My train of thought came to an abrupt end when another bullet knocked a great hole in a low branch as I brushed past it in my headlong flight. Flying splinters struck my head; coarse wood dust got into my eyes and blurred my vision. Now that I was stumbling clumsily about like a clown in grotesquely large shoes, the shooting had stopped. Which could only mean that the marksman was reloading.
I saw the vague outline of a line of bushes some way off. There was a gap in it, and a bright light lured me that way. As I was still wondering whether to try going through this loophole, I heard the next shot. This time the projectile singed a small tuft of fur on my left side, and before I could immerse myself any further in the decision-making process I was sprinting for the bright gap as if someone had stuck a hot needle up my arse. The hunter just kept on firing, but I didn't care about that. The one thought in my mind was to get through the gate to light and safety.
When I finally disappeared into the bushes and came out again the other side, I found myself taking a crash course in a kind of reality to which I had previously been a stranger. That is, of course I'd seen such idiocies of Homo sapiens in literally concrete form, but not personally, only as what I took to be part of a particular horror film which appeared on the small screen with monotonous regularity. As my eyes gradually cleared again, they saw a spanking clean six-lane motorway, and on it a river of metal without any distinct beginning or end, engaged in pointless, compulsive movement. So I'd thought myself in Arcadia only a few minutes ago? Sadly, I had to admit that the Garden of Eden had all the cheery ambience of a rifle range, and if you wanted to escape there were dangerous metal monsters just waiting to flatten any deserter. A trap if ever I saw one.
I got up on my hind legs, leaned on the barrier beside the hard shoulder, and watched the river thundering past for a moment. Obviously the people who built this thing had never for a moment envisaged any kind of living creature but motorists existing in their wonderful landscape. How a person on four legs was to cross this infernal road where vehicles were shooting to and fro the whole time without being turned into pinkish entrails pâté was a mystery, and suggested that the builders had included mass murder in their calculations. I wondered where all those cars were going - or were they on their way back from somewhere? I thought of a stupid human saying: 'There's always something going on wherever we aren't.' Humans seemed to act on that precept, forever chasing happiness like hyper-mobile Sisyphuses and never getting within touching distance, rather as if they were setting out to cross the rainbow.
The next bullet hit the barrier and exploded with a terrifying screech. So the bushes behind me didn't obstruct the marksman's view, as I'd hoped; on the contrary, they were an ideal canvas on which the sun showed me in silhouette. Startled into movement by the shock, I ran into the road without thinking and raced across. I hadn't really expected the monsters roaring by to stop and wave me on in a friendly manner, but I had a vague memory of hearing, more than once, that even the most macho road-hog will step on the brakes, purely as a reflex action, when he sees something unexpected in his way. Lies, all lies! A lorry thundered towards me at full speed, and before I knew it all its hundreds of tons were passing over me like a derailed goods train. Pressed flat as a pancake against the asphalt, I didn't move, only a hair's breadth away from total derangement. When the colossus had thundered on, I tried a frantic sprint for the central reservation of the motorway, but I hadn't anticipated the nippy sports car which was just overtaking the lorry. The sight of this monster on wheels burned itself on my retina just as the sight of the furious bull is burnt on the eye of the incautious torero. It was an amazing machine, red as blood, paintwork gleaming, full of unbridled power and shaped like a steel dinosaur's egg. And as I stood there, rooted to the spot in awe and horror and staring at my executioner, I suddenly knew with total certainty that this masterpiece of engineering was Lucifer in person, bent on annihilating God's creation in the most brutal manner possible. I held my breath, aware that I was about to meet my Maker in order to ask him the reasons for such destructive-ness in person.
But God obviously makes exceptions, at least where I'm concerned. Someone or something struck me, and I actually felt the impact going right through my body, flinging me forwards to the edge of the central reservation. Before I could give the red scourge a farewell glance it had disappeared again in search of new victims. I was beginning to feel numb, and I'm not too sure how I managed to cross the other half of the motorway. However, one last record-breaking leap took me over the barrier on the far side.
Even while I was still in the air, a strange sensation that I was moving in slow motion came over me. I felt a bubble of euphoria burst inside me, setting off shudders of thankfulness in spite of my physical aches and pains. I'd cocked a snook at malevolent Fate yet again. Things could only improve from now on. But when I looked down in free flight, so as to coordinate my landing the other side of the barrier, I was sorry to see that it was still going to be uphill work, only uphill work going downhill, as it were, because who'd have guessed that the metal barrier beside the road had a steep slope beyond it, almost a precipice, going at least fifteen metres down? It looked as if it were padded with foliage, but there were numbers of young evergreens waiting for me like a fakir's bed of nails. In a tight corner like this no doubt James Bond would have plucked a parachute from his shoe, but yours truly had to make do with a hoarse yell for help and put his faith, such as it is, in what's said to be the most flexible set of bones and muscles in the world. My euphoria changed to sheer panic while I was still in flight, well before I came down in the vale of woe beneath me.
It wasn't surprising that I landed on all four paws as usual, but on this occasion I had a good deal of trouble in spite of our miraculous natural gift. I couldn't get even the slightest foothold on the ground, which sloped so steeply that it was like a terrifying slide. I turned a somersault the moment I touched the ground and then rolled on down that murderous incline, screeching and uttering delirious prayers. As I went down I collided with several young fir trees, which couldn't be expected to refrain from pushing their sharp needles and branches into my coat, like sloshed medieval soldiers armed with sharp spears making someone run the gauntlet. Ecologists don't tell you a lot about this sort of sadism on Mother Nature's part: such was my last thought before I finally came to rest in a bed of bracken, pricked and stung like an inexpert beekeeper. Not only did I exercise the playing-dead reflex, I decided it was the only proper life-style. Good heavens, did all forest-dwelling creatures have such an exciting time every day of their lives? Compared to these stirring events, my entire existence to date had been nothing but deep sleep. Not for the first time since my rash flight, I wondered whether the Almighty really had to come down quite so heavily on my aversion to certain amputations. Mightn't he let something nice happen to me for a change, even if it was only five minutes' rest ...?
He did, and in a more spectacular way than I could have hoped for in my wildest dreams.
Her voice was the bewitching hymn of unfathomable temptation addressed by Venus to her devoted servants. Oh, if only I could express that sweet complaint in words, if only I could convey the electrifying sensations that overcame me as I listened to her beguiling song! I was lying in the soft bed of bracken, all four legs outstretched, like a stuffed replica of myself, whimpering softly on account of my fearsome injuries, when the Eve of my desires raised her yearning voice. From the very first I knew that this particular call could not be made by a member of my own species, and yet there was something familiar linking it to the love-songs of our own queens, an unmistakable similarity of melody and tone. The difference lay in the dark depths of the singer's lament, interrupted now and then by an awesome hiss; it seemed to come from a world full of promise and yet still virgin. There was something mystical and wild about that voice, and something very, very demanding.
Instantly the throbbing pain in my limbs seemed about as important as the flatulence of a worm in Kathmandu. I jumped to my
feet and looked hopefully around. However, the jungle of bracken grew above my head and obstructed my view, so I prowled away with the requisite caution in the direction from which I thought the voice was coming. On this side of the motorway the forest was rather different from the moist area on the other side; its varied flora consisted largely of oaks and hornbeams. These trees were stalwart ancients whose branches had been allowed to grow unimpeded over the centuries. The love-call of my phantom diva echoed on and on in this labyrinth, which was relatively dark because of the rampant growth of the trees, and for a moment I thought it was just elves playing a trick of sound on me. Perhaps elves really did live in the forest, as the old wives' tales claim. But then two fronds of bracken parted like the curtains in a theatre, and I saw the most desirable female form ever brought forth by the feline creation.
She lay semi-recumbent on a heap of leaves, like a royal sovereign giving audience, and as chance would have it the trees grew in a ring around the spot, forming a natural pavilion. A single ray of sun penetrated a gap in the leaf canopy that was its roof and fell on my forest queen like a spotlight directed on the star of the show, making her resemble an optical illusion with a bright aura. However, I was brought back to earth by realising that this was my first-ever meeting with a member of the species most closely related to us, the European Felis silvestris.(8) We of the domesticated kind speak of them respectfully as the Wild Ones. These forest-dwelling Felidae surely have to bear the heaviest cross of us all, and there are very strange rumours about them. Their extraordinarily secretive life-style, which makes it difficult even for scientists to keep them under observation, accounts for the name of 'grey ghosts' that country folk often give them.
I knew all this about the Wild Ones because I'd studied the scientific literature on the subject in the past. At the time I happened to be going through a depressing mid-life crisis, as they call it, and was feeling rather cut off from my roots, so I embarked on this piece of research in an attempt to find my way back to them. But no book in the world could have shown me the overwhelming magnificence of one of these wild cousins of mine in real life. The basic colour of her soft fur was grey tabby with yellowish lights in it. Her powerful head held a pair of penetrating, light green eyes which registered the slightest movements in her vicinity with the sensitivity of a seismograph. My belle de jour was about a quarter again as big as me, with a much larger and bushier tail. At present she was rolling lasciviously on the ground and washing her paws now and then before continuing her siren song. I suspected that it wasn't pure chance I found her in this state of extreme excitement: there was a trace of blood and an almost invisible tuft of brown hair at the corner of her mouth. It looked as if she had been hunting unsuccessfully - her prey had probably managed to get away with a slight injury - and was thus denied the release from stress she longed for. So her fierce hunting instincts had changed to an urgent sexual need. I was faced yet again with the curious interplay of aggression and physical passion among our ranks.
Then she spotted me. Our eye contact was like the collision of two suns careering through space, uniting in a flow of boiling lava. No expression of surprise crossed her face when she saw me, only a satisfied smile as if her trap had finally snapped shut. I could smell her delightful odour some metres off, and the unbounded surge of my instincts made me feel I'd faint dead away. I had to mate with this grey ghost on the spot, even if she gave me a bloody nose for it.
'Welcome, little prince!' she began, narrowing her eyes until they were mere slits with the pupils glinting through them. Then she began rolling very slowly on her own axis on the ground, watching me closely all the while.
'Aren't you afraid all alone in this dark forest, so far from your palace?' she inquired. 'Or are you mingling with the people in the time-honoured way, looking for the prettiest girls in your kingdom? You're in luck! Here's your most loyal subject at your command.'
'Hold on,' I said hesitantly. 'For one thing I'm not a prince, and for another you're no one's subject, my dear! No, you're a Wild One, and the most enchanting Wild One I've ever seen - though I have to admit you're also the first.'
She smiled, purring, and for a moment it looked as if her irises and pupils would fade out entirely, making way for a turbulent turquoise sea.
'Whereas I'd call you about as wild as a dachshund, little prince. If you weren't so sweet, I could fancy teaching you a few wild ways. As it is, why not let nature and nurture unite? My name's Alcina. What's yours?'
'Francis - but my true name is Passion! And believe it or not, Alcina, but the real reason you see me here at all is because I insisted on hanging on to my nu ... er, to the inextinguishable wildness within me. You've set my wild heart aflame, princess, and may all the fire in it now flow into you ...'
I was whispering these sweet nothings like an oily Latin lover as my paws, almost without my noticing, stealthily brought me prowling towards her. I didn't know if she realised what my stop-and-go tactics were in aid of, but I was going to considerable trouble to move a bit closer whenever she turned her head away. In a very short time I was right next to my self-styled loyal subject, drinking in all the concentrated force of the impression made on me by the sight and scent of her. The odours emanating from her glands drove me positively mad with desire, and her sinuous movements almost had me flinging myself on her like some clumsy beginner. Only her aggressive spitting, growling and snapping prevented me from losing control entirely and getting my coat decorated with a pattern of painful love-bites. Such behaviour may seem inappropriate to the act of mating, but it's normal in queens on heat, something I have often regretted in view of the positively submissive sexual attitude of the human female. However, Alcina's perilous Black Widow charms drove my desire to incalculable heights quite new to me. What I intended to do, or rather what the urge which had taken possession of me intended to do, entailed considerable danger. I was going to mate for the first time with a beauty not of my own species and whose habits were entirely unknown to me. But carnal lust is like a torpedo: once it's fired you can't bring it back and it won't rest until it has reached its target, even at the price of self-destruction. I might be about to unite with an angel of death, but I braced myself and then, in defiance of my previous experience of love, I made a rush at her.
It was my good luck that I caught her just as she was finishing a roll, so that she'd seen my attack only out of the corner of her eye - and my bad luck that as she was lying on her back she had all four paws free to rake my face into bloody furrows with her sharp claws. I should have known better, dammit! She hadn't even pressed her body flat to the ground, let alone swung her tail over to the side to expose the glowing gateway of passion. Perhaps my rash action didn't come into the category of stupidity after all, but was just the randiness of a dirty old man. Well, anyway, I had to make the best of the situation I'd set up. We went for each other with our claws, but though stabbing pains pierced my body, erotic frenzy brought me to a state of ecstatic anaesthesia in which I relished every stab as the sharp spice to an exquisite meal. Meanwhile I could smell her hot breath as it came out in gasps through her shining incisors. It smelled of burning sulphur, as if her passion would spew fire at the whole world, it smelled of the harsh winds of the savannah - and it smelled of blood. It seemed she'd been able to do more damage than I'd thought to the prey that got away. Locked together like two wrestlers in mortal combat, we were now performing a breakneck dance of dark lusts which showed love in its true aspect: an eternal struggle for release. I tried to grasp the scruff of her neck in my teeth and exert the carrying grip that would make her freeze. However, as her blows and bites grew fiercer, making my body begin to feel as if it were being dissected alive, cold rage came over me. I flung myself on her with a shrill cry, forced her to the ground and sank my teeth into the scruff of her neck - just far enough for her to feel them prick, but of course no further. She immediately gave vent to an imploring whimper, raised her rump in the air, swung her tail over to one side and showed me
her precious treasure.
We mated before the eyes of the ancient gods, to the accompaniment of jungle drums and the call of grotesque, curved horns. Those gods, who needed no cathedrals to make themselves heard, blessed us with a sense of total union. We merged with one another wholly, at the same time merging with the forest, the light, the life present in every atom of our surroundings. All her passionate whimpering beneath me, all my groans of bliss, all around us that was cracking, chirping, or even just existing in silence, all this swelled to a river of sound that made our inmost being tremble. The old gods without human features, gods who grew horns and bristles, gods who grunted and squeaked, the true gods of the wilderness urged our bodies on: more, more, faster, faster! At the moment of climax we died, becoming earth, plants, water. Yet at the same time we were reborn many times over through the miracle of impregnation, as creatures superior to all others, with the strongest muscles and tautest sinews, the most exquisite bones and the purest blood. We ourselves became those primeval gods to whom sacred nature really belongs.(9)
Felidae on the Road - Special U.S. Edition Page 10
