Reserved for the Cat Read online

  So now she was hearing things . . .

  You are not hearing things. You are hearing me, the voice said.

  Again, she looked wildly about. “Who is there?” she demanded, her despair fueling her anger at this unasked for invasion. “Show yourself!”

  You are looking at me, Ninette. The tomcat jumped down off the sill and strolled up to her. It is the cat. Call me Thomas if you like.

  Her mouth dropped open as the cat jumped up onto the little table and sat down again, curling his tail neatly about his feet. She shook her head a little wildly. “No, no, this is impossible—”

  Clearly not, since you can hear me speaking to you. So do not cry, Ninette. I will make things right for you. I should have spoken to you when Maria died, but I was afraid you would never believe—I have watched over you all your life.

  She stared into the cat’s unblinking eyes. “Oh? And so fine a job you have made of it!”

  Did you ever starve? Was there always money to pay the rent? the cat retorted. Do you remember the sausages, the cheese, the fish that were left on the table that you thought were from your artist friends? The little purses Maria just “found” in the street when the rent came due? Maria would never have believed in any of the other things I could have done. I had to confine myself to what she would believe in.

  Ninette bit her lip, her mind a whirl. She felt as if her entire existence had been turned upside down. Talking cats! Talking cats that claimed to have been taking care of them! And yet . . .

  And yet there had been those mysterious gifts of food when they needed them the most. Maria was incredibly lucky when it came to finding windfalls on the street. Even the artists had remarked on it, saying that she must have a good fairy looking out for her.

  A good fairy. . . .

  Not exactly, the cat said wryly. But close enough. Ninette, will you trust me? Will you put yourself in my hands?

  “Paws,” she corrected absently, still feeling her mind reeling. If this was madness then—so be it. She might as well be mad. What did she have to lose? If she was truly mad, then none of this was happening, and someone would find her wandering about and take her to an asylum where she would continue to live in her fancy. Or she would fall into the Seine and drown, and all her problems would be solved in that way.

  All right then. You have to say it out loud. That’s the way these things work. It’s like a contract. The end of the cat’s tail twitched, restlessly.

  “I trust you. So go and do whatever you want. I won’t go to the Folies just yet, I will give you your chance—”

  Stay right here, the cat said, fiercely. Pack a small bag with anything you do not want to leave behind. Change into your good gown. I will be right back.

  Abruptly, he stood up and whisked out of the window so quickly he might have been enchanted. She was left staring at the spot on the table where he had been sitting.

  Pack a bag. With anything she did not want to leave behind.

  She bit her lip and stared out at the evening sky. What in the name of God could this all mean?

  As sunset turned to l’heure bleu and became dusk, then dark, she waited. Through her open window she could hear the sounds of the street—artists arguing at the little café, someone with a guitar, children, released from whatever job they did during the day, finding a little energy to play. Through the window came cooking smells; cabbage, the eternal cabbage, the staple of the poor. Sausages frying. Her stomach growled, and she finally got up, lit a stub of a candle, and rummaged the last of her bread from beneath the bowl where she had put it to keep it safe from mice, chopped up the last of her cabbage and made a thin cabbage soup, and ate it, slowly, dipping the hard bread into the broth. There was nothing more in the flat. Which did not matter, because if she had been imagining the talking cat, she would be in the street tomorrow anyway, and if she hadn’t she would—

  Where would she be? Why would a cat tell her to pack a bag?

  The last of the soup a memory, the last crumb of bread gone, she finally got up from the table, and did pack that bag, an ancient carpetbag, worn to the weft. She put it on the bed and when she was done it was scarcely half full. There was not much to put in it. A few bits of clothing, Maman’s marriage license, a little jewelry not even the pawnshop would take. Everything they had ever had of value had long since been pawned, except for the furniture, and she could not, in any event, strap a bed to her back and carry it off. She packed her ballet shoes, her rehearsal costume. She put on her good dress, as instructed, tied her shawl about her waist, and sat down to wait. The candle slowly burned down to a small puddle of wax, until it was just a bit of wick sporting a tiny flame.

  Finally, as she began to doze at the table, there was a thump at the window, and a second as the cat leapt from the floor to the top of the table.

  He had a square piece of pasteboard in his mouth.

  Take it, he said insistently, and dumbfounded, she did. I will be right back, he said before she could ask any questions, and leapt away, and out the window, like the Spirit of the Rose in the ballet sketch.

  She held it sideways to the light to see what it was. To her astonishment, it was a railway ticket, Paris to Calais, common carriage.

  The boat-train. What on—

  There was another thump and the cat returned, this time with a purse in his mouth, which he dropped at her feet. Put that in your pocket, he said. Then get your bag. We haven’t much time to get to the train. He wandered over to the old, worn carpetbag and swatted at it with a paw. Ah good, there will be room in there for me. That will make things easier.

  She picked up the purse. It was an ordinary little thing of leather, and she felt and heard coins in it. She opened the mouth and poured the money out into her hand. It held twenty-three francs, a 50-centime piece, four 20-centime pieces, seven 10-centime pieces, three fives, and nine single centimes, which was nineteen francs more than she had seen of late, and much more than her mother had ever had at one time. There was nothing to identify the owner.

  She looked up to see the cat insinuating himself into the bag. “You stole this!” she said, aghast. “The purse, the ticket—”

  And what if I did? It was from no one who would be terribly harmed by the loss. Now hurry up! You can buy dinner on the train or at a station. You will have to catch the Metro and then the train!

  “But why are we going to Calais?” she asked. There was no answer.

  The cat’s tail disappeared into the bag. With a feeling that things had spun completely out of control, Ninette picked up the bag, now made heavier by the addition of the cat, and hesitated again.

  She looked around, with the odd feeling that this would be the last time she ever saw this apartment. This was where she had mostly grown up; she had scarcely known any other home.

  Yet when she left, no one would really miss her. The rest of the dancers had probably forgotten her already. As kind-hearted as the artists were, they were very much of the sort to put everything but their painting right out of their minds. If she had been sitting for any of them—if she vanished, whoever she was sitting for would have been angry of course. But as she wasn’t, well, she was just another forgettable little dancer and model who went away somewhere, and they would not trouble themselves too much over where that was, so long as none of them were called to identify a sad little corpse at the morgue.

  The place was clean, but threadbare and rather dreary. Despite having so many artists in and out, the only pictures on the wall were those cut out from discarded magazines and framed with little bits of wood from old crates. Even those tended to go for kindling in the winter. The bed didn’t even have proper blankets, just rag-blankets made of skirts too stained, worn, or torn to ever be worn again by anyone. There was nothing in this room that had not been used and discarded by someone else.

  Even me . . .

  The Metro, girl!

  The candle guttered out. She took that as a sign. She stole down the dark stairs and into the night, leaving nothi
ng of herself behind.

  The Metro was crowded, but not so overcrowded that she had to stand. She had to run to catch the boat-train however, and by that time the bread and cabbage had worn very thin. She was, in fact, desperate for some food. The bag was heavy, she was tired, and her mind was in a dazed state where all she could think about was her growling stomach and the ticket in her hands.

  She took a seat, the bag at her feet, and as the train pulled out of the station, and the conductor began his journey through the car, collecting tickets, she had a moment of panic. What if he knew the ticket was stolen? What if it wasn’t a real ticket at all? What if—

  But he looked at it, collected it, and moved on without a second glance. She sighed, and when a vendor came along the aisle selling sweets and cones of nuts, she fumbled in the stolen purse for coins and bought some. Then she tucked back into the shadows of her seat and ate, slowly, savoring each bite. She had not had sweets or nuts since one of the patrons had brought some for all the girls. And here she had a cone of nuts and a whole bar of chocolate to herself.

  The cat in the bag at her feet was quiet, but warm; her shoes were so thin she could feel his warmth and the vibration of his purr. She had never been on a train in her life; the carriage seemed very grand, with its scarlet upholstery and its brass fittings. There were lovely lamps at intervals all along the car, fitted in between the windows. The windows were tightly closed, but there was a smell of soot in the air; some smoke from the engine escaped into the car.

  She peered through the windows, hoping to see something. She had never been outside of Paris either. But it was too dark to see; the best she got were glimpses of an occasional, dim light in the distance from some farm or other, the vague shapes of the towns the train passed through, and the lit platforms they occasionally stopped at.

  Despite the clattering, soot-scented, noisy reality of this journey, Ninette could not believe in it. It had an air of unreality for her, as surreal as any of the wildest canvases of the artists of Montmartre. She, Ninette Dupond, could not be doing this, sitting in a boat-train on the way to Calais. This must be a dream, a curiously vivid dream. . . .

  When the train pulled into the station, she picked up the bag and the cat and drifted out onto the platform still wrapped in that unreality.

  The cat slipped out of the bag and stood beside her on the platform, looking about alertly. Go and sit over there, he directed, with a nod of his head. Don’t move. I’ll be back.

  She looked down at him askance, but got no further word from him. The fact of his talking, however, only reinforced her feeling that this was all a dream, that in a moment she would waken in her bed back in Paris, and try to think of some prospect she had not yet considered as the means of paying the rent.

  But, because it seemed the right thing to do in a dream, she went and sat as directed, and watched people stream by on their way to and from the ferries. And thought about food. The chocolate and nuts were long gone. Dared she see if there was a café somewhere near here?

  Just as she was thinking about looking for one, she felt a nudge at her ankle.

  It was the cat, with a thick pasteboard rectangle held daintily in his teeth. She knew, without even looking at it, what it must be.

  A ferry ticket.

  She could not even manage to protest that she didn’t want to go to England, because by this time, aside from her hunger, this was all too absurd to be real. And in a way her hunger only enforced the absurdity; if she were lying somewhere, mad or delirious, and dreaming all this, well she would be hungry, wouldn’t she?

  So she just reached down and took the ticket, wordlessly. The cat climbed into the bag again, and she joined the stream of passengers heading towards the boat.

  Finally, once aboard, she found real food; inside the ferry, someone was selling sandwiches wrapped in paper, and hot tea from a window. She bought both, carried them away to the warmest bench she could find, and sat there eating in tiny bites. She heard some complaints around her about the bread being stale, the cheese inferior, but she thought she had not tasted anything so good in a long time.

  With a lurch, the ferry pulled away from the dock and began the nearly three-hour trip to Dover.

  Ninette got another sandwich.

  The crossing was smooth; preternaturally smooth, according to the comments. As late as it was, there was not much to see. Ninette amused herself by observing the passengers and trying to guess which of them was smuggling liquor into England to avoid the duties. The man with the tall hat? He could easily fit a bottle of brandy in there.

  And that made her think suddenly that there would be a Customs man examining her bag in Dover. The cat! He would discover the cat, and surely one was not allowed to bring a cat into England!

  But then in the next moment, she laughed at herself for being so absurd. She had by now convinced herself that this was all an illusion, a dream built of hunger and maybe fever or madness. It wouldn’t matter. There wouldn’t be a Customs man, or the cat would turn himself into a hairbrush or something. . . .

  In fact, when the ferry docked and she joined the long crocodile of people leaving, she realized that her bag was much lighter. The cat had vanished. And when she reached the examining counters, the Customs man poked through her meager belongings with utter indifference before waving her on.

  And then she found herself staring at the trains waiting to take on passengers without the slightest idea of what to do next. Where was she to go? Was she supposed to catch another train? Find some place to stay in Dover? She only had French money; where was she to get English money?

  She felt herself on the verge of crying, when there was a warm brush against her ankles and she looked down to see the cat—once again with a pasteboard rectangle in his teeth—poking his head from under her skirt. She reached down and took it; he got into the bag as she placed it on the ground. Clearly her next act would be to get on the train. So, lacking anything better to do, she followed his directions, still somehow coming into her mind, to the one he wanted her to get on. It looked very different from the French train: less stylish, more purposeful. She got on and took a seat in the farthest, darkest corner of the compartment.

  At this point, she was moving in a fog of exhaustion, and as the sun came up and pierced the windows of her railway car, she stopped thinking altogether. They arrived at an enormous train station, full of noise and smoke and bustle, full of the sound of foreign words in foreign voices. She got off and followed the cat when he jumped down out of the bag. She sat on a bench at his command, until he returned with first a new purse containing strange-looking money, and then another railway ticket. She followed him to the new train, let him get into the bag, and boarded.

  It had all the characteristics of a dream. She got off the train in a new city, one that, she quickly realized from the scent of the ocean and the chill, damp wind, was a seaside city. The cat eeled out of the bag and looked up at her. It’s not far now, she heard him say. Just stay with me. Trust me.

  Well, why not? She had trusted him this far. She followed the cat into a shabby-genteel neighborhood of small shops and tiny boarding houses. The cat led her to one that displayed a French flag in the window.

  The woman here is from Lyon. She is a widow and takes in holiday guests. Tell her you are here to visit your sister who married an Englishman, the cat said, brusquely. Give her one of the small gold coins. She will take you to a room, and there you can sleep. I will tell you what to do when you awaken.

  Numbly, she did as the cat said. At this point, the dream had gone far beyond madness into something else. The woman who answered her knock was thin, worn, tired-looking, but at least she spoke tolerable French. She asked few questions when Ninette timidly handed her the coin. Instead, she merely led Ninette up a set of very narrow stairs to an equally narrow—but clean—room.

  “I serve breakfast at six, which you are too late for,” the woman said, “Luncheon is served at noon, and from the look of you, you will probably
sleep through that. So I will make an exception for you, and serve you a good tea, which I normally do not serve—unless you also sleep through tea-time, in which case you may join us for supper at seven.”

  Ninette nodded, and set her bag down. The woman took this as the signal to leave, and did.

  Ninette managed to get her dress off and climb under the blankets. For a moment she was very cold, and thought that this surely was a sign that she was about to wake up.

  But then a warm, soft body slipped into the bed with her, sliding his way up to nestle against her stomach where he began purring. A moment later she was warm.

  I cannot be falling asleep if I am already asleep. Or does this mean when I fall asleep I am going to wake up? Or am I never going to wake up, and that is why I am dreaming of falling asleep . . . The questions circled around and around until she couldn’t sort them out anymore. A moment after that, she truly was asleep.

  3

  NINETTE woke to the sounds of voices and footsteps running up the stairs. Normally that would not have woken her, but somewhere in the back of her dreams, she realized that they were speaking a foreign tongue—

  Except, somehow, she could understand them. Imperfectly, but . . . she could understand them.

  She came a little more awake, clutched the bedclothes with her eyes still closed, and listened to the young women trudge up the stairs to their rooms and chatter about their shop-jobs, the horrid customers. By the voices, there were five, two of whom had French accents, and who seemed to be working for a perfumer and a milliner. How can I understand them? she thought, baffled.