Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir(40)
When I ran out of pan de sal crumbs, I transitioned us to a game I used to play with Paolo: building pillow forts. I dragged pillows from every upstairs room to the corridor, Milo helping to carry the weight of them with his crooked teeth. He walked backward, his tail and bottom wagging as he stepped, and his mouth clipped to a corner of a down or a throw pillow. I piled the rectangles of cushions and feathers the way Paolo used to instruct me to. Exhausted from playing, Milo climbed onto our fort and found a crevice between layers of cotton. He circled and scratched, and slept there, his rib cage and belly rising and falling with his dead-rat puppy breath. I took the swaddle from the buggy, lay head-to-head with him, and covered us both with my baby brother’s blanket.
The next morning, still cuddled together on our fort, Milo and I awoke to the banging of tins and the swishing of nets and cloths. Manang Biday weaved through my obstacle course, chasing after a gray-brown-and-white stray cat. Maximo ran parallel to them, swinging a family-size biscuit tin to scoop up the prey. They pogoed right and left, trying to keep up with the fast feline, looking like they were performing a tinikling. Leap, leap, pounce. Leap, leap, pounce.
“Ayay! You two, don’t just sit there! Help us!” Manang Biday said, her eyes still fixed on the kitty.
I sprang to my feet and loped to Paolo’s bedroom to look for his air gun. Despite the comicalness of the commotion, I knew I had to contribute. It was no joke. At least that’s what I then understood from my yaya’s and Elma’s stories and from Philippine folklore we read at school: cats were bad luck. I found Paolo on his bed, half-asleep, and the air gun on his dresser.
“Where are the pellets?” I asked him.
“What for?” he said.
“A cat strayed into the mansion.”
He roused himself so quickly, I nearly thought he had gone back to his old self. “Here.” He tossed the bottle of yellow-green BBs. “Get that cat. Last thing we need is more bad luck.” He fell back on his bed and snoozed.
School was out for the summer, Elma was away, and my brother played dead on his bed, so I made cat sniping my new hobby. From the trundle drawer I dug out the gun belt I had made years ago and wore it around my hip to hold my gun. I made a map of the mansion and stationed Paolo’s plastic army men on parts where I’d seen the unwanted mammal. Milo tracked our prey, and I shot at it from the ballroom or upstairs terrace. The stray sped out of the way faster than the little neon plastic spheres. Frustrated, I sought my big brother’s help.
“Kuya, the cat’s our Common Enemy,” I said. “Wanna trap it with me?”
“What?” he said, lying on the bed and tracing the edge of a vinyl record.
“The Common Enemy, remember? Papa told us we had to team up and beat the Common Enemy.”
“Pfft.” He covered his face with the record. “We got bigger problems than that cat.”
“C’mon, just help.”
“I probably should, but I won’t. Gotta hide here before they try to get rid of me, too.” He started laughing silently again.
“Fine, don’t.” I shook my head and sighed. I adjusted my gun belt, clicked my tongue to bid Milo to follow, and slammed the door behind me. The pup and I walked downstairs, where I thought we might find sensible, sober company. We found Manong Bidoy and Maximo unreeling a damaged net. I watched them thread an old clothesline through the net’s holes, making a giant drawstring sack.
Maximo placed a fish bone on a plastic plate, held it out in front of him with one hand, and pointed at his chest with the other, and said, “Wee-nerr. Me.” Winner.
I giggled and gave him a thumbs-up.
Manong Bidoy told me to observe from the ballroom terrace as he gathered his weapons. I ran up with Milo and watched father and son try to take the cat hostage. They spread the net on the ground and propped a rubber tire in the center, inside which they placed the plastic plate. They lured the animal with the bait, waited for it to crouch inside the tire, and seized it by pulling on the clothesline and drawing it closed.
I applauded them from the terrace as Maximo leapt in excitement.
“Wee-nerr! Wee-nerr! Me!” he said, proud of his catch—the pest, the vexation.
I boogied on the terrace along with his cheer. Milo sprang and spun. I chopped the air with karate hands, and said, “Take that, Common Enemy!”
Paolo still vegetated under his sheets, while Milo and I awoke energized from the previous day’s feat. Eager for another mission, I decided to change into my day clothes before breakfast. I opened the creaky closet door, paused, and then slammed it on what had just stunned me. I screamed. Milo barked intermittently with my squeals, jumping as I jumped in terror. A few minutes later, help arrived. Manang Biday and Manong Bidoy hastened from downstairs to upstairs with washboard, machete, and net in hand.
“What happened?” Manang Biday said, as she pulled me away from the closet and into the safety of her batik wrap.
I pointed at my closet and said, “In there.”
Manong Bidoy motioned for me to keep quiet and tiptoed over. He cracked open the door and found, not a burglar or a rapist or even a roach, but a mama cat licking and nursing three kittens—one white, one brown, and one yellow furry oblong lying in my now gooey, bloody clothes.
The cat had come back to the mansion, not simply to annoy or vex us, but to find a place to labor and birth. It found a dark, cozy private place to have its litter. All the hours I spent outside searching and pursuing our kill, the pregnant cat spent building its nest in my very own room. I felt stupid. And yet, I also felt a fondness for the creatures. How could I not be smitten by three snuggling kittens?