Tuesday cats

The cat disappeared shortly after we moved into our new house. She was a sleek and somewhat tubby ginger with big, yellow eyes that she used to squint at me in a soundless demand for more food. Every now and then, she would leave our house and explore the neighbourhood, but she always returned home in time for dinner. I would only have to open the door and yell ‘Chummy!’ and she would run towards the kitchen and her bowl as fast as her little legs could carry her.
Our new house was large, with four bedrooms and a huge garden that was choked with brambles and grass that reached to my knees. During our first day there, Chummy was perfectly happy exploring between the weeds and basking in the sun on one of the branches of the apple tree whilst we tried to unpack the vast amount of cardboard boxes we had brought with us. During the second day, I opened the garden door for her again and saw the tip of her ginger tail poking above the yellowing grass as she continued her quest of discovery. That night, when I called her, she didn’t come. I waited for nearly half an hour before I decided to leave a dish with cat food outside. I wasn’t worried yet; Chummy was probably tired and curled up somewhere, fast asleep.
I did get worried when she didn’t turn up the next day, or the day after that. I set myself a date, then; if she hadn’t returned by Tuesday, I would go out and look for her. Tuesday was only two days away then and seemed like a reasonable deadline, or so I kept telling myself. I tried to focus on the porcelain plates that I had to dust and store away, on the rows of brown boxes filled with books that I had yet to put on their shelves in what I hoped was a logical order, but I felt a small knot of worry settle itself in the pit of my stomach. She had never been away from home so long…
“Don’t worry, cats have nine lives,” my husband said when I told him about Chummy.
“You’re just saying that so that I don’t worry,” I huffed, piling some more spaghetti on his plate.
“There is an empty house in the Lindelaan,” he said as he slathered his pasta with red sauce, “with a huge garden that is full of catnip. I saw quite some cats there when I drove past it on my way to the hospital. Go and see if you can find your chubby ginger there.” I stuck a tomato in my mouth and chewed it thoughtfully.
“That might be a good idea,” I said, and I meant it. The next morning, it was Tuesday and I felt I could go out and look for Chubby without feeling guilty about the many things that I still had to do inside the house. I made myself a cup of tea and looked out of the window whilst I drank it. It was pouring; fat drops of rain hurled themselves at the glass and smashed into thin droplets before snaking down. The garden looked green and wilder than ever. The long grass waved in the wind. When I squinted, it looked like the garden was a large sea with rippling waves topped with foam.
I washed my cup, pulled on my boots and a rain coat and left the house armed with an umbrella and an apple. It took me nearly half an hour to walk to the Lindelaan. The wind kept tugging on my umbrella, nearly setting it flying. Soon, my hair was plastered to my skull, my fingers were red with cold and my mood was rotten. I wished I had put on a sweater, but my winter clothes were packed away in one of the many boxes I had yet to sort through. When I finally found the street I was looking for, it was remarkably easy to locate the vacant house. The street was lined with knotty beeches. An exceptionally big one stood in front of the empty house. A picture of a cat was nailed to it. It said MISSING: MIFFLES. PLEASE RETURN WHEN FOUND, followed by an address and a description of the cat.
“Might not be a bad idea if you can’t find Chummy,” I mumbled. I stood under the tree as I looked at the house, relishing the sound of rain on green leaves, wishing that my cat would turn up so that I could take her under one arm and go back home. The house had large windows that were very dark. They reminded me of the empty sockets in a skull. The boarded-up front door didn’t help, either. After a moment, I stepped away from the beech and walked up to the garden. It was wild, even wilder than our neglected garden, with ivy choking the fruit trees and nettles and catnip covering most of the perimeter. A rosebush covered part of the brick wall of the house, its flowers large and fragrant in the rain. I walked towards a particular big plant of catnip, called out for Chummy and waited. A gust of wind nearly blew the umbrella out of my hand and water rained on my yellow coat. A fat drop rolled down my back and I shivered.
“Chummy!” I called again, but there was not a cat to be seen. I guessed they hated the weather as much as I did. I was about to give up and return home when the door of one of the neighbouring houses opened and a teenager peeked out. She was Asian and wore her thick black hair in a tight ponytail. Her slanted eyes were large and lined with kohl.
“Hello,” I said, clutching my umbrella tight against another gust of wind.
“There’s no-one living there, you know,” she said, pointing at the house behind me.
“I know. I was looking for my cat.”
“Did it run away?” she asked. I nodded. She pushed up the sleeves of her varsity jacket.
“There are a lot of them around here. It’s the catnip, you see. Drives them crazy. They won’t come out in this rain, though,” she said. I nodded again.
“I know. I’ll come back later, when it’s dry,” I said and took a few steps.
“You can come inside and wait for the weather to break, if you want to,” she offered, opening the front door so that I could see the spacious hallway.
“No, it’s quite alright,” I said. The wind gave a mighty tug at my umbrella. The plastic ripped and got blown away. It skittered over the pavement like a large, pink spider. I got splattered with rainwater, the skeleton of my umbrella being of little help.
“You sure? It is very nasty out there. You could at least wait till the rain stops. You’re gonna catch your death or at least pneumonia if you keep on standing in the rain like that,” she said. I shivered and lowered what was left of my umbrella. The idea of walking the entire way back in the pouring rain was everything but alluring.
“Won’t your parents mind?”
“My parents? No, my parents are out on a business trip, they won’t be home until Thursday,” she said, opening the door yet a little wider. She wore roughly knitted socks on her feet and a tight pair of blue jeans. I hesitated, then decided that it could do little harm to go inside and warm myself up a bit. I left my boots near the door. The girl took my broken umbrella and dumped it in the garbage whilst I removed my dripping coat. She took it from me and left it near the heating.
“Do you want to drink anything? Coffee, tea? Something to warm you up, hm?”
“Tea would be nice,” I said and followed her to the living room. She limped a little, dragging her foot over the carpet in the hallway. The house was spacious, with a light wooden floor and lots of windows. The living room had a red carpet and a red sofa with matching chairs. One of them was covered with magazines and mugs with dregs of coffee, as well as an empty pizza box. It was clear that her parents were away. The girl took the ashtray with her to the kitchen to empty it. I warmed my hands at the roaring fire in the hearth before choosing the chair closets to it. My jeans were soaked through and started to steam. It was pure bliss to sit there for a while without having to say anything.
“Has your cat been gone for long?” the girl asked from the kitchen.
“A few days,” I answered. She came back, holding a steaming mug and the empty ashtray. I closed my hands around the cup and relished its warmth. The girl flopped down on the sofa, pulled the chair with her magazines toward her and lit a cigarette. She inhaled the smoke deeply and blew it out in small puffs.
“What kind of cat is it?”
“She’s a ginger. She’s rather chubby,” I added whilst taking a sip.
“You’ve chosen a rotten day to go on a cat hunt,” she said.
“Chummy has never been away for longer than a day. I felt I couldn’t wait any longer.”
“Cats go missing here all the time,” the girl said, stretching herself and squashing the cigarette stub in the ashtray.
“What is your name, anyway?”  I asked.
“Sen.” She lighted another cigarette, blowing out the smoke in perfect circles. I drained my cup.
“A lot of cats go missing here, you say?” I thought of the poster that was nailed to one of the birches.
“I guess. I don’t know. There are always a lot of cats that hang around that old house. It’s because of all the catnip. There were two ginger cats there yesterday. One of them might be the one you’re looking for.” I nodded and stared at the fire. The flames licked the dry wood and danced around the hearth. My jeans were nearly dry and the tea warmed me up from the inside. I started to feel somewhat drowsy, lulled by the pattering rain and the happy crackles of the fire.
“Do you have any pets?” I asked. Sen shook her head.
“Nah, my parents don’t like them. They’re not home often enough, they say.” We were quiet for a little. I relished the cooling mug, feeling the warmth of the ceramic transfer to my fingers.
“Do you live around here?” Sen asked. She put out her second cigarette and toyed with her lighter, flicking it between her fingers.
“We just bought a house here in the neighbourhood. I think Chummy might have gotten lost. She doesn’t know the way around here yet.” I pulled my knees up and rolled myself into a ball, like I was a cat myself.
“You must have a good job, to buy a house around here.”
“My husband is a doctor and I work as a teacher. We’re doing alright,” I said. It was becoming harder and harder to hold my eyes open; my lids drooped and it seemed all too easy to lay down my head and sleep. I pinched the back of my hand.
“I’ve always wanted to be a doctor,” Sen said. She sat with her legs crossed and tried to turn the pages of one of the magazines with her toes. She removed one of her socks to do so and plucked at the short hairs that had gathered there.
“Forgive me for asking, but why aren’t you at school?” I rubbed my eyes.
“I got hit by a car. I hurt my leg real bad. I’m still recovering,” she said. I nodded. It explained her limp. It felt a bit fuzzy, as if my head was stuffed with wadding.
“The hospital was an interesting experience. I already knew I wanted to be a doctor, but this confirmed it.” She rolled the hairs she had collected into a tiny ball.
“You want to be a doctor to help people?” I asked.
“No, I want to cut people, to see what’s inside. It’s the inside that counts, eh?” she said and laughed, “Being seriously, though, I always wanted to see what people look like from the inside. When you strip away the skin, I mean.” I could feel myself slipping away. My head touched the arm of the chair.
“I imagine the moment when I’ve peeled away the skin and use a scalpel to split away the muscles. To see the inner organs! The pink lungs, the beating heart with its fat veins, the sac containing the bowels…” Sen sighed.
“Just think about taking them out, cutting them away till your knife hits the bone, searching for the part that everyone has but is different for everyone, too: the soul. I always wonder where it resides, you know? Where do you think you can find someone’s soul?” Sen asked. I rubbed my eyes again.
“I don’t know. Where the heart is?”
“Might be. I always thought it might be the place between your eyebrows, or that little dimple between your collar bones. Someone once told me it resides between the knuckles of your dominant hand, but that can’t be right, now can it? I mean, people can live without a hand and I wouldn’t call them soulless, per se!” She laughed at this, moving her foot daintily. She wore a silver ankle bracelet.
“Where do you think it is?” I asked. My words were a bit slurred. I blinked a few times, trying to clear my head. I started to feel uneasy.
“The space where your skull meets your neck, that little, sensitive place there. I imagine I can feel it when I press my fingertips there,” she said, and showed me her slender neck, pointing with her fingertips.
“Right there. People don’t survive when they get hit there, and who can survive without a soul? Apart from vampires, of course, but those don’t exist. Hey, do you know how big a soul is?” She sat up straight now, looking intently at my face. I shook my head slowly.  
“I imagine it is not much bigger than this ball here,” Sen said, holding the ball of hair up in the light. It glinted auburn and black and ginger in the light of the fire.
“Probably a lot smaller than that. You can compress a ball of hair and make it a lot tinier. Maybe a soul works like that, too,” Sen said, biting her lip in doubt. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. The pain woke me a little.
“Can I use your bathroom?” I asked.
“Sure thing. It’s the door on the right of the cellar door. The cellar door is the black one,” Sen said. I nodded and stood up. I had to steady myself on the chair and felt rather dizzy as I made my way to the toilet. I should have had breakfast, I thought as I walked to the black door at the end of the hallway. I found the toilet without trouble, but had to held the doorknob and breathe deeply before my dizzy spell passed.
“My, my,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. I decided to leave after returning; I would come back for Chummy later. I told myself it was because I wasn’t feeling well, that I didn’t want to be a burden to this girl I hardly knew. In truth, I felt very uneasy. Sen’s talk about souls and their location creeped me out.
I did my business and flushed the toilet. I checked myself in the bathroom mirror, smoothing my bangs. I looked ghostly pale and felt as if I didn’t get enough air. I was pinching my cheeks to give them some colour when I heard something scratching at the bathroom door. I turned the lock. The scratching stopped. I frowned and opened the door, but the hallway was deserted. The rain pattered on the windows. The shadows of its drops creeped over the floor. I was about to return to the living room when I heard the creak of the cellar door. It stood open a little.
“Hello?” I asked, pushing the black wood back a little. The basement was utterly black. I could just about see the first two steps of concrete stairs leading into the darkness.
“Sen?” A soft meowing came from the bottom of the stairs. I knew that sound.
“Chummy?! I threw open the door and thundered down the stairs. The darkness pressed at my eyelids. My footsteps echoed.
“Chummy, is that you? Come, kitty, kitty,” I mumbled, getting down on my knees. I blinked a bit, but the only light came from the hallway. The sheath of light hardly dented the dark. I felt it suffocate me, forcing its long fingers down my throat, inside my lungs. I choked and shook my head, trying to clear my mind, but I couldn’t breathe. I scrambled up, crawling up the steps, when the door slammed in my face. I made a gagging noise and collapsed on the stairs, letting the cold concrete embrace me.

Someone brushed away my fringe tenderly. I moaned and tried to move, but my limbs felt very heavy. I was lying on my side. The fingers of my right hand touched my cheek ever so lightly.
“Sush, dear,” Sen’s voice whispered in my ear, “you shouldn’t upset the ropes. It will just burn your wrists and ankles, you know. Give you rope burn.” She giggled. I forced my eyelids to open and swallowed a few times.
“What…” I mumbled. Sen loomed above me. She wore a white doctor’s coat and plastic gloves.
“Don’t talk.”
“I didn’t mean to come here. My cat…” My speech sounded strange, the words heavy.
"I need to concentrate, pet,” Sen said. She gingerly touched my neck and scalp.
“After all, it isn’t easy to locate a soul.”