“The Bigfeet you lived with hit you?” she said. Her mew was subdued. She couldn’t understand it at all.
“Mara,” said Doginder gently, “most Bigfeet don’t like us, you know. You’re lucky if they don’t notice us, but when they do, it means trouble. One of my Bigfeet was very nice—he was young, too, so we both played together like pups. But the others hit me if I asked for more food, or kicked me if I was in the way. Not hard, but I never knew when a blow or a kick would arrive.”
“My Bigfeet…” Mara started, and then she stopped, wondering how to explain. She had been so frightened when the Bigfeet had picked her up from the canal drain. They boomed at her in their giant voices and took her away from the dogs, but the hands of the Bigfoot who had carried her off from her home had been gentle, his grip firm but soothing. She remembered how they had sat with her that first night. She had whimpered and cried, missing her mother, and they had talked to her as she had shivered under chairs and beds. She had snarled at them when they got too close to her, but been comforted by their presence, by the gentle concern in their voices. And when dawn came up, it had found Mara sleeping in the warm hollow between the two Bigfeet, the beginnings of a tiny purr escaping her throat as they lightly, lovingly, combed her fur.
“They love me,” she said, her whiskers rising in what was almost surprise. Mara had taken it for granted that the Bigfeet loved her, and that she loved them back. It was the same with the Chief Bigfoot, who had watched with approval as Mara stalked and successfully fought the household dusters and brooms; they had stared into each other’s eyes, cat and Bigfoot, and acknowledged the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Though she had met a few visiting Bigfeet who were scared of cats, she had never met any who had hated or disliked animals.
“Southpaw—that’s my friend—he hates Bigfeet, too, but when he spent some time with mine, he understood that they’re not all bad. Perhaps it’s only a few Bigfeet who don’t like us,” she said to Doginder. “Perhaps the rest of them do, and we only met some of the nasty ones.”
Doginder said gently, “See those two strays running across the far end of the park? Now look what happens when they meet the Bigfeet who’re walking around, Mara.”
There were a few Bigfeet, walking in straggling clumps, two or three of them abreast at the same time. As Mara and Doginder sat in the hedges, watching them, the park squirrels chittered a rapid-fire warning to the young pups who were bounding across the grass, barking exuberantly to one another. Two of the pups shied away from the path nervously, but one strayed too close. The Bigfeet stopped; even at this distance, Mara could smell their disgust and could sense their dislike. The pup wagged his tail and bowed, trying to indicate that he was no threat to them. He had moved hastily away from the path, and was backing rapidly. But one of the Bigfeet picked up a stone and chucked it in his direction. It hit the pup on the flank and sent him off yelping.
Mara’s whiskers radiated incredulity. “Why did they do that?” she asked as the pups scurried for cover, their tails hanging down, their barks hushed and muted.
There was a rustle in the bushes, a curiously silken sound, as though someone had drawn a claw lightly across the surface of the leaves. The cat’s nostrils flared, as the air filled without warning with the scent of cedar and something more disturbing.
“Stay where you are,” said Doginder’s voice in Mara’s ear. His growl was quiet, but urgent. “If you run or show fear, she’ll attack, otherwise you’re safe.”
At first, the cat could see nothing, though she sensed the keen eyes of a watcher in the undergrowth. The hedge was thick, its roots running deep along the park’s stone wall. Mara peered through the tangle of roots, her keen eyes adjusting quickly to the shift between the glare of the sun on the stone path, and the deep, dark, cool shade at the back of the hedge.
The creature’s head was sleek, brown fur edged with silver. The amber eyes caught and held Mara’s own with no fear, and the black nose twitched. Mara felt her own fur prickle at the tips in warning; she glanced at the creature’s paws and noted the wicked nails, smelled the dried blood matted under the killing curves of those claws. Her eyes stared unblinkingly into the mongoose’s eyes, and she felt her heart race; her blood was up, but she could not have said whether her need was to flee or to attack.
“The Bigfeet are confusing, are they not?” said the mongoose. Her voice was silky and Mara caught the whiff of satisfied bloodlust in it, as though the creature had come into the park fresh from a kill. “They are not like the cobras, who kill when cornered; or like my kind, who kill for food and for the love of a good fight; or like Doginder, who kills not at all. Do you kill, little stranger? I have not smelled your scent before, no, I have not.”
The talk of killing nudged Mara’s memory.
“You must be Kirri, the hunter,” she said. The amber gleamed in Kirri’s eyes, and some instinct made Mara raise her whiskers in respectful greeting, though she held her ground, fighting a sudden urge to turn tail and run away from the mongoose. “Southpaw told me about you. He said you were a mighty kill…a mighty hunter, and that he had learned much from you.” Southpaw had also said that the mongoose terrified him, but Mara wasn’t about to repeat that.
Kirri’s claws slid lazily over the hard wood of the roots, making small clicks as they went. “Careful,” said Doginder, and Mara could smell his wariness.
“Little stranger,” said the mongoose politely, “I am not used to speaking with those whose names have not been offered to me.”
Mara saw the tiny flames leap in the mongoose’s eyes, but she kept her own gaze steady.
“Forgive me,” she said. “You called me a stranger, and so I am. I’m Mara, and I’ve lived with Bigfeet most of my life, so I don’t really know cat customs. It’s my first time out, you see. But I didn’t mean to be rude, my lady mongoose, truly I didn’t.”
And something made her add, “Though Southpaw spoke the truth—I can tell you must be a mighty hunter!”
Kirri stopped stropping her claws, and the tiny flames in her eyes dimmed, though the embers remained. A rambunctious group of schoolchildren ran up the path; the three creatures pressed back into the hedge, Doginder ducking well into the branches out of instinct, Mara following the example set by the other two.
When she spoke again, Kirri sounded reflective. “You have given me your name; mine is Kirri, you may use it freely. Manners and customs are not the same thing,” she said. “You may have no sense of our customs, but you have pretty manners, little stranger. Do your Bigfeet not let you out, then? Have you come to join us outside?”
“Oh no!” cried Mara. “I’ve never been outside before, it’s so cosy at home with the Bigfeet, and it’s safe; I’m happy inside. But the kabadi wallah came today and there was such a noise that my head started to hurt, and then he ran this-a-way and I ran that-a-way, and before I knew it, I was out of my house…and now I’m here.”
“Lost,” said Doginder cheerfully. “I had to rescue her and bring her into the park, otherwise she’d have been stuck under that car for ages.”
“How clever of you,” said Kirri crisply, her attention never veering from the cat. “So, little stranger, you have no liking for all of this? You prefer your Bigfeet house, the roofs and the walls instead of the free air, the grass and mud under your feet, the danger, the battles, the thrill of hunting your own prey?”
She waited, her sleek head cocked to one side.
Mara raised her whiskers, letting them taste the air of the park, its cacophony of yells from the children who played in one corner, the brisk thumping of the Bigfeet on their walks, the loud squabbling of the Tarzan Tribes Band.
“Have you ever lived with Bigfeet, Madam Kirri?” asked Mara. The mongoose didn’t respond, but her sharp brown eyes considered the cat carefully. “Doginder tells me that his Bigfeet were cruel to him, but it is not so with mine. They take me into their bed if I cry out at night in my sleep. They feed me the things I love most, and they play with me for hours. I have a comfo
rtable bed, the calm and safety of the house; and the world comes in through the doors and windows. My whiskers let me know everything I need to, and if I am bored, I can go on long sendings while I sleep in peace on the bookshelves, or in a basket. Why would I need the outside at all? Here we have to hide from the Bigfeet in the hedges, even Doginder who’s so much bigger than you and me. And it’s cold and wet—there are no blankets, no soft-lined baskets. Your world is filled with predators, Madam.”
“I see,” said Kirri softly. “But this is your first time out in the world, is it not? Is there nothing you like about it? Your Bigfeet must be good people; but do you not miss your own kind? Does your blood not sing to you to climb the trees and race along the rooftops, to challenge every other young queen who claims this park as territory, to find a tom of your own to mate with under the silver moonlight? I ask again, little stranger, is there nothing about the world that you might love?”
Mara blinked, her green eyes troubled. Doginder watched them both. He would have liked to have told Mara how unusual this was. The mongoose was one of Nizamuddin’s most famous warriors. Kirri’s world was divided sharply into predators and prey, with a small space reserved for neutrals. Her attention was rarely caught by any creature that couldn’t be battled or eaten.
The Sender spread her whiskers out, scenting the air. The young queen’s whiskers were unusually thickly clustered; above her eyes, the whiskers grew as long as one would expect of a warrior tom who had seen the earth turn for five or more winters.
For a long moment, the three stayed still under the hedges. A family clattered past them, the baby carriage bouncing on the old flagstones. Overhead, the birds cleared their throats, the bulbuls practising a few early evening alaaps, the parrots calling in mock urgency to one another, warming up for the storm of chirrups and chatter that would signal the end of another day. The keek of a cheel sounded once, high above the treetops, and the traffic roar deepened, as the Bigfeet rush-hour started.
Then the Sender broke the spell. “The air you breathe is different,” she said. She blinked, and raised her whiskers again. “I can hear the birds as well as I could hear the passing stray dogs, the squirrels and the cats, without having to send. The Bigfeet’s cars stink—their roads stink—it rasps across my nostrils, their love of concrete and tar and metallic things. But the grass is soft under my paws, O Huntress, and the chill on the breeze whispers to me of the lives of so many more creatures—it is frightening, it is overwhelming, but it is full of life, this park. And the sky…” The cat shivered.
Kirri’s fur stood up ever so slightly around the muzzle. “It seems vast to you?” the mongoose inquired. “Without limit, without end?”
“Yes,” said Mara, her mew hushed, but there was doubt in her eyes. “There are no roofs here, and you have to look up such a long way, it makes my head spin. It is scary.”
Kirri’s eyes had gone black, opaque and unreadable. Doginder could not tell what she was thinking, and he found his hackles rising. He barely knew this young cat, but he felt responsible for her; she was as helpless outdoors as a kitten, or a pup. If the mongoose went for her, he thought, he would have no choice but to fight, however deep his distaste for battle. He lifted his large paws, and shifted his haunches, so that he could spring at need.
Mara hadn’t noticed. Her eyes were shut; she breathed in through her pink nostrils. “Huntress,” she said, “that is not all, though. I have travelled through the night on my whiskers, but it is only here, outside, that I have truly looked up at the night sky.”
“What do you see when you look up?” said Kirri. The mongoose was still, but her body was coiled taut.
And Mara’s mew rang out, eager, intense; it was as if she had forgotten that the Bigfeet were close by. “It is not what I see, Kirri,” said the Sender. “The darkness may seem empty and vast, but my whiskers say it is criss-crossed with the paths of the birds—can you not feel them? High up, the rough drumbeat of the cheels carves broad highways above the clouds; over our heads, across the trees, you can trace the soaring songlines of the bulbuls, the trails left by the sharp swift sorties of the parakeets, and even the dark purrs of the Bigfeet’s clumsy aircraft. It makes me dizzy, but I can scent the bats, the mynahs; the trees rustle and whisper. The skies are vast, but they hold so much more than I had thought.”
Doginder let out his breath, as silently as he could. He smelled the change in Kirri; she had gone from kill-ready to peaceable once more, and now the mongoose smelled of cedar and wood bark rather than blood and ice. She stood down, curling her tail comfortably around her.
“Once, Mara,” she said softly, “I met a cat who did not like the sky. It is a worrying thing in our kind, to be afraid of the very air around us. Those who start by fearing the sky often end by hating those who live freely under the clouds, who walk in the sun without shuddering. The night hides more than predators until we know it so well that we can speak its many names without fear; and yet, we live most keenly under the wing of darkness. It is good for you, O Sender of Nizamuddin, that you can pad past your fear and let your curiosity ride on your whiskers instead…”
Kirri would have said more, but something at the opposite end of the park caught her attention, and the mongoose stood up, her neat round ears on the alert.
“Prey!” she said. “I must go, or the bandicoots will start to believe that they own the night. How they strut, how they brag, until they meet our kind.”
“Our kind?” said Mara uncertainly, wondering what Kirri meant.
Kirri was about to leave the hedge, but she stopped. “The Sender has old whiskers, but her fur is young,” she said, half to herself. “Our kind, Mara. You’re a predator like me. Do not forget.”
“I wish you good hunting,” Mara said politely, and then, as the mongoose slid off, a final question occurred to her. “Before you go, Kirri…what happened to the cat? The one who was scared of the sky?”
The mongoose paused, her claws backlit by the lamps in the park, which were lighting up one by one.
“His story ended as it should,” said Kirri, and her eyes met and held the Sender’s.
Doginder, who had allowed both creatures their say, saw the mongoose turn to leave, and could not hold himself back any more.
“Wait!” he barked. “O Kirri, you can’t leave us hanging like that. What do you mean, his story ended as it should?”
Kirri turned one last time. “Badly,” she said. “For him, that is. I enjoyed the dance.”
And then there was nothing but the shadows and the light from the lamps. The mongoose was gone. There was a pause, a moment’s hush. Then the sun dipped below the horizon, and the birds’ low squabbling swelled and rose, until it had become a melodious but deafening chorus, an evensong that ushered in the winter night.
“Just as well Kirri took a liking to you,” he said gravely. “But if I might drop you a bark of warning: don’t go off chatting with any mongoose you see. They’re killers by nature, and Kirri is no exception.”
“I understand,” said Mara faintly. “Doginder, how many Bigfeet houses are there?”
As the darkness slipped down over the two of them, the lights in the windows of the Bigfeet homes glowed bright, and the dog dimly intuited the Sender’s despair. He was used to the long lines of Bigfeet dwellings, but she had only known one home. And she knew little of the harshness of the outside world, as he had seen. Doginder felt Mara shiver beside him; even the cold that he took for granted was alien to her.
“Do you remember the house at all?” he said. “It has to be close to the park, since you couldn’t have run that far. Perhaps you could recognize it now?”
But as Mara stared at the row of houses and Doginder felt her whiskers droop, caught the arid scent of exhaustion on her fur. “No,” she whispered. “I’ve never seen it from the outside. They all look the same to me—and it’s no use asking me to send, the Bigfeet can’t understand whisker or mew.” The Bigfeet couldn’t even understand Junglee, the basic language
of gestures and grunts that every animal used when talking to other species. She shrank back when she heard the loud voices of Bigfeet boys and scrabbled to get behind the shelter of the roots again.
Doginder hesitated. If he left now, a traitorous voice in his mind whispered, he would be in time to drop in at the local dhaba, the food stall where they kept stale rotis and leftover gravy and bones for stray dogs. But only, said the insidious voice, if he left right now, or else the other dogs would finish every last delicious meaty shred. He had done his bit, hadn’t he? He had rescued the cat—twice!—once from the traffic, once from the mongoose.
“Doginder,” said Mara’s quiet mew from the hedge. “I’ve been thinking—you know, my Bigfeet will probably come looking for me in the morning. And the hedge is quite comfortable, so if I settle in here for the night, I’m sure I’ll be safe. All the bandicoots are on the other side of the park, aren’t they? So if you have dinner plans or anything, you should go. Thank you for everything.”
“Rats!” said Doginder.
“I’m sorry?” said Mara. “What did you say?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Doginder, but another of the voices that often barked at him inside the privacy of his head was in full swing, reminding him that a true Rescue Dog wouldn’t run off and abandon a helpless cat to the predators in the park, a true Ferocious Attack Dog would stand guard over her, wouldn’t he?
“Bother being a Ferocious Attack Dog,” he said crossly. Then he sighed, tucked his jaunty plume of a tail in so that it wouldn’t pick up too much bark and earth, and dug his way back into the hedge.
“Don’t you have to go?” said Mara uneasily. She had a very clear idea from her Bigfeet of the importance of mealtimes, and indeed, now that the shock of being outdoors had worn off, her stomach had started to remind her—persistently—that it hadn’t been attended to since morning.
“Not at all,” said Doginder, lying gallantly and trying not to think of the fact that tonight would have been offal night at the dhaba. “Nothing I’d rather do than spend a night out in the park. You can look up at the moon and get a nice spot of baying and/or barking in if you’re so inclined, and then there’s the Chasing of the Cars after midnight, and we can always snack on woodlice if we’re really hungry.” He ignored the twigs that were poking at his flanks, and tried to ignore the chill seeping upwards from the damp earth.
The Hundred Names of Darkness Page 11
