I Am a Cat (52 page)

“That will be perfectly satisfactory. They may throw in as many balls as they wish. If in future the boys will present themselves properly at the front door and properly ask permission, everything will be fine. Perhaps I may now hand these particular miscreants back into your charge for supervised conduct back to school. I am only sorry that it has proved necessary to put you personally to the inconvenience of coming over here to cope with this business.” As always, my master, though he went up with the dash and sizzle of a rocket, came down like a dull old stick.

The teacher of ethics led off his mountain troopers through the front gate, and so this major incident drooped to its tame conclusion.

If you laugh at me for calling it a major event, well, you are free to laugh. Should it, for you, seem trivial, then so indeed it is, but I have been describing what seemed to my master, not perhaps to anyone else, events of enormous magnitude. Anyone who sneers at him as, at best, an arrow shot from a possibly once strong bow but now so far gone as to be spent and feeble, should be reminded that such spent-arrowness is the essence of the man, and, moreover, that his peculiar character has made him the star figure in a popular comic novel. Those who call him a fool for wasting his days in crazy quarrels with the younger kinds of teenage schoolboys command my immediate assent, for he is undoubtedly a fool. Which, of course, is why certain critics have said that my master has not yet grown out of his babyhood.

Having now described the minor and major events in my master’s war with the Hall, I shall close that history with an account of their aftermath. Some of my readers may choose to believe that I’m having them on with a history of pure balderdash but, I do assure you, no cat, and least of all myself, would be so irresponsible. Every single letter, every single word that I set down implies and reflects a cosmic philoso-phy and, as these letters and words cohere into sentences and paragraphs, they become a coordinated whole, clear and consistent, with beginnings and ends skillfully designed to correspond and, by that correspondence, to provide an overall world view of the condition of all creation. Thus, these close written pages, which the more superficial minds amongst you have seen as nothing better than a tiresome spate of trivial chit-chat, shall suddenly reveal themselves as containing weighty wisdom, edifying homilies, guidance for you all. I would therefore be obliged if you would have the courtesy to sit up straight, stop lolling about like so many sloppy sacks, and, instead of skimming through my text, study it with close attention. May I remind you that Liu Tsung-yüan thought it proper to actually lave his hands with rose-water before touching the paper lucky enough to carry the prose of his fellow poet and fellow scholar, Han T’ni-chih. The prose which I have written deserves a treatment no less punctiliously respectful. You should not disgrace yourselves by reading it in some old dog-eared copy of a magazine filched or borrowed from a friend. Have at least the grace to buy a copy of the magazine with your own money. As I indicated at the beginning of this well-constructed paragraph, I am about to describe an aftermath.

If you think an aftermath could not possibly be interesting and consequently propose to skip reading it, you will most bitterly regret your decision. You simply must read on to the end.

On the day following the major showdown I took myself off for a walk. I had barely set out when, on the corner across from my master’s house where a side street joins the road, whom should I see but Goldfield and his toady Suzuki engaged in earnest conversation.

Lickspittle Suzuki had in fact just left the Goldfield mansion after some obsequious visit there, when its ‘flat-faced’ owner, homebound in his rickshaw, stopped to speak with him. Though I have lately come to find old Goldfield’s household something of a bore and have therefore discontinued calling there, the sight of the old rogue himself stirred in my heart an odd warmth toward him. I even feel sufficient interest in Suzuki, whom I haven’t seen for several weeks, to sidle across for a closer look; it was thus natural that, as I drifted toward them, their conversation should fall upon my ears. It’s not my fault, but theirs, if in a public place I happen to hear their talk. Goldfield, a man whose broad concept of decency permits him to hire marks to spy upon my master, would, I feel quite sure, extend his sympathetic understanding to any chance coincidence of presence which narrower minds might consider common eaves-dropping. I’d be disappointed if he displayed such lack of balance as to cut up rough. In any event, I heard their conversation—

not, I repeat, of my own will or by my own scheming, simply because their talking was rammed into my ears.

“I’ve just been to your house. How fortunate to have met you here.”

Suzuki performs his usual series of overhumble bows.

“Fortunate indeed. As a matter of fact, I’ve been wanting to see you.”

“Have you, Sir? How lucky then. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Well, nothing serious. Quite unimportant really. But it’s something only you could do.”

“You may be assured that anything I can do, most happily I will. What have you in mind?”

“Well now. . .” grunted Goldfield as he searched for the right words.

“If you prefer, I could come back any time which happens to suit you.

Would you care to suggest a time?”

“No, no, it’s not all that important. Indeed, I might as well tell you now.”

“Please don’t hesitate.”

“That crazy fellow, that friend of yours. . . what’s his name now. . .

Sneaze I think it was. . .”

“Oh, him. What’s Sneaze been up to now?”

“Nothing really, but I’ve not entirely gotten over that last annoying business. It’s left a nasty taste in my mouth.”

“I quite understand. Vainglory such as his is positively sickening. He should see himself and his social status realistically; but no, stupid and stuck-up, he carries on like the lord of all creation.”

“That’s just it. His insolent disparagement of the business community gets my goat. All that rant about never bowing to the might of money.

So I thought I’d let him see what a businessman can do. For quite some time now I’ve been putting spokes in his wagon, modest irritations involving no more than modest expenditure, but the man’s incredibly stubborn and I find myself stumped by his sheer block-headedness. He can’t, apparently, grasp that he’s being got at.”

“The trouble is that he has no real understanding of profit and loss.

He is incapable of appreciating, let alone weighing, the balance of his own advantage and disadvantage. So he goes his own mad road, feeble but persistent in resisting redirection, totally oblivious to his own best interest. He’s always been like that. A hopeless case.”

Goldfield burst into genuine laughter at the portrait drawn by Suzuki of a character so ludicrous to them both that cachinnation was their only possible reaction. “You’ve hit the nail on the head. I’ve tried all sorts of tricks to shake him up. Knowing the level of his intelligence, I’ve even hired schoolkids to play him up with pranks.”

“That was a bright idea! Did it work?”

“I think it’s working. Certainly it’s put him under strain, and I fancy it’s now only a matter of time before he cracks under the pressure.”

“Under sheer weight of numbers! How clever you are.”

“Yes, I think that he’s beginning to feel the effects of his singularity.

Anyway, he’s pretty weakened and I want you to go along and see how he is.”

“Gladly. I’ll call on him right away and let you have a report on my way back. This should be interesting. It must be quite a sight to see that bull-headed fellow down in the dumps.”

“Very well, then. See you later. I’ll be expecting you.”

“All right, Sir.”

Well, well! So here we are again with another pretty plot. The power of a businessman is indeed formidable. By its frightening force my clink-er of a master has been set afire with frenzy; his thatch of hair is well on its agonized way to becoming a skating rink for flies, and his skull can soon expect an Aeschylean bashing. Considering how much has been achieved by the power of a single businessman, I am obliged to conclude that, though I’ll never know why the earth spins around on its axis, it’s certainly cash that motivates this world. None know better than businessmen what power money buys. It is by their nod that the sun comes up in the east and, by their decision, goes down in the west. I have been very slow to learn the divine right of businessmen, and I attribute my backwardness to the atmosphere, the cultural effluvia from a poor pigheaded schoolie, in which I have been reared. The time has clearly come when my dimwitted bigot of a master simply must wake up to the realities of this world. To persevere in his present attitudes could well prove dangerous; dangerous, even, to that dreary, dull, dyspeptic life which he so desperately treasures. How, I wonder, will my master cope with the coming visitation of Suzuki? Believing that the style in which that visitor is received will be an accurate indicator of the degree to which my master has learnt to recognize and accept the power of businessmen, I know I must not loiter. Though merely a cat, I accept the imperatives of loyalty and am worried for my master’s safety. I slink around the nauseating Suzuki and, at a scamper, got back home before him.

Suzuki proves as smooth and slippery as ever. No mention of the Goldfields soils his subtle lips, but he chats away, amused and even amusing, on matters of no importance.

“You don’t look too well. Is anything wrong?”

“No, I’m quite well.”

“But you’re pale. Must take care of yourself. The weather’s not been good. Are you sleeping all right?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you have some worry. If there’s anything I can do, just tell me.”

“Worry? What worry?”

“Oh, if you’re so lucky as to be quite worry-free, that’s fine. I only spoke of worry in the hope that I might help. Worry, you know, is the worst of poisons. It’s much more profitable to live one’s life with gaiety and laughter. You seem to me a bit depressed, gloomy even.”

“Laughter’s no joke, sometimes positively harmful. Men have died from too much laughter.”

“Nonsense. Remember the saying that luck arrives through a merry gate.”

“It sounds to me as though you’ve never heard of Chrysippus. Have you? An ancient Greek philosopher?”

“Never heard of him. What did he do?”

“He died of laughter.”

“Really? How extraordinary! But that was long ago.”

“What difference does that make? Chrysippus saw a donkey eating figs from a silver bowl and thought the sight so funny he laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop laughing. Eventually he laughed himself to death.”

“Well, that’s certainly a very funny story, but I’m not suggesting you should laugh your life away. But laugh a little, moderately, a little more than you do, and you’ll find you feel wonderful.”

Suzuki was watching my master through intently narrowed eyes, but his concentration was broken by the noise of the front gate opening. I thought, with pleased relief that one of my master’s friends had chosen this happy moment to drop in. But I was wrong.

“Our ball’s come in. May I go and get it?”

O-san answered from the kitchen, “Yes, you may,” and the schoolboy pads around to the back garden.

Suzuki distinctly puzzled, asks, “What was all that about?”

“The boys from the school next door have batted one of their balls into my garden.”

“Schoolboys next door? Do you have schoolboys for neighbors?”

“There’s a school out back, the Hall of the Descending Cloud.”

“Oh, I see. A school. It must be very noisy.”

“You’ve no idea how noisy it is. I can’t even study. If I were the Minister of Education, I’d order it closed forthwith.”

Suzuki permitted himself a burst of laughter sufficiently long to increase my master’s irritation. “My goodness,” he observed when his cackling ceased, “you really are worked up. Do the schoolboys bother you all that much?”

“Bother me! They certainly do! They bother me from morning until night.”

“If you find it all so irritating, why don’t you move away?”

“You dare suggest that I should move away! What impertinence!”

“Steady on, now. There’s no point in getting angry with me. Anyway, they’re only little boys. If I were you, I’d simply disregard them.”

“Yes, I expect you would; but I wouldn’t. Only yesterday I summoned one of the teachers here and lodged a formal complaint.”

“What a lark! He must have been ashamed.”

“He was.”

Just then, we heard again a voice and the sound of the front door opening. “Our ball’s rolled in. May I please go and fetch it.”

“Golly,” said Suzuki, “not another with another lost ball.”

“Yes, I’ve agreed that they should come by the front gate.”

“I see, I see. They do keep coming, don’t they? One after the other!

I’ve got it. Yes, I see.”

“What is it that you see?”

“Oh, I meant I see the reason for this stream of schoolboys coming to collect lost balls,”

“That’s the sixteenth time today.”

“Don’t you find it a nuisance? Why don’t you keep them out?”