I remember a woman who once lived in our building — bright, ample, and splendid. Aunt Kapa. Kapitolina Panteleyevna. Every morning from April through October she would step out onto her balcony in a silk robe covered with enormous roses and drink coffee from a tiny cup, her little finger coquettishly lifted. Curlers on her head like fat macaroni, a gold tooth flashing in her mouth — a vision of beauty!
I was four then, and on ordinary days I went to kindergarten, but on Sunday mornings my friend Tanka and I would always settle on the bench — not the one right by the entrance, but the one behind the trees, behind three spreading mulberry trees that were the pride of our courtyard. But I will tell you about them another time. We sat quietly, hiding behind the trunks and admiring Aunt Kapa. We hid because everyone knew: Aunt Kapa did not like children.
Sometimes she would appear in the balcony doorway with a telephone receiver in her hand and say to someone invisible, “I have had such a comfortable coffee on the balcony today!” Once my grandmother, a lover of fine language, heard that magical phrase, and for many years afterward this “comfortable coffee-drinking” remained an example beyond imitation.
But Tanka and I adored Aunt Kapa. We tried to copy her floating walk, her languid glance from beneath half-closed eyelids, her high, piercing voice — so thin, so penetrating that it seemed to pass straight through your skull and take up all the space inside your head.
I remembered all this quite recently, when a new cat appeared near our house: a rather well-fed creature, carrying her tricolored body with a full awareness of her own importance and unattainable beauty.
Our relationship went wrong from the moment this cat destroyed the nest of some tiny, brightly colored birds, built in our wisteria.
The birds had arrived unexpectedly; they must have liked the tall plant twining up the balconies all the way to the third floor.
Their voices were gentle and beautiful, their songs rippling and joyful.
“Look, look,” sang the pink bird, “what a beautiful and safe place I have found for our home! It will be warm and cozy, and our children will be born there!”
“Yes,” answered the little green bird — or should I say the little green he-bird? Or bird-boy? Oh, these gendered words!
Their nest really did look like a little house: its walls were woven from fine twigs and decorated with strands of colored yarn, the kind people tie to tree branches in spring when they welcome the storks. And the floor — just imagine — was laid like carpets with the soft down of the local swans who live in the bay near the port. Walking by the bay, I had seen our little birds singing their lovely songs on the shore, while the swans brought them bits of down in their beaks, plucked from under their wings with their heads tucked into their armpits. Just like cats, honestly. Very funny.
And one day four little eggs appeared in the bird-house. They were so tiny and touching — two bird-boys and two bird-girls. And everyone knew they must not be touched, no matter how touching they were. The people around smiled and rejoiced in such pleasant neighbors. The dogs smiled too, and the butterflies, and even the angry bumblebee stopped grumbling when he heard the birds sing. Only our tricolored Kapa, sailing grandly past the wisteria on her plump little legs, hid a spiteful smirk in her whiskers.
It turned out she had been waiting. Waiting for the birds to fly off to the shore and sing their tender songs there… When the birds came back, their small, dear house lay in the flowerbed among the blooming petunias, ruined and empty… And everyone heard their piercing bird-sorrow, their last duet, full of tears and despair, full of longing and true grief. Then the birds flew away forever. The pink one and the little green one — or rather, the little green he-one. But the cat remained. As before, she appeared at the window every morning and, coquettishly twitching her tail, asked something in her high, piercing little voice. And it seemed to me she was asking where her coffee was, so she could drink it comfortably under the balcony.
Then the cat disappeared. In fact, all three cats who lived in the courtyard vanished at once. The first to return was the plainest one, a skinny little gray cat, with two kittens bouncing along behind her — one black and one white. A couple of days later the second cat came back, leading a set of triplets. And only after that did she appear — the tricolored one. She walked with her eyes lowered, her bright coloring like screaming silk roses; on her head one could almost see a permanent wave, and in her mouth a fang gleamed like gold… No doubt about it: Kapa. Kapitolina Panteleyevna. And close at her heels, tumbling and squeaking, ran her kittens. Two pink and two little green ones… Like an eternal reminder, like forgiveness, or atonement — who knows…
