Hiro Arikawa - The Travelling Cat Chronicles

There’s that manga on TV sometimes where the samurai cuts down a dingbat and sighs, ‘That was a waste of a good sword.’ To me, that’s kind of how it feels. You’ve hunted down yet another useless thing. (By the way, Satoru prefers the shows with guns.) The least they could do would be to stuff those toys with white meat. But could I take this complaint to the pet-toymakers? Stop worrying about what the owners think and pay some attention to your real clients. Your real clients are folk like me .

In any case, after one of those pointless chases, I usually let off steam with a good walk. But Satoru usually tags along, and that makes it hard to do any successful hunting.

What I mean is, the minute I spot some decent game, Satoru interferes. Deliberately makes some careless noise or movement. When I glare at him, he feigns ignorance, but all that racket gives us away, thank you very much.

When I get upset and wave my tail energetically from side to side, he gives me this pathetic look and tries to explain.

You have lots of crunchies at home to eat, don’t you? You don’t need to kill anything. Even if you catch something, Nana, you barely eat it.’

You idiot, idiot, idiooooootttt! Every living creature on earth is born with an instinct to kill! You can try to dodge it by bringing in vegetarianism, but you just don’t hear a plant scream when you kill it! Hunting down what can be hunted is a cat’s natural instinct! Sometimes we hunt things but don’t eat them, but that’s what training is all about.

My god, what spineless creatures they are, those that don’t kill the food they eat. Satoru’s a human being, of course, so he just doesn’t get it.

‘Is Nana good at hunting?’

‘He’s beyond good! He caught a pigeon that landed on our porch.’

Right you are. Those blasted birds get all superior in human territory. I thought I’d show them what’s what. And Satoru, all teary-eyed, always asked, ‘Why do you catch them if you’re not going to eat them?’ If that’s the way you think, then don’t interfere when I hunt on our walks.

And didn’t Satoru complain about pigeon droppings on the laundry he’d hung out to dry? He’d be happy if I chased away the pigeons, and I’d get to hunt. Literally, two birds with one stone, so why the complaints? And by the bye, ever since that incident, the pigeons have never come near our porch again, but have I heard a word of thanks? Still waiting!

‘It was a real problem that time,’ Satoru said. ‘A sparrow or a mouse I could bury in the bushes next to the apartment building, but something the size of a pigeon, that’s a different story. I ended up burying it in a park, and the only conclusion anybody who spotted me, a thirty-year-old man burying a pigeon, could come to is that I was a pretty dodgy character.’

‘There are more and more weird things happening these days, too.’

‘Right. Every time someone passed by, I would say apologetically, “I’m so sorry, but the cat did it,” and they’d look at me really oddly. And wouldn’t you know it, that was the one occasion Nana wasn’t with me.’

Ah, so he had an awkward time, did he? I should have been with him. But Satoru didn’t tell me, so it’s his fault, and I’m not going to apologize.

‘Sounds like Nana’s wilder than Hachi was.’

‘But he’s quite gentle sometimes too, like Hachi. When I’m feeling depressed or down, he always snuggles up close…’

Not that hearing these words made me happy or anything.

‘Sometimes, I get the feeling he can understand what people are saying. He’s pretty bright.’

Humans who think we don’t understand them are the stupid ones.

‘Hachi was a very kind cat. Whenever my father had a go at me and I went to your house, Satoru, he’d sit on my lap and refuse to jump off.’

‘He understood when people were feeling down. When my parents had an argument, he’d always side with the one who had lost. It made it easy for me as a child to tell who had won and who had lost.’

‘I wonder if Nana would do the same, too?’

‘I’m sure of it. He’s pretty kind.’

Hachi seemed to be a decent sort of cat, but going on and on about Hachi this and Hachi that made me think, If a cat that’s dead was so good, maybe I should die too, and let them see how they like that .

‘I’m sorry,’ Kosuke suddenly murmured. ‘I should have taken Hachi from you back then.’

‘There was nothing we could do about it.’

Satoru sounded like he didn’t hold a grudge. Instead, looking at Kosuke, it seemed to me that he was the one who did.

THOUGH SATORU’S FAMILY brought Hachi up, it was as though Kosuke did the job half the time.

Whenever he went over to Satoru’s, he played tirelessly with Hachi, and Satoru sometimes took the cat over to Kosuke’s house.

At first, Kosuke’s father stubbornly refused to let Hachi in the house, so they played in the garage, but before long his mother let them bring the cat inside, if not into the studio, and little by little his father got used to it. He warned them not to let Hachi sharpen his claws on the walls or the furniture, but sometimes, when he passed by, Kosuke’s father would say a few nice things to Hachi.

Kosuke regretted that he couldn’t have Hachi himself, but he was very happy when his father played with him. It felt like his father was meeting him halfway. He even hoped that, if he ever found another stray kitten, this time he would be allowed to keep it for himself.

Because it was a very special thing – to have your own cat in your own home.

Whenever he stayed overnight at Satoru’s, sleeping on the futon beside his bed, he’d often be woken in the early hours by four feet clomping over him. Feeling the weight of a cat’s paws pressing into your shoulders in the middle of the night – not much beats that.

He would glance over and see Hachi curled up in a ball on top of Satoru’s chest. Perhaps finding it too hard to breathe, Satoru, still asleep, would slide the cat beside him. Lucky guy, Kosuke thought. If he were my cat, we could sleep together and I would let him walk all over me.

‘My father seems to have taken a liking to Hachi, and I’m thinking, maybe, if we find another stray kitten, he might let me keep it.’

‘That’d be great! Then Hachi would have a friend.’

The idea made Satoru happy, and on the way to and from swimming club he’d kept an eye out for another box with a kitten inside it.

But there never was another cardboard box with a kitten inside left under the housing complex sign.

Of course, it was a good thing that no more poor cats were abandoned. Because, even if they had found another cat, Kosuke’s father still wouldn’t have let him keep it.

Two years had passed since Hachi had gone to live at Satoru’s. Kosuke and Satoru were now in the sixth grade of elementary school.

As autumn shed its leaves, their school organized a residential trip. Three days, two nights, in Kyoto. Kosuke could do without the temples – they all looked the same to him – but he was overjoyed to be staying away overnight with his friends, far from home.

And having more spending money than he’d ever imagined to buy souvenirs with was exciting, too. There were plenty of things he wanted to buy for himself, but he also had to remember to buy presents for his family.

One day, when they were in a souvenir shop, Satoru had a worried look on his face. ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Kosuke.

‘Um, I’m wondering which one to buy.’

Satoru was looking at various kinds of facial blotting paper on a cosmetics display.