Shikasta

A she-cat she took in one cold night gave birth to four kittens. She gave three away. The she-cat, already old, died. There was one cat left, a black-and-white female, pretty and engaging but stupid. I think she was even feebleminded. She slept nearly all the time, was timid, and kept herself indoors. When she came on heat, she mated with a large black cat who had made it clear to the other cats that this garden was his territory. The woman believed him to have a home, but fed him when he seemed hungry. She did not want him in her room, but when the female had her first litter of two kittens, a tabby male and a black female, the father asked to come in so persistently that she allowed him, and he would sit by the box where the family was, and call to the little mother cat, and sometimes lick the kittens.

The woman was intrigued by this paternal behaviour, and called me in to see it. We called the female cat his "wife" - with a smile, but sometimes the woman showed embarrassment, with a laugh that was shame for the human race.

The little black-and-white cat was a good mother as far as the feeding went. And she kept the kittens clean. But she seemed unable to instruct them in the use of a dirt box. It was the male cat who did that. He took them to the box, made them sit in it, and rewarded them with a male version of the "trill" that a female cat uses to encourage offspring. He would give a gruff purr that sounded humorous to us, and then lick the kittens.

He was not at all handsome. We believed him to be very old, since he was bony, with torn ears and a poor coat, in spite of the feeding he was getting in this new home, for that was what it had become. He was not importunate, or greedy. He would wait for our return from somewhere, and then, his yellow eyes on our face, like an equal, he asked with his demeanour to be let in.

As for food, he waited, sitting quietly to one side while his "wife" ate never much, but thoughtless of her kittens, as if she hardly noticed them crowded at the dish with her. When she was filled, she went at once to her box. The male cat waited until the kittens had finished, and then he came in and ate. Often there was not much left, but he did not ask for more. He licked the dish clean, sat with the kittens, or watched them curl up around each other, and crouched near them, on guard.

When the time had come for the kittens to be introduced into the garden, the mother cat did not seem to know it. She made no effort to take them out. There were steps into the garden. The male cat sat at the foot of the steps and gave his strange gruff purring call to the kittens, and they went to him. He took them around the garden, slowly, while they played and teased him and each other, but he introduced them to everything, every corner, and then showed them how to cover their excrement cleanly.

This scene was watched by the woman, from her window, and by me, from mine.

There was another young cat from a house nearby who was a natural climber. He was always at the top of a tree or putting one paw in front of another carefully as he balanced the ridge of a house.

The kittens, seeing this dashing hero at the top of the big tree, shot up after him and couldn't get down. He, ignoring them, jumped from the top of that tree down into the branches of the smaller tree, and from there to the ground - and vanished.

The kittens were in a panic, crying and complaining.

The black cat, who had watched all this from where he sat on the steps, now went thoughtfully to the bottom of the big tree, sat down, and looked up, considering the situation. There, above him, were the kittens, clinging tight, fur disordered, letting out their plaintive panicky wails.

He issued instructions for a safe descent, but they were too distracted to listen.

He climbed the tree and carried down one, then climbed it again and carried down the other.

He spoke to them severely about their foolhardiness, with gruff purrs and cuffs to their ears.

Then he went to the smaller tree, called them to him, and went up it slowly, looking back, and waiting for them to follow. First up went the tough little tiger, and then the pretty little black kitten. When the tree began to sway under his weight, he grunted, making them look up at him, and began to descend slowly backwards. They, with many complaints and cries of fear, did the same. Near the ground they jumped off, and chased each other around the garden, with relief that the lesson was safely over. But he called to them, and now went halfway up the big tree. They would not follow him. He remained there, halfway up, his four legs locked around the tree, looking down and urging them to join him. But not today. The next day, the lesson was resumed, and soon the kittens were able to climb the big tree and get themselves safely down.

All day he was in the garden watching them, and when they went indoors to their mother he lay out on the wall, or sometimes followed them. He would sit by his "wife," where she lay unobtrusively tucked up in her box, and look at her. He seemed to be wondering about her. This young animal was like an old woman, with no energy left for more than the minimum demands of life, or like a young one who has been very ill and was left depressed. There was never anything in her of the fierce joyous possessive energy one may see in a young nursing cat. Sometimes he put his ugly old head close to hers and sniffed at her, and even licked her, but she did not respond at all.

The kittens grew up and went to new homes.

The autumn came on. Some brave hunter with an airgun took a shot at the black cat and there was a bad wound which was a long time healing, and left him with a limp. But he was stiff in walking anyway and we thought it age.

When the winter came he did something he had not done before. He would sit on the steps, looking up at the woman's window, or at mine, and soundlessly miaow. If the woman let him in he sat by the female cat for a while, but when she took no notice, lay down in a corner by himself. But the woman did not really want him there, so he would direct his soundless call to me instead. In my room he would wait until a blanket had been put down for him, near a stove, and there he slept, and in the morning he went to the door, purred his gruff thanks, wreathed my legs politely and went out. It was a bad winter. Sometimes he could hardly drag himself out, he was so stiff, and he stayed in my room on his blanket. He might crawl out for a few minutes to relieve himself. This seemed to be happening very often. I put a dirt box in the room, for there was deep snow outside. He used it often. There was a cold on his kidneys, I thought: Well, he was old. Discussing it with the woman, we decided that being so old he should not be harassed with doctors and attempts to keep him alive. Medicine was got for him, though.

He was extremely thin and did not eat.

Once or twice he visited his "wife" who seemed quite pleased to see him. But when he came back to my room she seemed hardly to notice.

It was evident that he was in pain. Settling down on his blanket he did it gently, first one muscle and then another, and he would suppress a groan.

Sometimes, moving himself, he held his breath, then let it out carefully, his yellow eyes looking at me as if to say, I can't help it.

I wondered if he was afraid, poor beast, that I would throw him out into the snow if he made a nuisance of himself, but no, I soon came to believe that this was the self-control of a noble creature, mastering pain.

His presence in my room was always a quiet friendly force, and if I put my hand down to him gently, knowing he was afraid of sudden or rough movement, he gave a short grunt of thanks and acknowledgement.

He did not get better. I wrapped him up carefully and took him to the cat doctor, who said he had a cancer.