—22—
It was such a relief to have Betty back.
A few days later, she brought tea and toast for Mother and then set off on her daily rounds.
Her purpose was mainly to gather any produce that might have come up from the southern orchards, but she really wanted to check on the neighborhood, make sure everyone was safely back home.
She gathered information along with rations of sugar, coffee, and the odd rabbit or chunk of kidney.
Bombs had fallen all night, and Mother went to sleep after breakfast. I covered her tenderly. The doctor called in to see her every week, but he was terribly busy with injuries from the nightly attacks, and Mother talked him out of coming more often.
Later, I would nap, but the morning was cool and misty, blanketing the world with a kind obscurity.
The bombs last night had fallen far from us, making up for the two nights in a row this week that they’d battered the area, leaving gaping holes like broken teeth in the rows of houses a few blocks away, and breaking a waterline that flooded the basements of many of our neighbors before it could be staunched.
This morning was quiet. Clad in a worn woolen sweater and the corduroy trousers I favored, I headed out to the garden.
The nights were growing colder, finishing off the more tender vegetables, but the late peas were still vigorous.
I plucked a small basketful, along with some late lettuce and more runner beans.
The carrots and potatoes could stay in the ground as long as it didn’t freeze, so I left them alone.
Depending on what Betty brought back this afternoon, we could have a stew or a soup, something to last a few days.
Kneeling in the dirt, I bought a handful of thyme to my nose and inhaled the scent deeply. Overhead, a robin sang as if life was exactly as it always had been. And in this moment, it was. I sat back on my heels and let the moment weave through my overwrought muscles and bones and mind.
As if drawn by my quieted soul, a cat peeked through the hedge. “Hello,” I said. “I don’t remember seeing you before.”
She trotted out of her hiding place, letting out little mewps as she hurried toward me.
Her fur was calico, patches of orange and black and tan over her face, and when she came closer, I saw that she was quite wet.
“Poor darling,” I said, holding out my hand.
Boldly, she bumped into me, an almost frantic energy about her.
She mewed again, looked hard at me with green eyes, and turned a circle under my hand. “What do you need, sweet?”
Another urgent mew, her tail whipping around. She was quite young and thin. “Do you want to come in for a bowl of milk, little girl?”
She dashed away, paused at the hedge to look over her shoulder, and disappeared.
I would get her something to eat and leave it on the step. In a little while. For the moment, I was in no hurry to get back to the grind of daily life. My mother was asleep. Breakfast would wait. The robin twittered, and I heard another, some distance away, answer.
The cat appeared again, this time with a kitten in her mouth, a kitten she trotted right over to drop in my lap.
Walking backward for a moment, she stared into my face, earnestly communicating her desire for me to care for it.
“I’ve got her, love,” I said, picking it up.
The poor thing was only a couple of weeks old, wet and cold like her mother.
I tucked her into my shirt next to my skin.
The cat dashed away, and I knew to expect her return. She made three more trips, depositing a kitten each time, for a total of four. I tucked them all into my shirt, where I felt them wiggling as they warmed. I couldn’t tell if they were all warming and moving, but some of them were.
When she deposited the last one in my lap, I tucked it into my shirt and waited, but she sat down. “Is that all of them, then?”
She mewed quietly. As if in response, the babies moved against my body, making tiny noises of their own. I stood, carefully holding them in place. “Let’s get them into the warmth, then, shall we? And something for you to eat, poor darling.”
She followed me up the steps and into the kitchen.
I wondered if she knew a different kitchen, one that had been bombed or, judging by the wet, flooded.
As she wove back and forth, watching and mewing cautions, I found a basket, lined it with a clutch of old kitchen towels, and placed it near the stove.
“Will this do?” I asked, and took a kitten from my shirt, a yellow-and-black one that would probably look like her mother, and set it into the nest. Mama leaped into the basket and began cleaning her baby vigorously.
It protested loudly enough that I thought it was probably fine.
I relocated the others one by one, a black one that was bigger, and noisy, a tiger orange that made me think of Shera, mewing and shaky, but eager to latch when I set it down.
The final was colder and not moving much.
Clearly the runt, it was small and scrawny, also black with white socks and nose.
“Come on, little one,” I said, rubbing it gently. “You were cold, but it’s warm now.”
No response. I brought it up to my neck, and started to hum a lullaby I remembered from my ayah. I held my other hand close to the stove and let it get warmer, then cupped the baby and kept singing. In a moment, it moved ever so faintly. I kept it up until I felt its body had lost the cold.
Finally, I settled the runt into place amid his siblings, close to a teat. Still unresponsive. I pushed his mouth against the nipple, moving him back and forth. I thought it had failed. Mother gazed at me anxiously.
And runt baby latched. “Hoorah!” I said quietly. “Look. All of them made it safely inside.” I stroked her back, which was still damp. With another kitchen towel, I rubbed her dry. “What a good mama you are!”
I filled a shallow dish with milk and offered it, remembering that Tanveer had said cats did not thrive on milk as the only part of their diet, but needed meat all the time.
I didn’t know what we had to feed her. In the icebox, I found some fish soup, and turned to offer it, but she was already yelping, kittens left in a tumble, as she scrambled to beg.
“There you are, sweetheart.” I watched her eat, feeling a sense of hope. “What shall we call you, hmm?” It should be something honoring her bravery.
“I know,” I said, stroking her back as she ate, “I’ll call you Bastet,” an Egyptian goddess.
She ignored me. I sat on the floor with her, happy when she returned to her kittens, warm in their basket next to the stove. It made me remember the kittens at Herewich Manor, the first winter we arrived in England.