A Tabby-cat's Tale by Hang Dong Read Free Book Online Page B

Europe . . . This is Latin America . . . Equatorial Guinea . . . This is Singapore . . . These are the Andes . . . This is the South Pole . . .’

7
    Then one day, Tabby vomited all over the balcony and refused his food. He was a sad sight: he retched, his belly convulsed, but all he could bring up was a few drops of yellow bile. We had no idea what to do. The only medicine we’d ever given him was some crushed antibiotic pills in his food, but since he wasn’t eating, the only way was to force them down. I put on the mackintosh, went out on the balcony and caught Tabby. In the teeth of stiff resistance, Xulu opened his jaws and we got the medicine down his throat, but even this was no guarantee of success. As soon as we let him go, he threw up violently. And when I say, ‘threw up violently’, I don’t mean he brought up more than normal. On the contrary, the only product was the powdered pill and the spoonful of liquid in which they had been dissolved. It was the act of vomiting which was violent. Tabby convulsed, in a sort of mechanical rhythm, as if he was a clockwork vomiting cat. But the only result was a token amount of green bile which trickled from the corner of his mouth.
    We really felt that we should take him to the animal hospital, but then again, perhaps we were making a fuss about nothing. After all, Tabby was just a cat. Of course, we wouldn’t have hesitated to leap into action if a human being had been critically ill; an emergency ambulance to speed the patient there to the accompaniment of sirens and flashing lights wouldn’t have been too much. As we wavered, Tabby’s breathing weakened to the point where we felt that it was too late to take him to the hospital, that there was nothing more to be done. Tabby lay curled up inside the cat shelter. When we bent down to look at him, all we could see was a pair of tightly-shut eyes. But he wasn’t dead yet. We could tell because he was trembling all over. We reached in to stroke him, as he lay there listlessly, no longer worried that he might scratch us. The stroking calmed him and the trembling stopped, or perhaps grew fainter and was absorbed by our hands. Tabby seemed to like being stroked, and he meowed feebly to let us know. If we removed our hands, he gave a hoarse croak, to tell us he needed our warm touch. We put our hands back and he gave another meow, to say he felt it and it was just right. Xulu and I took turns stroking him, feeling his body gradually lose its warmth under our hands, and his meows grew feebler, until finally he just opened his mouth and made no sound.
    Xulu said: ‘Cats only live between eight and ten years. Tabby was at least eight this year.’ But could we be certain he had died of old age? If we had taken him to the hospital, might he have recovered? He didn’t look like an old cat. I knew what an old cat looked like, from the ones I saw in the village as a child, lying on the top of the stoves absorbing the warmth, or sunning themselves on the roofs. They lay quite still, whiskers erect; usually, they were hugely fat. None of them were nervously alert like Tabby or had his slender figure or his beauty. Tabby never looked old. His uncommon youthfulness was certainly a mystery, perhaps it had something to do with this constant, tense, vigilance?
    In order to ease his passing, we did something we hadn’t done for years, and carried him into the bedroom. At that point, I became ill myself and took to my bed. Tabby lay beside my bed in a cardboard box which Xulu had lined with some bits of cotton wadding. She bustled happily back and forth caring for both of us. I looked down at the floor. Occasionally, Tabby awoke from his doze, looked at me and gave an automatic meow. We were fellow sufferers, and even though I only had a common cold, I too felt I was not long for this world. I felt we were both ill from the same thing. Surely, as the medicine took effect on me, Tabby would take