SALVE ROMA! A Felidae Novel - U.S. Edition

by Akif Pirincci

  But now I thirsted for my beloved Sancta, whom I had to deliver on my promise. I guessed that Gustav would be busy at the Forum Romanum for another two, maybe even three months, so that I could be busy with my Latin chattering goddess the whole summer long. And I didn’t want to be called Francis the smart-ass, if I wouldn’t be able to tell Gustav by body language that I, Francis, yes his Francis, wanted to spend my life with this female alone for ever and always. O God, in the end I’d even long for something that hadn’t been invented for my kind at all: Marriage! Brrrr!

  However, time would tell. The air smelled like freshly picked lemons and the fear-sweat of Roman mice, which had probably heard my call already. My vacation lay before me like a dark horse, and the future was as appetizing as a flush plate of pagliata, coratella and trippa. I opened my eyes and gazed directly at the bright morning sun, so much it hurt. And I yelled at the eternal city of my dreams: Salve Roma!

  Want to read the sequel?

  FELIDAE

  FELIDAE ON THE ROAD

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  Cat Sense

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  Appendix

  1. For a long time, our species was able to brag about having a naturally unique extra skill: In the fashion of a fortuneteller, who looks into a crystal ball, humans anticipate the future by pre-planning. Organisms, which are more humble intelligence-wise, don’t seem to ever think outside the horizon of the current moment though and appear to be slavishly fixated on the present. Those parts of the brain, which were most developed at the evolution of humans, actually are occupied with the planning of future projects. So it was a lesson in modesty, when it turned out a while ago that also many of our fellow creatures have the mental warehouse for futurism and making plans for the future. African chimps for example sometimes undertake very long hikes to collect granite stones, which they need to crack certain savory nuts. Behind this are not only predictive thinking and the understanding of the tool, but also the ability to keep an abstract goal (finding nuts) in mind, while there must be altogether different challenges (finding their way) coped with first.

  Meanwhile scientists have found the sense for future times in other animals, too. For example in African elephants, which go on pilgrimages to faraway waterholes, long before they become very thirsty. Or in Eurasian jays, which bury food storages for imminent intermittent starvation with surprising flexibility. Jeffrey M. Masson, a famous psychoanalyst and cat expert from Berkeley, California, attributes »strategic« thinking to our cats also. Cats sometimes poise in front of a mousehole for a very long time. This gesture actually is an epitome of the core of the feline character. All mental and brain processes of the cat are highly geared to the needs of a solitary predator, which needs to analyze the hunting situation very quickly and always has to be one step ahead of the prey. Even when they lay dozing next to the heater, cats now and then bob up for no clear reason and follow some cryptical impulse. For instance, it might happen that they suspectingly inspect their food bowl (without eating) and then happily go back to the arms of Morpheus, if the world is in order. If one heads the animal off and distracts it with some toys, before it can actually put its plan into action, the plan often falls into oblivion – and the cat goes back to sleep without having achieved anything. However, this means that the animal only had a lax idea in its mind and wasn’t driven by strong environmental stimuli or intensive instincts.

  Once a cute cat strayed to the analyst Masson. At night the visitor, who seemed to like it at the Masson’s, made himself comfortable in the host’s lap. »The astonishing fact about this is that it was a scam, a plan, which he must have hatched in his sweet little cat heart.« After a week when it was clear him that he was allowed to stay, he stopped this kind of »flirting« and never demeaned himself to do it again.

  Literature: Jeffrey Masson: The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey Into the Feline Heart. Ballantine Books 2003

  2. Noah invited the animals to his ark in pairs. Later, one female and one male each were supposed to raise a family under God’s watch. What Noah didn’t think of in the heat of the moment: A lot of those couple on the ship might have been homosexual. Although a naturalist observed homosexual sex between birds already two hundred years ago, for ages scientists smothered, concealed or simply ignored this »forbidden love« among animals due to prudery. »It is clearly proven«, the anthropologist Volker Sommer from Gottingen says, »that all variants of homosexual behavior among humans can be found in animals, too. Many worms and sheep, seagulls and guinea pigs – often additionally to a heterosexual main interest – show additional gay behavior and very openly practice things, which are still forbidden under penalty of death in Islamic theocracies.

  In having sex with »their own kind« males indeed are dominant in nature, but also many females are cut from the same cloth. Female dolphins push their fins into their partner’s genital slit, male bonobos suck at another male’s penis, and manatees give their partners a fin job, due to default of hands. From occasional escapades through to a livelong relationship, scientists have observed everything. Homosexual herring gulls and penguin couples actually remain faithful to each other their whole life. 450 animal species were caught red-handed at the »gay research« by scientists. This is a tidy sum, as actually behavioral scientists by now have only soundly observed about 2000 of the approximately multiple million animal species in this world.

  In the face of so much animal homoerotism our cat doesn’t stand apart. Even both cat sexes have the aptitude of having a sexual role swap at least sometimes. Among a dozen tomcats one can always find a couple, which have a partiality for other males. Not only female house cats, also a couple of their big and wild relatives have been observed at lesbian flirts. According to Paul Leyhausen, the Konrad Lorenz of cat science, the gay coitus is a perfect copy of the heterosexual cat love except from the penetration.

  Nowadays, the belief that the passive female role is totally unacceptable for tomcats is also confuted. Sometimes tomcats actually do slip into a female role when having sex, they just have to be in the mood, in fact outside of a rape scenario. But even this happens. We know it from countless American police and prison movies. Strange tomcats, who are put into a cage with an established cat of the house, often become victims of sexual violence.

  There are countless theses on why homosexuality is firmly fixed in the world of animals, although it does harm to the spreading of genetic material. The American biologist Bruce Bagemihl hypothesizes most provocatively, that it is nonsense to speculate about a rational sense when seeing a gay giraffe or a lesbian squirrel. In fact, he says, homosexuality is just an expression of nature’s joy of playing – nothing more.

  3. Although the physical premises exist, it remains an unanswered question, if cats reach an orgasm during sex. To be precise, scientists still don’t know when and why nature presents their creatures with the »bonus« of a sexual climax. Principally, it is absolutely possible to breed without pleasurable sensation – just like some clerics would prefer. »I kept watching mating carpenter bees«, the American zoologist John Alcock explains, »but I can’t see whether they feel anything comparable to our idea of joy.« The simpler the creatures, the harder it gets to read ecstasy or joy of love in their reactions. The problems are even bigger than for a human Casanova, who already needs to rely on the woman’s statements.

  At any rate most mammals show striking interest in sex and are willing to bear exertions in order to get it. The best sign for it being fun for them. With its whole habitus the male rat creates the impression of having a fantastical orgasm when having sex. After the ejaculation it thrusts hard another time, slowly gets up and its eyes glaze over – which only leaves little room for doubt. So most scientists believe that at least male mammals – including tomcats – scale the height of sexual pleasure. In tribal history it was actually very useful to pour the increasing greed for orgasms down the male animals throat. Because males are capable of increasing their genetic fitne
ss and father more viable descendants, if they lustfully jump at every chance of sex. Females, who bear the brunt of procreation, would be ill-advised, if they got involved in every noncommittal romantic adventure.

  Whether evolution sweetens the »breeding work« of female mammals with the ultimate gift of lust, namely orgasm, as well, strikes many scientists as doubtful. »The female orgasm seems to be notably absence with most species«, the American psychologist Roy E. Baumeister states, »and evidence suggest that male animals get more lust out of sex than females.« After all women can be fertilized without orgasm or any pleasant feeling. The autonomic nervous system of male mammals almost does somersault, when the semen shoots out of the erect penis with euphoric twitches. For example, the blood pressure of dogs heavily increases at the moment of ejaculation. The blood pressure of the bitch does show some fluctuation, but none is at all comparable to the sudden rise, which can be registered in the male dog at the moment of ejaculation. In the animal kingdom a point of culmination of arousal, which also marks the event of orgasm in women, could only be found in female apes.

  In the past, some scientists considered the possibility that the bizarre postcoital behavior of female cats hints at an orgiastic experience. Directly after the generic »quickie« cats utter an explosive cry and oppose their »benefactor« with sudden anger. In the early Middle Ages Arabian scientists concluded from this, that the tomcats merges acrid ejaculate into his playmate. »She is in great pain because the sperm cauterizes, and she screams until she has ejected it.« Then the female cat wriggles heavily and welters almost spastically. Repeatedly, she licks her vulva, and the female won’t let herself get mounted until the strange »postlude« is ended. If this behavior really reflects a climax of arousal, which matches the male orgasm, remains doubtful though. The sudden change of mind might rather have another reason. The tomcat’s penis is riddled with many thorns on its tip, which probably cause a painful irritation inside the vagina. This tractation triggers the so-called »induced« ovulation in the female cat.

  4. In regard to the reproduction skills of cats, older men of our species can easily take a leaf out of their book. Tomcats stay in the »breeding business« up until old age, at which many grown men are able to fight gravity only with the help of Viagra. Older female cats stay fertile until a point in life, which women of our species don’t even reach with the most advanced reproduction technologies. There are proven cases of tomcats, which successfully bred even at the high age of sixteen years. This matches a human age of 78 years. Female cats still have provably conceived kittens at the age of 12. This equates to 65 human years. This extreme fertility allows a female to conceive about 35 litters – or converted – 144 kittens in an average lifetime.

  In contrary to the cat – and to our closest relatives in the world of animals – human women lose their ability to reproduce long before their bodies lapse due to aging. Most women are still so tough at the time of their so-called »menopause« that they could easily live as much more years as they lived before they reached the climacteric period. In the animal world the fertile years of the females only end close to their biological end, at least most of the times. The invention of the menopause, namely a »post-reproductional« phase of life, poses the evolutionary biologists a giant riddle: If evolution really benefits the survival of those individuals, who successfully pass their genes on, why do women stop passing their genes ahead of schedule?

  As early as the 1950s, evolutionary biologists presented an explanation, which was adopted in literature under the name of »grandmother hypothesis«. According to this, it doesn’t »pay« for women of a certain age to conceive additional children, because pregnancy comes with to many risks. Hyper-mortality in old age also creates the risk that those late-born children become orphans. So it’s more useful for the maintenance of one’s own genes to invest into already existing children and grandchildren.

  As plausible as this explanation may sound, for a long time there was no empirical support at all. This situation only changed when anthropologists studied a tribal of hunters and gatherers in Tanzania – the Hadza people. Their way of living may be seen as the closest approach to the human state of nature. The scientists found out that the grandmothers collected surprisingly much food for their grandchildren and took the pressure off their daughters in regard to search for food. The support enabled the daughters to conceive more children in less time. Basically, the grandmothers followed the genetic egoism, as their own genes survived in their daughters and grandchildren.

  But without aiming for this purposely, with that strategy grandmas probably started a sheer »bluff failure« in tribal history – at least that’s what anthropologists believe: As women grew older and older, the human childhood prolonged, and with that the phase, in which humans gather knowledge. This caused the evolution of bigger brains, which enabled our ancestors to develop language, tools and culture. A totally different theory says that there are no fertile grandmas among us humans, because their fertility would have caused trouble in our evolutionary history. For example they would have survived their husbands and would have attracted other men due to their fertility. But with that they would have endangered their already existing children. It is a fact that among primitive peoples many stepchildren become victims of infanticides.

  5. As a matter of fact, cats and Christians should have gotten along very well: They both had immigrated to Europe from the same corner of the world, and they both had made a very good start. The house cats shared the retreats with the first pious hermits and kept the mice away from the food. In the bible itself felines – except for lions – are not mentioned. They are said to have existed in the original transcripts, but were cut out later. As the saying goes, the Jews held the sacral role against the cats, which they played among their foes in Ancient Egypt.

  In the beginning early Christianity was in favor of cats. According to a pious legend, in the year 600 a wandering monk received audience by Pope Gregory I. in Rome. In order to test the monk’s obedience, the pope ordered him to kill the most valuable he got. At that the monk pulled a small cat out of the sleeve of his frock. The pope stopped him with a wave of his hand and also pulled a cat out of his sleeve. Above all, the poor people believed to the seal of Mother Mary in the »M« on the forehead of many tabby cats. Also, the cat was the only pet allowed in some nunneries. In pious paintings a kitten always accompanies the Virgin Mary.

  But in the early Middle Ages when the influence of the heathen gods finally vanished and Christianity began its historical triumph, a fatal change of mind happened. All of a sudden the churchly thirst for power arose to exterminate all leftovers of atheist folk belief without mercy. The cats were hunted extremely grimly, because they were connected to the proscribed fertility cult. The same animal, which had been the perfect symbol of the female and the maternal, now was charged with the reputation of a »hellspawn«. From this time one the icy wind of persecution blew at her.

  In the middle of the 13th century, Brother Bertold of Regensburg, a Franciscan friar, preached from the pulpit that the cats’ breath spread the plague. At the same time he got exited about apostates: »Der Ketzer heißt deshalb Ketzer, weil er in seiner Art keinem Tier so gleicht wie der Katze! (The heretic is called heretic because his behavior reminds a lot of cats – the German word »Ketzer« (heretic) sounds very similar to the German word »Katze« (cat).)« For cats the peaceful times of happy mouse-hunting and the cozy nap at the warm heater were well and truly over, when in 1484 Pope published the fatal bull: »Summis desiderantes affectibus«. With this he mandated the persecution and killing of all cats and those who harbored cats. According to the church’s opinion, the latter were wizards and witches, who were in league with the devil.

  Between the 12th and the 14th century all miscreant sects were accused of worshipping the devil in the shape of a big black cat. Faith communities like the Templar and Cathari were villainized, as they were said to be hold unspeakable rituals, which colorably led to cannibalism, sac
rifice of infants, excessive orgies and last but not least the solemn anal kiss of a black cat. Together with heretics and »witches« cats were condemned to hell and held up to the inquisition. With the rise of the witch-hunt, which lasted for about 300 years and reached its high-point in the 16th and 17th century, also countless cats lost their lives due to fire, sword or other gruesome acts. Often the possession of a cat was enough to be called a witch and be sentenced, especially when the cat was black and the owner was old and fragile.

  On holidays notably sadistic »exorcisms« were done to cats. Alone or together with witches, infanticides, bandits or the wicked they were hung or tied up in sacks and drowned. They were coated with pitch, got their ears and tails cut off and were thrown into boiling water. At the Feast of St. John the Baptist cats often were put into a basket, which was solemnly set on fire by the bishop. In Ypern in Western Flanders it was a common ritual to throw living cats from the steeple during the »cat month« February. At some remote period this spectacle turned into an unburdened funfair.