In those years the seasons marked the comings and goings in our house just like in children’s books. Spring: Mom takes the rug out into the yard, throws it over a clothesline wire, beating it with a wicker paddle. The blows of my tennis-playing mom resound and the dust flies everywhere, every blow a thunderclap. Other moms are out beating their rugs too and the whole city reverberates, the air dusty like the heart of an old watch, every ray of sun visible. The sun circles the earth to the rhythm of a thousand blows, the city a heavenly disco. In the broad light of day all the angels and all the saints gaze down to see what’s up as moms beat their rugs in the early spring. Or the summer: Footprint traces in the fresh asphalt, I become famous with every step, each imprinted forever. Sweaty I enter the cool of our house, so good in the summertime, its coolness a contrast to the heat of the whole steaming world outside. I’ll be off to the seaside soon and already miss the house. I’m going away, that I’ll be coming back is no relief because there’s no coming back worth such a leaving. Autumn: The house is fragrant, the rain falling outside our steamy windows. Paprikas, tomatoes, cabbages, and floury apples jostle about the floor, we’re making winter preserves, warming ourselves with their scents and colors, warming ourselves on the feeling of immortality among all this food to see us through the winter. Now we can sleep like bears and dream big long bear dreams, until with the first days of spring, warmed, we wake from our slumber.
With the cat the first fateful month entered our house: February. She was already a year and a half, her coat shone in the light, a cat ready for the catwalk at a world expo of miniature beauty. She was asleep on top of the television, but occasionally opened her eyes, eyeballing us huddled there in front of the screen with our hands in our laps, as if she didn’t like what she saw, as if bestowing a magnificent contempt upon us all. And then she just disappeared, leaving the house and not coming back for three days. On her return she was matted and muddied, one ear bitten. She went straight for her feeding tray, meowed her way around the house, and then curled up under the table to sleep. Been out whoring have we? said Grandma. The cat opened one eye, but under the eyelid was another she didn’t deign worthy of opening. She was smug; February had come.
Two months later Mom was in a flap, we’re going to have kittens. Grandma scowled in Dad’s direction, and he scratched his head, the guilty party. I was peeing myself with joy. What are we going to do with so many kittens? It doesn’t matter, kittens don’t eat much, they’ll live with us, but next year when February comes there’ll be more kittens, and that’s okay too, even that many kittens don’t eat much. A thousand kittens don’t eat as much as Grandma, Mom, and me, let alone Dad when he comes to visit; he eats more than a hundred cats put together.
At the beginning of May the cat tried to sneak into the linen cup-board, get out! Grandma trailed her, then she slunk under the bed, get out! Then she tried my toy box, get out! Grandma shunted her from one hiding place to the next, and I didn’t get it. She picked up the cat and set her down in a box of rags in the broom closet. That’s that, she said. What?. . Doesn’t matter what. We sat there watching TV, Mom was flicking through the newspaper, and I forgot about the cat until I heard this weird meowing. It’s started!. . What’s started? I jumped up. Come take a look, said Grandma knowingly. Don’t want to, I was a little bit scared. Come on, nothing’s going bite you. . Do I have to?. . Oh to hell with you if you don’t want to! But I did sidle up, peering out from behind Grandma and Mom. The cat was meowing, looking Grandma straight in the eye, but this time she wasn’t sneering, just inquisitively staring what’s this, what’s happening to me, I haven’t a clue, why didn’t anyone teach me about all this, why didn’t you tell me? But Grandma just nodded her head and whispered everything’s okay, it’s okay, everything’s going to be okay.
Look, the first one! Mom yelled. A little lump that really didn’t look much like a kitten popped out of the cat. Then she remembered what to do. She licked the lump until it became a furry something. The tiny kitty was as big as a key ring. Look, there’s the second one! It’d been ten minutes. Look, the third!. . the fourth!. . the fifth!. . Look, the sixth! Mom was hollering as if she were the courtier at a royal feline court and it was her job to announce the number of neonates the queen had borne to city and state.
Now she needs peace and quiet, Grandma commanded, and Mom exited the broom closet obediently. I was proud of Grandma; it was like she had this infinite feline or maternal experience. But my pride was short-lived, because three days later something happened that I’ve never told anyone and which I spent years trying to forget. The season of great deaths had to come, so I could start processing it and add my offering up to the time when the seasons and February disappeared, and all victims became something we could speak freely of until we made someone cry or fly into a rage.
Where are the kitties? I asked. They’re gone, she said. How come they’re gone, where are they?. . I don’t know, they’re gone. . The cat’s looking for them, where are they?. . I don’t know, they’re gone. . You do know! I screamed, you know where they are, go get them!. . I can’t go get them, they’re gone, Grandma had turned pale and was trying to get away from me. Bring the kitties back, shame on you!. . I can’t bring them back. . Bring them back, stupid! I was crying now, bring them back you bitch, bring them back or you deserve to die. . Grandma clammed shut, looked away, and tried to disappear every time I’d come near. Something terrible had happened, but I didn’t know what. Something so terrible that I wanted to say the most vile things to her, but luckily I didn’t know how to say them; if I’d known I would have, I would have killed my grandma with words.
When Mom came home from work she found me whimpering under the writing desk, doubled up like a fetus. The cat roamed the house, meowing in search of her children. But her children weren’t there. Grandma sat in the living room staring at the wall. She didn’t make lunch that day. Mom crouched down beside me repeating my name, but I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to say anything, or I couldn’t, I don’t remember anything else. She wanted to run her fingers through my hair, but I moved my head and hit the wall. My forehead bled; tears mixed with blood. The blood was sweeter than the tears, but it burned my eyes. Mom was crouched there trembling. Grandma stayed where she was. Grandma wasn’t there. I hope she never comes back, I thought.
She’d drowned the cat’s children in the washbasin and tossed them in the garbage. I’ll never do that again! she said to Mom, never again, those kittens have cost me half my life. I made like I didn’t hear them and that I’d forgotten everything. That’s the best thing to do if you can’t forget anything. I couldn’t forget those kittens.
Grandma had fed the kitten with an eyedropper, had given her a life already lost and taught her things only grandmothers can teach people and cats, had helped her give birth, and then she killed her children. I couldn’t understand that; I’ll never understand it, even though one day, along with a world and a city that had lost the seasons of the year, I’d get used to living with death and with exile from a life without death.