Hiro Arikawa - The Travelling Cat Chronicles

But that’s not true of you, is it, Kosuke? You know in your head that Hachi’s dead, but emotionally you can’t accept it, right?

If you don’t mourn a dead cat properly, you’ll never get over it. Even if you feel able to mourn the death of a cat you’ve heard nothing about for years, it’s a little late to feel truly sad about it, isn’t it? One other thing:

You want me to replace Hachi, Kosuke. Up until now, Satoru has loved me as Nana, but now you expect me to be Hachi’s stand-in? Not going to happen!

And even worse is your troublesome father and wounded wife being added to the mix. I am an exceptionally wise cat, but there’s no way I’m going to be part of that drama, burdened with all those depressing human relationships as they fondle me. It’s more than I want to take on.

‘You and your wife should find a new cat and make him your own. Leave your father out of it. He might complain, but just ignore him and get a cat, if that’s what you want to do.’

Kosuke didn’t reply, but he looked like he finally understood.

So when he stuck his hand inside the basket again I allowed him to stroke me, as a kind of farewell gift.

It’s about time you cut the strings and got over your father. Cats, you know, are independent from their parents six months after they’re born.

Satoru put me and my basket back into the silver van.

He stood on the pavement, talking with Kosuke. He seemed reluctant to say goodbye.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Satoru said, slapping his forehead as if remembering something. ‘In the city, they have photographic studios that take photos of pets, and they’re really popular. There are more people than you’d think who want to have cute photos of their pets.’

Kosuke seemed quite keen on the idea. ‘Have you had professional photos taken of Nana?’

Satoru smiled mischievously. ‘Not yet. But if the Sawada Studio becomes a pet studio, then maybe I will.’

Kosuke broke into a smile. ‘It’d be fun to hurl a new business idea in my father’s face, too.’

Satoru was now in the van. He wound down the window. ‘One more thing,’ he said to Kosuke. ‘When I was twenty, you invited me to a class reunion, remember?’

‘Oh, that old story.’ Kosuke laughed.

‘It made me so happy.’

‘Why are you bringing that up now?’

‘’Cause I don’t think I ever told you how happy it made me.’

‘Oh, stop ,’ Kosuke said, trying to change the subject.

‘I won’t,’ Satoru said jokily. ‘Thank you. I never thought I’d get a chance to come back to this town.’

Satoru finally drove off.

‘Sorry, Nana,’ Satoru said, turning towards me in the back seat. ‘I thought it was better for him to get his own cat than to take you. But I’ll find someone to have you, someone I can trust completely.’

No worries. I mean, I didn’t ask you to do this in the first place.

If you had forced me to stay there, things would have been pretty terrible for you and Kosuke, you know? By that, I mean half a year’s worth, perhaps, of chequerboards on your faces.

Satoru glanced at me in the back seat, where I was now sitting in a tidy ball, my tail around my front legs. He let out a yelp.

‘Nana! How did you get out?’

Didn’t you know? That lock on the basket doesn’t work very well, and it’s easy-peasy to unlock it from the inside.

‘So you can open it? I had no idea. I’ll have to buy a new one.’

You find out I can open the basket, and that’s all you can say? Even that day when you took me to the one place I never, ever want to go, the vet’s, I didn’t try to run away.

‘On second thoughts, maybe there’s no need. Even if you’ve known how to get out all along, you still listened to me.’

Exactly. Satoru should be thankful I’m such an exceptionally bright cat.

I stretched up, placing my front paws on the passenger window, and enjoyed the passing scenery for a while, then curled up on the seat.

Some kind of rock music was playing on the car radio, and the bass sounds vibrated in my stomach. Not exactly my thing.

Cats have their own preferences when it comes to music. Did you know that?

I pressed my ears down and waved my tail around in an attempt to make my feelings known to Satoru. It didn’t take him long to understand.

‘Oh, I see, you don’t like this. What’s on the stereo, I wonder?’

Satoru switched to the car stereo and a light orchestral melody started playing. Okay, this wasn’t so bad.

‘My mother used to like this. Paul Mauriat.’

Hm, not bad at all. I could picture doves about to fly off, a happy vision from the feline perspective.

‘I never knew you liked cars so much, Nana. If I’d known, I would have taken you to all kinds of places.’

Saying I like cars is a little inaccurate. Aren’t you sort of forgetting that a car broke my leg?

I just like this silver van, that’s all. ’Cause it was mine even before I met Satoru.

Okay, so whose place are you going to take me to next?

AFTER KOSUKE HAD waved off Satoru and Nana, he went back inside and found a text on his phone.

It was from his wife.

Did you take the cat?

He was about to reply, but decided to call instead.

He had a feeling that this time she might answer.

The phone rang seven times. Nana’s lucky seven.

‘Hello?’ His wife’s tone was flat and a little distant.

Now it was up to Kosuke to cheerfully, delicately, soften that hard voice.

‘I was thinking,’ he said evenly. ‘What about if the two of us got our own new cat?’

THE DAY WE set off again, music filled the silver van once more, the kind that sounds like a magician is about to whisk a dove from a hat.

Satoru said the title was ‘Necklace of Olive’. How come there was no dove in the title? If it were up to me, I’d put one in. How about calling it ‘The Special Relationship Between a Dove and a Silk Hat’?

‘It’s nice to have good weather again today, isn’t it, Nana?’

Satoru was in a great mood. All cats get sleepy when it rains, and I was wondering: does weather affect humans physically, too?

‘Going for a drive isn’t much fun if it’s not sunny.’

Ah, so it was a question of mood. Humans are so easygoing. A cat’s behaviour is controlled by real-life factors, and for strays the weather can be a matter of life and death. Our success rate in hunting changes, too.

‘We’ll take a break at the next service station.’

Unlike when we went to Kosuke’s place, the road we were taking on that day had very few places to stop. Satoru said it was called a motorway. Basically the only time the silver van stopped was when Satoru announced that we were heading to a service station .

Satoru said this was the road we had to take if we intended to travel far away, and this trip was indeed a long one. It was the previous morning that the silver van had left home. We drove along the highway all day, then stayed overnight at a place where they allow pets.

With it being such a long trip, the space in the van had been compartmentalized. So, if you’ll excuse me a second.

As I slipped off the passenger seat towards the back of the van, Satoru asked, ‘Something wrong?’ and glanced at me.

‘Ah, sorry…’

Yeah. My toilet was on the floor at the back. A new one Satoru had bought which had a hood so the litter didn’t fly all over the place.