Gigi and the Cat by Colette

Author:Colette [Colette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1994-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

FOUR

HE STOLE INTO the garden like a boy in his teens who has stayed out all night. The air was full of the heady scent of beds being watered, of the secret exhalation of the filth which nourishes fleshy, expensive flowers and of spray blown on the breeze. In the very act of drawing a deep breath to inhale it all, he suddenly discovered he needed comforting.

‘Saha! Saha!’

She did not come for a moment or two, and at first he did not recognize that bewildered, incredulous face which seemed clouded by a bad dream.

‘Saha darling!’

He took her on his chest, smoothing the soft flanks which seemed to him a trifle hollow, and removed cobwebs, pine needles, and elm twigs from the neglected fur. She pulled herself together quickly and resumed her familiar expression and her cat’s dignity. Her face, her pure golden eyes looked again as he had known them. Under his thumb, Alain could feel the palpitations of a hard, irregular little heart and also the beginnings of a faint, uncertain purr. He put her down on an iron table and stroked her head. But at the moment of thrusting her head into Alain’s hand, wildly and as if for life in the way she had, she sniffed that hand and stepped back a pace.

His eyes sought the white pigeon, the gloved hand behind the pink flowering shrubs, behind the flaming rhododendrons. He rejoiced that yesterday’s ‘ceremony’ had respected the beautiful garden and only ravaged Camille’s home.

‘Imagine those people here! And those four bridesmaids in pink paper! And the flowers they’d have picked, and the deutzias sacrificed to adorn fat women’s bosoms! And Saha!’

He called in the direction of the house: ‘Has Saha had anything to eat or drink? She looks awfully queer. I’m here, Mother.’

A heavy white shape appeared in the doorway of the hall and answered from the distance: ‘No. Just fancy, she had no supper and wouldn’t drink her milk this morning. I think she was waiting for you. Are you all right, dear?’

He stood at the foot of the steps, deferential in his mother’s presence. He noticed that she did not offer him her cheek as usual and that she kept her hands clasped together at her waist. He understood and shared this motherly sense of decency with a mixture of embarrassment and gratitude. ‘Saha hasn’t kissed me either.’

‘After all, the cat’s often seen you go away. She made allowances for your going off sometimes.’

‘But I didn’t go so far,’ he thought.

Near him, on the iron table, Saha drank her milk avidly like an animal that has walked far and slept little.

‘Alain, wouldn’t you like a cup of warm milk too? Some bread and butter?’

‘I’ve had breakfast, Mother. We’ve had breakfast.’

‘Not much of a breakfast, I imagine. In such a glory-hole!’

With the eye of an exile, Alain contemplated the cup with the gilt arabesque beside Saha’s saucer; then his mother’s heavy face, amiable under the mass of wavy, prematurely white hair.

‘I haven’t asked you whether my new daughter is satisfied.

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