Hiro Arikawa - The Travelling Cat Chronicles

Well, she is taking in both Satoru and me, so I suppose I can overlook it.

Our first meeting was a disaster, but our new life with Noriko began nonetheless.

Noriko was the type of person who had no clue at all about cats, and it took us a while to find the appropriate distance to keep from each other.

‘Good morning, Nana.’

In her own way, she tried to get used to me, and she started timidly reaching out a hand to me as she said hello. But what was she thinking, suddenly touching my tail like that? I mean, unless you’re a special pal of mine, I’m not about to let anyone touch my tail. Normally, I’d give them a good whack – claws in, obviously – if they tried, but out of respect to the head of the household I confined myself to scowling and lowering my tail out of the way.

I hoped Noriko would get the message, but every time she reached out to touch me she inevitably zoomed in on my tail.

One particular morning, Satoru happened to see this and came to my rescue.

‘You can’t do that, Aunt Noriko, touching his tail all of a sudden like that. Nana hates it.’

‘Then where should I touch him?’

‘Start with his head, or behind his ears. When he gets used to you doing that, then you can do under his chin.’

A toothbrush in his other hand, Satoru demonstrated, stroking each area in turn around my head.

‘The head, behind the ears, under the chin…’

You won’t believe this, but as Noriko repeated these instructions, she took notes!

‘Do you really need to take notes?’ Satoru laughed.

Noriko was deadly serious. ‘I don’t want to forget,’ she replied.

‘Instead of notes, it would be better to practise by stroking him.’

‘B-but it’s near his mouth.’

So what if it’s near my mouth?

‘What if he bites me?’

The impertinence! You have the nerve to speak to me like that? A gentleman who, in spite of you suddenly touching his tail, refrained from swatting you? And you aimed for my tail more than just a couple of times!

What you said just now, now that deserves a bite.

‘It’s okay. Try it.’

At Satoru’s urging, Noriko very timidly reached out a hand. If that didn’t deserve a bite, I didn’t know what did. However, I’m a grown-up cat and I restrained myself, so, everyone, feel free to shower me with praise.

Still, I now understood why she always went for my tail. To Noriko’s way of thinking, it was the furthest point from my mouth. Though, in actual fact, all animals will react more quickly if you touch their tails or back rather than hold your hand out right in front of them.

‘He’s so soft.’

I’d always prided myself on having fur as soft as velvet.

‘See? He likes it.’

To be honest, Noriko’s touch was awkward and not all that pleasant, but to help train her I was quite willing to pretend that it was. Plus, I certainly didn’t want her targeting my tail each and every time.

‘Eeek!’

Noriko screeched and pulled back her hand. I shrank back, too. What on earth?

‘His throat! The bone in his throat is going up and down. Yuck!’

This is impertinence squared! The way you touch me doesn’t even feel that good. I’m only purring to make you feel better about it!

‘Not to worry,’ Satoru explained. ‘When he feels good, he purrs.’

As a rule, that is. This is an exception. I’m forcing myself here to give you a treat, so don’t you forget it.

‘But it’s coming from all the way down his throat,’ Noriko said.

Noriko rubbed my throat with the side of her finger.

‘Where did you think it would come from, if not the throat?’

‘I thought it came from the mouth,’ she replied.

Purring from my mouth ? What are you, an imbecile?! Excuse me – the shock has made my language deteriorate. A thousand pardons.

Noriko stopped stroking me, so I stopped purring and popped into the cardboard box that had been placed specially for me in a corner of the living room.

This cardboard box that Satoru had left out for me fitted nice and tight and was really quite cosy.

‘Satoru, how long do we have to keep that box there?’

‘Nana likes it, so leave it there for a while.’

‘But I don’t like it; it feels like we’re not totally unpacked. I mean, I bought him a nice cat bed and a scratching post.’

A box is totally different from a bed and a post, I’ll have you know.

In this way, Noriko grew used to the presence of a cat in her house.

‘How’s this, then?’

Noriko said this the other day while bringing in what I took to be a replacement for the cardboard box, which by now was looking pretty shabby, what with me sharpening my claws on it.

She’d taken another cardboard box, opened it up and made it wider and shallower, then reinforced it with tape.

‘This one is newer and wider,’ she said. ‘I’ve made it with two layers of cardboard so it’ll last longer when he sharpens his claws on it. So what do you say to getting rid of that tattered old box? The corners are all bent out of shape where Nana’s been sleeping.’

‘Hmmm… I’m not sure.’ Satoru shot me a glance. What do you think?

I yawned back. Sorry. Zero interest. Noriko just doesn’t get it. A wide box spoils all the fun; it offers none of the charms of being inside a box.

Ignoring Noriko’s creation, I slipped inside the old box, and Noriko looked deflated. Satoru laughed. ‘Maybe it was better not to alter the box. Next time we get a cardboard box, how about just leaving it as it is?’

‘But I did all that work on it.’

A waste of time. Cats the world over prefer to discover things they like on their own and rarely go for anything that’s been provided for them.

For a while after this, Noriko’s box sat there forlornly beside the old box, but before long it was put out with the recycling.

Satoru began to visit the hospital nearly every day. It was nearby, within walking distance, but he’d go there first thing in the morning and often not get back home until evening. Maybe there was lots of queuing, or the tests and treatment took a long time.

Satoru had lots of marks from all the injections on his right arm, bluish-black bruises that didn’t fade, and soon his left arm was the same. I only get one vaccination shot a year, and I hate it, so I was amazed that Satoru could put up with getting a million of them.

And yet, no matter how often he went to the hospital, his smell didn’t get any better. As several dogs and cats had told me earlier, that doesn’t smell like he’s got much longer scent was only getting stronger.

No creatures ever get better once they have that smell.

Sometimes, Noriko cried in secret, weeping gently beside the kitchen sink or in the bathroom. The only one who knew about it was me. She forced herself never to cry in front of Satoru, but she didn’t think to include a cat in the equation.

When I rubbed against her legs after that, she didn’t scream any more. And I was beginning to feel her appreciation when she fondled the back of my neck.

The town was completely white with snow, the mountain ashes that lined the streets even redder as they endured the freezing cold.

‘Nana, let’s go for a walk.’

Satoru’s strength had faded, so much so that on the days when he went to the hospital he’d sleep for the rest of the day, but still he never missed out on our walks together.

It was freezing and slippery, but except for when he was at the hospital longer than usual or when there was a snowstorm, we went for a walk every day.

‘You’ve never been through a winter in a place with so much snow, have you, Nana?’

The street was icy and the pads of my feet skidded on it. Icicles hung from the eaves of the buildings. The snow pushed up by the snowploughs looked like millefeuille pastry piled up along the streets.