Bohumil Hrabal - All My Cats

W hat are we going to do with all those cats? my wife would sigh every time she came home to Kersko for the weekend.

Id try to reassure her. Its true, weve somehow ended up with five cats, Id say, but by spring theyll all be gone. One of them wont come home and well be out at all hours calling her, but she wont come. Then the second and the third one will take off, and in the end therell only be one left, and even she will wander off somewhere for good.

But my wife would not be consoled. Shed look at the animals and continue her lament: What are we going to do with all those cats? Yet she always looked forward to mornings, when wed wake up and Id open the door and five grown cats would come charging into the kitchen and lap up two full bowls of milk. Wed climb back into bed and the cats would come to warm up in the duvet, and wed lie there with them and theyd go contentedly to sleep. Renda, Segmyler, and Schwarzwald would snuggle up with my wife, and the two cats with white socks and white bibs would be with me. I called the black one Blackie and the black-and-gray tabby Socks. Blackie was my favorite. I never tired of looking at her and she was so fond of me shed practically swoon whenever I picked her up and held her to my forehead and whispered sweet words in her ear. Somehow I had reached an age when being in love with a beautiful woman was beyond my reach because I was now bald and my face was full of wrinkles, yet the cats loved me the way girls used to love me when I was young. I was everything to my cats, father and lover. But the cat with the white feet and the white bib, Blackie, loved me most of all. Whenever Id look at her, shed go all soft and Id have to pick her up and for a moment Id feel her go limp from the surge of feeling that flowed from me to her and back again, and I would groan with pleasure.

Those mornings, when the five cats would crawl into bed with us, were moments of family bliss. The cats were our children. Every morning, though, when the kittens had got warm and recovered from the chill of the night, theyd suddenly start wrestling and going after each other. Theyd swing on the curtains and scramble around the house, back and forth, and youd hear the sound of little cat heads thumping against cupboards or chairs. Theyd race through the kitchen, yanking our clothes and underwear off the chairs, dragging towels in from the kitchen, then theyd pull out our shoes and slippers and fight over them, then dive under the duvet and wrestle about in the darkness, winding themselves into little balls and knocking everything off the table.

This meshugge Stunde, this crazy hour, would go on for half an hour, and in the end the kittens were panting so heavily their little tongues would be lolling out and theyd finally collapse exhausted on the green carpet, or lie down on a chair and groom each other with long, languorous movements of their tongues, licking each others fur under their chins and on the tops of their heads. Then theyd fall asleep again, breathing sweetly.

This ritual, this crazy hour, happened every day. But when the fall rains began, when the weather turned cold and the snow began to fall, when the kittens grew into mature cats and toms, Id open the door in the morning, then the cats would come in to get warm, theyd come to drink milk, and because it was cold outside theyd snuggle up to the stove, holding their heads to the heat to get warm, until they were steaming hot.

Back then, in wintertime, the cats would grow despondent, fearful of what would happen if I failed to show up. Theyd sleep on the balcony or in the hay under the gazebo, and from that vantage point on the second floor theyd keep an eye on the lane through the woods that led in from the main road. When Id arrive from Prague by bus and trudge in through the snow and reach a certain point in the lane, I could see little cats ears poking up on the balcony, or in the open space under the gazebo floor, then I could see their little feet padding down the wooden staircase to meet me, then theyd sidle up against me and, one by one, Id take them into my arms and nuzzle them under their necks, and theyd press themselves to me, delighted that I hadnt forgotten them. Id unlock the door to the hallway, where there was a small bucket of frozen water, then Id unlock the door to the kitchen and theyd crawl in behind the stove. Id quickly start a wood fire, and then Id warm some milk for them, for in that small kitchen the water in the sink would often still be frozen.

But soon the stove and the stovepipe would be red-hot, the cats would lap up their milk and hold their heads close to the stove and theyd warm themselves that way for an hour or so, then theyd relax, lounge about on the chairs, and fall asleep while I cut up fish and chunks of meat and break off pieces of cheese for them. Then Id start to write. The typewriter would clatter away but there was never enough time to attend to stylistic niceties, I had to write quickly so I could spend time with the cats because, though they lay there with their eyes closed, theyd be watching me through tiny slits, lulled by the clacking of the machine. After an hour of writing Id pull on my sheepskin coat and go out for a walk in the winter air, leaving the door ajar in case the cats wanted to do their business in the leaves, and at night Id always put out a washbasin filled with sand in case they needed to go to the toilet while I was sound asleep, because even when I was asleep, the cats would jump down from the chairs and walk toward the door and meow quietly. As a rule Id hear them, which meant I often got up in the night to let them out and then, when they meowed again, Id let them back in. When it rained Id dry their paws with a dishcloth, because when morning came, when the fire had died out, all five cats would jump into bed with me. Each had her own place, as though theyd worked it out beforehand, and Blackie always lay by my head. She alone had the right to sleep by my head, while the rest lay between my legs or up against my back.