The Line Between

I wear glasses, except onstage, and the lenses are always messier than I ever notice. It used to drive Sam crazy. I took them off. Millamant—or what was using Millamant—said, «I love you, Emilia.»

Beside me, Emilia's breath simply stopped. I didn't dare look at her. I had all I could do to babble idiotically, «Sam? Sam? Where have you been? Sam, are you really in there?»

At that Millamant actually seemed to raise an eyebrow, which was unlikely, since cats don't have eyebrows. She—Sam—it said quite clearly. «You want I should wave?» And she did raise a front paw to gesture in my direction. Her ears were flicking and crumpling strangely, as though someone who didn't know how a cat's ears work were trying to lay them back. «As to where I've been — " the toneless march of syllables faltered a little " — it comes and goes. Talk to me.»

Emilia's face was still so pale that the color on her cheekbones stood out like tribal scars. I don't know what I looked like, but I couldn't make a sound. Emilia took a step forward, her hands out, but Millamant imme–diately backed away. «Talk to me. Please, talk to me. Tell me why we're all here, tell me anything. Please.»

So we sat in the kitchen, Emilia and I, talking to an old cat as we would have talked to our dear lost friend, solemnly telling her our com–monplace news of work and family, of small travels and travails, of his parents in Fort Lauderdale, of how it had been for us in the last two years. Our voices stumbled over each other, often crumbling into tears of still–untrusted joy, then immediately skidding off into broken giggles to hear ourselves earnestly assuring Millamant, «It's been a miserable cou–ple of theater seasons—absolutely nothing you'd have liked.» Millamant looked from one to the other of us, her eyes fiercely attentive, sometimes nodding like a marionette. Emilia clutched my hand painfully tightly, but she was smiling. I have never seen a smile like that one of Emilia's ever again.

She was saying, «And Jake and I have been writing and writing to each other, talking on the phone, telling each other everything we remember—things we didn't know we remembered. Things you maybe wouldn't remember. Sam, we missed you so. I missed you.» When she reached out again, Millamant avoided her touch for a moment; then suddenly yielded and let herself rest between Emilia's hands. The arid, rasping voice said, «Behind the ears. Finally, a body I can dance in, but I can't figure out about scratching.»

Nobody said anything for a while. Emilia was totally involved in caress–ing Millamant, and I was feeling more and more like the most flagrant voyeur. I didn't have to look at Emilia's face, or listen to Millamant's purr–ing; merely to watch those yearning hands at work in the thin, patchy fur was to spy on an altogether private matter. I make jokes when I'm edgy. I said to Emilia, «Be careful—he could be a dybbuk. It'd be just like him.» Emilia, not knowing the Yiddish word, looked puzzled; but Millamant let out a brief, contemptuous yowl, a feline equivalent of Sam's old Oh, good night! snort of disdain. «Of course, I'm not a bloody dybbuk!

Don't you read Singer? A dybbuks a wandering soul, demons chasing it all around the universe—it needs a body, a place to hide. Not me—nobody's chasing me.» The voice hesitated slightly for a second time. «Except maybe you two.»

I looked at Emilia, expecting her to say something. When she didn't, I finally mumbled—just as lamely as it reads — «We needed to talk about you. We didn't have anyone else to talk to.»

«If not for Jake," Emilia said. «Sam, if it weren't for Jake, if he hadn't known me at your funeral — " she caught her breath only momentarily on the word " — Sam, I would have disappeared. I'd have gone right on, like always, like everybody else, but I would have disappeared.»

Millamant hardly seemed to be listening. She said thoughtfully, «I'll be damned. I'm hungry.»

«I'll make you a quesadilla," I said, eager to be doing something prac–tical. «Cheese and scallions and Ortega diced chilies—I've still got a can from the last time you were here. Take me ten minutes.»

The look both Millamant and Emilia gave me was pure cat. I said, «Oh. Right. Wet or dry?»

Nothing in life—nothing even in Shakespeare—adequately prepares you for the experience of opening a can of Whiskas with Bits O' Beef for your closest friend, who's been dead for two years. Millamant ambled over to the battered stoneware dish that Emilia had brought with her from New York, sniffed once, then dug in with a voracity I'd never seen in either Sam or her. She went through that red–brown glop like a snow–plow, and looked around for more.

Scraping the rest into her dish, I couldn't help asking, «How can you be hungry, anyway? Are you the one actually tasting this stuff, or is it all Millamant?»