Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Had 14 Tales

“She’s doing it again,” I said. “I wonder what the reason could be.”

Gertrude said, almost in a whisper: “Remember what Mr. Van said about cats and ghosts?”

“Look at that animal! You’d swear she was rubbing against someone’s ankles. I wish she’d stop. It makes me uneasy.”

“I wonder,” said my sister very slowly, “if Mr. Van is really in a mental hospital.”

“What do you mean?”

“Or is he—down there?” Gertrude pointed uncertainly over the edge of the wharf. “I think Mr. Van is dead, and SuSu knows.”

“That’s too fantastic,” I said. “Really, Gertrude!”

“I think Frank pushed the poor man off the wharf, wheelchair and all—perhaps one dark night when Mr. Van couldn’t sleep and insisted on being wheeled to the park.”

“You’re not serious, Gertrude.”

“Can’t you see it? . . . A cold night. The riverfront deserted. Mr. Van trussed in his wheelchair with a blanket. Why, that chair would sink like lead! What a terrible thing! That icy water. That poor helpless man.”

“I just can’t—”

“Now Frank is free, and he has all those antiques, and nobody cares enough to ask questions. He can sell them and be set up for life.”

“And he tears up the will,” I suggested, succumbing to Gertrude’s fantasy.

“Do you know what a Newport blockfront is worth? I’ve been looking it up in the library. A chest like the one we saw in Mr. Van’s apartment was sold for hundreds of thousands at an auction on the East Coast.”

“But what about the relatives in Pennsylvania?”

“I’m sure Mr. Van had no relatives—in Pennsylvania or anywhere else.”

“Well, what do you propose we should do?” I said in exasperation. “Report it to the manager of the building? Notify the police? Tell them we think the man has been murdered because our cat sees his ghost every night at eight-thirty? We’d look like a couple of middle-aged ladies who are getting a little gek.”

As a matter of fact, I was beginning to worry about Gertrude’s obsession—that is, until I read the morning paper a few days later.

I skimmed through it at the breakfast table, and there—at the bottom of page seven—one small item leaped off the paper at me. Could I believe my eyes?

“Listen to this,” I said to my sister. “The body of an unidentified man has been washed up on a downriver island. Police say the body had apparently been held underwater for several weeks by the ice . . . . About fifty-five years old and crippled . . . . No one fitting that description has been reported to the Missing Persons Bureau.”

For a moment my sister stared at the coffeepot. Then she left the breakfast table and went to the telephone.

“Now all the police have to do,” she said with a quiver in her voice, “is to look for an antique wheelchair in the river at the foot of the street. Cast iron. With the original plush.” She blinked at the phone several times. “Would you dial?” she asked me. “I can’t see the numbers.”

Stanley and Spook

When I first met Jane she used to say: “I’d rather have kittens than kids.” Ten years later she had one of each: Stanley and Spook, a most unusual pair. She also had a successful engineer for a husband and a lovely house in the Chicago suburbs and a new car every year.

In the interim we had kept in touch, more or less, by means of Christmas cards and vacation postcards. Then one spring I attended a business conference in Chicago and telephoned Jane to say hello.

She was elated! “Linda, you’ve got to come out here for a visit when you’ve finished with your meetings. Ed has an engineering job in Saudi Arabia, and I’m here alone with Stanley and Spook. I’d love to have you meet them. And you and I can talk about old times.”

She gave me directions: “When you get off the freeway, go four miles north, then take a left at the cider mill until you come to Maplewood Farms. It’s a winding road. We’re the last house—white with black shutters and an enormous maple tree in front. You can’t miss it.”

Late Friday afternoon I rented a car and drove to the affluent suburbs, recalling that we had once lived contentedly in tents. Now Jane lived in Maplewood Farms, and I had an apartment with a view on New York’s Upper East Side.

When Jane and I first met, we were newly married to a pair of young engineers who were building a dam in the northern wilderness. The first summer, we lived in a sprawling “tent city” and thought it a great adventure. After all, we were young and still had rice in our hair. Eventually, cottages were built for the engineers. Shacks would be a better description. Jane decorated hers, I remember, with pictures of cats, and for Christmas Ed gave her an amber Persian that she named Maple Sugar. That’s when she made her memorable announcement about kittens and kids. All that seemed ages ago.

Arriving at Maplewood Farms I was driving slowly down the winding avenue, admiring the well-landscaped houses, when I noticed a fire truck at the far end. People were grouped on the lawns and the pavement, watching, but there was no sign of anxiety. Actually, everyone seemed quite happy.

I parked and approached two couples who were standing in the middle of the street, sipping cocktails. “What’s happening?” I asked.

A woman in a Moroccan caftan smiled and said: “Spook climbed up the big maple and doesn’t know how to climb down.”

“Third time this month,” said a man in an embroidered Mexican shirt. “Up go our taxes! . . . Would you like a drink, honey?”

The other man suggested: “Why don’t they cut down the tree?”

“Or put Spook on a leash,” the first woman said. Everyone laughed.

The fire truck had extended its ladder high into the branches of the big maple, and I watched as a fireman climbed up and disappeared into the leafy green. A moment or two later, he came back into view, and a cheer went up from the bystanders. He was carrying a six-year-old boy in jeans and a Chicago Cubs sweatshirt.

Jane, waiting at the foot of the ladder, hugged and scolded the child—an adorable little boy with his father’s blond hair and his mother’s big brown eyes. Then she and I had a tearful, happy reunion.

“I thought Spook was your cat, ” I said.

“No, Stanley is the cat,” Jane explained. “There he is on the front step. He’s dying to meet you.”

Stanley was a big, gorgeous feline with thick blond fur and a spotless white bib. He followed us into the house, his plumed tail waving with authority and aplomb.

Jane instructed her son: “Show Aunt Linda to the guest room, and then bring her out to the deck for cocktails.”

Spook lugged my overnight case upstairs and showed a great deal of curiosity about its contents when I unpacked. “Are you my aunt?” he wanted to know.

“Not really. But you can call me Aunt Linda. I’d like that.”

Then the four of us assembled on the redwood deck overlooking a flawless lawn and a wooded ravine, its edge dotted with clumps of jonquils. Jane and Stanley and I made ourselves comfortable on the cushioned wrought-iron chairs, while Spook—now wearing a camouflage jumpsuit—chose to sit on the Indian grass rug at my feet. He was an affectionate little boy, and his Buster Brown haircut was charming. He leaned against my legs in a possessive way, and when I rumpled his hair he looked up and smiled happily, then licked his fingers and straightened his blond bangs. I thought to myself: He’s as vain as his good-looking father.

As we sipped orange juice and vodka, I asked how Spook got his name.

“He’s really Ed Junior,” Jane said, “but he was born on Halloween, and Ed called him Spook. At school the teacher insists on calling him Edward, but he’s Spook to all the neighbors . . . . Linda, you’re the perfect image of a successful young woman executive—just like the pictures in the magazines. I envy you.”