A Tabby-cat's Tale by Hang Dong Page A

have a natural affinity with animals. Besides, his father was my elder brother’s colleague and his mother was a friend of my sister-in-law, so the two families were close and saw a lot of each other. When Coco came to ask to borrow the cat for the afternoon, therefore, my sister-in-law couldn’t really refuse, even though she was uneasy about it. She solemnly handed the furry scrap over, and Coco clutched him and carried him downstairs. My sister-in-law couldn’t very well go and keep an eye on them—that would have felt too petty. She just reiterated that Tabby mustn’t, on any account, be given raw fish guts and that he had to be brought back at the agreed time. Two hours later Coco came back, carrying the cat, and knocked on the door. He was early. Perhaps the kid had grown tired of the game. Tabby wriggled out of Coco’s embrace, scuttled away across the living room and took refuge under the bed. He looked unscathed, although he was clearly terrified. He wasn’t sick, so Coco couldn’t have given him raw fish guts. Still, he hid under the bed, refusing to come out, and made a strange mewling noise they had never heard before. My sister-in-law cajoled him, to no avail; eventually, she was reduced to tears. Sniffing, she filled his bowl to the brim with milk, then, when that didn’t tempt him out, with fish broth and a whole soy-stewed carp. She tapped Tabby’s bowl with a spoon. Nothing worked.
    We never found out what had happened in those two hours, but what was certain was that the cat’s temperament had changed radically, and that it had gone in a highly unusual direction. Tabby no longer wove around our legs under the table. In fact, the family rarely knew his whereabouts, or if they did, they couldn’t get at him. Everyone knew we kept a cat, but the only signs of his existence were a particular smell—though it was impossible to trace the smell to its source. The neighbours’ children were endlessly curious and searched every corner of the house. Sometimes my sister-in-law, as Tabby’s owner, put on a show of joining in, but she wasn’t in the least anxious—she knew that Tabby was unlikely to make an appearance. So as the kids ransacked the flat, even turning cupboards and drawers upside down, she smiled secretly, knowing full well that Tabby had found a safe hiding place. My sister-in-law was even unwilling to hazard a guess as to where he was. If she knew, she might betray her fear, so it was better not to know, better to have unconditional trust in Tabby. (This gave my mother an idea: Why not hide their savings book with Tabby? No burglar would ever find them.)
    Tabby, strictly speaking, belonged to my sister-in-law. It was her idea to get a cat, and she was his chief caregiver. The rest of us just did the odd bit to help out, but we had no particular role. With his change of personality, Tabby became doubly incontinent, pissing and shitting all over the flat and carefully concealing the evidence. It was my sister-in-law’s duty to clean up after him; this was unpleasant enough in itself, but having to find the mess first made it even worse. As I said, Tabby was an expert at hide-and-seek and could easily tuck himself out of sight; hiding a much smaller pile of crap wasn’t a problem at all. As for a tiny puddle of pee, that was almost indiscernible. My sister-in-law had only the stink to go on. Every day she had to get my brother or me to move cupboards and bookshelves and lift the bed boards and frames. She swept out the turds, applied charcoal to get rid of the smell of cat urine, washed the soiled upholstery and bedding and hung them out to dry in the sun. The flat was never really tidy, in fact it got to be quite a mess. The furniture was piled higgledy-piggledy in the middle of the room, as if we had just moved in or were about to move out and the removal truck was waiting downstairs. It began to get us humans down, but Tabby was