair and pepper-and-salt moustache had once been equally black. He asked: "Is this where tourists come to be developed?"

The young man shrugged apologetically. "I told them it should be tourism. But who was I to advise the Chamber of Commerce? I was only a history teacher looking for a summer job. Isn't this great weather? What can I do for you? My name is Roger. You don't need to tell me who you are. I read the paper."

"The Daily Fluxion seems to have a big circulation up here," Qwilleran said. "The Fluxion was almost sold out at the drug store yesterday, but they still had a big stack of the Morning Rampage."

"Right," said Roger. "We're boycotting the Rampage. Their travel editor did a write-up on Mooseville and called it Mosquitoville."

"You have to admit they're plentiful. And large."

Roger glanced aside guiltily and said in a lowered voice: "If you think the mosquitoes are bad, wait till you meet the deer flies. This is off-the-record, of course. We don't talk about deer flies. It's not-exactly good for tourism. Are you here to write about our restaurants?"