Black September
Translated by V. K. Carman

 

When they fired me from my job for the first time, my immediate thought was: “How will I survive in my lonely, empty apartment?”

 I wasn’t afraid of dying from starvation, because I would be getting unemployment benefits for at least six months.  During that period a young, healthy man could certainly find a job in Chicago, if he was not a complete moron.  But there was a definite danger of fading away out of pensiveness and solitude. 

I had found a job as a draftsman in a small development company just in few months after arriving in the US.  Since that time, I had been too busy to make any friends or even companions. 

My apartment looked like a typical emigrant’s shelter.  There was a mattress in the middle of the room pretending to be a bed.  A TV set stood in the corner, right on the bare floor.  I bought it with my first paycheck in order “to study English.”  A pile of unpacked boxes with Russian books near the wall and a few suitcases were the only furniture.  It would be torture to spend several months alone in this gloomy atmosphere. 

In despair, I even wondered if I should marry somebody.  But I decide against it, because it would be difficult to get rid of her later, when I found a job.

On my first unemployed evening, I made few phone calls to my very few acquaintances.  I complained about my lay off and tried to squeeze at least a drop of sympathy out of them.  All of them were recent emigrants, like myself.  I had met them on my journey from Russia to the USA, or in the English as a second language classes.  Some of them, who already had jobs, were truly glad that it was me, who lost his job, and not them.  And the others, who had never had a job, envied me greatly because of the unemployment benefits I was going to get.  All of them with tiresome similarity tried to assure me that “everything will be all right.”  But they didn’t mention “when” or “for whom.”

The last source of compassion was my former classmate, who lived in New York.  He wasn’t at home when I called, so his twelve-year-old daughter picked up the phone.   She was an arrogant, spoiled little brat, and normally I tried to avoid her.  But this time, I was in a lousy mood, didn’t have another listener and told her about all my troubles.  The rotten creature hacked, got silent for a moment and then suggested to me in an almost human voice:  “You have to get a cat.  There should be an Anti-Cruelty Society in Chicago.  I got a puppy from a place like this in New York, really cheap too.”  Brilliant idea!  Cats had always been my favorite pets.  In the Yellow Pages, I found the address, and the next day (it was in the middle of the foggy September) I went to the Anti-Cruelty Society to select a cat.

There were dozens of huge cats and small kittens sitting in the three rows of cages on top of each other, and mewing like crazy.  Friendly girls in special Animals’ Salivation Army uniforms, smelling like kitty litter, grabbed out their noisy fosterlings from the cages and demonstrated them to their future owners.  One of them showed me a tiny red kitten, with a stuffy nose and dripping eyes.  The girl in the uniform promised that in a few months he would turn into an unequivocally handsome tomcat.  As she described his future beauty, I noted a black, shapeless, fur ball.  It was dashing from corner to corner in a remote cage.  I couldn’t decide whether it was a cat or some other wild creature.  “What is that in that cage over there?” I asked the girl, out of curiosity.  She immediately, with professional adroitness, threw the future red beauty into its cage and took out the black fur ball.  It turned out to be a huge, very shaggy cat.  He immediately started to rub his forehead against my hand and to purr in a low voice.  “I’ll take it,” I said immediately, without any hesitation.

But it was not that easy just to take him.  To begin with, they robbed me of thirty dollars as a donation for the Anti-Cruelty Society.  The hypocrites said that they were giving me the cat for free, and I was voluntarily donating the money.  Then they made me fill out dozens of different forms, which verified that I was rich enough to provide for a pet, demanded to know how much I’d spend on the cat monthly, asked about my living conditions (if they were suitable for the cat), and requested that I should spend enough time with him (so he wouldn’t be bored at my place).  Then a special pet psychology counselor gave me some advice on how to deal with my new long-tailed friend.  He gave me a list of plants that would hurt my cat if he ate them.  He warned me I shouldn’t feed my tomcat milk under any circumstances, because it would cause diarrhea.  (Have you ever heard of such nonsense?)  Finally, I signed an imposing document which stated following: “I understand that a cat is an animal.  He can’t be legally or morally responsible for his behavior.  Therefore, I am obliged not to punish him in case he scratches my furniture or makes a mess on my carpet.”

They handed my cat to me in a cardboard box with an Anti-Cruelty Society advertisement on one side and holes for ventilation on the other side.  As I carried him home, he struggled for his freedom out of the box like the ghost-woman in Tarkovsky’s movie “Salaris,” and deformed the rigid cardboard with almost superhuman, or even super-animal force.  When I let him out at home, he immediately started to sneeze.  In his papers, I had read that he had been given to the Anti-Cruelty Society by his previous owner because of an allergy.  I assumed at first that his owner suffered from an allergy, but when I heard him sneezing loudly, I realized that the cat was the one with the allergy.

I named him Black September not only because of his coloration but also because of his huge whiskers, which looked like the mustaches of a cavalryman, and for his languorous gaze reminiscent of a handsome Arabian man.  Of course, the first thing I did was to give him some milk, and I found out that the man from the Anti-Cruelty Society knew precisely what he was talking about.  With some difficulty I cleaned up the kitchen floor and the wooden floor in my bedroom.  (Thank God, there was no carpet in my apartment.)  I solemnly swore to Black September that I wouldn’t feed him anything but special cat food in cans.  And from then on we lived together in the most agreeable and pleasant way.  All day long Black September slept on my bed, while I raced around the city looking for a job.  In the evening, we positioned ourselves in front of the TV and watched whatever crap was on.  The cat felt cozy and warm sitting on my stomach, and he purred from time to time in a low and pleasant voice.  I got into the habit of chatting with him about everything that had happened during the day, sharing my impressions of what I had seen, and expressing my opinions on abstract topics.  Black September amiably squinted his eyes, nodded with sympathy, and made congenial noises.

 Once we were talking about his oriental origin and, for some reason, about reincarnation.  “You are a Turkish Angora.  I looked up your breed in a cat’s breeding guide.  The presence of Arabian blood is obvious.  I think you are a reincarnation of some oriental tyrant or maybe of a poet.  The cat agreeably closed his eyes.  “Probably, in a previous life you had an Arabian name: Mustafa for example...”  “It was not Mustafa, it was Ibrahim,” the cat corrected me.  I was surprised: “Why Ibrahim?”  “How am I supposed to know?   Ibrahim’s parents chose this name...  And he was not a tyrant at all.  Only when he was in a bad mood, he sometimes in a state of rage...” the cat yawned lazily and didn’t finish the sentence.

I was so intrigued, I even turned off the sound on the TV.  “Tell me something else about him!”  “I don’t remember.  Forgot a lot...  it was a long time ago...”  The cat yawned again, showing his sharp, white fangs and turned to lie on his back.  “Do you remember any Arabian fairy tales?  Or songs?”  I asked hopefully.  I recalled the cat from Pushkin’s poem, who could sing and tell stories.  “Yes, I remember a few of them,” said the cat.  He turned back on his stomach, made himself comfortable, curled his tail around and started talking in a monotonous voice: “It hath reached me, O auspicious great Wazir, that in the famed city of Baghdad...”  He recited to me in a rather coherent manner one of the tales of the 1001 Nights, but in a version adapted for children for some reason.  By the end of his tale I was dozing, because his voice resembled mewing more and more with each word he spoke.

From this night on, every evening, my furry Scheherezade with a long tail and whiskers told me Arabian fairy tales.  Sometimes those tales intertwined with the memories of the life of the oriental tyrant, warrior and poet Ibrahim Ibn Said.  Judging by the cat’s stories, he was a passionate, hotheaded sovereign of a tiny, Arab kingdom.  He had a vivid imagination and a blistering temper.  When Black September began to describe the life in the palace, he gradually became more and more aggravated.  His fur stood on end, his eyes glared with a dangerous, yellow flame.  From time to time he mentioned a capricious and arrogant beauty by the name of Gulsara.  She “sucked” a lot of Ibrahim’s blood so to speak.  She was given jewels.  He dedicated poems to her.  She was the reason why Ibrahim’s best friend-Asad died from a dagger wound.  From some of the words that slipped out between the sentences, I assumed that he was killed by Ibrahim himself in a state of rage and jealousy...  The harem’s intrigues, tiger hunting, grand oriental feasts, bloody duels--my imagination was busy with all of these, while I dozed on my mattress at night, after coming home exhausted after running from one employment agency to another, unsuccessful interviews, and long lines in the regional unemployment office.  Black September accompanied my dozing with sweet purring.

Whenever I recall that time, it seems to me that I was almost happy at that period of my life.  But all happiness has an end.  My agent from the employment bureau told me he had a good job opportunity for me in the state of Iowa.  I went for an interview in this corn-and-milk neighboring state, in a city pretentiously named Waterloo.  In a week, I received a letter which stated that I was accepted for a senior designer position.  They gave me a special bonus for relocation, all benefits, and the promise to pay my tuition for computer classes in a local university.  It would have been stupid to refuse such a good offer. 

I got out my suitcases, which had never been unpacked.  I piled my Russian books in my friend’s garage.  Then I had to decide what to do with Black September.  I couldn’t take him with me.  In my new apartment it was strictly prohibited to keep any pets.  I asked one very old and deaf lady (a long time ago we attended English classes together in a local synagogue) to keep the cat at her place for a while.  The old lady gave my black cat a cautious glance and asked me whether she could call him “Vasenka.”  I generously gave her my permission: “Sure, you can.  He won’t respond anyway.  It doesn’t matter what name you call him.”  Black September gave me a dirty look and crawled under the old lady’s bed.

At first, all my thoughts at my new job were concentrated on my survival.  After work, I was busy with my computer classes at the university.  Working with computers was an absolutely new field for me.  In between, I tried to study English grammar and to reduce my terrible heavy Russian accent.  Days and nights hurtled past with such crazy speed that I barely had any time for sleep or meals.  I didn’t talk to anybody besides my colleagues at the office for a very long time.  My soul was empty and cold like a winter river beach.  If I had a free night, I drank a beer in front of the TV, a real American couch potato, staring at the glaring screen until sleep seduced my leaden eyelids.  I didn’t have any dreams, any wishes...  One warm morning in April, I stopped abruptly at the doorsteps at my office and looked at the light blue sky.  I realized that I couldn’t take it any more.  I didn’t just feel tortured by the loneliness.  I knew exactly what I was missing.  I recalled our calm evening conversations and the beautiful Arabian fairy tales and realized that I couldn’t live another hour without my precious Black September.

I called the old lady from my office.  She chatted for a long time about her arthritis and the prices on bananas and chicken breasts in Chicago.  Finally, I yelled loudly into the phone: “How is my cat?  How is Vasenka, Black September?”  “The cat?  Cat is fine...  His stomach is not OK.  He’s having diarrhea.  I’m feeding him warm milk and creamer, but he is meowing and meowing...”

“Call him to the phone,” I demanded.  “What? Ha, what do you want?” the old lady asked, not understanding.  “Give him the receiver; I want to talk to him!”  The old lady was not easily surprised by anything any more in America.  She shuttled around the apartment, calling my cat: “Kitty, kitty!  Vasenka!”  In a few minutes I heard his familiar sweet purring on the phone.

“Black September!  Ibrahim Ibn Said, hello, my dear friend!  Listen to me carefully!  First of all--don’t drink milk any more.  You are an American cat, it is bad for your health.  Have patience.  Drink only water.  Second, tomorrow I’ll take a day off and come to Chicago for you.  Just promise me you won’t scratch the carpet in my new apartment or run away out onto the stairs, so neighbors won’t see you.  If you do this, my landlord will throw me out.”  “I understand you.  I’m not a fool,” answered Black September, “Just come for me soon.”  I heard a loud crash in the background.  Probably it was the old lady losing consciousness, because she was eavesdropping on her second line.

V.LeGeza

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