Secrets of the Cat_ Its Lore, Legend, and Lives - Barbara Holland [33]
The most recent report, in The Compendium on Continuing Education for Veterinary Medicine, is that cats can control the air pressure through the glottis, the opening of the larynx, both inhaling and exhaling, as if we could produce a continuous “hummmm” sound breathing in as well as out. Veterinary Aspects of Feline Behavior says that kittens begin to purr at the age of two days, using the vibration to locate important landmarks like their mother, and then after their eyes open they extend the purr’s purpose to include a call for food or attention. And Public Broadcast television says the purr, a consistent twenty-five vibrations per second, means the cat wants a contact to be continued: if you’re holding me, go on holding me.
Don’t stop. Don’t leave.
We do leave, though. Perhaps so much fuss is made over the loyalty of dogs because we ourselves are capable of such treachery, and can terminate a relationship without a backward glance, breaking our contract with an animal whenever it seems convenient to do so. Many are the classified ads and notices on bulletin boards: “Free to good home; moving.” From the frequency with which we abandon our friends you’d think a cat was more trouble to crate and transport than a breakfront full of Grandmother’s china. It’s not likely we’ll find a good home, not for a grown cat, and what, from its point of view, is a good home? Perhaps anywhere, any motel room, as long as we were there. Let’s not be too easily satisfied with a roof and regular meals for our old companion; it may be we have broken his heart. When our own hearts are broken we can rationalize them whole again, or pull our pride over the wounds. A cat can’t. He may go on living in the new home for many years, and listen for our voice and footstep every day of them.
We made a contract, and the fine print is in a language we can’t read. There are connections here we don’t know about, or how can a cat go find its person half a continent away? Honoré Balzac’s cat asked to go out every day in time to meet him coming home from work, but when the man silently changed his plans and wasn’t coming home, the cat stayed curled in its chair and didn’t bother to go out.
Of course it’s also possible to have a cat around on a totally impersonal basis, to catch mice or decorate the living room sofa, as long as you’re sure you both understand the terms.
Jane kept Esmeralda to catch mice. The two of them lived alone together in a big house on a windswept hill, and Jane complained often of loneliness, and invited me over. Esmeralda got to know me (I slipped her bits of cheese from the cocktail table; “Stop it,” said Jane, “you’re giving her ideas above her station”) and the sound of my car, and always waited in the hall to greet me. The three of us sat in the living room, and Jane complained of loneliness.
“You have Esmeralda,” I offered.
“Huh. Esmeralda.”
At the sound of her name the cat gazed adoringly at Jane and flexed her paws deeply into the rug.
“She loves you,” I said. “Look at her. She’s asking to sit in your lap.” Esmeralda reached out a polite paw and touched the couch by Jane’s leg, asking.
“She does not love me. She only wants to sit in my lap so she can scratch me.”
“Scratch you?”
Jane nodded emphatically. “That’s what she wants to do. I let her sit in my lap just once, and she dug her claws right into my leg like a savage.”
“Oh, Jane, she didn’t mean it that way. It means love, and pleasure. It’s because kittens do it to their mothers when they’re nursing, kneading their paws like that.”
“I’m sorry for their mothers, then. And if that’s her idea of love, no thank you.”
Esmeralda slitted her green eyes at Jane and purred