Children of Bast (2 page)

“Let’s start tomorrow,” he said before he began washing his face. “I’m tired now.” He yawned and smiled again. “What are your plans for after supper?”

“Uh, dunno. TV? Read? Why?”

“Oh, I hope for a lap. I am a cat, after all, and I love to snuggle as we’ve done evenings since I got here. I’m a lap cat. That’s what you’ve said anyway.”

My appetite disappeared, so we went to the living room where I tried to read. He stretched out on my lap, laid his head on my knee and tuned up his purr. Now and then, he looked back at me and smiled. I just knew he was getting a kick out of driving me crazy.

Instead of reading, I sat still and waited to wake up from the nightmare. I knew I was asleep somewhere, and I was in this cat’s dream. I would wake up, he would be on my lap and I would have a good laugh. It did not happen.

At last I accepted that I had a cat that could speak excellent EA and that I was so crazy I’d be eating and drinking out of bowls on the floor very soon.

I will not bore you with more details of that evening because nothing happened that was as overwhelming as having a cat speak to me. I fell into a restless sleep, and woke up around three in the morning with him still on my lap.

Over the course of two months, I listened to his story and translated it into English. Actually, it is a transliteration because the languages are so foreign to each other that direct translation is impossible.

You will find that I used transliterated EA words here and there in the text because Gaylord—his name that he finally revealed to me—wanted readers to get a flavor of his language and appreciate the fact the cats are, in fact, extraordinary creatures like none other. (That Gaylord had self-importance issues will become quite evident in the story.)

As we worked together and shared cuddle-time each evening, Gaylord and I became very close friends. Nevertheless, when he finished his story and left me the job of editing, he departed quickly to his home, which I will describe later. Even though it has been five years since we collaborated and we see each other as often as possible, I miss him terribly. If I had not learned from him that all cats can talk, I could call him unique. He is not one of a kind, but he is exceptional.

I have included a glossary to define EA words used in the text. Hope you enjoy Gaylord’s memoir.

Professor F. L. Fuller

Adjunct Professor of Egyptian Arabic

Way down deep, we're all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them.
JimDavis

At Time of Owls I approached Chubby’s hideaway under the

dilapidated shack he called home. Familiar shadows of two toms approached from the alley: Raeed and Thain, the meanest, most vicious amai alive. They took great pleasure in tormenting, maiming and often killing the feeble and frail, kiths and especially elderly amai too weak to defend themselves.

I bolted forward, cleared the splintering porch rail and jumped Raeed before he could look up. A huge tarnished yellow creature with a scruffy, unkempt coat zigzagged with scars; he flipped to his back, hissed and screamed, clawed my face and clamped down my nose. When he went for my ear, I sunk my teeth into his throat and tasted his blood squirting into my mouth. He stopped struggling, and still holding him down, I released his throat. Glaring at him nose to nose, I said, “If I ever see you around Chubby again, I’ll slice you open like the rat you are.”

He wrenched free and arched his back, his tail flapping like a flag and every hair on his body fluffed like feathers on an angry tuyuur.

“This isn’t over, Gaylord,” he spat.

“Yes it is, Raeed, unless you wanna die.” He hissed at me again and slithered into the shadows.

Turning to Thain–a knotty, skinny gray with eyes like wet cement–I hissed right into his face hard enough to blow him over. He was a coward without Raeed, so he spun and ran so fast he became a dot in the distance.

I wanted to kill Raeed so bad once when he made a pass at Adele, but she stopped me, asking why I wanted to roll around with garbage and reminding me I didn’t have enough experience to fight him. At the time, she was right.

As I washed his stinking blood off my face, I heard Chubby laughing like a deranged kilaab barking at shadows.

I trotted back and said, “Okay, let me in on the joke.”

“If I live to be a hundred, and I warn you, I’m going to if this keeps up, I’ll never forget the look on Raeed’s face when you nailed his throat. I think his eyes popped out when you bit down.”

“You’re a sick old amait, Chubby, to get a kick out of seeing someone get torn to pieces.”

“I’m not sick if I want to see that sack of khara get his, am I. He deserves every bit of it.”

I continued washing my face and chest, spitting to get Raeed’s blood out of my mouth.

Chubby continued to laugh. He laid under the building with his paws and legs curled under him with his tail wrapped around his body. He was ageless. None of us knew how old he was, not even him. His amait name was Gahiji, which means hunter, and when he was younger, he was the best. Chubby was the name the bašar yelled at him when they chased him away from their flower gardens where he dumped his khara. Cats in the clowder started calling him Chubby.

“Holy Bast, in my day I’d have snapped his neck with one bite. How come you let him roll over?”

It was End of Light now, but Lady A'maar hadn’t risen and all I could see of Chubby was his one yellow eye.

“He was pretty fast.” I sniffed my tail to make sure it was clean. “Besides, I like the taste of an enemy’s blood, except Raeed’s. Tastes like fresh khara.”

I looked in the direction the two rotten beasts had run and wondered why I hadn’t killed them both right then. They’d killed lots of amai, including some of my friends. But, they were psycho; amai don’t kill unless we have to.

“So, where’d you come from?” Chubby asked. “Haven’t seen you forever. What brings you clear across town at such a timely moment?”

“To save your withered butt. I’m super amait, don’t you know.” I laughed as I crawled under the shack and sprawled near Chubby. “I am beat.”

“Getting old, Gaylord?”

“You should know, my ancient friend.” We laughed again. “No, just came by to shoot the breeze, lie, tell stories and create the finest tiraan khara ever made. I know how good you are at that, Chubby.”

My eyes adjusted and his face came into view, a serene face that revealed wisdom without saying a word. He was a tabby with speckled faraawi, a little black, but mostly orange. His face looked like a kith’s except for the blind eye and the scars from many fights. He was also fat from stealing food set out for our house amai cousins at night by their bašar. He sported white socks and a tail broken so many times in fights it resembled a rope with knots. But, he was the definition of contentment in his old age.

“Yeah, well, you ain’t so bad at grinding out the tiraan khara, yourself.” He licked a paw, eyeing me. “Glad you came. Always good to see you, Gaylord.” He gave his ear and face a swipe with the moist paw, and then settled back into a pile of faraawi. He looked at me with his good eye and said, “I’ve been wantin’ to talk to you for some time about Adele and what happened. You disappeared and never told me much.”

“It’s hard to talk about, Chubby. It’s too soon.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know. It’s been two years. How long you gonna grieve? Adele and I were like family long before you came into the picture, Gaylord, so I think I have a right to hear what happened.”

I looked away. He was right, but just thinking about Adele always brought me to tears and talking about her was almost impossible. I watched him sitting in front of me, a grizzled old wise amait with a stare that always made me feel guilty without knowing what I’d done. He was the abaa' and agdaad I ever knew; we’d become close since Adele brought me to him when I first hit the streets for his wisdom and guidance so my kith brain wouldn’t get me into trouble.

Maybe I should talk about it, I thought, and close that part of my life.

“How much time you got, Chubby?”

“All the time in the world.”

I sighed and twitched my ears but didn’t say anything for a long time. Cars swished by, streetlights popped on and a cool breeze slid under the shack that used to be a small store. Chubby said the bašar who ran it were okay and gave him fresh liver almost every day. Someone abandoned it and left it to rot after the bašar died, Chubby said. They boarded up the windows and doors long ago, and all the paint had flaked to the ground. They nailed the back door shut, but over the years, the nails pulled loose and the door rattled in the wind.

We went inside once and found only empty, dusty rooms that made Chubby sad. He lived under the shack because it was near places to get food, and because he was a softhearted old tom, he kept watch over the place in honor of the bašar who had fed him.

“Okay, let me start at the beginning, before I knew Adele and you. Let me go back and explain how I came to be this ragged alley amait you see before you.”

He smiled. “Fantastic.” His voice was old and scratchy, but his purr rivaled the cars whizzing by.

The cat is the only animal which accepts the comforts but rejects the bondage of domesticity.
Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon

A
lthough my beautiful orange tabby maama never knew about nibiit until we got to the seminary, she soon became a heavy drinker, a lush, in fact. Our captors, or owners if you wish…God, how I hate that word, owner. No one owns me now or ever will again. We were captives.”

I glanced at Chubby who was laughing his tail off. “Go ahead, laugh,” I said. “You’re lucky you’ve never been captured.”

He stopped laughing and said, “And never will be. Feral and free start with the same sound.”

So does old fart, I thought, but he did have a way with words.

“Okay. Our captors were young college students who’d picked us up somewhere in the Clowder of Bašar. You know, where tall buildings are crowded and cars run like rivers. I’ve heard them call it Sheekaga, or something like that. I’d been a kith when we got there and was too young to remember where maama and I came from. Lucky we were adopted together.

Now, to be fair to our captors, Harriett and Ned weren’t bad bašar. They petted us and brushed us and cuddled us, stuffed us with food, and gave us a warm place to sleep that was lamis like my maama’s faraawi. And after laying on their laps until A'maar Aw'aat, they’d gave us their sofa to sleep on. But, we had no freedom, and we had to use a litter box to whiz and dump. A litter box. Ever use one?

“Heard of ‘em. Sounds disgusting.”

“Well, I’m here to tell you they
smell
worse than disgusting.”

Their apartment was okay: a place for food where they ate and we ate, a place where the sofa was, a sleeping den and a place for their litter box, only it wasn’t like ours and smelled a lot better. Bašar have to have so much to live, Chubby. They’re so complicated. Not like us amai: All we need is a nook somewhere to sleep in, a place to dig holes and a few mice or rats to eat. So much easier, hey.

Anyway, they had some skimpy cloth on the floor, a dark color, and it smelled bad, but I could never separate the smells. Except, someone smoked, I think, and dropped ashes on the floor. How can they smoke, Chubby? I’m gone when they make el nar from a little stick.

The cloth was stiff and rough. It gave the whole place a stale, unfriendly feel, nothing cheerful. We were closed in. Nowhere to walk or run. Yeah, we played and rolled around together, but we slammed into the cold, hard walls all the time and about knocked our brains out. I was sure there was more to life, somewhere.

Until I escaped, I’d never breathed fresh air, touched grass or dirt or felt a breeze. Warm light came through a small window above the sofa where we all huddled until it left us.

But, on the outside, wow! Sunlight everywhere; even on cloudy days it’s warm, including in the Season of Emergence when it’s cold and we get deep snow.

Now, Maama wasn’t bothered by the whole setup. After tasting her first nibiit, she didn’t care about anything but the next sip. Our captors drank a lot of nibiit, too. They had it every day but were careless about leaving it sit around in glasses where Maama could get to it. Of course, they didn’t know Maama was gulping it down. They probably thought amai didn’t like nibiit.

My sister, Lamis, and I tried some nibiit once, and gagged all over the cloth on the floor. It tasted bad. I can’t describe it, really. It burned all the way down, and it was sour and made our tongues dry and bitter. How Maama could slurp the stuff, we never learned. I think it might have killed her because in the Season of Emergence before I escaped, we found her dead on the sofa one morning, curled up like she was sleeping, contented.

Our light went out that day. Our beautiful, fluffy maama was all we had, Chubby, even though a lot of times she was passed out. But, she was our maama, and we loved her. Harriet found us that morning sitting by Maama, and she petted us and said she was so sorry. We never knew what happened to her body. It just disappeared.