James Jenkins - The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories. Volume 1

And so I ate a container of yogurt with granola and drank cappuccino from the far too expensive coffee machine Matt had given me last year for my birthday.

My car still smelled of a strange mixture of wet fur, blood, and panic from the night before. I saw the wet place where the animal had lain; the blood had leaked through the cardboard box. Under the trees too, just before the turnoff onto Appelstraat, I saw the evidence of the previous night’s events: black tracks that my car tires had left on the cobblestones.

I braked and drove slowly on towards number 79. Stepped out. Lead in my shoes. Repeated the greeting I had thought up: ‘Hello ma’am! I just wanted to see if you were doing all right. And if you still needed help with Dante.’ Saw the movement of the crocheted curtains behind the window next to the front door. The hint of dark fur between the folds. A cat that popped up behind the grimy glass.

My heart skipped a beat.

It couldn’t be him. Not that cat, not those too-­short ears, that kink in the tail and that bloody crust over his eye where the cobblestones had scraped away his skin and fur. Even if he had in some miraculous way or other survived the accident, he couldn’t just be there . . . sitting .

And yet he was.

The animal came a little closer to the windowpane until the black hairs on its flanks splayed out against the glass like little spiders. He turned his head in my direction and looked at me. I looked back and I shouted at him wordlessly: What?!

He squeezed his eyes shut against the bright light.

What do you want from me?

No answer, of course. In a cat’s eyes you can read every­thing. Love, arrogance, affection, egoism. Hope. Accusation. You find what you need, or perhaps what you fear.

The scratch on my wrist had resumed its slow throbbing. I took a step back, stumbled a little when the heel of my shoe landed in the space between two tiles. And saw the door open.

I couldn’t remember pressing the bell – in fact I was certain I hadn’t – but clearly the old woman had no intention of letting the chance of a visitor slip away and kept a lookout on the street. ‘Dearie! You again? How nice!’ she greeted me.

Hastily I stuck my hand out. ‘Hello, ma’am!’ I said, and the words I had practiced rolled out of my mouth. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And Dante. Is that him, behind the window? I thought . . .’

‘You’ve got that right, young lady,’ the old woman said. ‘Just as I was saying. He’s a tough rascal! He won’t get away from me so easily.’

My glance glided back to the window. The cat had not moved.

‘Now, child. Come inside. I take it that today you have time for tea?’

That wasn’t a rebuke, I decided. This was an open, friendly invitation.

‘Of course I have time,’ I answered. ‘Mrs. . . .’

‘Gottlieb,’ she said. And then, in a confidential tone: ‘My family comes from Germany, but after our marriage we lived for a long time in India. Lovely country, you know.’

‘Pleasure to make your acquaintance, ma’am,’ I said politely as I followed her over the threshold. ‘I’m Tara. And once again, I’m terribly sorry about yesterday.’

Was that the moment the trap snapped shut? Or had that already happened when I ran the cat over?

Was it really I who made the choice to go in?

‘Go on into the living room, dearie. I’ll be right in with the tea,’ Mrs. Gottlieb said kindly.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier if I helped?’

‘Not necessary,’ she waved me off. ‘But nice of you to offer. I’ll let you know when I need your help.’

And so I did what she asked and opened the door to the living room. On a chest against the wall there stood little statues of Indian gods: I recognized Ganesha with the elephant head, Brahma with the four faces, and a little one I wasn’t sure about: a chubby type with a pot of gold in one hand and a bludgeon in the other. Something to do with wealth? Even Kali was there with her blood-­dripping tongue.

Not my taste in room decorations, I decided, but the old lady was naturally devoted to her past.

The sagging green wingback chairs by the window fit better with the image of an elderly woman, just like the sanseverrias on the window ledge. The thick leaves stuck up sharply and I couldn’t help but touch them. They’re obstinate plants that refuse to die, however hard you try to forget them.

The cat was still sitting beside the plants. ‘Hey,’ I said, as I stuck my hand out to pet him. ‘Hi Dante. How are you?’

Never stick your hand out to a cat you barely know. And definitely not when that cat probably has dubious memories of you. Of your car. Dante hissed, fiercely and vindictively, and lashed out.

‘Damn!’

I reached for my wrist and pushed the sleeve a little further up. The discharge from the first wound was already penetrating the gauze, but this second lash had torn open some itching blisters and there too the yellowish-­white liquid was coming out. It smelled sweetish, but not in a good way.

‘Gross,’ I mumbled, while I irritatedly began dabbing my arm dry with a rumpled paper tissue I dug out of my pocket. It was clearly not enough. I needed a new bandage, or in any case Band-­Aids.

I went to go look for the old woman in the kitchen. She must have a first ­aid kit or something? After all, Band-­Aids don’t expire, so I didn’t have to worry about that, and . . .

I heard something.

Maybe it was there earlier and I just hadn’t noticed. It was a soft rasping that sometimes stopped, only to start again tremblingly a few seconds later.

I held my breath. I didn’t know precisely what I was hearing, but it sounded unreal, almost unearthly.

The cat, who had watched me suspiciously for a little while from the windowsill, leapt onto the ground. With his tail in the air like a tour guide’s umbrella, he walked towards the sliding doors that separated the living room from another room behind it.

The sound was coming from there, I realized. And with a queasy feeling in my stomach I recognized it now too.

It was the sound my grandmother had made in the final moments before she died. When she was gasping for the air that her body could no longer process. When she’d had it. Finished. But not quite, because no one wanted to help her go.

On the other side of the sliding doors was the sound of death.

Why did I go to look?

I was in a stranger’s house, a guest. It wasn’t my place to go investigating, to open doors. I could have waited until Mrs. Gottlieb came back with the tea. I could have gone to her and asked her for a Band-­Aid. But I didn’t.

I think it was because of what I had experienced with my grandma. A woman who had tried her whole life to fulfill the requirements God had imposed on her – although she didn’t know exactly what those were, the instruction manual is after all subject to debate. A woman who always fell short because of that, just like my mother after her. Just like me. And who was crushingly forsaken in the very moment when she most needed help.

I closed my eyes and once more saw that fragile body in the hospital room, chilly despite the bright colors on the wall, flowers on the windowsill, and the cheerful voices of the nursing staff. Heard how her lungs compulsively filled with air, while less and less oxygen reached her blood and all that time the sickness festered in her bones and organs.

No one who wanted to help her during that endless waiting for a cruel death which, with every step closer it crept, took half a one back. They mustn’t, they couldn’t, it wasn’t their place . . .

And because of that, I couldn’t bear for anyone, even a stranger, to suffer without someone holding his hand and making it clear that he wasn’t alone.