“I’d like to talk to Nicole alone,” said Douglas, when he rejoined the Bonners.
“Of course you would,” said Samson.
“Alone, alone.” Paulette smiled wearily at Douglas.
“Use my study.” Samson stood up, shook Douglas’s hand.
They were alone. The study door was closed. Nicole sat on a daybed, her shoes off, her calves drawn together and to one side. Across the room, Douglas sat on the edge of a wooden chair, the top crossbar of which was embossed with a crest. Douglas thought that it might be the Bonner family crest, but he didn’t ask.
Nicole cracked her knuckles. “In a minute, I’m going to start calling you Douglas instead of Mr. Kerchek.”
“Oh, really?”
Nicole sighed. “Mr. Kerchek, please just listen. I’m going to say some things.”
Douglas collected his thoughts. Outside the door was a married couple on a green couch, drinking brandy, perhaps petting John Stapleton. In the study with him was a headstrong young woman.
“Mr. Kerchek,” said Nicole, “you know that I’m smart. That I can think and read well, the way you could when you were nineteen. But I also know what the world is like, Mr. Kerchek.”
Douglas watched Nicole. She’s serious, he thought. She’s deadly serious.
“I know,” said Nicole. “I know how long people go in this city without finding someone to love. I’m young, but I understand loneliness.” Nicole rubbed her feet. “Listen. I know I can be irrational, Douglas.”
Douglas caught his breath. He felt something in his spine—fear, maybe.
“Like tonight,” said Nicole. “That King Lear business. But here’s something you probably don’t know. I saw you at the Film Forum last week.”
Douglas blushed again.
“They were showing The Gunfighter, with Gregory Peck. It was last Tuesday, the 9 P.M. show. I saw it advertised in the paper, and I just knew you’d be there. So I went.”
Douglas tried to remember what he’d worn that night, what candy he’d brought with him. A flannel shirt? Gummi Bears?
“I sat five rows behind you and watched your silhouette. I saw you admiring the guy who played the bartender. You know, the guy from On the Waterfront.”
PERSON-TO-CAT
Here’s a cat and Telephone Company yarn, all in one. It seems this man went out to dinner prior to going to the Idlewild Airport to meet his wife, arriving from Washington. Soon after he left, his wife called their apartment from the capital to notify him that her plane had been grounded by fog and that she’d arrive by train. Well, he wasn’t in, of course, but when the phone rang, their cat—jumping in fright, or something—knocked the phone off its cradle and began to meow. The lady had put in a collect call, so the operator asked the cat whether it would accept the charges. The cat gave a noncommittal meow, and the lady tried to explain matters to the operator, gave up, hung up, and went home under her own steam. Her phone bill at the end of the month included a charge for the call, which, after her husband’s complaint to a member of a high Telephone Company echelon, was cancelled. The Company spokesman observed that long-distance calls are not considered complete unless there is a two-way conversation, and that such, apparently, hadn’t taken place, but added a warning that local calls are automatically registered and charged for as soon as the receiver is lifted. This information has been passed on to the cat.
| 1951 |
Douglas closed his eyes. She’s right, he thought. She’s nineteen and she’s right.
“Anyway, whether you marry me or not, this is what I want to tell you.” Nicole exhaled. “It’s no good, Douglas.”
Douglas kept his eyes closed. He was listening.
“It’s no good the way you’re living. All those weights you lift, all those miles you run, all those movies you see. It isn’t right. It’s lonely.”
Douglas looked at her then. He saw her curves and her temples, but something else, too, something that lived behind her eyes.
“You’re a good teacher and all, but you’re just killing time, Douglas. I can tell.”
Bullshit, thought Douglas. Then he thought, How? How am I killing it?
“I can tell from the books you assign, the ties you wear, everything.” Nicole was not chewing her hair. “You’re ready, Douglas. For the woman, the one you’re supposed to marry.” Nicole shrugged, just a little. “And I think she’s me. I’ve dated some guys, and I know what’s around, and—Well, I just know what I want.”
“How?” blurted Douglas. His hands trembled on the snifter, so he put it down. He felt as if he might weep. “Are you in—” Douglas changed phrases. “Do you love me?”
Nicole petted her neck, sipped her brandy. “Look. I’ve got Princeton to go to. And I’ve got that huge heirloom library out there to read. I’m just saying that you should have a woman with you at the movies, and she should be me. I’m ready for her to be me.”
Douglas couldn’t sit still any longer. He stood up and paced. He wanted to shout or punch or be punched. He wanted something he knew the feeling of. He stalked over to Nicole, unsure of what to do.
“Easy, Douglas.” Nicole moved back on the daybed.
“No.” Douglas shook his head, went back to pacing. “No ‘Easy, Douglas.’ You have to tell me something here. I’m thirty-one, and I’m—I’m your teacher, for Christ’s sake. I mean—Is this—Look, answer me, now, Nicole.”
“O.K.,” she whispered. “I will.”
“Is this real? I mean, are you … in love with me?” He couldn’t believe what he’d asked.
“I’m ready to be,” said Nicole. “And I mean this as a compliment, but I’ve got nothing better to do.”
Douglas stopped pacing. “I’m going crazy,” he said softly. “I’m standing here, solidly, on my own two feet, and I’m going crazy.”
Nicole smiled. She took his hand.
“Listen,” she said. “I have the prom in a month, which my cousin Fred is escorting me to, and graduation’s two weeks after that. It’ll be hectic for a bit, but as of the first week of June I’m prepared to become completely infatuated with you.”
Douglas laughed out loud, once, at the practicality in her voice. He thought of his mother, of Chiapas and the Mexicans, of the unbroken chain of essays that he’d corrected for the past six years. There might have been a thousand of those essays. And there might have been a time in history when all people spoke like Nicole Bonner.
“I can commute to Princeton,” explained Nicole, “or else just come back to you on weekends. My family’s a little eccentric, and I am, too, but, well, there it is. What do you think?”
Douglas pulled Nicole to her feet. He felt giddy, vicious. He didn’t know what he felt. Like an animal, he set his teeth for one last stand.
“Nicole.” His voice was low, almost mean. “If you’re kidding about all this, and you tell me tomorrow that you’re kidding, then I’ll … I’ll …” Douglas clenched and unclenched his fists.
“I’m not kidding,” said Nicole.
Douglas looked out the window at New York City. He looked back at Nicole.
“You’re sure?”
Nicole reached up, trailed one hand lightly over Douglas’s haircut.
“Domestic shorthair,” she whispered.
Douglas took both her hands in his. He was beaming. He felt slightly nauseous. “All right. All right, if you’re serious, then I want you to do something for me.”
“Isn’t it true that you did not love the victim, as you claim, but, in point of fact, feigned affection for the sole purpose of obtaining tuna fish?” (illustration credit 3.6)
Nicole frowned. “No sex till we’re hitched. A kiss, maybe.”
“Be quiet and listen.” Douglas’s voice quavered with pleasure. “I don’t want you to kiss me. I want you to hit me.”
“What?”
Douglas couldn’t keep the grin, the old, triumphant sass, off his face.
“I want you to punch me in the stomach as hard as you can.”
Nicole stepped away. “You’re insane.”
“No.” Douglas took her by the shoulders, squared her off facing him. “Trust me. If you do this, I’ll know that we’re—I’ll just know.”
Nicole laughed, just a little. “You’re a freak.”
“Hit me.”
Nicole angled her head to one side. “You’re serious.”
“Give me your hand.”
Nicole held out her right palm.
“Make a fist. No, like this, with your thumb outside. Good.”
“How do you know how—”
“Shut up and hit me.” Douglas sneered at her. “Come on. Let’s see what you got.”
A wicked joy stole over Nicole’s face. “You better watch it.”
“Hit me.”
“I’ll do it, Douglas,” she warned.
“Go ahead.”
Nicole drew her fist back to her hip. Her eyes checked the door that was hiding her parents. She looked to Douglas as if she would erupt with laughter, or something else, something he couldn’t predict.
“Come on, punk.” Douglas dared her, and that was it. Nicole shot her fist forward and showed him what he, what both of them, were in for.
| 2000 |
COLLOQUY
In the broken light, in owl weather,
Webs on the lawn where the leaves end,
I took the thin moon and the sky for cover
To pick the cat’s brains and descend
A weedy hill. I found him grovelling
Inside the summerhouse, a shadowed bulge,
Furred and somnolent. “I bring,”
I said, “besides this dish of liver and an edge
Of cheese, the customary torments,
And the usual wonder why we live
At all, and why the world thins out and perishes
As it has done for me, sieved
As I am toward silences. Where
Are we now? Do we know anything?”
Now, on another night, his look endures.
“Give me the dish,” it said.
I had his answer, wise as yours.
—WELDON KEES | 1954 |
CAT STORY
* * *
JAMAICA KINCAID
Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?
I’ve been to London to look at the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.
Morris, who is a cat and is (so to speak) the star of a cat-food advertising campaign, has edited (so to speak again) a book about cats and how to take care of them. Morris, who is an orange tabby cat, and his trainer, a man with a severe crewcut, came to the city the other day to promote the book, so they invited people to come to Sardi’s and ask questions and take pictures. Morris was placed on a table at one end of the room for all to see, and he licked his paws, rested his chin on his paws, half closed his eyes, moved one of his ears, moved both of his ears, lay down on his stomach, flicked his tail, and jumped off the table and tried to run away a few times.
“Is he drugged?” asked a woman, who later said that she is very concerned about the treatment of cats in public life, is against cat shows, has five cats, and takes her cats to a cat dentist regularly.
“No,” said someone connected with Morris and his trainer. “People always ask that. But Morris doesn’t have to be drugged. He’s a real professional.”
“But isn’t Morris dead?” asked another woman.
“Well, yes, but that was the other Morris,” answered the connection. “It’s like a dynasty. Morris is dead. Long live Morris. This Morris was found in a cat shelter. He was a stray. This is the Morris that is now used in all the ads. But there are three more in reserve, in case he should suddenly drop dead.”
A grown man in a Kool-Aid-orange-and-white cat suit walked by. On his stomach, written in black letters, were the words “Personal Ambassador to Morris the Cat.”
(illustration credit col8.1)
“He looks highly flammable,” said a man.
“It’s rough,” said a woman.
Morris left the room, presumably to eat a meal of fish, fish by-products, water, crab, shrimp, animal fat, wheat flour, dried yeast, dried whey, iron oxide, vitamin E, A, and niacin supplements, thiamin mononitrate, ethylenediamine dihydroiodide, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement, vitamin D3 supplement, and pyridoxine hydrochloride, which make up the contents of a six-and-a-half-ounce can of the brand of cat food that Morris represents.
| 1980 |
Sylvia Townsend Warner with Niou in the 1950s. (illustration credit col8.2)
THE WINESHOP CAT
Fiction
* * *
SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER
Stepping with dusky feet on the hot Paris pavement (that evening nearly five years ago now), the Siamese cat came round the corner by the herbalist’s, crossed the road with decision, and began to walk down the Boulevard Edgar-Quinet—to the Montparnasse Cemetery, I presumed. It was closed, but closing hours would mean nothing to a Siamese cat. The dusky paws would bunch together and arrive neatly among the spikes on the top of the wall, for a moment the crooked tail would flick among the overhanging boughs, and an instant later the cat would be alighting on consecrated earth while a few dry leaves, since it was August, would have started on their twirling passage downward. The cat was walking with a stately air of habit. Perhaps this was the hour when it took a sparrow as an apéritif chez Baudelaire, or perhaps it simply preferred consecrated earth.
I had never seen a grander Siamese cat. In a way, it was regrettably grand. Had it been a more ordinary cat, I could have followed it and got acquainted with it. But one might as well hope to get acquainted with Phoebus Apollo, I thought, watching it disappear with arrogant leisureliness down that undistinguished Boulevard Edgar-Quinet.
A few evenings later I saw it again. This time it was sitting in the open doorway of a small wineshop, blandly squinting at the passers-by. It was clear that Phoebus Apollo was at home in his temple. Stepping reverently around the deity, I entered the temple and began buying a bottle of wine.
The man behind the counter was middle-aged, solid, and swarthy. He was not much interested in my purchase—for that matter, neither was I. Woman or wine, I realized, he was not going to bestir himself on either account. But as I took my bottle and my change, I said, “That’s a very fine cat you’ve got. One can see he’s a pedigreed cat.”
He whistled, and the cat came in and sprang up on the counter and began to pace to and fro among the bottles. We admired it in silence for some time. The cat was the first to speak, saying “Mraow! Mraow!” in short, commanding monosyllables.
“He’s thinking of his supper,” said the man.
“Mraow!” said the cat forcefully. It jumped onto the man’s shoulder and turned around there, rubbing itself against the back of his head. The man thrust his head back against the muscular, sidling caress, and his face assumed the severe look of intense physical pleasure.
“It’s gratifying to see a cat in such good condition,” I said.
Balancing his cat on his shoulder, the man walked over to a refrigerator, opened it, and took out a large slice of prime steak. Still silent, he held it across the counter for me to examine. Then he said to the cat, “But you won’t get it yet, you know.”
He slammed to the door of the refrigerator. With dusky paws the cat began to knead his shoulder in time to its rattling purr and blinked at me. Its eyes, which had reddened at the sight of the meat, were now a clear blue in its pokerwork face, and its purr became more rhythmical and hymnlike. I felt that I had best leave this happy pair to themselves. But suddenly the man leaned forward across the counter. “A cat like this, Madame, is a formidable responsibility. With a cat like this one is compelled to take decisions. It can be painful.”
“Siamese cats have a great deal of temperament,” I said.
Launching himself further across the counter, confronting me with his own dark gaze
and the cat’s calm, blue squint, he said, “What can one do? I had to have him neutered!”
“What can one do?” he continued. “As a male, he was a misery. He wouldn’t eat, he wouldn’t thrive, he was away for days on end, infatuated with all the worthless she-cats of the quarter. He came back starving, dirty, wet to the skin, disfigured with bites and scratches, looking an object. Besides, his voice was loud, and people threw things at him.”
The cat poured itself off his shoulder like a caramel and sat down on the counter, gazing devotedly at the refrigerator.
(illustration credit 4.2)
Hand-made Christmas card from Sylvia Townsend Warner to her partner, Valentine Ackland. (illustration credit 4.3)
“What is one to do? One cannot imprison a cat; it is against nature. Equally, one cannot wander all night on the housetops pursuing it.”
“You could not find him a companion?”
“Madame, as you know, these cats are opinionated. He would not domesticate himself. Instead, he took up with the most frightful females. I was in horrors, thinking how they might infect him with filthy diseases.” His tone became so deeply moral that I felt my expression becoming deeply moral too.
“Mange!” he exclaimed, and I shuddered.
“Look at him now,” said the man. “He is superb. One would say he has never regretted his virility.”
“There are other pleasures in life,” I replied. “And on the whole I think we all make too much fuss about sex.”
“Very probably. Yet there are times when my mind misgives me, when I ask myself if I was justified. One cannot deny it. I have robbed him of a joy.”
“You have robbed him of a great deal of uneasiness, too, and loss of dignity,” I remarked firmly. “It is my belief, and I have studied cats pretty extensively, that what ultimately means most to a cat is to be the centre of consideration. It is the only thing about which they never become cynical and disillusioned.”
The Big New Yorker Book of Cats Page 8
