Le Chat Narcisse

I need time to decide.  Fumeuse is trying to hurry me out the door but I haven't finished weighing my options.  I need to go because I haven't been out all night, but when I poke my head out, the spray from the downpour settles on my fur.  My nose and toes are cold, and a chilly breeze shivers across my belly fur.  All my instincts tell me to day indoors, but that means I'll have to use the smelly box on the veranda.  If I keep my nose high enough while I do my business,  the smell might drift away from under me, but when the air is still and heavy, I have to get out of there as fast as I can without bothering to cover up.  It's not my fault I like milk.  Because it's wet outside there won't be any neighbours to get into territorial scraps with, but I can't do my business in peace with water dripping off my nose. What cat in his right mind would go on a day like this?  Sometimes being outdoors is perfect, like on those warm nights when my hair stands on end as I stroll quietly and deliberately down the path to the canal, always looking over my shoulder.   This is living, but it is also terrifying. With every sense was on high alert, it is eat or be eaten. 

"E bien?" Fumeuse says.  "À l'intérieur ou à l'extérieur?" 

Like me, Fumeuse is stuck here, afraid of going too far afield.  This is our safe place to sleep and to hide when things get dangerous.  She manages to find food for both of us so we stay together, but I'm never quite sure what she wants from me because she sometimes gives me mixed signals.  Today she is having one of her frantic days so she doesn't have time, which only makes me insist on taking as long as I need at the door. I prefer not to be rushed and Fumeuse knows that. Since Whisky went away, except for active episodes like this morning, she spends most of her time doing nothing but sitting in our chair and staring at the flickering light. She doesn't always appreciate it when I jump onto her lap to make her forget about whatever is making her sad.  

When Whisky brought me home, Fumeuse was not very friendly to me because she already had Bijou.  Bijou was an older, black and white fluffy, who looked twice her real size because I knew that beneath her cloud of floating fur, she had delicate, dainty bones.  I'm a lanky type, short-haired, orange and white, with markings on my face that apparently make it look dirty no matter how often I wash, but I cut a fine elegant figure thanks to my natural dignity.  

When I first arrived, Bijou was not thrilled to see me get food, space, and attention, so when she didn't ignore me she bullied me.  If I walked too close to her she'd smack me in the face just to remind me I was a guest in her house.  She grew up here so she knew it inside and out.  Our quartier was her playground but if she saw me in the street she'd pretend not to know me.  I couldn't follow her on night adventures because she'd turn and hiss at me until I left her alone. Spending all night away from home wasn't for me anyway, because after my shaky start in life, the busier city streets scared the wits out of me.

Bijou fell asleep in the garden one night and never woke up, then Whisky got taken away. That left just Fumeuse and me, so I got all the attention but sometimes her pawing at me was too much and I had to hide.  I didn't like it when she stroked me with wet hands.  Whisky never dripped from his face like she did.  Right after Whisky left there was a constant traffic of strangers trying to touch me so I spent a lot of time upstairs under the bed. If people were still in the house when I got hungry and came down to check my plate, the most they got from me was my scent rubbed around their ankles.  If they were in my house, they were mine for as long as they stayed.  It was my kitchen anyway and I had to keep checking if Whisky had come back.  

I can barely remember the day I arrived here, surprised by the warm house with an upstairs, a garden, and humans who didn't chase me and throw stones at me. My memories of being cold, wet, and hungry, aren't specific details, but when something reminds me of those early days, hiding under cars from the rain, I start gulping like a goldfish.  Damn goldfish!  I'd been watching them for a while and even with the light turned off I could see them hovering and waving their tails at me.  I knew they were teasing me with all of their swishing and darting around. There wasn't any furniture near the tank so I couldn't climb up for a better look, but one day as a frisky teenager, I decided the only way to get closer to the wigglers was to do it in one jump, so I gave it my strongest leap.  I'd grab a wiggler from the top of the tank and shove it into my mouth, then rebound back to the floor.  I must have jumped higher than I needed because my whole body landed in the water.  It was like a nightmare.  A shiny thing with a light on its belly and a long black tail attacked me, and when I leapt to the floor, it came after me, crashing down close to my tail.  Fumeuse must have heard the monster, because she was there in a second, shouting at me, but instead of stopping the shiny thing before it grew legs and came after me, she chased me out the kitchen door. I took off running for the garage with barely a hint of the wigglers in my mouth but no meat to chew on.  After Whisky left, the wigglers got slower and slower, the light hardly came on, and then the whole tank disappeared.  I had a sniff round on the table where they once were, and though it smelled like their water, the wiggler's house had vanished.

"Je ne peux pas attendre toute la journée," Fumeuse says sharply, and starts to close the front door.  

Okay, I'll go out.  I have to pee.  No.  Wait a minute.  I think it's wetter than before.  I should have gone before.  The box.  I don't want the stinking box.  I'll go out.  No.  Yes.  

"Très bien," Fumeuse says.  "Tu restes à l'intérieur."  She shuts the door in my face just as I decided to go out after all.  Fumeuse can be a real dictator. Now that I am shut in, life will be more complicated.  I'll be forced to use the catflap in the kitchen to get out to the toilet box on the veranda.  I turn away from the closed front door and walk through the kitchen with my nose pointing toward my food plate in case anything interesting has landed there.  With my ears flattened, I squeeze out the cat flap onto the veranda trying not to let the damn thing pinch my tail.  It has happened and no matter how many times I resist when Fumeuse tries to shoo me out the flap, she never gets the message that the door is like a mousetrap.  While I do my business, I try not to get too entranced by the squeeze and the smell, and hold my nose high.  Fumeuse is in the kitchen getting something to drink, then leaves for the front room to settle into our chair.   Half her day is spent there watching the flickering square.  At least I know where to find her if I want attention.  

Now that there are only the two of us, life is quieter, but I miss Whisky. He was patient and took the time to teach me the rules of the house.  For a while after he disappeared, I thought he had gone on a long hunting trip to get me food, but he never came back.  I kept checking our chair in case I missed his homecoming.  He had been sitting there one day and the next day he wasn't.  Occasionally I sat in his place at the kitchen table on the chair Fumeuse never uses, but his scent got weaker every day. When a car stops at the side of the house where Whisky used to leave his, my ears tune in and I wait for the sound of his voice or his smell under the door, but it's only ever Fumeuse. 

"Oh!  Te voila," Fumeuse says when I jump on her lap to warm my feet.  She gives me a few strokes but her heart isn't in it.  As usual she has her attention on the square light.  When I try to remind her I am there and climb up to her face for a kiss, she pushes me away.  I know when I'm not wanted and I don't like it, so I go into the back room to sharpen my claws on the wallpaper. I barely get started when I hear her voice calling my name. She could be talking to the square light instead of me because sometimes she does. I stop to listen and again hear my name, Narcisse, the name Whisky gave me. 

"Narcisse? Qu'est-ce que tu fais?"

She couldn't know exactly what I was doing, but then maybe she heard my claws get caught in the wallpaper when I started to trance out.  What else could I do?  My claws get caught because they are rough and need to be smoothed by doing exactly what I was doing, clawing the wallpaper.  It's not like there is a tree in the house I can use.  Whisky brought home a carpeted structure that he directed me toward whenever I started on the walls, but now it is too small for a cat half my size.  When Fumeuse took it out of the front room and put it next to my litter box, that was the end of it.  Falling into it would be a humiliation I would never live down if it was witnessed by another cat or human.

I give the wall another quick scratch to finish off my nails properly and then stop because judging by her tone, she will soon be on her feet to come and scold me.  I don't like being told off, but she doesn't understand that I am only doing what I have to, what feels right to me, even if it doesn't always fit with her rules. Sometimes, if I'm in the house all night, I get so tense in the darkest hour, that I can't help tearing around the furniture like the house is my jungle. In truth I'd rather be running around outside, but that attracts attention from the other cats of the quartier and they come out to challenge me. Our garden isn't the best for jungle walks. Every time green things grow high enough I can walk under them, Fumeuse cuts them down like she's got something against me. The garage is a pretty good hideout, especially when it's raining, but any of the local cats can get in there, so I have to keep it heavily scented.  Whoever sticks his nose in should know that it is already occupied.

I wander back into the front room just to show her I was not doing anything wrong, but I can't sit on her lap because she has a light square on it.  The front window is the next best place this time of day because it has a view of bird perches, but it isn't wide enough to sleep on.  Sometimes humans approach the house and make noises at the front door, but I am usually in the back room under the sofa by the time I hear their voices. Bijou used to greet everyone and wave her fluffytail at them to get attention but that isn't my way. I learned early on, before Whisky took me in, that it was every cat for himself and it was best not to trust anyone, human or cat.  Sometimes other cats come into the kitchen through the cat flap and eat the food I leave on my plate.  Bijou used to challenge them and send them running, but I'd rather they ate the food and left. It isn't worth fighting over.  Fumeuse gives me more when she sees my plate is empty. Sometimes humans arrive with smaller versions of themselves, kids who try to grab me and play with me, but they usually get a scratch for their efforts.  I'm not a toy ball or one of the wigglers.  Worst is when people come with dogs.  The noisy clumsy beasts get my strongest messages of non-welcome.  If Fumesse lets the humans with dogs stay for a while, the best thing for me is to make myself scarce by taking a nap on the clean laundry Fumeuse has left on the bed. 

Since Whisky disappeared, Fumeuse doesn't go out much except in the daytime to get my food.  Occasionally she will be gone in the evening and leave me alone to take care of the place.  I can sit wherever I want.  When she goes out, she closes the cat flap because if more than one bully gets in to eat my dinner, the fur flies, and when I eventually come back downstairs, the smell is so overpowering.  It takes days of clawing and rubbing to get rid of it. When I was younger I used to spray to cover it up, but after I got distracted and sprayed on Fumeuse's leg, Whisky took me to a chemical place where strangers held me down and put me to sleep.  It took a few days after I woke up to realize that nothing happened when I squeezed to spray, but by now I've almost forgotten I ever did it.  

It seems to me like Fumeuse is going out in the evenings more than she used to.  Sometimes she comes home smelling a bit like Whisky but I know it's not Whisky's real smell.  Since she's been going out, she doesn't pick me up and squeeze me as much as she used to.  I guess she doesn't understand that I need the attention because I miss her on those long evenings alone.  Without Fumeuse I have nobody to play with, to poke at, or to defend me. 

With Fumeuse out in the evenings I venture further into our quartier, and when there are no other cats around to make me nervous, I discover that I am a good hunter.  The chase thrills me and I am in heaven when I can play with the warm squirming creatures I track down. They are mine to throw around in a juggling dance, mine to jump on, to bite, to bat across the ground, and to chew the head off when they won't play any more.  Fumeuse doesn't appreciate my talents and shouts at me if I bring one of my headless playmates up to her bed so she can enjoy the rest of my snack. 

One evening, she brought Pieds home. There was something about him I already knew because I had been picking up notes of him when Fumeuse returned from her nights out.  Pieds and I started off on the wrong foot when he shut me out of the bedroom where I usually sleep with Fumeuse.  It's our cosy place and she let him invade it.  He isn't too happy to see me at the breakfast table either and kicks me with his bare feet whenever I leave my scent on his ankles.  I have to give Fumeuse an extra dose of clinginess in the mornings to make myself feel better.  I would spray on her leg if I could, to make sure Pieds knows she is mine.

Fortunately Pieds goes out of the house every morning and comes back in the evening, but Fumeuse is less available to me because she cleans and cooks all day instead of sitting in front of the flickering light like she used to.  I do have a way of getting her attention, and that is to wait on the stairs for her to come down in the morning.  I'm always happy to see her but sometimes I get tangled in her feet and she has to grab for the bannister so she doesn't fall down the stairs.  After one of these near misses she usually gives me some extra breakfast so I know she is sorry for tripping over me.  I already found out the hard way that if I get in Pieds' way, he'd just as soon step on me as step over me.  With the clunky boots that he is in no hurry to take off when he gets home, he has crushed my toes a few times.  When he does eventually remove his boots after dinner, it is obvious why I call him Pieds.  Even for me it's too much and I have to back away.  It isn't long before I develop a real revulsion for him.  His smell makes me gag.  He unceremoniously throws me out of the house at night, picking me up under my belly and chucking me out into the back garden like I am a bag of rubbish. 

"Fermer la porte de la chambre," Fumeuse says to him, taking my side so I can stay indoors. 

"Non," he answers.  "Je ne veux pas ce diable dans la maison!"

He doesn't care if it is raining or cold, I'm not allowed in the house when he is there.  By the time I hear Fumeuse call me in the morning I am cold and starving.  I run down the path from my cubby in the garage, barely touching Fumeuse's ankles and head straight for my plate of fresh food that tastes better than I remember.  Before Pieds came along, I was used to getting some of Fumeuse's leftover ham or chicken, but that doesn't happen anymore because Pieds shouts at her if he catches her feeding me food he thinks should be his.  

Often, between my hunger and gagging at the smell of the litter box, I gulp down my food too fast and it comes up later on the floor of the front room.   Once when I vomited on the sofa, it got me locked out of the house for the whole day, and Fumeuse only let me in when Pieds went out in the evening. Lately there are more raised voices between them, especially if he comes back late and crashes around the kitchen shouting, noisier than Whisky, Bijou, and Fumeuse put together. 

I must have been sleeping very soundly when he came down the stairs that morning, because I didn't know he was there until he stepped on me.  If Fumeuse had come down first as she usually did to make coffee for Pieds, she would have seen me. I was so surprised by the pain, I thought the house had collapsed on top of me, so I let out a horrified yowl.  Pieds shouted  "Merde!" as I scrambled to my feet and shot down the stairs in spite of the pain in my back.  Luckily I was already in the kitchen when I heard the big man tumble down the rest of the stairs, so he didn't land on top of me.  Fumeuse threw me out the back door and I stayed in the garage until the comings and goings of strangers had stopped. Once everything was quiet, I checked the cat flap and found it open.  I crept back into the kitchen, half expecting a fishing net to be thrown over my head, but the place was empty.    

Fumeuse came back by herself that evening and finally gave me some proper attention, as well as feeding me chicken, something she never did while Pieds was around.  Pieds didn't come back the next day either, so Fumeuse let me go back to sleeping on her bed.  It wasn't all that restful at first as I had to keep one eye open in case the fearsome giant appeared again.  I had already eyed up the roof from the bedroom window to see where I would go if he threw me out there.  

Fumeuse fell back into her old habits and now spends most of her time in front of the flicking light, but she has more time for me now that Pieds isn't around.  I have blocked him out of my mind and hope Fumeuse has done the same. Our lives have returned to their former tranquility.  I am free to run around the house at midnight, bring flapping birds into the front hall, and eat my improved meals on a plate in the kitchen, as far from the veranda as I can get.  I still don't like to go out in the rain, but I use my litter box only when there is no choice. For some reason, Fumeuse starts to spend more of her time in the back garden, which has always been my territory.  I'm not thrilled with the changes she is making as she has destroyed my secret trails and I have to start over, but she has dug over the garden in places, which has given me better options than the litter box for where to do my business.  

The one worrying thing in my recuperated paradise is that Fumeuse is sadder than ever.  No matter how much time I spend on her lap, she sighs a lot, and never shows me her teeth. There's no desire to play left in her and no matter how much I roll around the floor in front of her like a clown, pretending to be tossing a mouse between my paws, she doesn't brighten up.  Fumeuse's sadness is a cloud over my life.     

"Qu'est-ce que tu feras Narcisse, après mon départ?" she asks one day.   I tilt my head and look at her questioningly because I have heard my name.  I hope whatever she has in mind is good, because her voice is loving and sympathetic.  It might even mean more chicken if I manage things right. Sure enough, she gives me ham and chicken this evening, but then mysteriously puts down another plate with dry food like we are expecting company.  I hope she remembers to lock the cat door when she goes to bed because I can't possibly eat everything in one go.  I didn't sleep well that night because my stomach was full to bursting.  By daylight I have to go out to do my business but the cat flap is still shut.  I go upstairs to wake Fumeuse to let her know I am ready, but the bedroom door is still shut.  The last time she shut the door was when Pieds was there so I thought she might have company though I couldn't smell a trace of anyone new. I try the cat flap again but no matter how hard I push with my head, I can't open it, so I have to resort to using the litter box.  After that, I fall asleep on the stairs, knowing that Fumeuse will wake me up whenever she comes down.  It is hunger that wakes me, and I am surprised to find myself still on the stairs.  Down in the kitchen there is no sign that Fumeuse has been there, so I scamper up to check her door again.  Still closed.  I listen.  It is quieter than usual.  Fumeuse is having a long deep sleep, something we cats rarely have. I crunch on the dry food from the plate in the kitchen and then curl up on our chair in the front room to wait.  It is dark when I wake up again and the house is still quiet.  I go up to check her room and from under the closed door, something else besides Fumeuse's usual smoky smell drifts into my nose.  I remember the smell but don't know where from, only that it is a bad thing and should be avoided.  That night, since I am shut indoors, I have a good run around.  I need the exercise after sleeping so much.  There is nothing exciting to eat anymore except the last of the dry food.  Scratching and meowing at Fumeuse's door gets no response, but I don't usually do that because she shouts when I do.  This time there is silence, and the bad smell under the door is worse.

When strange humans eventually come through the front door, I hide in the upstairs linen cupboard. There is a lot of talking and then men arrive who smell like dogs.  Fumeuse's voice isn't one of the ones I hear.  It is like she isn't even there.  When the people finally go downstairs they leave the bedroom door open so I creep in. My nose twitches from the bad smell, but when I jump on the bed, there is no sign of Fumeuse.  I hear a woman come up the stairs and when she appears at the bedroom door, she says "Te voilà," in the same voice Fumeuse would have used. She reaches her arms out to me like I should jump into them, but I am not going anywhere with her, so I leap off the bed and run toward her.  She shows me her teeth and bends to pick me up, but instead of stopping, I run between her legs and down the stairs.  The front door is still open, but though I want to run out there to find Fumeuse, I am afraid of being trapped by a crowd of reaching hands and slamming doors.  The thought of my tail being caught in a car door turns the white in me even whiter so I decide for the hideout under the sofa.   Once the people are gone, I have another sniff around Fumeuse's room but the bad smell is still too strong to stay long, so I go back down to our chair in the front room to wait.

This takes longer than I imagine, because I am hungry and the dry food is long gone.  I try to get out of the house but the cat flap is still firmly closed.  I drink water from the toilet which is beyond the pale for me, but there is nobody to see my desperation.  My litter box smells so bad I can't get close to it, but since I am not eating, I rarely have to use it.  When I lie on the floor longer than for a quick nap, I can feel my bones hard on the wood, so I spend most of my time in our chair, waiting. The moment the front door clicks open, I bolt for the front hall, through the legs of a woman who has turned to take her key out of the lock, and run down the front garden path. For the first time in my life I am happy to be under the open sky.  I don't care about other cats, I am hungry and need to find food while I still have the strength.  It is daytime so there should be more people than cats around.   

Two houses down the road, a woman is out in her garden talking to her own cat.  I'm not worried about them because I have met the woman before and let her stroke me.  I know her cat will hide behind her if I hiss at it. "Bon jour," the woman says. "Ca va?"  She bends to stroke me, and though she is not Fumeuse I let her touch my head.  

"Hungry," I meow. 

"Tu as faim?" she asks.

"Hungry," I meow again, though she seems to have already gotten the message.  Someone like Pieds would never have understood.

The woman holds up a finger that tells me to wait.  I have seen Fumeuse do that so I hope it means the same thing.  I can hardly believe my luck when she comes out with an entire chicken leg.  I take it gently from her hand, making sure my teeth are well into it.  When the pitiful specimen she calls a cat, shows interest in my treasure, I growl at him and run back to my garage with the feast.  

The lady is good for a few more treats when I see her but I never get  another entire chicken leg. I start to hunt more and to eat what I catch instead of giving it away as a gift. I find scraps from open rubbish bins in the quartier, but most of my time is spent curled up in the garage dreaming of sprawling across the floor in front of the fire, while I wait for Whisky to get up and find me something else to eat.  Sometimes I wake up cold and gulping like I have gone back to my younger days.

I patrol our street much more than I ever did, and for a while nothing changes, but one day I see lights in our house.  I hope it is Fumeuse who has come back, but what greets me at the kitchen door are two black dogs twice my size. That's the end of my hideout in the garage.  Luckily I have already marked out a young, cat-free couple down the road who occasionally give me something to eat if I catch them out in their garden.  When the dogs take over my garage, I swallow my pride, walk down to the couple's house, and using my biggest pleading eyes, ask if I can stay.  It isn't far from my old house so from there I can check once in a while to see if Whisky or Fumeuse have come home.