Night of the Animals(69)
Muezza’s little chest, with its yellow-sapphire center, puffed out. He popped up to the balls of his paws, and all his hair stood up. After a minute of stiff, anxious silence, his tawny body deflated a bit, his hairs relaxed, and he intoned, with the greatest of gravity: “Thus, we shall have a decent look at the thing—the heart of hearts. It is the whole reason why all cats play with sharp claws. They are always reaching for a thing so very precious, something that must not be let go once it’s grasped—the heart, brother. Do not forget that. In the same way the platinum prongs of a ring need a ruby, the cat’s claws need a human heart.”
Cuthbert considered all that Muezza said. He felt impressed less by the cat’s lucidity than by his fey fervor. He nodded for a moment. He took a deep breath, and an answering flutter of arrhythmias tickled inside him. Dr. Bajwa had tried to teach him to get used to his early beats, but they ever vexed him.
He asked darkly, “The Altar of Lost Chances? That’s this bloody entire island, according to my gran.” He squinted at the animal. “But let me put this to you, Cat of Wonder, since you seem to know so much: do you know what the otterspaeke phrase ‘gagoga maga medu’ means?”
Muezza shook his head. “Oh my friend, my new friend, I am no expert in languages. You may actually have overestimated my extensive feline powers. But I am sure this ‘gaga-maga-baba-boo’ means something good and important, saliq. I am sure it is something to do with cats, and nothing to do with dogs.”
“You’re really on a line* about dogs, little cocker—and that wants no translation,” said Cuthbert. “Now what about that? S’that Islam proper? And it’s ‘gagoga . . . maga . . . medu.’ It ain’t to do with dogs or cats. It’s the words your otters, your London Zoo otters, send me.”
“Otters?” asked Muezza. “Most sacred creatures, saliq.”
The cat disappeared into the vegetation. Cuthbert could see the black-ringed tip of its tail sticking up from a carpet of ivy. It waved drowsily.
“Yes, brother. You have me. Perhaps I’m not a perfect scribe.* But I respect otters—and all living creatures. I don’t like dogs, it is true. And rats. You see my weakness. I want to destroy rats.”
There was a pause and the tail stopped cold and stood straight as a reed. “Oh, I smell them everywhere here!” Muezza emitted a short, pained growl. The strange sound was as diminutive and precise as his face. “Rats, brother. Can you hear them?”
“No, I do not,” said Cuthbert. “For some reason, I don’t hear rodents. And now I need to go.”
“Ah, see? They are beneath you, too, brother.”
“Oi, no. Nothing’s below me. And I’m not your brother. Please don’t call me that.” Cuthbert felt a sudden surge of self-loathing, with his West Bromwich childhood on him like piss on chips. “You wouldn’t want me anyway, if you knew me. I’m not like you. I’m a Flōt sot is all. And ’a’ve a brother, and ’e’s more of a gent than me, believe you me. ’E’s really my better half, see? ’E’s the one what’s supposed to carry the Wonderments, but I couldn’t save him, see? I couldn’t. But if I can free the otters . . .”
An old, very sane bitterness was beginning to engorge his mind. “I’m the monster. I’m worse than human, as my ‘dear old dad’ used to say. I’m not even sure if I’m alive. I can’t seem to live in this country, see? How can I save a single animal? I couldn’t even save my brother.”
Cuthbert felt his heart doubling beats rapidly, and a slight numbness in his lips that always came with his worst arrhythmias. He felt angry.
He coughed. He asked, “I’m dying, cat. I’m ninety years old, and I’ve been in the wars, as they say. Why don’t you just run away and take your freedom, like your mates? I’ve come to help you. It will help me to help you, you see, if you’d only just run away. Please?”
“Gladly,” said Muezza. “But I am fated to assist you, my elder saliq. There are greater concerns than me, and even you, that await us. But you released me—that’s a bell that cannot be unrung. So I must help you. And I am also fated to devour rats. We must consume the things we can, the things that are good for us, even if they are dirty and haram to the mullahs. The rats are all looking for each other, and since they are so stupid—and they can’t even bother to address such wise creatures as you—all they usually find are miles of garden walls between themselves. Yet, let us not forget that even these dirty beasts have love for one another. They are continually trying to cross boundaries, not to write them. It is not their fault that they are disgusting sisterf*ckers. And regardless of how I feel about them, they offer nourishment to cats everywhere. What could be more important?”
The cat nodded yes for several seconds, then continued: “But the Salafists and the suicide cults and the doomy ultrasonic neural-missile traders—and even your king, Henry—they—”
“Don’t cank on my king!” Cuthbert said. “You leave Harry out of your feline philosophizing.”
The cat grinned, but nervously. “Of course,” he said. “I meant some of these—other . . . leaders? I forget my place, saliq. Not the illustrious and powerful king, not His Human Highness. But his Red Watch and his bureaucracy of bullying, and all these new human princes and barons and viscounts—they cannot survive without their cruel apartness. And that is truly death, saliq, as you have found yourself. The love of death—it binds them to your Luciferian Neuters in outer space, you see. They want to control. They do not see how joined we are to one another. Fools!”