I Am a Cat (20 page)

In an effort to catch up with myself, I twist my neck. But still my tail eludes me. Being a thing so sacred, containing as it does the entire universe in its three-inch length, my tail is inevitably beyond my power to control. I spun round in pursuit of it seven and a half times but, feeling quite exhausted, I finally gave up. I feel a trifle giddy. For a moment I lose all sense of where I am and, deciding that my whereabouts are totally unimportant, I start to walk about at random. Then I hear the voice of Madam Conk. It comes from the far side of a paper-window. My ears prick up in sharp diagonals and, once more fully alert, I hold my breath.

This is the place which I set out to find.

“He’s far too cocky for a penny-pinching usher,” she’s screaming in that parrot’s voice.

“Sure, he’s a cocky fellow. I’ll have a bit of the bounce taken out of him, just to teach him a lesson. There are one or two fellows I know, fellows from my own province, teaching at his school.”

“What fellows are those?”

“Well, there’s Tsuki Pinsuke and Fukuchi Kishago for a start. I’ll arrange with them for him to be ragged in class.”

I don’t know from what province old man Goldfield comes, but I’m rather surprised to find it stiff with such outlandish names.

“Is he a teacher of English?” her husband asks.

“Yes. According to the wife of the rickshaw-owner, his teaching specializes in an English Reader or something like that.”

“In any case, he’s gotta be a rotten teacher.”

I’m also struck by the vulgarity of that “gotta be” phraseology.

“When I saw Pinsuke the other day he mentioned that there was some crackpot at his school. When asked the English word for
bancha
, this fathead answered that the English called it, not ‘coarse tea’ as they actually do, but ‘savage tea.’ He’s now the laughing stock of all his teaching colleagues. Pinsuke added that all the other teachers suffer for this one’s follies.Very likely it’s the self-same loon.”

“It’s bound to be. He’s got the face you’d expect on a fool who thinks that tea can be savage. And to think he has the nerve to sport such a dashing mustache!”

“Saucy bastard.”

If whiskers establish sauciness, every cat is impudent.

“As for that man Waverhouse—Staggering Drunk I’d call him—he’s an obstreperous freak if ever I saw one. Baron Makiyama, his uncle indeed! I was sure that no one with a face like his could have a baron for an uncle.”

“You, too, are at fault for believing anything which a man of such dubious origins might say.”

“Maybe I was at fault. But really there’s a limit and he’s gone much too far.” Madam Conk sounds singularly vexed. The odd thing is that neither mentions Coldmoon. I wonder if they concluded their discussion about him before I sneaked up on them or whether perhaps they had earlier decided to block his marriage suit and had therefore already forgotten all about him. I remain disturbed about this question, but there’s nothing I can do about it. For a little while I lay crouched down in silence but then I heard a bell ring at the far end of the corridor. What’s up down there? Determined this time not to be late on the scene, I set out smartly in the direction of the sound.

I arrived to find some female yattering away by herself in a loud unpleasant voice. Since her tones resemble those of Madam Conk, I deduce that this must be that darling daughter, that delicious charmer for whose sake Coldmoon has already risked death by drowning.

Unfortunately, the paper-windows between us make it impossible for me to observe her beauty and I cannot therefore be sure whether she, too, has a massive nose plonked down in the center of her face. But I infer from her mannerisms, such as the way she sounds to be turning up her nose when she talks, that that organ is unlikely to be an inconspicuous pug-nose. Though she talks continuously, nobody seems to be answering, and I deduce that she must be using one of those modern telephones.

“Is that the Yamato? I want to reserve, for tomorrow, the third box in the lower gallery. All right? Got it? What’s that? You can’t? But you must.

Why should I be joking? Don’t be such a fool. Who the devil are you?

Chōkichi? Well, Chōkichi, you’re not doing very well. Ask the proprietress to come to the phone. What’s that? Did you say you were able to cope with any possible inquiries? How dare you speak to me like that?

D’you know who I am? This is Miss Goldfield speaking. Oh, you’re well aware of that, are you? You really are a fathead. Don’t you understand, this is
the
Goldfield. Again? You thank us for being regular patrons? I don’t want your stupid thanks. I want the third box in the lower gallery.

Don’t laugh, you idiot. You must be terribly stupid. You are, you say? If you don’t stop being insolent, I shall just ring off. You understand? I can promise you you’ll be sorry. Hello. Are you still there? Hello, hello.

Speak up. Answer me. Hello, hello, hello.” Chōkichi seems to have hung up, for no answer is forthcoming. The girl is now in something of a tizzy and she grinds away at the telephone handle as though she’s gone off her head. A lapdog somewhere around her feet suddenly starts to yap, and, realizing I’d better keep my wits about me, I quickly hop off the veranda and creep in under the house.

Just then I hear approaching footsteps and the sound of a paper-door being slid aside. I tilt my head to listen.

“Your father and mother are asking for you, Miss.” It sounds like a parlor-maid.

“So who cares?” was the vulgar answer.

“They sent me to fetch you because they’ve something they want to tell you.”

“You’re being a nuisance. I said I just don’t care.” She snubs the maid once more.

“They said it’s something to do with Mr. Coldmoon.” The maid tries tactfully to put this young vixen into a better humor.

“I couldn’t care less if they want to talk about Coldmoon or Piddlemoon. I abominate that man with his daft face looking like a bewildered gourd.” Her third sour outburst is directed at the absent Coldmoon. “Hello,” she suddenly goes on, “when did you start dressing your hair in the Western style?”

The parlor-maid gulps and then replies as briefly as she can “Today.”

“What sauce. A mere parlor-maid, what’s more.” Her fourth attack comes in from a different direction. “And isn’t that a brand new collar you’ve got on?”

“Yes, it’s the one you gave me recently. I’ve been keeping it in my box because it seemed too good for the likes of me, but my other collar became so grubby I thought I’d make the change.”

“When did I give it you?”

“It was January you bought it. At Shirokiya’s. It’s got the ranks of sumō wrestlers set out as decoration on the greeny-brown material. You said it was too somber for your style. So you gave it me.”

“Did I? Well, it certainly looks nice on you. How very provoking!”

“I’m much obliged!”

“I didn’t intend a compliment. I’m very much put out.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Why did you accept something which so very much becomes you without letting me know that it would?”

“But Miss. . .”

“Since it looks that nice on you, it couldn’t fail, could it, to look more nice on me?”

“I’m sure it would have looked delightful on you.”

“Then why didn’t you say so? Instead of that, you just stand there wearing it when you know I’d like it back. You little beast.” Her vituperations seem to have no end. I was wondering what would happen when, from the room at the other end of the house, old man Goldfield himself suddenly roared out for his daughter. “Opula,” he bellowed.

“Opula, come here.” She had no choice but to obey and mooched sulkily out of the room containing the telephone. Her lapdog, slightly bigger than myself with its eyes and mouth all bunched together in the middle of its revolting mug, slopped along behind her.

Thereupon, with my usual stealthy steps, I tiptoed back to the kitchen and, through the kitchen-door, found my way to the street, and so back home. My expedition has been notably successful.

Coming thus suddenly from a beautiful mansion to our dirty little dwelling, I felt as though I had descended from a sunlit mountaintop to some dark dismal grot. Whilst on my spying mission. I’d been far too busy to take any notice of the ornaments in the rooms, of the decoration of the sliding-doors and paper-windows or of any similar features, but as soon as I returned and became conscious of the shabbiness of home, I found myself yearning for what Waverhouse claims to despise. I am inclined to think that, after all, there’s a good deal more to a businessman than there is to a teacher. Uncertain of the soundness of this thinking, I consult my infallible tail. The oracle confirms that my thinking is correct.

I am surprised to find Waverhouse still sitting in my master’s room.

His cigarette stubs, stuffed into the brazier, make it look like a beehive.

Comfortably cross-legged on the floor, he is, as usual, talking. It appears, moreover, that during my absence Coldmoon has dropped in.

My master, his head pillowed on his arms, lies flat on his back rapt in contemplation of the pattern of the rainmarks on the ceiling. It is another of those meetings of hermits in a peaceful reign.

“Coldmoon, my dear fellow, I seem to remember that you insisted upon maintaining as the darkest of dark secrets the name of that young lady who called your name from the depths of her delirium. But surely the time has now come when you could reveal her identity?”

Waverhouse begins to niggle Coldmoon.

“Were it just solely my concern, I wouldn’t mind telling you, but since any such disclosure might compromise the other party. . .”

“So you still won’t tell?”

“Besides, I promised the Doctor’s wife. . .”

“Promised never to tell anyone?”

“Yes,” says Coldmoon back at his usual fiddling with the strings of his surcoat. The strings are a bright purple, objects of a color one could never nowadays find in any shop.

“The color of those strings is early nineteenth century” remarks my supine master. He is genuinely quite indifferent to anything that concerns the Goldfields.

“Quite. It couldn’t possibly belong to these times of the Russo-Japanese War. That kind of string would be appropriate only to the garments worn by the rank and file of soldiers under the Shogunate. It is said that on the occasion of his marriage, nearly four hundred years ago, Oda Nobunaga dressed his hair back in the fashion of a tea whisk, and I have no doubt his projecting top-knot was bound with precisely such a string.” Waverhouse goes, as usual, all around the houses to make his little point.

“As a matter of fact, my grandfather wore these strings at the time, not forty years back, when the Tokugawa were putting down the last rebellion before the restoration of the Emperor.” Coldmoon takes it all dead seriously.

“Isn’t it then about time you presented those strings to a museum?

For that well-known lecturer on the mechanics of hanging, that leading bachelor of science, Mr. Avalon Coldmoon to go around looking like a relic of mediaevalism would scarcely help his reputation.”

“I myself would be only too ready to follow your advice. However, there’s a certain person who says that these strings do specially become me. . .”

“Who on earth could have made such an imperceptive comment?”

asks my master in a loud voice as he rolls over onto his side.

“A person not of your acquaintance.”

“Never mind that. Who was it?”

“A certain lady.”

“Gracious me, what delicacy! Shall I guess who it is? I think it’s the lady who whimpered for you from the bottom of the Sumida River. Why don’t you tie up your surcoat with those nice purple strings and go on out and get drowned again?” Waverhouse offers a helpful suggestion.

Coldmoon laughs at the sally. “As a matter of fact she no longer calls me from the riverbed. She is now, as it were, in the Pure Land, a little northwest from here. . .”

“Don’t hope for too much purity. That ghastly nose looks singularly unwholesome.”

“Eh?” says Coldmoon, looking puzzled.

“The Archnose from over the way has just been round to see us. Yes, right here. I can tell you we had quite a surprise. Hadn’t we, Sneaze?”

“We had,” replies my master still lying on his side but now sipping tea.

“Whom do you mean by the Archnose?”

“We mean the honorable mother of your ever-darling lady.”

“Oh!”

“A woman calling herself Mrs. Goldfield came round here asking all sorts of questions about you.” My master, clarifying the situation, speaks quite seriously.

I watch poor Coldmoon, wondering if he will be surprised or pleased or embarrassed, but in fact he looks exactly as he always does. And in his accustomed quiet tones he comments “I suppose she’s asking if I’ll marry the daughter? Was that it?” and he goes on twisting and untwisting his purple strings.

“Far from it! That mother happens to own the most enormous nose. . .” But before Waverhouse could finish his sentence my master interrupted him with a sudden irrelevance.

“Listen,” he chirps, “I’ve been trying to compose a new-style
haiku
on that snout of hers.” Mrs. Sneaze begins to giggle in the next room.