“Ukwbyg!!! Jqhsdp!!!” they cried. “Ukwbyg!!! Jqhsdp!!!”
Except for a few cats with a specialist’s knowledge of, and interest in, languages, most cats couldn’t tell you how to say “Hello” in Rat, let alone something like “Tomorrow! Victory!”—which, dear, heart-palpitating reader, is precisely what the rats were chanting: “Ukwbyg!!! Jqhsdp!!!”
But Dragan was no fool, even if he acted the part from time to time. He listened hard and made a mental note of their anthemic chant:
“Ukwbyg!!! Jqhsdp!!!”
You see, there was one wild cat in the town of Piran who would be able to translate. His name was Leopold, and he was a Japanese Bobtail cat from Vienna. Among his other talents, Leopold was a philologist, which means that he was an expert in languages. In Human, he could understand and mimic German, Slovene, Italian, Turkish, and English. He knew snippets of many animal languages too. There was just one problem with consulting Leopold. He was an outcast, at least as far as Felicia was concerned.
SUFFICE IT TO SAY, AMONG ALL THE POTENTIAL DANGERS faced by the wild cats of Piran, including the maître d’ and that nasty hoodlum Fisko, there was one that they would ignore at their peril. That danger, of course, was the rats of Piran. And where, you might ask, were they? Well, the answer to that is that they were everywhere.
Dozens, nay, hundreds of wild rats slept in underground burrows they had dug themselves in the hills above Piran. Some were next to villas like the one Fisko lived in. Some stowed away in fishing boats and lived an adventurous-sounding life going from port to port, with Piran as their base. Not that many of them would have identified their lives as adventurous, or exciting, or boring, or anything else. Their ability to reflect on such matters was very limited indeed.
Human scientific opinion suggests that rats are one of the most intelligent species in the animal realm. But that’s because few human scientists have ever engaged a rat in conversation. Were they to do so, they might realize that rats are actually very dull creatures indeed. A typical example of rat social intercourse might run something like this:
RAT 1 “I want that bit of lettuce.”
RAT 2 “I want that bit of lettuce.”
RAT 1 “No, I want that bit of lettuce.”
RAT 3 “I want a bit of that lettuce, too.”
RAT 1 “I want a bit of that lettuce.”
And so on. This would be one of their more stimulating conversations. You’ve already heard some of the rat language: “Vfpuaj, Mzhdrb,” and so on. Not easy listening, by any stretch of the imagination. But “Ukwbyg!!! Jqhsdp!!!”—what did that mean? Dragan thought it important to find out.
When Dragan shared what he had seen with the rest of the colony, he was at first greeted with derision. After all, rats holding a rally on May 1 Piazza, listening to a speech by some kind of rat leader—the very idea! Indeed, Magyar rocked back and forth with laughter, holding his sides.
“A rat leader! That’s a good one, Dragan. Tell us another.” Mind you, Magyar was borderline hysterical, anyway, without Beyza at his side to calm him down.
This was one disadvantage of Dragan telling so many shaggy dog stories: he had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously at times. Later, after he discussed with Felicia what he had seen and heard, Dragan broached the difficult subject of Leopold. Dragan, in truth, was not particularly fond of the cat Leopold. However, he also knew that he himself was a doer, not a thinker. Thinking—that was Leopold’s specialty.
“Felicia,” he whispered to her, “there’s only one cat in this town who can tell us what ‘Ukwbyg!!! Jqhsdp!!!’ means. And that’s your favorite Viennese snob, Leopold.”
“Snob? Leopold? Hmm. Snob implies that it is he who shuns us, and not the other way around.”
“As you like it, Queenie. But while we stand here discussing the finer points of cat protocol, those vermin are up to no good. Wouldn’t it be good to find out what it is?” Felicia thought to herself that Dragan had a very good point, but that’s not quite how it came out.
“It does sound to me as if the rats are getting ideas above their station,” she said. “And yes, perhaps also it is time Leopold and I had a chat.”
Ah, Felicia and Leopold. They had once been so close, perhaps because they were so alike. And then they had drifted apart, possibly for the same reason. Lithe, lean, and active, the Japanese Bobtail called Leopold had come down to Piran for a weekend with his Viennese “owners” a few years ago. He had met the wild cats of Piran and had quickly fallen for the call of the wild. And, truth be told, he had fallen for Felicia and she for him. Yet later they had fallen out—and it was all over a ghost. A ghost, you say? That’s right, inquisitive reader: your eyes did not deceive you. It had been over a ghost.
Now, have you ever noticed how a cat, in the middle of slumber, will suddenly become watchful, alert, clawing at the air with its paws? How she will seem hyperaware of something going on in the room, of a phantom that seems to exist only in her imagination? Well, of course this isn’t something only in the dear creature’s mind. It is, in most cases, a ghost. And Piran? Oh, Piran was full of them.
The town of Piran’s most famous son was a violin player named Giuseppe Tartini. He was famed in history as the composer of a bewitching piece of music called The Devil’s Trill Sonata. It was Tartini’s statue that stood on the main piazza. On that same square was Tartini House. Leopold, who was as fanatical about music as any true Viennese cat, had taken to climbing up into the attic room of that building, all the better to hear Tartini’s ghost play violin.
All along Felicia had disapproved of this, for reasons she could not easily put into words. Then one evening she had been scampering along the rooftop of the violinist’s house and saw something that disturbed her. It was only a flickering vision, but she was sure she had glimpsed a demon through the skylight. That’s right, a demon, with a horned head, a pointed beard, the feet of a goat, and the wings of a vampire bat. A chill ran down her spine, and every ounce of her intuition told her the wild cats must be ordered to stay away from Tartini’s ghost.
She instructed Leopold not to visit the old violin player anymore. But he disobeyed time and time again. The two cats quarreled, and Leopold, who was something of a loner by nature, went his own way. He had stopped passing by the crypt many months ago. When they passed each other in the street, Felicia would pretend not to see him, and he would return the compliment.
But now—with this strange gathering on May 1 Piazza, and with “Ukwbyg!!! Jqhsdp!!!”—it was indeed time for Felicia to swallow her pride, even if her pride was an uncomfortable ball of fur to digest, and seek out the wily Viennese cat.
IT WAS THE VERY EARLY HOURS OF THE MORNING in the crypt, an hour when only cats, owls, ghosts, and the occasional storybook writer should be awake.
“Beyza, my oooooooooooooh …” This was Magyar, lying in a heap on top of a coffin and practically sobbing. Atop the long pinewood box had been carved the unmistakable figure of a knight in shining armor. Felicia paced up and down on its contours. Magyar was carrying on, feeling terribly sorry for himself.
“Unfair terribly, deserve not I,” he sobbed.
“Good no do you whimpering!” Felicia snapped, imitating his back-to-front way of speaking Cat. “Let’s try and be practical and think of a solution.” This might sound harsh on the part of Felicia, but Magyar had been laying it on a bit thick. Only after eating and sleeping equally solidly for several hours had he then remembered to be thoroughly miserable about Beyza’s imprisonment.
“You might have to get used to being a bachelor again, Magyar,” said Dragan, swinging his body along the old silver handles of another coffin.
“If she has picked up bad habits, is it me of because, I mean, it’s because of me,” said Magyar to no one in particular. “I taught her everything she knows about being a feral cat.” It all came out in a flood of tears and self-recrimination—mixed with self-justification. It had been Beyza’s idea to leave the puszta, the Hungarian plains, and now
she was a prisoner, or worse! Why had she not listened to Magyar? Because if he’d had his way, they would still be on the puszta, feasting on field mice and pancakes and jam and ham and cheese, and sleeping in a nice, comfortable barn! “Good is straw of bed!” Magyar exclaimed.
“You’re quite finished then, are you?” asked Dragan, while Magyar took a breath.
“What you both need to do is calm down,” Felicia said with conviction. “Besides, Magyar, the girl was seen returning to Dogboy Villa with Beyza a few hours ago. We’ve all heard the purring coming from in there. To me it certainly doesn’t sound like Beyza is dead.” All the other cats fell quiet and brooded for a bit, as they tended to do when Felicia asserted her natural authority. This feral cat from Naples, who could be as regal as any Queen, now addressed her subjects in the underground tomb they called home.
“My fellow felines!” she began. “From what Dragan has told us about the rat army, we must now be on the highest possible state of alert. The incident at lunch today was also the second time in this lunar cycle that one of our band has used Majikat. According to the old, unwritten rules we may employ it just once more between now and the new moon. More than that, and we’re in for a bumpy ride. But then, we wild cats do not shrink from danger or a challenge, do we?”
“No, no, no!” the others were quick to respond.
“Indeed,” Felicia continued, “I believe if you asked each and every one of us if we would trade our destitute existence for one of safe domestic comfort then we would say …”
Magyar took over at this point, unable to contain himself. “Then we would say, to a cat, ‘not for all the fish in all the waterfront restaurants on the Adriatic Sea, or all the sacks full of dead rats in the world.’”
“Well put, Prince Magyar!” It was true. He’d managed the whole thing without speaking backward. As glum as he was, Magyar still entertained the notion that he was the leader. The wild cats’ real leader, Felicia, for once allowed him to persist in this delusion. But she added another warning, instructing the wild cats to travel in pairs at all times.
“The only safety we can expect to enjoy right now is safety in battle, and so there’s absolutely no point in splitting ourselves up. We must stick together. Travel with at least one other cat by your side, at all times, day and night. All for one and one for all, as I believe someone once said.”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” noted Dragan, in his usual droll way.
Then Felicia turned her magnetic gaze on the lovelorn Hungarian tabby cat. “Magyar, you come along with me; there’s something I’d like you to have a look at. Si? Andiamo! (Yes? Let’s go!)” Felicia was well known for these late-night walks and talks, the point of which was sometimes lost on her fellow felines. But not on this night, young dreamers—oh no, not on this night.
6
The Lady in Waiting
Felicia proves herself to be a Renaissance cat, even if she was born a century later, into the Age of Enlightenment. And we are introduced to the enigmatic Viennese cat, Leopold.
On Piazza Tartini, the center of medieval Piran, a few doors down from Tartini House, stands the Benečanka House, which in Slovene means the “Venetian Woman’s House.” This house, or “palazzo,” was actually built for a woman from Piran, by a wealthy trader from Venice, and in the Venetian style. In its day, which was 600 years ago, it was called the Venetian Merchant’s House, and if it was good enough back then, it will suffice for us now—the Venetian Merchant’s House it shall be known as hitherto. With its rose-colored exterior, it is still the oldest, smartest, and quite the pinkest house on the whole piazza, even at two in the morning. The windows of the house are quite distinctively Venetian, with ornate white stone decorations.
There is a plaque on the wall, upon which is engraved a winged lion with a scroll running from its mouth. The inscription on the scroll reads: “Lassa pur dir.” This is Latin for “let them all talk.” There is also a balcony on the corner of the house, a balcony upon which you might quite reasonably expect to see a damsel in distress, or a Juliet, looking for her Romeo. Felicia had escorted Magyar to a spot on the piazza facing the beautiful rose-colored palazzo.
“Now,” she whispered, “we must just watch very carefully. I’ve never known her to appear to anyone but me. Well, that’s perhaps because I’ve never shown anyone this. But maybe we’ll be lucky.” Her eyes gleamed in the dark.
“Never known who to appear?”
“Shhhhh!”
All of a sudden there was movement, or at least a play of light suggesting movement, on the balcony of the Venetian Merchant’s House. A woman with long, golden locks and a beautiful silk dress now appeared, as if from nowhere. She was very comely, even to a cat’s way of thinking. This golden maiden had a pained expression on her face and held out her arms in front of her.
“Beautiful she is,” gasped Magyar. “I mean, for a human-type person!”
“Well, yes, quite.”
“What is she doing?”
“She’s doing the same thing she does every night. She is waiting for him to arrive.”
“Hmm? I mean him—him is who, I mean, who is …?”
“Yes, Magyar, I know what you mean.” Felicia continued, in the quietest whisper imaginable: “The story goes that a maiden from Piran fell in love with a wealthy trader from the most serene city. This merchant of Venice built a house in Piran for his ladylove. The very romantic-looking balcony was specially constructed so that the maiden from Piran could wait and could wave to him every time the merchant of Venice’s ship pulled into the harbor.”
“So why she is still waiting? I mean, after six hundred years.”
“That, I do not know, Magyar. What I do know is this: she waits for him on that balcony at the same time every night.” Magyar looked again at the woman, into the liquid pools of her blue eyes, studying her gestures. He recognized the longing, the love, the despair. It was not unlike the way the Hungarian tabby felt whenever he thought of Beyza. Still he examined the maid. She really was a beauteous damsel, even in distress. Distress—at once that emotion seemed to give way to another as her eyes lit up and a great smile spread across her face.
“What’s this? Does she see his ship? But that …”
Magyar didn’t have time to finish, for without warning, the beautiful maiden’s smile, and then her ghostly image, disappeared. It all happened in two very fast shakes of a cat’s tail.
“Then happened what?” shrieked Magyar. “Humph, I mean, what happened then?”
“I don’t know,” answered the sleek black Queen cat. “Every time I’ve seen her, she disappears at precisely the same time. But the point in showing you this is that she never gives up.”
“Eh?”
“She who waits on the balcony, was she not a mere, one-life human mortal at one time? And what human could ever outlast a cat when it comes to patience, eh?”
“True is that nobody knows how to wait for something like a cat!” said Magyar. A tiny ray of optimistic sunshine had pierced the clouds of gloom.
“So you mustn’t give up, either, my stout Magyar friend. Isn’t there the heart of a Hungarian hussar beating inside that manly feline breast?”
“Of course there is! ‘Regiment and the honor!’ I mean: ‘honor and the regiment!’”
“So then, cheer up and act like a tom! We all know Beyza is alive, and we all know she’s being looked after by that girl.”
“Looked after? Rot! Escape trying is Beyza … She is trying …”
“Yes, that’s right, Magyar. Beyza is trying to escape, and we’re going to help her. But first there’s someone I have to see.”
FELICIA WAS ONLY DOING WHAT SHE FELT WAS HER DUTY: doing her best to keep Magyar’s spirits from flagging. The silly puss had four or five lives of experience to draw upon, so why did he have to be such a ninny?
After seeing Magyar back to the crypt, Felicia did something she wasn’t completely proud of. It was something, however, that she thought necessary for the safety of the
colony. That is to say, she sneaked into Signora Fortuna’s kitchen while the old lady was asleep. She climbed up into her pantry, which was abundant with provender, herbs and spices, and all manner of good things. Felicia searched meticulously until she found what she was looking for: mint. You see, peculiar as it may seem, there’s almost nothing rats hate more than the smell of mint. Mint? But that has such a refreshing, wholesome aroma, you say. This may be why rats, who thrive on filth and disease, find the smell of mint so nauseating, disgusting little beasts that they are.
At last, in brown paper packaging, among a lot of other herbs in brown paper bags, Felicia was able to pick out and isolate its fresh, tangy aroma. There was an abundance of mint in the bag, as there seemed to be an abundance of everything in Signora Fortuna’s kitchen. Felicia felt bad about stealing anything from that redoubtable and kind lady, who gave so much to the wild cats of Piran. It was, however, for a good cause—the cause of survival. She very deftly placed everything back as it was, or as nearly so as she could manage, and then slipped out the same way she had come, by the kitchen window. Shimmying down a drainpipe, she discovered Dragan waiting for her, a bemused expression on his face.
“What are you doing here? I don’t like being followed,” she said, embarrassed to be discovered stealing from Signora Fortuna’s larder.
“Well, Queenie, I noticed that you saw Magyar back home to safety. But I thought to myself, who’s going to look after you? Besides, I’ve spotted Leopold. He’s down at Cape Madonna, getting ready to watch the sun come up, I suppose.”
The Wild Cats of Piran Page 5
