The Last Leaves Falling (19 page)

“Bah-Ba,” I say, to distract her, “where am I going to sleep?”

When I was young, I used to love pulling down the ladders that led to the attic space. Bah-Ba would roll out a mattress up there, beneath the skylight, and every night I’d fall asleep flying with the stars.

I won’t be climbing any ladders this time.

“I’ll make you up a bed down here,” she says, smiling.

“Come on, Champ, let’s leave the women to finish dinner and discuss their women-things.”

As Ojiisan wheels me out onto the porch, I imagine Mama resting her head on my grandmother’s shoulder and letting out a sigh. I imagine whispered, sorrowed voices, sympathy,
Oh my, how frail he looks,
and
I can’t do this, Mama.

But then Ojiisan sits on a tree-stump stool beside me, pulls my head out of that room and into something else, out here. The boys’ club.

“I am glad you’re here, Sora.”

“Why?”

He waggles his bottle-brush brows mischievously and beneath them his eyes gleam. “I think we have a bakeneko.”

“Oh!” I gasp, playing along. “Really?”

“Yes.”

I scan the yard. “I do not see it.” But I imagine a shape-shifting monster-cat prowling through the trees, and shudder.

“You wouldn’t, would you?”

“I suppose not. So, what makes you suspect one?”

“Your grandmother keeps hearing noises. Yowling in the kitchen after dark. But when I go to look, there’s nothing.”

“Okaaay.”

“And there are the bones.”

“Bones?”

“Yes. On the porch. Once or twice a week your grandmother or I will come out here to drink our morning tea, and there they are. Bones.”

I hesitate, not sure I want to know. “What
kind
of bones?”

“Birds, mostly. Big birds, picked clean, and with the heads gone.”

Ugh! “That is disgusting!”

Ojiisan chuckles. “It is, isn’t it. Although we should be grateful that they’re clean.”

“Do you really think it is a bakeneko?”

“Oh, undoubtedly.” He shrugs seriously, but his eyes still have that brightness to them.

“But . . . couldn’t it be a raccoon dog? Or something else?”

“It’s a bakeneko. I am sure of it.”

I nod. “So how can I help?”

“Your grandmother and I, we think it moved in after old Ten died.”

I nod. That makes sense, cats are territorial.

“So we thought, the best way to get rid of it would be to introduce another cat.”

“And you thought I could help choose?”

Ojiisan grins. “You did such a good job choosing Ten. Do you remember how we used to sit and watch him stalk the dragonflies across the yard?”

“For hours! Yes!”

“That’s settled then. Your grandmother will be pleased.”

I imagine Bah-Ba sitting by the kitchen stove, a kitten curled upon her lap. And I am glad that we have come.

•  •  •  •

Staying with my grandparents is like stepping back in time. Although they have electricity, when it comes to dinner we sit down to eat by lamplight, which casts a gentle glow across the room. Bah-Ba has left the door ajar, so that the autumn breeze can join us at the table, and the lanterns flicker gently in the sweet night air.

“I hope you are hungry, Sora,” Bah-Ba says as she puts a plate before me. “It’s your favorite.”

I look down at my plate, and I am five years old again, my legs swinging miles from the floor. I breathe in the smell of a thousand memories.

“Thanks, Bah-Ba.”

Bah-Ba used to make me omuraisu every time I came to visit. Fluffy rice, peas and carrots, sometimes ham, all stirred up with ketchup and wrapped in the thinnest, lightest omelet in the world. Nobody makes omuraisu like my Bah-Ba.

Mama frowns. “I hope you have gone lightly with the ketchup.”

Not a chance. Bah-Ba likes it just the same as me.

Bah-Ba slides dishes in front of Mama and Ojiisan, and then sits without a word.

“All right. Let’s eat.”

Five-year-old me does not need to be told twice. I shovel in a mouthful bigger than is probably polite, and grin across the table at my grandmother. “It’s great. Thank you!” I mumble, mouth still full.

Halfway through a meal silent with hungry mouths, Bah-Ba says, “So, how are you feeling, Sora?”

I wish they had not asked me that. I do not want to lie.

“All right.”

It’s true. Comparatively.

She nods. “That’s good. So what has my grandson been doing with himself?”

My grandparents lean in, expectantly.

I wish that I could tell them that I had been top of the class for the entire semester, that I was looking to study abroad and start a life full of adventures that would make her proud. I wish I could tell Ojiisan that I’d been climbing hills, flying kites across the meadows, sliding into home plate. “Reading, mostly.”

Ojiisan’s eyebrows knit above sad eyes for a moment, then he leans back and takes pity on me. “So,” he says loudly. “I have been telling Sora all about our little problem.”

“Problem?” Mama’s voice is wracked with worry.

“We have a bakeneko.”

“A bakeneko?”

“Yes, my girl. It’s haunting us.”

“A
bakeneko
?” Mama does not believe in ghosts and spirits.

“Yes.” He stares defiantly, but his eyes twinkle in the lamplight. “We need another cat to scare him off.”

Bah-Ba stands to clear the dishes to the sink. “If I have to clear up one more carcass from the front steps, we might be knocking on your door to stay. So, Sora, will you help us choose a champion cat?

“Yes! When?”

“I thought we could go down to the shelter in the morning.”

•  •  •  •

I wake up in the dark, and the wind reminds me where I am. It has snuck in through the cracks and waltzes across the room, caressing everything it touches like a drunken lord. I shiver, snuggle deeper down beneath the blankets. The house creaks. When I was small, I used to wake up to the wind and the noise of wood shrinking from the cold, terrified that the whole building would collapse on top of me. But now it just reminds me that I’m home.

It is strange being down here though, with no stars, no moon peeking in at me. I wonder about getting out of bed, wrapping myself in a blanket and slipping out onto the porch. It is cold, and my limbs are lead, but the air outside is sweet. Just as I have made up my mind, and shrugged off the heavy blankets, the wind yowls.

I know it is the wind, but still, what if Ojiisan was right, and there’s a bakeneko on the doorstep? I picture a huge cat-thing with pointed ears and giant fangs looming shadowlike above the door, just waiting for me to cross the threshold.

Would it tear my limbs apart right there, leaving bloodstains for my grandparents to find when they step out for morning tea?

Or would it carry me away to a far corner of the garden where it will not be disturbed?

Or perhaps the bakeneko hunts like any household cat and it would pounce, then let me go, then pounce again until it tires.

No. It’s cold, and my limbs are lead, and there is always tomorrow for admiring the moon, when the wind has dropped and it is warmer.

And there is a cat asleep beside the hearth.

35

Bah-Ba stops at the ARK pet shelter gates. I twist around in my chair so that I can see her. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just praying to the universe that the perfect cat for us is in here, waiting.”

“He is.”

“All right, then. Let’s go.”

“Good morning, madam.” The receptionist talks over my head at Bah-Ba. “What can we do for you today?”

“We’re looking for a cat.”

“Oh, great. Are you looking to adopt today?”

We nod.

“Excellent. We just need to check a few things first. Do you have your paperwork? We need—”

Bah-Ba hands over a stack of papers—proof of address and photos of the house, everything the shelter needs to see that she and Ojiisan have the perfect kitten paradise ready and waiting.

The woman flicks through the documents, chewing on her bottom lip, nodding as though she’s ticking off a mental checklist.

“And you’ve had cats before?” she asks, still reading.

“Oh, yes. Always. Old Ten lasted fourteen years with us.”

“I’m sorry,” says the woman. “It’s always hard. But maybe we have a replacement . . . or, another feline friend . . . for you today.” She stops reading, taps the edge of the papers on the desk to straighten them, then nods. “All right. I think that’s all in order. Would you like to meet the residents?”

We nod, eager, and she steps out from behind the desk and shows us through a door.

As we push through into the next room, I expect the smell of hopelessness. I expect bony, balding creatures, staring at us with sad eyes and yowling through cage bars. But there is none of that. In the first cage, two young tabby cats are curled up in one ball, only their four ears giving them away. In the next, a tiny scrap of ginger wrestles with a fluffy mouse.

Bah-Ba pushes me along the corridor, slowly, taking in each cage as we go.

“See anyone you like?” I ask.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she half-whispers, “they’re all lovely. How do you choose?”

Most of them ignore us, snoozing on cushioned mats or hiding in boxes. The smaller ones tumble over one another, all stubby tails and enthusiastic teeth. They remind me of children charging about with wooden katana. Do cats have an imagination too?

Grrrowl. I’m a
TIGER. A pirate
tiger! I’m a-get you!

Yeah? Well I’m
a two-legs!
NOTHING CAN DEFEAT ME! Rarrr!

A few cats pace their cages, up and down the glass, and up again. I wish that we could free them all.

But Bah-Ba is only looking for one. And there is nothing to distinguish between them.

And then Bah-Ba stops.

“Look!” She points excitedly.

A rugged gray cat sits in the middle of his cage, upright and proud. His left ear is half-gone, and he has a bald scratch across his nose. And he watches us with one open eye as green as the first spring leaves.

Bah-Ba moves closer to the cage, to read the information tacked up beside it.

“Cat Twenty-three. Male,” she reads aloud, “approximately three years old. I have a ferociously playful side; no mouse nor socked feet can escape me, but I’d like a warm lap, too.”

Cat Twenty-three tilts his head, as though he’s listening to Bah-Ba’s voice. She stops, and presses her fingers up against the cage. He leans toward her, and I swear I hear him purring through the glass.

“Hello,” she whispers.

•  •  •  •

We take Cat Twenty-three home with us. He is quiet all the way, except when we go past the fish market, when he pokes his paws out through the door and yowls.

Bah-Ba leans over my shoulder to croon, “Okay, okay, there will be something nice for you at home.”

Back at the house, Mama and Ojiisan attempt to poke their noses up against the bars and bestow their welcome on him, tell the cat how handsome he is, and promise that he’s landed on his feet, but my grandmother quickly pushes them away.

“Let the poor thing settle.”

She places the carrier beneath the kitchen table so that she can guard him from their baby talk while she prepares the lunch.

Cat Twenty-three peers out with interest, his nose and whiskers working overtime. My grandmother lifts fresh blue prawns out of the fridge and pushes one into the basket. The cat swallows it whole and then looks hungrily for more, but Bah-Ba has already bustled off. And when she starts to sing to the rhythm of her chopping knife, the cat curls up and goes to sleep.

36

Most cats seek the dark spaces when they’re somewhere new, but not Cat Twenty-three. Freed from his cage, the first thing he did was jump up onto Ojiisan’s knee and claim the old man as his own. Now, two days later, you would never guess that this house had ever been without a loud gray cat.

When Ojiisan sits down for his breakfast, the cat appears from nowhere.
Mwong!
he says, and stretches up to say hello.

“Good morning, young man.” Ojiisan rubs the cat between the ears. “And how are you this morning?”