“And a lovely night to you, too,” Jenny muttered.
Beyond the house the road snaked downhill, rain coursing down the asphalt as if it were a riverbed. Jenny followed it, hoping for another house, or whatever it was that the old man had waved her on to. She was walking into her new life, she realized, a life without Carl. She tried to think of that as freeing, an invitation to adventure. Instead she thought of Sasha, who saw omens in everything. Jenny had a good idea of what Sasha would say about a new life that began with being lost in a storm and having a door slammed in your face. “It’s very clear, Jenny,” she’d say through a haze of cigarette smoke. “The omens are not auspicious.”
What they were, Jenny decided, was perverse. She walked for what seemed at least another mile before she saw a glimmer of light. She soon found herself standing on a stone bridge that spanned a narrow, churning stream. In the very center of the bridge, in a glass case, was a shrine to the Virgin, complete with a rosary, fresh flowers, and a candle flickering in a tall, red glass. Her light in the dark.
Great, she thought. I walk for miles in a fucking downpour and I find a shrine!
Jenny glared at the statue, envying it for being dry, composed, and oblivious to the whole lousy night. She, on the other hand, was cold, soaked, exhausted, and vibrating with pain. There was no particular part of her body that hurt. It was all of her, stunned and aching and feeling like the stupidest creature on earth. She’d been such a fool. She couldn’t imagine that she would ever stop hating herself for that.
She continued across the bridge to a dirt road beaten by the rain into a thick bed of mud. She kept walking, aware that she was traveling deeper into the countryside, farther and farther from the possibility that Carl would ever find her.
She slogged up a long, muddy hill. The landscape flared dead-white beneath a sheet of lightning; and in its moment of illumination Jenny realized she was standing in front of another house. A house without a door. Just an ancient wooden post and lintel set into stone walls. The light of her flashlight revealed a dark, cavernous interior. The house was abandoned.
Jenny stepped over the worn granite step beneath the lintel, and felt herself quivering with relief. It was damp and cold inside the ruin of the house, but it was shelter.
Something brushed against her leg. She lowered her light and nearly screamed at the sight of glowing green eyes staring back at her. A cat, she realized, and her pounding heart slowed. It was just a cat, a small, scrawny tortoiseshell with a black mask and a funny orange streak down its nose. The cat was obviously here for the same reason that she was. Jenny knelt down and held out a wet hand for it to sniff.
“Hey, cat,” she said softly. “Think I could share this place with you tonight?” She felt the cat’s cold nose touch her hand, and took it for assent.
Like everything else in Jenny’s life, the batteries in her flashlight were dying. Its dim light made the house a series of shadows. All she could really tell was that the cat had had its way with the place. Fish bones, narrow little rat heads, and shredded yellowed newspapers littered the stone floor. Carl would be right at home here, Jenny thought wryly.
She passed from the large hall she’d first entered to an even larger room. Through a low, narrow doorway she found the kitchen, which she identified by a deep, tublike sink, and an arched opening in the brick wall to the side of the hearth: the oven. There was even a half-collapsed wooden hutch, and in front of it, a shiny, wet mound of pink entrails.
She whirled as she heard a mewing sound at her feet. The tortoiseshell cat gazed up at her expectantly.
“What do you want, you little murderer?” Jenny asked.
The cat rubbed against her ankles, purring.
Jenny sighed and knelt down to run her fingers through the cat’s soft fur. “So where do you sleep?” she asked. “Is there anyplace in here that’s comfortable?”
As if in reply, the cat walked out of the kitchen and up a short, curving flight of stone stairs. Amused, Jenny followed. The cat paused at an open doorway, and it occurred to Jenny that there were no doors anywhere in this house.
Her light followed the cat into the room. At first she thought she was looking at a king-sized feather bed covered with a fur comforter, a rich patchwork of gray, tan, black, white, and orange. A soft, warm bed, Jenny thought, nearly delirious at the idea. And then one particular black and white patch of fur raised its head and stared at her with burning gold eyes, and she realized that the entire bed was covered with cats. There had to be at least sixty of them, curled and stretched, neatly fitted to each other, their bodies gently rising and falling on a somnolent current of breath. Only the one cat looked at her, and its gaze was so piercing that she remembered an elderly woman she’d once met who refused to be photographed for fear that the photographic image would steal her soul. That’s how the cat’s gaze made her feel, as though it were fixing her image and her battered soul lay exposed in its golden eyes, there for the taking.
The black and white cat sprang from the bed and sat down directly in front of Jenny. Jenny took a quick step back, alarmed by its size. The top of its head came to the middle of her thigh. It gazed at her intently as if weighing odds, considering factors, coming to a decision. Then it started out of the room. It turned once with an impatient mmmrahh! sound, which Jenny took to mean that she should follow.
The black and white led her to another doorless room. This one was much smaller, the size of a monk’s cell and almost as sparely furnished. A narrow pallet-bed stood against one wall, a small wooden chest at its foot; a single clothes peg jutted out of the opposite wall. Jenny blinked in disbelief. The bed was neatly made with crisp white cotton sheets and two pillows in embroidered pillowcases, lying side by side.
Curious, Jenny opened the chest. Her flashlight died as she lifted the lid, but inside she felt a thick wool blanket. She hesitated only a moment before spreading the blanket on the bed, then quickly stripping off her wet clothing and slipping between the sheets.
Her body went rigid with shock. The sheets were cold, so unbelievably cold. Cotton spun from ice. She curled into a tight ball, telling herself that the bed would soon be warm. But she knew it for a lie, and that made the grief inside her all the worse. If Carl were here, she wouldn’t be cold. Carl would curl up around her and hold her safe and snug in his arms. Carl made her world warm. For the briefest second Jenny let herself imagine the feel of his chest pressed against her back, his thighs cupping hers, one arm beneath her, the other falling heavy across her ribs, his breath, warm and even on the back of her neck. …
“You are not allowed to do that anymore,” she told herself sternly. But it had been nearly two years since she’d gone to bed alone, and her body was shaking as if it’d never stop. She missed him. Oh God, how she missed him.
Quite suddenly, she became aware of the black and white cat. He was sitting on the pillow next to hers. He hadn’t been there when she’d gotten under the covers. She hadn’t noticed him jumping onto the bed. But now he was curled up beside her, regarding her with that golden, imperious gaze. It made her nervous to have him so close. She’d never lived with a cat, but she’d heard that they sometimes suffocated people, sucked the breath out of them as they slept.
Very slowly the cat reached out one long paw and set it on her shoulder. The gesture was oddly protective. She lay very still, listening to the rain, wondering what the cat would do next. It did nothing but keep its paw on her shoulder until the chill left the bed and her shivering stopped.
She drifted into sleep soon after, the old man’s voice playing in her mind. “Vai a la Casa dei Gatti,” he told her. And this time she understood.