The main secret of the cat – Weekend – Kommersant

How does a cat generate kindness around him? How – destroying, stealing various necessary little things without a purpose – does he create comfort? That is the question.

Text: Ivan Davydov

It will be summer. The phrase seems to be innocent, but now, of course, it sounds somehow even defiant. However, let’s assume it will. A person is used to the fact that summer happens. And if it does, then there is no doubt about one person who has a cat at home. Everywhere a person will find spare parts from the unfortunate insects that for some reason flew into the apartment. Insects will be killed and dismembered. Ruthlessly. Regardless of the difficulties and regardless of the losses. Do you need to break your favorite cup to successfully chase a butterfly? So you don’t have more cups. Does a flower pot interfere with bumblebee hunting? Well, forgive me, flower pot, and goodbye – your homeland will not forget you.

But before that, there will be a new year. In any case, I want to believe in it. I want to beg eternity for these few hours – without thoughts about the bad, or better – without thoughts at all. But with salads. And with a tree.

Every self-respecting cat knows: the tree is the enemy. He is a cat. And the meaning of his life is now until the end of January (and if the owners are lazy, then until the end of March) in an uncompromising struggle with the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree must be defeated. And the tree will be defeated. The ball will be broken. Victory will be ours.

You can swear at the cat. Well, if you have the strength and impudence to swear at the cat. Threaten, scream. It doesn’t matter. The cat is a strategist, the cat is ready to maneuver, even retreat, the cat is ready to wait. But he will definitely attack. Turn away – and here he is already among the branches, it does not matter, real or plastic. He throws toys on the floor, tears tinsel, tries to knock down the hated tree on its side.

Once upon a time, Alex, a Norwegian Forester, lived with me. A very smart and purposeful giant (12 kg of living hatred for the main symbol of the New Year). Seeing for the first time an elegant Christmas tree, he easily knocked it down. We raised the tree, quarreled at Alex. He jovially ran to hide. You know, they know how to do it: bouncing, swaying, showing with their whole appearance that they are not even afraid at all. By the way, he had nowhere to hide in an ordinary city apartment: if Alex climbed, for example, under the bedside table, then half of him, decorated with a magnificent tail, would certainly stick out.

Of course, he waited until people were distracted, and defeated the tree again. And again. In the end, we tied this unfortunate Christmas tree to a battery. He thought about the situation, drew conclusions and simply gnawed off the plastic stand on which the structure was held.

A separate topic is the relationship of urban apartment cats with birds. Here is pain, here is sadness, here is eternal resentment against the universe. The cat is attracted to birds. The cat wants to kill and eat them. Self-confident tits, heavy pigeons, nimble sparrows. But they are on the other side of the window, in an unknown world. The cat is sitting on the windowsill. The cat is sad. The cat sometimes bangs on the glass with its paw. All in vain.

However, different things happen. The very first cat that appeared with me in Moscow was a mongrel Kisa. A small red animal with huge and wise eyes. We once came to Ptichka (there was also Ptichka), walked between the rows, looked at the lazy British and fat Persians, wondered, asked the price, and suddenly saw a citizen of indeterminate age in a dark corner. The citizen had a cardboard box, and in the box a living and screaming lump was swarming – heads, paws, tails … And a ginger kitten climbed on us, pushing everyone else aside. And those eyes too. Well, in short.

Tiny Kitty turned out to be a real hunter. I caught, sitting on the window, a titmouse. She brought a half-strangled bird to our bed. We pumped the bird out and released it. Kitty was offended. And, as it turned out later, I remembered everything.

We have two more cats. Fat, clumsy, capable only of pounding on the window with their paws and clattering at the birds in a special way. And one morning we go out to the kitchen, and there is snow. The whole floor is in some kind of gray-yellow snow with blood stains. Kitty caught the tit again, but did not give it to us. I gave it away – clumsy and fat. And they disassembled the unfortunate bird literally into atoms.

It’s easy to be touched – after all, they grunt so funny, they know how to caress so deftly, they show their belly like that … But in general, these are predators. Evil and dangerous predators capable of killing for fun.

Here I am writing all this, and the smallest of my cats, the cat Petr Button, is walking past me. Pyotr Button is fat, he himself looks like a New Year’s ball. Soon, by the way, the New Year, Peter. Your first tree. The elders will show you how to smash properly.

Peter walks solemnly, does not walk, but marches. He has a huge, oversized, thick tail, reminiscent of a Krakow sausage. Peter wears it importantly, with dignity and pride.

“Pyotr,” I ask, “are you a dangerous predator?”

Peter stops, thinks, then suddenly and sharply falls on his back, raises his short thick paws to the sky.

How did it happen that these very creatures – meaningless in a city apartment where there are no mice or a barn with grain – cunning, selfish, prone to manipulation, sometimes just evil, through very simple tricks make a person experience real explosions of kindness? Yes, and without any tricks, too. It is enough just to look at him – and you will forgive him everything, and much for yourself, and something for the world. And some warm snow will fall inside, which will then melt, melt …

How does he do kindness in me? How – destroying, stealing various necessary little things without a purpose – does he create comfort? I don’t know, I don’t have an answer. This is the main secret of the cat. I don’t have an answer, but there are cats, and I wish you the same.

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