Night of the Animals(77)

Muezza fixated on a tall Opticall dish and transmitter from ITN/WikiNous that had spoked high into the air. Cuthbert and the cat could easily see it from inside the zoo.

“It is an abomination,” he said. “Satan’s big white spoon!”

It was actually part of an automated news-reporting vehicle, no doubt attracted to the zoo by police Opticall activity. A camera operator and half-literate producer from ITN sometimes rode inside these automatic-news gliders, but human staff weren’t strictly necessary—“raw” footage, usually posted with a vocalized caption or two: “OK, coopy-coo friends of WikiNous, we got buckchuck troubles at the London Zoo”—was very popular on the open reaches of WikiNous, even among aristocrats.

For his part, Muezza instantly recognized, in his own way, the tall white stick with a lozenge-shaped dish on its top.

“It’s definitely the soul-killing infidel device of Baphomet,” the cat said. “This is a tool from outside the desert, I am sure. This kind of thing is surely what destroyed the Hittites—old friends of the cat. The Luciferians have brought the machines of the great demon, Baphomet.”

It made all too perfect sense to Cuthbert, yet it was the agitated animals inside the zoo that concerned him more. Something, if not jackals, or someone, was upsetting them.

Above the din, there also now floated a siren-like, glissando duet. Cuthbert had never heard such a song. It emitted from a pair of crested gibbons, who, like so many of the zoo’s specimens, were the only of their kind on earth who had ever lived in the wild. The melodies rose up and up and vibrated in the wind like red paper streamers. They were not far from Cuthbert, it seemed, and he felt excited, but puzzled, too.

“Do you know that wonderful sound?” he asked Muezza.

The cat said, with rich condescension, “It is an unpleasant noise. I have heard it in the zoo, but never seen its origin. Yet I know the sound: some kind of apes. These monsters are upset because the Shayk of Night now moves around the zoo. They are warning other apes. They despise cats, so they despise you, too, Kitten-Man, my Mahdi.”

“It is impossible for them to be against me. They don’t know me from Adam. And I don’t look like you or the Shayk or the lions or any cat.”

“But you are not part of their stinking monkey race,” the cat said.

“Are they—the apes—against the otters, too?”

“Yes, of course. I told you: otters are Britain’s natural cats. They are more cat than your stray moggies of Hackney.”

“Of course, you’re wrong on this bit, I’m sure. You’re barmy and absurd and I won’t listen to another word,” said Cuthbert. “That monkey, erm, monkey madrigal sort of thing, well, it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard, it is. It’s bostin.”

The cat said, “Yes. You are right, about its beauty. But it does not honor the Shayk, or you, or Allah. Apes do not love God. They don’t even love other apes. They love violence and anger. But what you say, I will believe. You are the correct one always and—”

“You’re talking bloody flannel now,” said Cuthbert. “I’m a kind of ape, you know.”

Muezza laughed so hard he had to roll onto his back. His fat golden paws stuck up, quivering.

“The Mahdi, he jokes now. It’s very funny. This is ‘dark’ humor.”

“I’m a human bloke,” said Cuthbert. “I am a primate form.”

“This is very humorous,” said Muezza. “But it is time for me to leave. I have many deserts to cross, to spread the news, that salvation has come to all the cats of the world.”

This upset Cuthbert. He felt he was beginning to love this mixed-up sand cat. He felt that a connection between human and feline had been wrought, even if clouded by the cat’s messianism. In the loneliness of his Flōtism, creatures who approved of him were rare.

“Please,” Cuthbert said, “don’t go. I will be your Mahdi.”

“Of course you will,” said Muezza. “But go I must. The end-times are upon us, and I have hundreds of rodents to slaughter. I say, thank you, Abu Hurayrah, thank you, Kitten-Man, thank you, al-Mahdi, thank you, O Lord of the Wonderments. I will see you again, someday. You shall see!”

“Ridiculous cat,” he muttered.

CUTHBERT FLOUNDERED FOR a few moments, searching for the Green Line. He heard the apes singing again and turned toward them. He felt he might as well locate the ape singers and ask them what they meant. He tripped several more motion detectors as he stumbled on. Bunch after bunch of lights snapped on. From a distance, near the edge of Regent’s Park, the switching on of the lights looked eerily floral, full of glimmering white-pinks and white-greens, like the aurora borealis. But up close, on the other side of the zoo fence, where authorities were assembling, the lights appeared harsh, as if some rough wedge of white was being hammered into the aged zoo, spuming out from its southeastern corner and into its sternum.

For a while, Muezza and Cuthbert walked together toward the pretty notes, and then the cat slunk away to his ivy-covered secrecies of Sufi dreams.

“I’m not any savior,” Cuthbert slurred aloud, thinking the cat was still beside him. A hideous self-pity filled him. “I’m not al-Mahdi. I don’t know why my gran had to tell me about any focking Wonderments. I’m a Black Country fool, and I’ve accomplished nothing.”