Jenny woke from a dreamless sleep to the black and white cat tapping her insistently on the nose. “Carl?” she said aloud before she could stop herself. She caught her breath, aching. Carl wasn’t there. “Carl.” She said it again, this time deliberately. She had to feel it, test it, in the same way that as a child she had to push against a loose tooth.
The cat, who didn’t seem to approve of this experiment in pain, turned his back on her and sprang to a ledge above her head. Although the room was still dark, Jenny could make out cracks of light around the edges of wooden shutters. Wrapping herself in the wool blanket, she got up, felt for the shutters’ iron latch, and opened it.
There was no glass in the windows; she opened the shutters directly into the countryside and its weather. The wind had shifted and was no longer blowing rain against the house, but the rain was still pouring down, a thick, transparent curtain of water. Jenny peered out, trying to get her bearings. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was. The sky was a dense wash of gray. On a hilltop she saw what looked like a great wooden barn, and in the distance, across a spread of open fields dotted with olive trees, a few houses, all of them built of fieldstone. Jenny felt the hopelessness of the previous night start to fade. When the rain let up, she’d find out where she was and how to get the nearest bus or train into Florence. Even without Carl, it would be all right.
She glanced at the cat beside her. He was quite handsome by daylight and most definitely a he, with a broad chest and a tom’s large head. He was a tuxedo, his coat a deep, glossy black; his chest and paws and a bit of his muzzle white. In the gray light of the day his eyes had gone green. Jenny reached out to pet him, but the cat’s level gaze stopped her. Something inside him was different than what she’d sensed in other cats. She thought of the strays in the Colosseum, wild little beggars as much a part of the city as the Roman ruins. This one was not quite so wild, nor could she conceive of him being anyone’s pet.
With the cat’s eyes boring into her, Jenny crossed the small room and poked at her clothing hanging from the peg. Her jeans were damp and cold and stiff with mud; her shirt not much better. But she put them on anyway, feeling absurdly self-conscious changing in front of the cat. It was because he had no self-consciousness, she realized. The cat sat there perfectly composed, assured of his own beauty and grace, of his rightness in the world. And with every second Jenny felt more awkward, knowing that she didn’t belong in the house and she certainly didn’t belong with Carl anymore. She hadn’t the faintest idea of just where it was she did belong, and the thought left her reeling.
The cat watched as she made the bed, folding up the blanket and returning it to the trunk. Then with another one of his sounds that was not quite a meow, he led the way downstairs. She noticed as she passed the master bedroom that the huge feather bed was now empty of cats, except for one large tiger stripe who apparently liked to sleep late.
By daylight the downstairs was even worse than it had been in shadow, and now the reason for the mess was clear. The cats were everywhere. They were grooming themselves, sharpening their claws on the ratty sofa, leaping to and from the window ledges, running mad steeplechases up and down the stairs. Cotton batting floated from the sofa, cobwebs clung to the corners, and thick gray puffs of cat fur drifted across the floors. And everywhere there were bones, feathers, pieces of dead rodents. Jenny nearly gagged when she set her hand down on the wide stone banister and it closed on a pigeon’s spindly pink leg.
Fortunately, the kitchen was somewhat equipped. A wooden bucket and scrub brush, a broom, and a thick bar of lemon-scented soap were tucked away beneath the sink. The side of the hearth was stacked with firewood and kindling. In a drawer in the cabinet Jenny even found candles and matches. After some resistance from the damp kindling, she managed to get a fire going and spent a few delicious minutes standing in front of the flames, enjoying their warmth. The house was still a revolting mess, though, so Jenny did what she always did when confronted by chaos. She cleaned.
She started by filling the bucket with runoff from the storm drain. She wet the scrub brush, rubbed it with the soap, and began to scour the kitchen floor. She cleaned for hours, scrubbing away layers of dirt and fur and decaying food. Soon, she promised herself, the house wouldn’t smell as though a school of fish had swum in and died there. The cats watched as she worked, seemingly fascinated.
She had only one disconcerting moment. She’d stepped outside to fill the bucket with fresh rainwater, and she saw a tall, slender woman, dressed in a long wool cloak, hurrying across the fields.
“Un momento!” Jenny called over the downpour. “Per favore!”
The woman stopped and turned, and Jenny saw that within the dark hood, the woman’s hair shone like summer wheat and framed a cool, familiar, flawless beauty.
“Sasha?”
The woman turned and continued across the fields.
Jenny almost ran after her. Only the rain stopped her. The rain and the knowledge that it couldn’t have been Sasha. Sasha was in Florence, probably staying in the same room in the charming old pensione that Jenny had reserved for herself and Carl.
Jenny had cleaned fiercely after that, scrubbing with an energy that bordered on vengeance. And it had been worth it, she thought as she surveyed the house. With the floors cleaned, candles set in the niches in the walls, and the few pieces of furniture rearranged into a semblance of order, the ruin of a house had a rough beauty. The candlelight reflected the sheen of the worn floors, revealed the texture of the stucco walls, picked up the warmth of the wooden shutters and beams. A faint lemon scent mingled with the smell of wood burning in the hearth.
Satisfied with her day’s work, Jenny dragged the couch into the kitchen and collapsed in front of the fire. Apparently, the cats considered this an excellent idea. A delicate all black jumped up beside her, then two striped kittens, and a bony, old three-legged Siamese. The little tortoiseshell female wormed her way through the others and onto Jenny’s lap, arching her butt against Jenny’s chest and purring loudly. An even smaller cat, who seemed to be part Abyssinian, draped herself across Jenny’s shoulder and nestled her cold nose against Jenny’s neck.
It would all be very cozy, Jenny thought wearily, if she weren’t starving. It had been nearly a day and a half since she’d last eaten, and she was feeling headachy and a bit faint.
“I’m hungry,” she said aloud. At her words the big tiger cat, the one who liked to sleep late, stretched and got to his feet. With a bound he leapt to the kitchen window, and with another, disappeared into the rain. He returned minutes later, a bloodied black rat hanging from his mouth. He carried his kill proudly across the kitchen, dropped the rodent at Jenny’s feet, then lay there, panting beside the carcass, a triumphant grin on his face.
“Thank you,” Jenny said stiffly. She didn’t know what else to say, and it seemed rude to clean up this gift while the cat was looking so pleased with himself.
Just after darkness fell she took herself to bed. Once again the big black and white curled up beside her, one paw resting on her shoulder. And once again she fell into a dreamless sleep.
“Why is she here?”
Jenny woke to see the tuxedo cat sitting on top of the trunk, facing a ginger cat the size of a mountain lion.
“She’s suffering heartbreak,” the black and white answered.
At this, the ginger cat turned its great head toward Jenny, and seeing that she was awake, said to her, “You must understand, we cats generally don’t go in for that sort of thing.”