Cats

I'm startled when I discover that I'm loved. I'm not talking about romantic love here. It's not that my parents didn't love me, but since my father drank and my mother was exhausted by maintaining the household, raising four children and working full time, there wasn't much cuddling, laughter, or soothing of tears. 

So when my new stray kitten Rosamunda reciprocated my love for her I walked all day buoyant, everything lovely: the falling snow, parks in a thick coat of pristine white, trees with sparkling ice on branches, halo of lamp lights.

I wished my past were like that, suddenly disappearing under a thick layer of white new beginnings, covering it like snow covers all the dirtiness in the city, its littered sidewalks, its mounds of black garbage bags.

Such a miracle seemed possible.

Before Rosamunda we had an old stray cat. My son brought it home and declared I never allowed him a pet, so now at the tender age of 24 he'd have a pet. His pet looked dismal. Her fur all matted, skinny like a death nightmare, her screechy meow so horrid it made me laugh. But in six months her fur coat was thick and shiny, and I didn't mind when she'd wake me up at dawn trumpeting with her alarmed meow that the end of the world was coming any minute now and no one believed her, and no one did anything about it! I related to her. I'd had my own recurring panic attacks before taking pills to pacify the horror of small hours.

I called her Mișu, after my sickling father, who eats spoonfuls of sugar, though a diabetic. My son insisted she was Ricco. I compromised and called her Miso. Then Miso Soup. 

I was proud that the vet I’d taken her to in the summer was proven wrong, our cat was not dying, under my care she recovered from her hard life in the streets. Our cat was not ill. She was just an aging, aching cat.

Around January a friend who fed stray cats in his neighborhood brought a kitten in a bag. She looked exactly like my senior cat, a gray tabby. The brother of this kitten had been killed by a car. I took her in, maybe my morose senior cat needed company. But upon introducing the kitten to my cat, my never scratching or biting senior started hissing! The kitten bolted out of my friends' strong hands and hid in a deep corner in the living room behind my paper archive boxes. I found her in the evening and placed food near her hideout and was gratified to see her eating ravenously.

The second night I discovered her under the kitchen table, on top of my old dowry chest. I put her food there and crouched under the table, soothing her with whispers.

My son caught me at it, but he thought it was our old cat that was noisily crunching the dry food under the table. I giggled to myself, because my son was working temporarily at a storage facility and he was sure the sixth floor of the building was haunted by a spirit. The elevator often went up on its own to the sixth floor and no one was there. He declared he could sense spirits. Oh, please, he lived with a smuggled kitten in the house for two days and he didn't notice it.

He asked me why I looked so guilty. I just smiled. But the second time--I don't know why he kept on coming into the kitchen, it was past midnight--as he left the kitchen he saw the old cat on the corridor and said to her, 'Oh, you ran from my mom's cuddles.' Then it dawned on him and he pounced on me, 'You have another cat hidden there! How could you?! Now you'll start hoarding cats, have seven, twenty cats!' 'No,' I said apologetically, 'just this kitten. I won't be able to survive if Miso Soup dies on me. Just this stray kitten. Her brother died hit by a car. Just this kitten.' 

Plus mother scared us we'd end up like Enikö néni, a neighbor who had 13 black cats frolicking in her small home, never let them out, and didn't teach them litter box manners. 

Oh, the stench…

My son slammed his room's door. Fine. Well, in the morning he asked me where my new friend was hiding. That's how he is: hollers, then cools down. 

The next morning my senior started coughing. I thought it was a fur ball, so I put her into the bathtub, so she could vomit there, not on the carpet, but she coughed and coughed and nothing came out. I held her, soothed her, she was so weak she tried to stand up, but she'd fall down again, and again. Until she didn't get up anymore. Then she stopped breathing. I picked her up. She was limp, a rag doll. Never had I held her without some fretting or purring in her lively body. Her heart stopped beating. I tried to hear it. It stopped beating. Then her eyes turned glassy. Her spirit was gone.

I was in shock. I knew death, loved ones died, but never under my very eyes. To witness life go away was demonic. How breath and heart beat makes us alive, conscious, and then when they stop it's all gone. How indeed life is a gift, an incomprehensible miracle. What sustains its flicker? Where does it go? Inconsolably, I cried all day.

Then whomever I met I'd tell them how my cat died, not sure if I killed her by not knowing what to do, or if it was her time to leave. People shared their stories of lost pets. My neighbor's daughter had cried on the floor for a week, her mom divulged, to her daughter's outrage. My therapist, when she was a little girl, had a bowl full of goldfish and one day they all died except for one. The next day her father bought a new fish to replace the loss, brought new friends for the lonesome fish. When she came from school she found the old fish dead on the floor. He jumped out of the bowl. She ran crying downstairs to her dad, but it was too late. My physical therapist told me how she had watched, powerlessly, her dog eating her parrot.

My son said at least we gave Miso Soup a good home and care for a few months, and she died in peace. The kitten needed us now.

Yes. The kitten was hiding less and less. Gradually she moved to my bedroom. First hid under the chest of drawers, but eventually came on my bed and played with the rubbery wiggly lizards and balls containing bells I hung for the senior cat on a folding-arm lamp. Then I started brushing her fur. She'd not let me do it for long, just a few strokes and then she'd turn her head and try to grab me with her clawed paws and bite me. I'd back off scared.

See, me having a pet is unbelievable. I come from Romania, where packs of stray dogs attack people in the streets. There was a scandal a few years ago, stray dogs ate a baby left unattended for a few minutes in a park.  I'd seen rabid dogs, rabid cats when I was small. I was bitten by dogs and hatefully barked at by those chained in the yards. See, in Romania dogs are security guards. Cats are sanitation workers. They eat mice and rats. 

My mother gets annoyed and cuts me short when I talk about my cat. Her cats would steal schnitzels from the kitchen table if left unattended. She can't conceive that I let the cat sleep on my bed, they never allow them to stay in the house, even in harsh winter. 

Here in New York pets have coats and shoes. 

When my kitten looked wistfully out of the window I told her, 'I know you miss your friends and romping outdoors, but think how harsh this cold winter is. Soon spring will be here and we'll go out for walks.' 

In spring I went with her in the park and she turned into a crouching tiger, sneaking around the park fences thru the mounds of dry leaves. 

Two elderly ladies talked to us, both had lost their cats that week. I understood their grief. One was crying, 'My tomcat would kiss me every morning. Better than a man he was.' It was a bit creepy, but I understood her pain. Years before it was mind boggling to see the pet mania here. I'd be sarcastic about it. But I understand it now.

I'm lucky to have Rosamunda. 

She ended up being Rosamunda after I tried out various grand names. Brumhilda, Rosamunda, Gertrude, Geraldine, Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina was how the Russian language professor called my mother at the university, though her name was actually Vilma. 

My Rosamunda was to be royal. 

I wanted to call her Wilhelmina, but it sounded Wagnerian. So she is Rosamunda, the Rose of the World. Sparkling of life and curiosity. She darts up on my five-shelf rack of clothes, she follows me everywhere I go, from room to room. In the evening she scuttles to my bed and hunts my moving legs and feet covered by the bed quilt and battles them. 

Yesterday morning I was meditating at what I just read in a book about human-animal interaction. The author says we are deluded that our pets give us unconditional love. To him it was clear that his cat thought about him as her food dispenser, fur scratcher, play toy, and door opener. There are some who say pet ownership is wrong, like slavery. We keep them hostage for our own enjoyment, we fix them against their will. It's immoral.

Yes, I said guiltily to myself, Rosamunda hates me, she always turns around to bite me when I brush or pet her back. Always. But then why does she follow me around? And why when once I closed my bedroom door she meowed forlorn on the corridor.

So when she wanted to attack my feet, then moved to my hands, I let her have her way with me. If she wants to bite me, let her bite me, I said, masochistically, guiltily. Here she comes! Her paws hold my hand, then the open mouth with sharp teeth closer, closer to my flesh, ready to dagger her fangs in it. But she holds my hand gently between her teeth, then she lets go of it! Again and again. Then, wonder of wonders, she licks my hand! And again! I thank her, grateful and honored, 'Thank you, Rosamunda, thank you,' each time she gives me her raspy hand kiss. 

I'm overwhelmed that I misunderstood her. She was reciprocating, showing me her love. I’m sad my mom never experienced that. I had a fluffy dog, a puppy when I was small. He got lost and I cried all day until my father brought it back from wherever the puppy went. But then he grew into a large shepherd dog, furiously barking from his chained powerlessness. 

*

Rosamunda liked living indoors, but I worried her safe apartment-cat life, involving plenty of food and not much physical activity, would turn her into a depressed tub of lard, with the painful, and costly, prospect of a diabetic old age. So I walked her regularly, on a leash. We did well. She was stimulated by the neighborhood scents, bird sounds, and squirrels’ acrobatics. We graduated from the nearby puny park with its dried grass baseball field to the Conservatory Garden in Central Park. But though we enjoyed the flower bed designs and the excitement we caused in other humans--who had never seen before a cat on a leash, so they eagerly had to Facebook Rosamunda--our exploits were limited by the park's policy. No pets were allowed to explore the bushes, their walking restricted to paved areas only.

Thus the day came when we took off for the larger vistas of meadows where people sunbathed, ate cucumber sandwiches, flirted, played Frisbee, and so on. It was a hot summer day. Rosamunda and I sat in the shade of a tree next to a bush thicket, my hand gripping her red leash.

A bunch of youngsters passed by. One of them shouted, ‘Look, a cat on a leash! Look, there by the bush! You can see the red leash! There! There!’ Rosamunda scurried deeper and deeper into the bush, and I quietly tried to follow her, until the leash got tangled in the thorny branches, and she backed out of her harness. In vain I and the youngsters tried to catch her, in vain I called her name, she was gone. She was gone, gone. I sat on a flat stone, shuttered. My beloved Rosamunda was gone. At the first occasion she fled. I thought I was a good guardian to her, but I was wrong, bitterly wrong. Rosamunda ran away. I was deluding myself all this time. She didn’t love me, foolish me, she hated me, resented me that I had to have her spayed. She ran back to the streets. I was but a jailer, she was my captive. Oh, how I misperceived. I sat on that stone stunned, crying, trying to contain myself. At intervals I’d go back into the bushes and call her name, but she was gone. Maybe even exited the park at the speed she was running. 

I was a slave owner imagining myself a benefactress.

After hours of fruitless waiting, I tied a part of her red leash on the tree, and left, crushed. I went to the animal shelter nearby my home to report her missing. I couldn’t stop crying, feeling ridiculous. The intake person soothed me. Maybe my Rosamunda was already found by someone and brought in. He took me to see all the cats waiting in cages. Some of them were sullen, others were hidden behind curtains, shy or unfriendly, aggressive. Cage after cage without my Rosamunda. So many cats, I could love them all, bring them back home, but they were not my Rosamunda. My Rosamunda was lost in the huge park, or in the immense city. The shelter man said his cat once disappeared for three days, and came back jumping on the garbage bins, meowing under his window. There was hope. Often they came back to the spot where they were lost. There was hope, I nodded sniffling.

And then I saw Sebastian in a cage!  A tabby kitten, gray like Rosamunda, only he had white feet, and a white patch on his chest. He was eagerly seeking my attention. He leaned into the wired cage for me to pet him. I told the attendant, ‘I want to take him home. I can’t cope with the misery of no Rosamunda. Can I take him now?’ He said there  was a three-day wait time for the owner to claim him back. It was Sunday, so by Tuesday if his owner didn’t claim him, I’ll be the first on the adoption list.

I went back to the park, asked my way around, 'Please, where is the Northern Meadow? I lost my cat there by a bridge.' A young couple helped me get to my red ribbon tree, and they stayed, calling with me, ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda!’ until the girl’s mother called on the phone and she probably alerted her daughter I might be a dangerous nutcase, so they left me. I stayed in the dark, imagining bad things. I cried her name for an hour, but she was gone. My Rosamunda was gone. I asked my way towards the West Side exit from a dog walker, and as I went towards it, I’d call from time to time, ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda,’ to no avail. I was ashamed, here I am a cat lady walking about the dangerous alleys of Central Park at night, yelling Rosamunda, Rosamunda.

Near the park exit I saw again the young couple, seated on a bench. The girl said she heard Rosamunda responding! After they left me, they kept on calling, ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda!’ themselves and she answered. Where? Up on the boulders! We climbed with the young man, his smart phone in flashlight mode. We saw a pair of glinting eyes. ‘There she is!’ the boy cried, scaring the eyes into hiding. I stayed on the boulder after he left, and called my Rosamunda, but after a while I felt danger. Raccoons. Coyotes. I shimmied down the rocks and walked out of the park, then headed north along the tall stone wall. I passed by the young couple, again seated on a bench, and the girl said that they'd seen Rosamunda up on the jutting boulders. ‘How did she look like?’ ‘White and black.’ ‘That's not Rosamunda.’ Nevertheless, I went in the brush with the young man once more, and called her name, but no one responded. I assumed she was surrounded by feral cats and had to shut up, the alpha cat growling at her, it was for the safety of the group.

I left, hoping in my sorrow that her new cat family would be kind to her, if this is what she wanted, and not me. I barely slept, fearing she got raped by tomcats, bitten, or eaten by raccoons.

In the morning I went back, walked stealthily through the brush. A black cat stared at me, then disappeared. Indeed a colony of cats was living there, hiding during the day, prowling at night.

I talked to the park rangers. They didn’t have the capacity to rescue cats lost in Central Park. I emphasized there was an entire colony of feral cats up on the boulders. Yeah, but they just didn’t have the man power to help… I went to the Conservatory Garden where once I'd seen workers setting traps to catch feral cats. I talked to a gentleman who said he himself had owned four cats but when he moved to a smaller apartment he had to give them away. He didn’t find me ridiculous. But they couldn’t help me with a cat trap, or mount a rescuing expedition for my Rosamunda.

I went home. To my surprise they called from the animal shelter that Sebastian was up for adoption, even if it was just Monday. Could I come at 7 p.m. to sign the papers? I cancelled my evening appointments and eagerly went to meet Sebastian. As I was waiting in the hallway four policemen came dragging a large plastic cage, containing what appeared to be a drugged dog. I asked them since they rescued dogs, couldn’t they help me with my Rosamunda? No, they couldn’t, they sniggered. Came out that dog was a coyote! They brought it in for cremation, not adoption. A coyote had come all the way from the woods to the city, running along the highways! Not good. My Rosamunda might be dead by now, I moaned. Raped. She was like me when I left for the big city, a bright-eyed girl falling prey to a gang of rapists. But the shelter attendant assured me Rosamunda being fixed, wouldn’t attract any rapists.

They let Sebastian out of his cage, so we could become acquainted. I eagerly held him, the tiny, innocent creature. Only first they had to neuter him, give him vaccines, and I’d bring him home the next evening. They had me sign various promissory papers. One asked me to promise not to eat Sebastian!

The next evening when I came to take him home, I again did the cage rounds to see if Rosamunda had come in. So many caged, sad cats. No Rosamunda. A dog owner was distraught over his pit-bull. His nephew took the dog to his home, while this man was away, but his mother gave the dog to the shelter. So now the owner had to pay adoption fees, and his dog would be released only after being fixed. ‘Oh, man,’ he hold his head in his hands, ‘if I knew this would happen, I would have kept at least one of the puppies.’ Probably he was a breeder… 

But here was my Sebastian, in an Elizabethan collar cone.

For the next two days, I busied myself over his wound, his eating, and litter box initiation.

Only on Friday afternoon I had the respite to go back to Central Park. By now I consoled myself, Rosamunda chose her cat family and freedom over the confined life I offered her, the bowl of dry food and loneliness she must had felt when I was out. But still it hurt.

I went with my friend, first scurrying the brush up on the boulders. ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda, Rosamunda.’ No answer. I tried to keep my voice cheery, because they told me at the shelter if I was emotional, Rosamunda would get scared, thinking I’d give her grief, so she wouldn’t be easily coaxed back. I resigned myself. ‘Let’s go home.’

But my friend said, ‘We’re nearby the picnic meadow. Just a few more steps. Come on.’ We went. Here was the red leash tied on the tree, here was the thorny bush. I sat down under its branches. I chanted, ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda, Rosamunda.’ A weak voice responded. My heart jolted. ‘Hear that?! ‘Oh, it’s a bird,’ my friend said. I called again, ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda.’ The feeble voice was nearing! I called more. The bush rustled! A shiny back with red reflexes, my very own Rosamunda, was running towards me! My Rosamunda! She was as desperate as I was for her. She came so close to me, my darling, my dear darling. I lunged to get hold of her, but instead I scared her away. So close, so close and now I lost her again?! My friend asked if I wanted him to get her for me. ‘Yes. Yes.’ I was faint. ‘Open the can of cat food, so Rosamunda can smell the food, and she won’t resist it.’ We called her again, and she came back. My friend threw a lump of food toward her, Rosamunda famished ate. He threw another lump closer, Rosamunda approached. Again, closer. As she gulped the food, my friend, with his strong, vise-like grip, took hold of her waist. I was laughing, crying, feeling elated! I was so fired up, blasphemous as it may sound, more than at the fall of communism, the ‘89 revolution when we shot our dictator and gained our freedom.

It was a miracle.

We exited the park. I hailed a taxi, but the driver said morosely, ‘Sorry, no pets.’ So we walked all the way crosstown, holding the cat away from us, fearing cooties. Each time someone looked askance we’d announce, ‘We found her after almost a week. We lost her in Central Park on Sunday! We found her! It’s unbelievable!’ Some looked away, others said smiling, ‘God be praised.’

When we arrived at our building, I went inside my apartment and brought out the pet carrier. We pushed Rosamunda in it, and I took her straight to the bathroom. I was afraid she got fleas, or she’d go wild when she’d see Sebastian in his cone and scratch his wound open. I gave her a good bath, toweled her, fed her, and for three days I kept her in my room, her litter box too. She curled by my side, watching me, so I don’t leave her lost to the wilderness again. Gradually I let down my guard and forgot to shut the door after me when I went to tend to Sebastian, who was in a cage, because I couldn’t have him jump on and off the furniture, his wound could have ruptured. And so Rosamunda followed me and saw Sebastian. She bristled and hissed at him. She arched her back, the fur spiked up, seeing her replacement. I took her to my room, but she cried. How could I bring a stranger in her home?! 'I’m gone four days and you replace me?!' ‘Rosamunda, it was you who left me heartbroken! I thought I’d die without you. Besides Sebastian is a kitten, he was abandoned in the dangerous streets of the Bronx. You could play with him, you won’t be alone anymore while I’m away. It’s going to be fun.’

She meowed dolorously.

Sebastian couldn’t care less about her hisses. After his wound healed, I took off his cone, got rid of the cage, and they befriended each other. Now Sebastian is often grooming Rosamunda who accepts his ministrations. It’s a wonder to see them playing together. They grab each other by the neck and move so fast, it’s a blur of bundled fur tumbling around at such high speed you can’t even see them. 

When I first brought Sebastian home he was bobbing his head, like a bobble-head toy people put on their car dashboards. I read that was a sign he had suffered from distemper. But in time with nourishment, the bobbing went away. He is the calmest creature, like I’d like to be. He doesn’t hold grudges. 

Darling Rosamunda never totally forgave me for my betrayal. Each time Sebastian hopped on my bed she left the room in a huff. Plus she turned scardy after the expedition. She runs into hiding if I move towards her fast; if she hears a building noise she stops eating. She behaves like my old self, high strung from the past attacks. God knows what had happened to her in the park. I sooth her, I tell her she is safe now, I love her, she should hang out with Sebastian and me on my bed. Gradually she comes into my bedroom and sits on a shelf by the window, watching birds flying outside, or even briefly relaxes on my bed quilt. She is still shy, not like Sebastian who licks my hands or gives me playful bites, or grabs me with his paws when I scratch his belly. Sebastian knows no evil. He often sleeps belly up, which is the most trusting and vulnerable position for a feline, Jack Galaxy, the cat whisperer, said on YouTube. To watch him is bliss. I often fall asleep, not a care in the world.

On our walks at times I’m reminded how arrogant it is of humans to disdain animals. One day we were walking back from the compost bin placed in front of the community garden, and Sebastian was exploring the many scents along the fence. I walked by his side, one foot away, holding his leash. An old man came along and instead of going around us, there was plenty of sidewalk space, he barged between me and Sebastian, scowling that no cat had priority over him. He was superior to a bloody cat. As he walked away I told him my Sebastian was God’s creature too. He hollered that I should watch what would happen next time when he comes upon my cat. Only later on the right reply came to me. ‘Indeed, Sir, I know exactly what would happen. I’ll call 911 and report you for animal cruelty and you’ll get yourself handcuffed, that’s what will happen!’

Another day we were crossing the street. It was raining. I was holding Sebastian in my arms, protecting him from the drizzle. A hefty young guy spat out, ‘Stupid cat!’ when he passed us by. His intense hatred stunned me. My Sebastian is brighter and kinder than that hoodlum. Both he and Rosamunda when they hear me opening the zip lock bag of treats they scurry from whatever far corner of the apartment. If I say to Rosamunda, when she furiously scratches the kitchen upholstered chairs, ‘Rosamunda, NO!’ she stops instantly. And they move so gracefully, so fluidly, I bet the fashion shows’ catwalk word derives from their feline slinky strut.

Their round astonished eyes, watching me perform the fantastic feat of dishwashing, or slicing onions, are gratifying.

I told my mom whenever I look into their large, clear kitten eyes, I remember my infant siblings' blue eyes. My brother died from drinking, my sister is still alive, in the room with mom when I call in on Skype. My sister understands my love for my cat. She loves chicken. Mom's three roosters sing together at dawn. 'A choir of roosters,' she laughs. 

I tell mother I believe my cats have souls. She scoffs.

I love my mom. We are from a people that still have ancient purity codes. Odd ones, misogynistic ones, and one of them is that animals are unclean. She always warns me cats carry awful diseases. But my cats are vaccinated.

My life is content now. I enjoy our loving solitude. I'm more part of the good in the world because of my cats. I write this story for the goodness in people.

I was walking back home thru the slushy melting snow, when at a street corner a guy was texting, waiting to cross the street. There was only a rambling snow-blade truck moving slowly two blocks away, so I told him, 'We can cross safely now,' and I went ahead. I don't know if he heard me or not, I walked fast so he wouldn't think I wanted to hit on him, but for a moment there was a 'we'.

For a moment I could share the world in kindness.

New York

February 2016