Hiro Arikawa - The Travelling Cat Chronicles

Satoru graduated from a college in Tokyo and got a job in the city. Kosuke graduated from a nearby college and found a job locally.

It was three years ago now that Kosuke had taken over his father’s photographic studio.

Even after Kosuke had grown up, he and his father didn’t get on, and when his father’s health failed he shut up shop and moved to the countryside a short distance away. He was from a family of local landowners, so he had various plots of land in the area.

For a time, his father kept the photo studio closed. But after a while, keeping it at all seemed like too much trouble so he decided to sell it off. He’d often announced his intention to do this, but even so it made Kosuke a bit sad.

He’d been around photos ever since he was a child. His father, hot-tempered and overbearing most of the time, became cheerful and kind when teaching him about photography, and once he’d even given him an old camera. Kosuke had picked up a lot about photography, or at least his father’s version of it, and when he was older he had helped out occasionally with photo sessions at the studio.

It was only through photography that he and his father had got along. Which meant that now that their connection with photography had ended, their relationship could only get worse.

And Kosuke couldn’t bear that. He talked things over with his wife, and urged on, too, by the fact that his own job wasn’t going well, he told his father not to sell off the studio but to let him take it over.

His father was unexpectedly overjoyed, and nearly burst into tears.

Ah, even this late in the game, maybe this would mark a change for the better.

‘At least that’s what I thought…’ Kosuke almost spat the words out.

‘Did you two have a bad argument or something?’ Satoru asked anxiously.

‘What with my father being so arrogant and selfish, maybe I shouldn’t have tried so hard to be a good son.’

After he had reopened the photo studio, his father still interfered, turning up and meddling.

He’d give his opinions on how to run the place, what direction the business should go in, and generally boss Kosuke around. On top of this, he’d make inappropriate remarks to Kosuke’s wife.

‘You’d better have a child soon so there’ll be someone to take over the studio,’ he told her.

Kosuke and his wife were having trouble conceiving, and this was causing them a lot of stress. Kosuke’s mother would sometimes warn her husband to watch his tongue, but hearing candid advice from his wife only made him more obstinate, a condition he never seemed to outgrow.

Finally, Kosuke’s wife conceived a child. That had been last year. But during the first trimester of the pregnancy, when things were touch and go, she had a miscarriage.

His wife was deeply upset, and she found the words his father spoke in an attempt to comfort her extremely hurtful.

‘Well,’ he had said, ‘at least we know now you can have children.’

Kosuke was incensed. Why is this man my father? I don’t know how many times since I was a child I have felt this way about him. Ever since the day he rejected Hachi.

‘After that, my wife went back to her parents’ place. Her parents, naturally, were furious. Even if I try to apologize, they don’t want to listen.’

His father showed no remorse at all. ‘Young women these days are so touchy,’ was all he could say.

‘Sometimes I just wish he’d drop down dead.’ Kosuke blurted this out as if to himself, and quickly apologized. ‘Sorry about that,’ he added. Perhaps he’d inherited this insensitivity from his father. The idea appalled him.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Satoru said, smiling. ‘There are all kinds of parent–child relationships. I never wanted my parents to die. But if I’d had other parents, I don’t know how I would have felt. If your father had been my father, Kosuke, I don’t know if I would have been able to love him.’ He burst out laughing. ‘Some people really shouldn’t become parents. There’s no absolute guarantee when it comes to the love between a parent and their child.’

This was an unexpected view, coming from Satoru.

‘I hope your wife will come back soon,’ he added.

‘I don’t know. It’s not just her father-in-law she’s upset with.’

She must be disgusted with her husband, who had never been able to stand up to his father. Kosuke had a habit of swallowing whatever he wanted to say. Repeated patterns of childhood behaviour have long-term consequences. All Kosuke ever did was mumble ineffectually about the ridiculous things his father said in that high-handed tone of his.

‘Does your father still really meddle that much?’

‘And we don’t have as many customers these days, either.’

People weren’t going to photographic studios on special occasions like they used to. It was all part of the changing times, but Kosuke’s father blamed it on his son; he thought he was spineless. And he started interfering even more, saying he needed to take charge of the business again. And still, Kosuke could never bring himself to stand up to his father and argue back.

ME, ON THE other hand, I’m not like that. If things aren’t good, I have no problem saying so. Because cats are creatures that can say no.

And the idea of being taken into the home of a man because he hoped that his wife, who likes cats, would be tempted back? I swear, with all the feline dignity I can muster, this gets a definite no from me.

‘I wonder if Nana’s finally got used to it here.’

Kosuke stood up from the sofa and knelt beside my basket, placing his hand gently on the top.

Just try it – try pulling me out by force from this basket and I swear I’ll scratch so many lines on your face you’ll be able to play checkers on it for the next three months.

Chi chi chi – Kosuke made friendly little sounds and stuck his hand into the basket. I hissed and bared my teeth. Yep, that’s off limits. Cross that line and, believe me, you’ll live to regret it.

‘He still doesn’t seem to want to come out.’

Kosuke withdrew his hand.

‘Hmm. Doesn’t look like it’s going to work.’

‘You know…’ Satoru began hesitantly. ‘If you’re going to get a cat, I think it might be better if you and your wife find a new one together.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If you take my cat, it’ll be like you’re getting back at your father for Hachi.’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t even remember rejecting Hachi.’

‘But you do.’

At this, Kosuke fell silent.

I’m not denying that Kosuke wanted to take me for the sake of their friendship. But I wouldn’t let him deny, either, that taking me, with my resemblance to Hachi, would have something to do with ghosts of the past.

Neither would I let him maintain that it had nothing to do with his wife having left him because of that difficult father of his.

‘I think it would be good if you and your wife got a brand-new cat,’ Satoru said. ‘One with no strings attached.’

Kosuke pouted like a child. ‘I loved Hachi. I really wanted to adopt him back then.’

‘They look similar, but Nana is his own cat. He’s not Hachi.’

‘But you felt it was fate when you met Nana, because he looks like Hachi, didn’t you? If you were fated to have Nana, then it should be my fate, too.’

Jeez. Humans . Even when they grow up, they just don’t get things. Makes me sick.

‘My Hachi died. Back when I was in high school. Your Hachi, Kosuke, is still alive.’

That’s right. Satoru, in his mind, had already laid Hachi to rest and moved on. So Hachi’s place and my place were different.