The bikers hooted and whooped to each other as they roared past, reminding Mara of the packs of stray dogs whom she had watched from the staircase of her house. Some strays, she knew, were kind enough—big, overgrown fellows who barked exuberantly and chased leaves around as though they were kittens. But some, like the vicious pack she had seen, were out to hurt anything they could find, especially if it was small and helpless.
When the echo of the last vroom and cough from the bikes had died away, leaving only them and the night, Mara put a tentative paw on Hulo’s flank.
“Thank you for coming after me,’ she said. Then she added, “You speak with roughness, but I can smell the truth on you. Do all the Nizamuddin cats hate me as much as you said you did?”
Hulo turned his great head, so that he met her gaze squarely.
“Beraal does not hate you,” he said. “Southpaw does not hate you. We don’t hate you either, Mara, but we don’t know you the way they do. All I knew of you before we met in the park was that you were the Sender, and that you refused to come and meet us, as though living with the Bigfeet had made you too good for us. When you came to the battle, you hovered above our heads; you could leave the field unbloodied, untouched by the war that took Miao and that ravaged so many of the little creatures. Until I caught your scent in the park, I didn’t think of you as one of us, you understand?”
“Yes,” said Mara. Her voice was low, her mew subdued; she smelled both the truth and the hurt in Hulo’s whiskers. “Perhaps I do understand. But what made you come after me? You spoke with such harshness; I could feel your contempt in your whiskers, and your fur shook with your dislike. And yet, you followed me here. You saved me from the car. Why would you do that?”
Hulo’s paw stirred, catching her smaller one and covering it.
“You stank of Bigfeet, back in the park,” he said. “But you also smelled small, like the kittens who come tumbling into our lives each year. And you smelled afraid, and though you stink abominably of Bigfeet and the indoors, you also smell like one of our clan. But why did you never come out?”
Mara spread her whiskers out, trying to make him understand.
“The outside doesn’t frighten you, or the rest of the clan,” she said. “But I was born under the canal, my earliest memories of the outside were full of violence and death and then I lived in the Bigfeet house. My life always had a roof to it.”
“You didn’t come out because you were scared?” said Hulo. His tail rose, echoing his surprise. “You? The Sender who walks with tigers?”
“What use are my sendings under this vast sky?” said Mara. “What use are my whiskers against the teeth of a dog, the cruelty of one of your Bigfeet? And none of you liked me, right from the start.”
Hulo was startled. “How do you know that?” he asked.
“I heard,” she said simply. “On my first sendings, I raised my whiskers and listened. I heard you and Katar one day, and I heard the dargah cats another time.”
Hulo let out a gruff exhalation, thinking back. “You heard me and Katar…that must have been when you were a kitten, Mara? A few moons old?”
“Yes,” she said, and though she said no more, the tomcat’s ears folded down in some sadness. For the first time, he thought of what Mara’s life must have been: brought up by Bigfeet, fearful of the outside, aware that her own clan held her in suspicion.
The sliver of the moon that had cast a pale veil of light across the night sky was hidden by the clouds that would bring yet more winter rain to Nizamuddin. The darkness around them was absolute, and to Mara, oppressive. With no light to see by, her other senses were sharpened. But the scents that wrapped themselves around this part of the colony were all harsh, ominous—concrete dust mixed with the fretful dreams of Bigfeet, the tar of the roads smelled cold and hard, and the air was cut with grease and lingering smoke, as though cars, cement mixers and rumbling trucks had replaced trees, birds and hedges. The winter wind had a sawtooth edge, cutting through her fur to the bone; and the darkness wore down on the Sender, making even her whiskers droop with its heaviness.
“Hulo,” she whispered, “The dark—it doesn’t bother you?”
The tomcat shifted in the dark. She felt rather than saw him turn his head to her, and then his rough tongue licked her shoulder and her neck, in heavy, soothing strokes. Mara turned her head up to the tom, in wonder and surprise: she had not expected such gentleness from Hulo. He did not groom her for long, but the scrape of his tongue across her fur did more than calm her down—it was a reminder that she was not alone in the night.
The steady thump of a Bigfoot’s tread became louder, counterpointed by the thud of his heavy wooden walking stick. “Just the night watchman,” said Hulo. “He’s a Bigfoot who walks around the neighbourhood every night. We think he would like to be a cat, or perhaps an owl, because he calls out every so often in longing, but he is trapped in his clumsy Bigfoot body, poor fellow. He’ll leave soon.” The Bigfoot’s tread faded, but then a bark tore through the darkness. Mara and Hulo stiffened, simultaneously, as a pack began howling. The baying was loud, ferocious, and remembering the pack which had loped after her, Mara shivered.
“They’re out for blood, yes,” said Hulo’s reassuring purr in her ear. “But they’re hunting near the canal, we’re safe.” The squeal of a piglet went up, chilling Mara to the marrow, and then they heard—far away, as far off as the howls—the challenging grunt of adult pigs. The grunts and the baying tore the peace of the night. Beside Hulo, Mara shivered so hard that he could feel her slender flanks shake.
“I wish Southpaw was here,” she said. “I tried to raise him when I was in the park, but perhaps my whiskers don’t work that well at linking or sending when I’m outdoors.”
She felt Hulo shift so that his massive bulk steadied and warmed her; and then she felt his rough tongue lick her paw.
“Southpaw didn’t get your sendings because he’s not well,” said Hulo bluntly.
“That wound!” said Mara, forgetting her fear of the dark. “The injuries to his paw—I saw him limping after the Bigfeet threw things at him. Is it bad, Hulo?”
“Very bad,” said the tom, grimly. His mind was on the danger at hand, and he shared his thoughts freely. “So bad, Mara, that we took him to your house, thinking that your Bigfeet could help. Only you weren’t there. I suppose Katar will manage.”
“Southpaw’s at my home?” cried Mara. “Oh Hulo, can’t you take me there?”
Hulo’s ears twitched in response. “Not now,” he said. “It would take my paws some journeying to get there again, and you and I are both tired. We’d be targets for the dogs, or the Bigfeet—no, best to hide out and get some rest.”
He struggled out from under the car, his belly brushing the ground. “Besides, you have to meet her, it’s been too long for the two of you.”
“Her?” said Mara. She had raised her head, trying to see if she could sniff out the scents of home, and her wonderful Bigfeet, and Southpaw, but the night air carried nothing on it.
“My head’s gone wandering, like a stray cuckoo!” said Hulo. “Come, Mara, let’s not stay here much longer. The Bigfeet will be up at dawn, and that’s not so far off—we should have gone to her house before, we should have, but my whiskers have been on crooked all night. Oof, but the rats have left such a mess behind, Katar and I must do something about them—here we go! Here’s the entrance!”
“The entrance?” said Mara, who had followed Hulo out obediently, as he padded under the cots. It was a wide space, cluttered with the abandoned, rusting hulks of cars and other Bigfeet litter. Mara caught the oily trails she had smelled before, and wondered whether these were made by the rats Hulo had mentioned. It seemed likely; the tracks had a grey, furtive feel to them.
“She’ll be awake, one way or another, and she won’t mind that I didn’t link to tell her, she’s not formal at all. The problem is that the two mites don’t sleep at the same time, or her life would be a lot easier, but that’s kittens for yo
u,” said Hulo, ducking behind a tarpaulin and going inside. He didn’t seem to notice that he had collected quite a lot of the litter: sweet wrappers, dust balls and pieces of string adorned his coat, lending him the air of a cat in fancy dress.
Mara would have asked more questions, but she had to scramble to keep up with the tomcat. Her shorter paws got tangled in the tarpaulin, and the Sender had to heave her backside up and over.
She uttered a sharp mew as she somersaulted over the tarpaulin, twisting in mid-air so that she would land on her paws. Something had got into her ears, and her nostrils, and she sneezed, releasing chunks of cobweb and a dismayed spider into the air.
“Hello, Hulo! So what have you brought me at this hour of the night?” said a familiar voice.
Mara’s whiskers tingled, then she was running to bridge the short distance between her and the cat whose mew was so familiar, so loved.
“Beraal!” she called. Her mew had become a kitten’s mew again. “Oh, Beraal, I missed you! There was the Chief Bigfoot, and Southpaw came, but I didn’t know how much I’d missed you until right now.”
“There, there,” said Beraal, her mew husky. “I missed you too, little one.”
Hulo settled down, shaking the string and dust out of his tail.
“Go on, go on, don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m not much for headrubbing and that kind of nonsense myself, but nothing wrong with it, if that’s the kind of thing you like. Beraal, can you get this little chap of yours to stay away from me? I’m not going to groom him. No! Tell him not to snuggle up to me, I don’t do snuggling. Oh, all right, little fellow, no need to let your tail droop like that. Oh, all right, just a smidgen of grooming, if you insist. Stop complaining, your face needs a good washing—what’s that? Yes, yes, so does mine, but everybody knows you shouldn’t comb your fur too often, it falls out.”
And though the earth was freezing, and though there were no bowls of milk or food, Beraal’s home was soon so filled with the purring from the three adult cats and her kittens that it felt warm to Mara, as warm and welcoming as any home she’d ever known.
Crouched under the bed, trying not to sneeze as loose strings from the underside of the mattress tickled his nose, Katar wondered how he had got it so wrong.
His plan had been simple. Once they had found a way to get Southpaw to the Bigfeet’s house, the Sender would take over. She and Southpaw were friends, and she would never refuse to help him. He and Hulo would mew until they had her attention, Mara would tell her Bigfeet that Southpaw was sick, and the Bigfeet would bring out their cage, whisking Southpaw off to be healed. It had the clean scent of simplicity to it; Katar distrusted plans that smelled risky, or that smelled mixed-up and tangled.
The first part had gone off perfectly, even if it had taken them some time to wake Southpaw up and explain that Tooth would be carrying him off. Sick though he was, Southpaw’s fur had quivered at the thought of such an adventure. “I wish I wasn’t feeling so ill,” Southpaw had said. “I’ve never flown before, imagine what Mara will say when she hears how I got to her house! What do I have to do, Tooth?”
“Relax your body, don’t look down, and don’t wriggle or bite me,” Tooth said tersely. The cheel was wondering whether he could pull this off, though he didn’t want to share his doubts with Katar. He was used to carrying prey, and prey was either limp because it was dead, or limp because it was terrified. If Southpaw wriggled too much, or mewed in fear, Tooth knew that his instincts would kick in, forcing him to drop his passenger.
But he needn’t have worried. As he gripped Southpaw with his talons, taking care to wrap them around the cat’s body instead of tearing his flesh, the kitten winced in pain from his injuries. Southpaw did not pass out, but he was not quite conscious, either. When cheel and cat rose into the air, Southpaw’s brown eyes glazed over, staring out at the sky. The pain did not allow him to think about the journey at all, and he barely noticed when they rose above the shrubs. He offered Katar down below a tiny twitch of his whiskers, indicating that he was all right, and then the cat stayed limp in Tooth’s talons, keeping all of his attention focused on not passing out from the ache in his ribs.
—
KATAR STIFFENED AS FOOTSTEPS went past the door of the bedroom, growling nervously, but it seemed that the Bigfeet would not come in. He pressed his ears down against his head, disliking the closeness of the space. He was relying on smell and sound to tell him where the Bigfeet were, since he could see little in the dim light.
When he’d padded up the staircase that led to the Sender’s house, he had found only Hulo and Southpaw’s sleeping form. Tooth had not stayed, though he had politely accepted Hulo’s thanks. His wing and breast muscles were aching, he explained, and would need to be rested. Southpaw had murmured his thanks, too. But as Tooth had left, Southpaw’s head had lolled back. The flight had tired him out.
Under the bed, Katar fluffed out his fur and whiskers, retracing what had happened. “No Sender?” he had said in a disbelieving mew to Hulo. “But she never goes out! Have the Bigfeet taken her, then?” The babblers had squawked, eagerly telling him and Hulo how they had seen the Sender escape, disappearing in the park.
The two toms had both looked instinctively at Southpaw. Katar’s nose had told him that the flight had made perhaps too many demands on the brown tom. He smelled of sickness, and of exhaustion; even when his paws were nuzzled, he did not wake up.
The staircase made him and Hulo nervous. The place stank of Bigfeet, and they felt vulnerable, exposed to the gaze of any creature who happened to look down from the roof, or up from the park. “He cannot be moved or woken,” Hulo had said, sniffing at Southpaw’s muzzle. “Nothing to do but wait.” The place made Katar uneasy, and it hadn’t helped that Southpaw’s fur felt warm—far too warm—to the tomcat. Hulo had dropped into the patient crouch of a seasoned warrior, settling against the flowerpots for shelter, letting his breathing slow. His stubby whiskers fell to half-mast, alert but not quivering with anxiety.
Katar had been unable to follow Hulo’s example. The tomcat’s tail had twitched ceaselessly, back and forth, back and forth, mirroring his deep sense of unease. He could smell the Sender’s scent, on the stairs, on the mesh of the kitchen door. He made his tail stop its restless twitching, and for a moment, he had stood there, his ears cocked, his nose flaring as he tried to see if he could catch the Sender’s trail. Perhaps she had been frightened enough to run away, but her dislike of the outdoors was so pronounced that she might be in the vicinity, Katar had thought. His nose was keen, and he picked up a great deal—the Bigfeet’s mingled scent trails, the spot by the kitchen window where Mara normally sat, but a few moments was enough to let the grey tom know that the Sender was nowhere close.
When Katar had finally settled down, Hulo’s eyes were open, watching him. “Your whiskers are quivering with your thoughts: if only the Sender hadn’t chosen this day of all days to explore the world,” said Hulo.
The grey tom’s ears had flickered. That was part of it, but not all of it. He could feel Hulo’s need for rest and sleep. Even with Tooth’s help, it had been a demanding journey. To go halfway across Nizamuddin with an injured comrade, when all three of them were half-starved—Hulo’s exhaustion scented the tom’s fur, and Katar knew his own would feel just the same.
Southpaw stirred, fretfully, his back paws scrabbling. Katar rose, but Hulo was already there, his whiskers raised.
“The heat rises from his fur,” he said. His mew was contained, but Katar understood, and felt despair scorch his insides. He had thought the hard part would be getting Southpaw to the Sender; it had never occurred to him that the Sender might not be in her home. Without her help, they could do little for Southpaw.
“I didn’t bring him here to die!” he said. Katar had not meant to mew aloud, but he found that he had, and that his tail was switching back and forth again.
“We can keep him company,” Hulo began, his whiskers dropping down in dejection.
But before
the tom could finish, the call had rippled through the air, resounding in his ears, making even Southpaw’s tail rise, feebly. “PERSECUTED BY BIGFEET, HUNTED BY NASTY TRAFFIC, AND AT THE MERCY OF A VICIOUS, SAVAGE KILLER…OH, SOUTHPAW, OH, BERAAL, WHY DID I EVER LEAVE HOME? WOE! THIS IS THE END!”
They were up before Mara’s mews had died away, Katar’s ears swivelling, Hulo’s fur rising as he sniffed the air eagerly.
“Not here,” said Hulo, “she’s nowhere near the park.”
“But she’s out there somewhere,” said Katar, “towards the front of her house probably, in the central park. And she sounds terrified.”
Hulo started forwards involuntarily, and then he hesitated, his paw raised in mid-air, turning to look at Southpaw.
“Go,” Katar had said to Hulo. “Find the Sender, and if you cannot find her, speak to Beraal, to Abol and Tabol, to Qawwali and to the dargah cats. Let them know she’s out, alone, and will need help.”
That, he thought now, had been the right thing to do. But then, after Hulo leapt up onto the park’s boundary wall, and headed briskly off towards Beraal’s home, Katar had found himself restless, his whiskers performing an impatient tremolo.
All Katar had done was brush against the wire-mesh door in frustration, no more, and it had swung invitingly open. His whiskers twitched, suggesting that poking his nose around the door just to see if he could smell the Bigfeet might not be a bad idea. His paws had obligingly carried him in, and then the door swung shut behind the grey tom. The click of the latch told him that he was done for. Southpaw was now on the other side, outside on the staircase; he was stuck inside, on his own.
Then he heard the soft boom of the Bigfeet’s voices echoing across the house. The tom’s fear made him forget Southpaw’s plight. He crawled, trembling, under the sturdy wooden table that formed an island in the centre of the room, shaking at the stink of the Bigfeet, who were so close.
The Hundred Names of Darkness Page 14
