by Hiro Arikawa
‘Why does he like that box, I wonder?’ To Noriko, it was just a cardboard box.
‘Cats like empty boxes and paper bags. And narrow spaces, too.’
Satoru squatted down next to the cat, and Noriko noticed how thin his neck was, like an old man’s, far too small for the collar of his shirt.
And he’s still so young.
Noriko felt a sharp pain deep in her nose and hurried off to the kitchen.
As she was more than twenty-five years older than Satoru, she felt it would have made more sense if she’d gone first.
‘I’m really sorry, Aunt Noriko.’
She recalled the day of that desperate phone call. A test had revealed a malignant tumour. He needed an operation immediately.
She’d travelled to Tokyo first thing. The doctor wasn’t optimistic, and with each word he spoke, it felt as if all hope was fading.
Best to operate right away, she was told, and though they did, the operation turned out to be ineffective. Tumours had spread throughout his body and all they could do was close up the areas they’d cut open.
One year left to live.
After the surgery, Satoru had lain in the hospital ward, smiling with embarrassment.
‘I’m sorry, Aunt Noriko.’
There he goes again.
She half told him off for apologizing. Satoru said he was sorry again, and was about to apologize for saying sorry, but swallowed back the words.
Satoru decided to leave his job, move from Tokyo and live with Noriko. When he finally had to be hospitalized, Noriko would go to the hospital to look after him.
Noriko worked as a judge in Sapporo but had stepped down from her job in order to be with Satoru. Judges are constantly being transferred and, if she hadn’t stepped down, there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t be transferred just as Satoru was breathing his last. Taking advantage of her connections, she found a job as a lawyer in a law firm in Sapporo.
Satoru worried about Noriko having to change jobs, but she had been thinking all along of working as a lawyer after the mandatory retirement age for a judge. This just speeded things up a bit.
In fact, she regretted not having thought about changing jobs long ago, when she had first started looking after Satoru.
If she was able to leave her position as a judge now, she could have done so back then. Back when Satoru was at an impressionable age, she’d forced him to transfer to a new school repeatedly, yanking him away from friends and places he’d grown comfortable in.
If he’s going to leave this world at such a young age, she thought, the least I could have done was to give him a happier childhood.
Holding back the tears, she pretended to be straightening things up in the kitchen. Just then, Satoru called out to her from the other room.
‘Aunt Noriko, is it okay if we leave one small cardboard box and don’t flatten it? Nana really seems to like it.’
‘When he gets tired of it, be sure to put it away.’
She said this intentionally loudly so he wouldn’t notice the tears in her voice.
‘Did you find the parking spot okay?’ she went on.
She’d rented one space in the basement parking area for Satoru to park his van.
‘I did. Number seven, on the corner. Did you pick number seven especially for me?’
Satoru seemed so pleased it was the same number as his cat’s name.
‘Not really. I thought the corner spot would be easy to find, that’s all.’
Then she went ahead and asked a silly question.
‘So Nana’s name comes from nana – seven?’
‘That’s right. His tail is hooked like the number seven.’
Satoru went to pick Nana up and show him to his aunt, but the cat was nowhere to be seen. ‘Nana?’ he called, puzzled.
‘EEEEEK!’ This shriek emanated from Noriko. Something soft was rubbing against her calf.
She dropped the pan she was holding and it clattered loudly to the floor. She shrieked again as something small and furry scampered away.
Satoru scooped up the cat and burst out laughing. It seemed Noriko’s shriek wasn’t totally unexpected.
He spluttered painfully, he was laughing so much.
‘You don’t much like cats, but now you’ve got one in your own home.’
‘It’s not that I dislike them, I just don’t know how to handle them,’ she protested. Once, when she was little, she’d gone to stroke a stray cat and had been badly bitten. Her right hand – the one she had thoughtlessly touched the cat with – had swelled up to twice its usual size, and ever since then cats had been on her list of things she couldn’t handle.
A sudden thought occurred to her. At what point had Satoru found out about her aversion to cats?
‘But please understand that it wasn’t because of my issues with cats that I didn’t let you keep that cat all that time ago.’
‘I know. I understand.’
When she’d taken Satoru in, they had to give up the cat because her job meant she was transferred so often. Most of the housing they lived in was provided by the government and didn’t allow pets.
But if she had liked cats, would she have kept it? If she herself had been fond of animals – not just cats – would she have better understood the feelings of a child who had to be separated from his beloved pet?
When Satoru was on a junior-high-school trip to Fukuoka, he’d snuck out of the hotel one night. The teachers had caught him at the station, he was given a strict reprimand and his guardian was contacted, and when this happened Noriko had been shocked.
Had he been trying to visit the cat he’d had to give away? The distant relatives who had taken in the cat lived in Kokura, one stop away from Hakata on the Shinkansen train. Once Satoru had meekly mentioned wanting to see the cat, but she’d told him it was out of the question since she was too busy. As far as Noriko was concerned, the matter of the cat was settled. Now that they had someone they could trust to care for it, there was no need to travel so far just to see it.
Noriko felt a sudden rush of regret.
‘I’m really sorry I didn’t understand back then how much you loved that cat, Satoru. I should have taken the cat in like this for you when you were a child.’
‘Hachi was well taken care of until the very end, and that’s good enough. Because you found decent people to take care of him.’
Satoru stroked Nana, who was curled up on his lap, gently stroking each paw with the tips of his fingers and circling the central spot on his head.
‘But Nana scuppered all the relationships at every home I was trying to make for him. You’ve really helped us by letting me bring him with me now.’
Satoru held Nana’s head in two gentle hands and pointed his face towards Noriko.
‘Nana, you get on nicely with Aunt Noriko now, okay?’
YOU CAN TELL me to get on with her, but I’m still feeling a bit cross.
The reason is, Noriko is kind of rude. I’m going to live here with Satoru, and I just thought we should get on, so all I did was go ahead and say hello.
Rubbing yourself against someone’s legs is the best a cat can do when it comes to a warm greeting, so what was with the big squeal, that ‘EEEEEK!’? It gave me the fright of my life! Sounded like she’d run into a ghost on a dark night.
Well, she is taking in both Satoru and me, so I suppose I can overlook it.
Our first meeting was a disaster, but our new life with Noriko began nonetheless.
Noriko was the type of person who had no clue at all about cats, and it took us a while to find the appropriate distance to keep from each other.
‘Good morning, Nana.’
In her own way, she tried to get used to me, and she started timidly reaching out a hand to me as she said hello. But what was she thinking, suddenly touching my tail like that? I mean, unless you’re a special pal of mine, I’m not about to let anyone touch my tail. Normally, I’d give them a good whack – claws in, obviously – if they tried, but out of
respect to the head of the household I confined myself to scowling and lowering my tail out of the way.
I hoped Noriko would get the message, but every time she reached out to touch me she inevitably zoomed in on my tail.
One particular morning, Satoru happened to see this and came to my rescue.
‘You can’t do that, Aunt Noriko, touching his tail all of a sudden like that. Nana hates it.’
‘Then where should I touch him?’
‘Start with his head, or behind his ears. When he gets used to you doing that, then you can do under his chin.’
A toothbrush in his other hand, Satoru demonstrated, stroking each area in turn around my head.
‘The head, behind the ears, under the chin …’
You won’t believe this, but as Noriko repeated these instructions, she took notes!
‘Do you really need to take notes?’ Satoru laughed.
Noriko was deadly serious. ‘I don’t want to forget,’ she replied.
‘Instead of notes, it would be better to practise by stroking him.’
‘B-but it’s near his mouth.’
So what if it’s near my mouth?
‘What if he bites me?’
The impertinence! You have the nerve to speak to me like that? A gentleman who, in spite of you suddenly touching his tail, refrained from swatting you? And you aimed for my tail more than just a couple of times!
What you said just now, now that deserves a bite.
‘It’s okay. Try it.’
At Satoru’s urging, Noriko very timidly reached out a hand. If that didn’t deserve a bite, I didn’t know what did. However, I’m a grown-up cat and I restrained myself, so, everyone, feel free to shower me with praise.
Still, I now understood why she always went for my tail. To Noriko’s way of thinking, it was the furthest point from my mouth. Though, in actual fact, all animals will react more quickly if you touch their tails or back rather than hold your hand out right in front of them.
‘He’s so soft.’
I’d always prided myself on having fur as soft as velvet.
‘See? He likes it.’
To be honest, Noriko’s touch was awkward and not all that pleasant, but to help train her I was quite willing to pretend that it was. Plus, I certainly didn’t want her targeting my tail each and every time.
‘Eeek!’
Noriko screeched and pulled back her hand. I shrank back, too. What on earth?
‘His throat! The bone in his throat is going up and down. Yuck!’
This is impertinence squared! The way you touch me doesn’t even feel that good. I’m only purring to make you feel better about it!
‘Not to worry,’ Satoru explained. ‘When he feels good, he purrs.’
As a rule, that is. This is an exception. I’m forcing myself here to give you a treat, so don’t you forget it.
‘But it’s coming from all the way down his throat,’ Noriko said.
Noriko rubbed my throat with the side of her finger.
‘Where did you think it would come from, if not the throat?’
‘I thought it came from the mouth,’ she replied.
Purring from my mouth? What are you, an imbecile?! Excuse me – the shock has made my language deteriorate. A thousand pardons.
Noriko stopped stroking me, so I stopped purring and popped into the cardboard box that had been placed specially for me in a corner of the living room.
This cardboard box that Satoru had left out for me fitted nice and tight and was really quite cosy.
‘Satoru, how long do we have to keep that box there?’
‘Nana likes it, so leave it there for a while.’
‘But I don’t like it; it feels like we’re not totally unpacked. I mean, I bought him a nice cat bed and a scratching post.’
A box is totally different from a bed and a post, I’ll have you know.
In this way, Noriko grew used to the presence of a cat in her house.
‘How’s this, then?’
Noriko said this the other day while bringing in what I took to be a replacement for the cardboard box, which by now was looking pretty shabby, what with me sharpening my claws on it.
She’d taken another cardboard box, opened it up and made it wider and shallower, then reinforced it with tape.
‘This one is newer and wider,’ she said. ‘I’ve made it with two layers of cardboard so it’ll last longer when he sharpens his claws on it. So what do you say to getting rid of that tattered old box? The corners are all bent out of shape where Nana’s been sleeping.’
‘Hmmm … I’m not sure.’ Satoru shot me a glance. What do you think?
I yawned back. Sorry. Zero interest. Noriko just doesn’t get it. A wide box spoils all the fun; it offers none of the charms of being inside a box.
Ignoring Noriko’s creation, I slipped inside the old box, and Noriko looked deflated. Satoru laughed. ‘Maybe it was better not to alter the box. Next time we get a cardboard box, how about just leaving it as it is?’
‘But I did all that work on it.’
A waste of time. Cats the world over prefer to discover things they like on their own and rarely go for anything that’s been provided for them.
For a while after this, Noriko’s box sat there forlornly beside the old box, but before long it was put out with the recycling.
Satoru began to visit the hospital nearly every day. It was nearby, within walking distance, but he’d go there first thing in the morning and often not get back home until evening. Maybe there was lots of queuing, or the tests and treatment took a long time.
Satoru had lots of marks from all the injections on his right arm, bluish-black bruises that didn’t fade, and soon his left arm was the same. I only get one vaccination shot a year, and I hate it, so I was amazed that Satoru could put up with getting a million of them.
And yet, no matter how often he went to the hospital, his smell didn’t get any better. As several dogs and cats had told me earlier, that doesn’t smell like he’s got much longer scent was only getting stronger.
No creatures ever get better once they have that smell.
Sometimes, Noriko cried in secret, weeping gently beside the kitchen sink or in the bathroom. The only one who knew about it was me. She forced herself never to cry in front of Satoru, but she didn’t think to include a cat in the equation.
When I rubbed against her legs after that, she didn’t scream any more. And I was beginning to feel her appreciation when she fondled the back of my neck.
The town was completely white with snow, the mountain ashes that lined the streets even redder as they endured the freezing cold.
‘Nana, let’s go for a walk.’
Satoru’s strength had faded, so much so that on the days when he went to the hospital he’d sleep for the rest of the day, but still he never missed out on our walks together.
It was freezing and slippery, but except for when he was at the hospital longer than usual or when there was a snowstorm, we went for a walk every day.
‘You’ve never been through a winter in a place with so much snow, have you, Nana?’
The street was icy and the pads of my feet skidded on it. Icicles hung from the eaves of the buildings. The snow pushed up by the snowploughs looked like millefeuille pastry piled up along the streets.
Sparrows huddled in rows on the power lines. Dogs cheerfully ploughed their way through snow banks in the park. Cats in the town quietly slipped into the few spots that would keep them out of the cold: sheds, garages, warm kitchens.
There were still a lot of things the two of us had never seen before.
‘My, what a cute cat. Out for a walk?’
It was a bright, clear day, and a charming old lady at the park had called out to us.
‘What’s his name?’
‘He’s called Nana. After the shape of his tail, like a seven.’
Satoru hadn’t changed. He was still the same cat-loving guy, intent on explaining the origins of my name to e
very passer-by.
‘He’s very well behaved, isn’t he, walking beside you like that?’ said the old lady.
‘He certainly is.’
After we’d said goodbye, Satoru picked me up, his fingers, no longer strong and broad but thinning and fragile, finding their way around my belly.
‘You are very well behaved, so I know you’ll be a good boy from now on.’
From now on? When hadn’t I been a good boy? Kind of impolite to have to make sure of that now, don’t you think?
The streets were filled with festive lights, and, as if that weren’t enough, Christmas adverts spilled out of TVs everywhere. In the evening, Satoru and Noriko ate Christmas cake, and they gave me some tuna sashimi, to which I was more than a little partial. The next morning, all their energy turned to preparing for New Year.
On New Year’s Day, they gave me some chicken breast, but after sniffing it a few times I kicked sand on top of it. There was no actual sand there, of course, so it was only air sand.
‘What’s wrong, Nana? Don’t you like it?’
Satoru looked puzzled. I would have loved to have eaten it, but it smelled funny.
‘Aunt Noriko, is this chicken the same kind you always give him?’
‘Well, given the occasion, I splashed out. I steamed some special local free-range chicken.’
‘Did you add something to it when you steamed it?’
‘I poured in a bit of sake so it wouldn’t smell so much.’
Humph. I rest my case, Noriko.
‘Sorry, but it seems like Nana can’t eat it because it smells like sake now.’
‘Really? It was only a couple of drops.’
‘Cats have an excellent sense of smell.’
‘I thought that was dogs? Six thousand times more sensitive than humans, they say.’
Noriko’s not a bad sort, but at times like this she tends to overthink things. It’s true that dogs are known for their great sense of smell, but that doesn’t mean cats don’t have a good nose. I mean, no one needs a sense of smell six thousand times better than humans to discern that sake has been sprinkled on a chicken breast.
‘Cats are way more sensitive to smell than humans as well.’
