Her mouth dropped open as the cat jumped up onto the little table and sat down again, curling his tail neatly about his feet. She shook her head a little wildly. “No, no, this is impossible—”
Clearly not, since you can hear me speaking to you. So do not cry, Ninette. I will make things right for you. I should have spoken to you when Maria died, but I was afraid you would never believe—I have watched over you all your life.
She stared into the cat’s unblinking eyes. “Oh? And so fine a job you have made of it!”
Did you ever starve? Was there always money to pay the rent? the cat retorted. Do you remember the sausages, the cheese, the fish that were left on the table that you thought were from your artist friends? The little purses Maria just “found” in the street when the rent came due? Maria would never have believed in any of the other things I could have done. I had to confine myself to what she would believe in.
Ninette bit her lip, her mind a whirl. She felt as if her entire existence had been turned upside down. Talking cats! Talking cats that claimed to have been taking care of them! And yet . . .
And yet there had been those mysterious gifts of food when they needed them the most. Maria was incredibly lucky when it came to finding windfalls on the street. Even the artists had remarked on it, saying that she must have a good fairy looking out for her.
A good fairy. . . .
Not exactly, the cat said wryly. But close enough. Ninette, will you trust me? Will you put yourself in my hands?
“Paws,” she corrected absently, still feeling her mind reeling. If this was madness then—so be it. She might as well be mad. What did she have to lose? If she was truly mad, then none of this was happening, and someone would find her wandering about and take her to an asylum where she would continue to live in her fancy. Or she would fall into the Seine and drown, and all her problems would be solved in that way.
All right then. You have to say it out loud. That’s the way these things work. It’s like a contract. The end of the cat’s tail twitched, restlessly.
“I trust you. So go and do whatever you want. I won’t go to the Folies just yet, I will give you your chance—”
Stay right here, the cat said, fiercely. Pack a small bag with anything you do not want to leave behind. Change into your good gown. I will be right back.
Abruptly, he stood up and whisked out of the window so quickly he might have been enchanted. She was left staring at the spot on the table where he had been sitting.
Pack a bag. With anything she did not want to leave behind.
She bit her lip and stared out at the evening sky. What in the name of God could this all mean?
As sunset turned to l’heure bleu and became dusk, then dark, she waited. Through her open window she could hear the sounds of the street—artists arguing at the little café, someone with a guitar, children, released from whatever job they did during the day, finding a little energy to play. Through the window came cooking smells; cabbage, the eternal cabbage, the staple of the poor. Sausages frying. Her stomach growled, and she finally got up, lit a stub of a candle, and rummaged the last of her bread from beneath the bowl where she had put it to keep it safe from mice, chopped up the last of her cabbage and made a thin cabbage soup, and ate it, slowly, dipping the hard bread into the broth. There was nothing more in the flat. Which did not matter, because if she had been imagining the talking cat, she would be in the street tomorrow anyway, and if she hadn’t she would—
Where would she be? Why would a cat tell her to pack a bag?
The last of the soup a memory, the last crumb of bread gone, she finally got up from the table, and did pack that bag, an ancient carpetbag, worn to the weft. She put it on the bed and when she was done it was scarcely half full. There was not much to put in it. A few bits of clothing, Maman’s marriage license, a little jewelry not even the pawnshop would take. Everything they had ever had of value had long since been pawned, except for the furniture, and she could not, in any event, strap a bed to her back and carry it off. She packed her ballet shoes, her rehearsal costume. She put on her good dress, as instructed, tied her shawl about her waist, and sat down to wait. The candle slowly burned down to a small puddle of wax, until it was just a bit of wick sporting a tiny flame.
Finally, as she began to doze at the table, there was a thump at the window, and a second as the cat leapt from the floor to the top of the table.
He had a square piece of pasteboard in his mouth.
Take it, he said insistently, and dumbfounded, she did. I will be right back, he said before she could ask any questions, and leapt away, and out the window, like the Spirit of the Rose in the ballet sketch.
She held it sideways to the light to see what it was. To her astonishment, it was a railway ticket, Paris to Calais, common carriage.
The boat-train. What on—
There was another thump and the cat returned, this time with a purse in his mouth, which he dropped at her feet. Put that in your pocket, he said. Then get your bag. We haven’t much time to get to the train. He wandered over to the old, worn carpetbag and swatted at it with a paw. Ah good, there will be room in there for me. That will make things easier.
She picked up the purse. It was an ordinary little thing of leather, and she felt and heard coins in it. She opened the mouth and poured the money out into her hand. It held twenty-three francs, a 50-centime piece, four 20-centime pieces, seven 10-centime pieces, three fives, and nine single centimes, which was nineteen francs more than she had seen of late, and much more than her mother had ever had at one time. There was nothing to identify the owner.
She looked up to see the cat insinuating himself into the bag. “You stole this!” she said, aghast. “The purse, the ticket—”
And what if I did? It was from no one who would be terribly harmed by the loss. Now hurry up! You can buy dinner on the train or at a station. You will have to catch the Metro and then the train!
“But why are we going to Calais?” she asked. There was no answer.
The cat’s tail disappeared into the bag. With a feeling that things had spun completely out of control, Ninette picked up the bag, now made heavier by the addition of the cat, and hesitated again.
She looked around, with the odd feeling that this would be the last time she ever saw this apartment. This was where she had mostly grown up; she had scarcely known any other home.
Yet when she left, no one would really miss her. The rest of the dancers had probably forgotten her already. As kind-hearted as the artists were, they were very much of the sort to put everything but their painting right out of their minds. If she had been sitting for any of them—if she vanished, whoever she was sitting for would have been angry of course. But as she wasn’t, well, she was just another forgettable little dancer and model who went away somewhere, and they would not trouble themselves too much over where that was, so long as none of them were called to identify a sad little corpse at the morgue.
The place was clean, but threadbare and rather dreary. Despite having so many artists in and out, the only pictures on the wall were those cut out from discarded magazines and framed with little bits of wood from old crates. Even those tended to go for kindling in the winter. The bed didn’t even have proper blankets, just rag-blankets made of skirts too stained, worn, or torn to ever be worn again by anyone. There was nothing in this room that had not been used and discarded by someone else.