Cleo

“I’m giving Rata a lot of attention, so she doesn’t get jealous of the kitten. I brushed her coat twice yesterday. We’ve talked a lot about it. She’s going to like Cleo.”

Rata put her head in his lap and gazed up at him with liquid eyes.

“She seems to understand every word you’re saying,” I said.

“Animals know a lot more than people do. Dogs can tell when there’s going to be an earthquake. Birds can fly halfway around the world to find their nest. If people listened to animals more often they wouldn’t make so many mistakes.”

Sam’s connection with animals had become apparent when he was a baby. Our outings were devoted to animal spotting more than anything else. Enthroned in his pushchair, he’d wave chubby arms at dogs and cats wherever we went. One day, he pointed at a seagull circling above our heads and said his first word—“Dird!”

Animals were a tactile experience for Sam, too. He adored the feel of fur and feathers. Mum gave him an old goatskin rug that was black and white and shiny with age. Sam had dragged it into his bed to sleep on its comforting smoothness every night.

He was born with a wild sense of humor, a tool to test boundaries. When he was small I feigned shock at his use of rude words. He retaliated by following me around humming “Bum, bum, bumble bee.” Never afraid of flamboyance, he’d flung himself fully dressed into a bath of water and insisted on wearing a monkey mask with matching feet for the duration of his eighth birthday. Life was too magnificent not to be made fun of. I understood where he was coming from. Teachers were either amused or appalled by him, though none of them complained when, at the age of eight, he scored a reading age of thirteen. While he wasn’t disruptive at school, he enjoyed making bold personal statements, like excusing himself from class if he thought I might be in the school grounds, or asking to have his hair cropped close to the scalp when other boys were diligently growing theirs long.

I knew and loved every part of his body, especially the so-called imperfections: the scar above his left eyebrow where as a toddler he’d collided with the edge of the coffee table; his square hands with their chewed fingernails; the wart in the middle of the palm of his right hand. I adored the chip in his front tooth (tricycle accident), the flecks that made his eyes seem so wise sometimes, his feet (often grubby) and his nuggetty legs toasted by the sun. Without these he’d have been a flawless boy, a cherub too perfect for planet Earth. His scratches, bruises and scars formed a secret code only the two of us knew the history and formation of. Knowing Sam the animal lover and clown, I wasn’t sure what to make of his serious approach to his ninth birthday. Maybe he wanted to prove how much he’d grown up.

The knocker rapped against the front door. Sam and Rata trotted down the hall to answer it.

Daniel seemed to understand it was an understated birthday. The three boys sat around the kitchen table with Rata strategically positioned underneath to collect her share of the feast. I snapped a few photos while the birthday boy lit his nine candles. The atmosphere was rich with feeling, yet strangely somber.

Weeks later, when the photos came back from the processor they were so dark it was hard to make out the images. Even though the kitchen had been flooded with sunlight that afternoon, Sam’s image was cloaked in shadow, with a halo of gold light around the edges. Maybe I was a lousy photographer. Or perhaps it was one of those supernatural tricks some people believe cameras are capable of performing.

Loss

Unlike humans, cats are accustomed to loss.

Most days are so similar they’re forgotten almost before the sun sets on them. Thousands of days dissolve into each other, evolving into months and years. We slide through time expecting each day to be as predictable as the one before. Lulled into routines involving the same breakfast cereals, school runs and familiar faces, we’re anesthetized into believing our lives will go on unchanged forever.

The twenty-first of January 1983 started out that way. There were no hints this date would slam down on us and slice our lives permanently in two.

After breakfast the boys wrestled in their pajamas on the living room floor, with Rata refereeing while Steve unscrewed the bathroom door from its frame. The last door headed for the acid dipper in town, it was also the most political. Nobody wanted to pee in public.

Doors are heavier than they look. It took the four of us, aided by cheerful tripping up from Rata, to carry the thing up the zigzag and stow it in the station wagon. It was January—summer holiday time on this hemisphere—and the boys were bronzed, their hair almost white from the sun. Unlike me, they were keen to meet the mysterious acid dipper. After Steve had tied the bathroom door to the car, the boys slid into what was left of the backseat.