Sultan, Pretty and Me: Part Three

Sultan, Pretty and Me

Part 3

I know that a lot of you have been waiting for the final installment of this wonderful story by Bob Ritchie. If you need a refresh of the first two parts of the story, you can head to Issue 5 for part one and Issue 6 for part 2.

The sound of another tearing scratch reminded me I had duties in the present. ‘I’m not as young as I used to be, Pretty – now that is an understatement – you’ll have to wait a minute. Come on, Sult, let’s go outside.’ Sultan’s ears perked at his name. I could remember a day when the sharp edges of his ears cut the air when he moved his head in the least. Now, a thousand fights later, they were as frayed and droopy as my sleeves’ cuffs.

I made for the front door, taking care not to displace the area rug. Leticia and I had brought it back from Arizona. The still-vivid pattern recalled our too-short vacation in California. We had scrimped and saved for three years, living on carbohydrates, meat extenders, and conversation.

‘Look! An Indian rug!’ She had turned her shining eyes on me. ‘Oh, let’s buy it. It would go so perfectly by the living-room window.’ An ancient Hopi woman with obsidian in her eyes, the proprietress of the roadside shop had stood mute before Leticia’s enthusiasm. The hardship of her life was written in the thousands of lines on her face, stored within the hump on her back. I had felt almost guilty buying the gorgeous, hand-woven rug. Though not enough to pay more than the asking price.

As usual, Leticia had been right: its deep earth tones and natural pattern suited our apartment perfectly. Now, however, it slipped a little too easily on the hardwood floor. I kept forgetting to pick up a set of those little rubber thingies to prevent its sliding. Leticia, a natural decorator, could have done so much if I had ever had as much money as her first husband. Half so much. I frowned, as I always did when reviewing that murky past. She had married once before. To a rich American man holidaying in Puerto Rico. I say man, but Leticia’s few descriptions of him made me think boy; his wealth had been his grandfather’s doing. The tempestuous relationship had, in Leticia’s words, ended tragically. Full stop.

We had met in New York. A fluke. I had come to be the best man at my brother’s wedding. She was waiting tables in a Thai restaurant in Greenwich Village, trying to earn enough money to return to her island home. Wedding reception catered by the above-mentioned restaurant, love at first sight (my eyes never left her light, skipping figure as she laughed her way into the hearts of even the most irascible customers). Improbable.

‘You enchant me.’ I had said. Her dark eyes lit, sparked by the instant attraction she felt as strongly as I.

‘Not now.’ My heart sank: I must have read my desires into her smiles rather than reality. Then she added, ‘But call me.’ She wrote her number on a napkin, giggling at – I decided – her own forward behaviour.

Photograph by Kanashi

‘Ouch!’ Claws to knee; past to present. ‘Sorry!’ I opened the door and watched Pretty skip down the short flight of dark stone steps. Sultan followed, slow, ponderous, with the dignity befitting a cat his age. The evening was mild, so I remained standing at the open door, enjoying the breeze and the fresh smell of someone’s newly mown lawn. The two of them disappeared around the low hedge separating our yard from The Beekins’s. Only their tails were visible over the sculpted greenery. Hers bobbed and switched – a feather dancing in the breeze; Sult’s stood stiff and proud as a soldier. Except the very tip which drooped to the side due to some long past tailitic trauma. Returning to the couch, I sat – thankfully – trying to ignore the protestings of my body’s various worn and irreplaceable parts. It is a shame God couldn’t have been a more progressive inventor. Like Henry Ford: Henry’s Body Parts, All Models and Years. I picked up a book by and about someone young enough to care and tried to read. The night’s sounds took over the day’s as children – protesting and busy – were shooed in for their hot suppers and warm beds. Traffic thinned to an occasional late visitor. Katydids commenced singing – a familiar chorale on a well-worn record. The breeze picked up its pace, making the trees hiss and crackle in the background. The overall effect was that of an old seventy-eight played on a single-horn gramophone. The soothing song and the beckoning of the peaceful dark behind my eyes gradually won over the alleged attractions of the book.

I awakened with a shout, soon realising my waking bellow had only been part of some larger, more tragic noise. An airplane flew close by, almost drowning out the drunken voice mumbling its way through my open window: ‘Goddamn cat. Oughta be a law.’ The slurred words carried with them the face of any drunk: bloated, red-nosed, dull-eyed; a pale blob without individual features. A car engine roared. Wheels squealed on the wet pavement. The car zoomed away, its cargo secure within the confines of safety glass and hard steel. Home it sped, to a family of relieved loved ones. It took me little time to get down to the street. Sultan had been getting slower and deafer as time made its irreversible changes... how quickly my body moved; how young it acted, and without complaint.

Once at the level of the street, my eyes raced frantically up and down – wanting to see/not wanting to discover. The Nast boy had left his bicycle out again. It stood in the middle of the sidewalk like some giant insectile sentry from a bad sci-fi film. Mrs. Desintentera was walking her Pekingese, careful to stay on the other side of the street: Sultan had attacked and nearly killed the tiny thing once. An act for which I did not punish him overmuch as the rat-sized beast had the annoying habit of barking randomly – and at great length – in the middle of the night.

My eyes rested on a vague shape in the gutter. They strained to make out anything, but the over-washing torrent of muddy water and old leaves from someone’s spotless lawn made it almost impossible. I moved closer on legs stiff with dread, careful not to step down too hard at the curb: brittle bones. Eyes filmed over with death stared unblinking from dark-with-blood fur. Her blue eyes, always the most incredible pink in the moonlight, were dull. A patter of steps approached. Sultan. He nosed Pretty once and again – ‘Come on, let’s play.’ He looked up, bleakly, I thought, demanding I do something. When I picked her up, her body was limp. It seemed boneless in fact. I held her to my face. She still retained a touch of warmth. Petting her carefully, I found a soft spot on her head. Like a baby’s fontanel. Under the dark, slow trickle at her breast, something white glistened wetly in the soft light of the moon. She had come washed by the cleansing waters of a spring rain; she departed soaked in the detritus of run-off.

None but Luna, silent satellite, saw the tears coursing down my face, following the gullies, filling the pits. None but the moon and the trees and the empty windows. A single drop from my inclined head fell on one gnarled hand and bounced, lightly spattering the bundle I carried so carefully. As if I could do it harm.

Sultan and I struggled up the stairs; the door creaked when I opened it – sympathetic vibrations – with my knees. We heard the bed call our names. Propped up beside the reading lamp that I couldn’t make myself turn on, I cradled the Pretty’s bloody body. Sultan arranged himself on my lap, for once not settling his considerable bulk on my genitals. As he stared at me, at my armful of the past, it seemed that the blame drained from his eyes. Whether it was because he could feel my pain to be the equal of his own or for some particular feline reason, I couldn’t say. Perhaps he finally understood that fallibility is a human constant. Together we cried in our own ways, until we could no longer feel grief with mere tears.

Leticia materialised at the foot of the bed. She was surrounded by a crystal lattice of light and moisture; delicate filigrees of liquid color twined and danced around her head in a kind of photonic joy. It was a nimbus, a halo. Sultan turned at the soft whisper of her rustling skirt (the light blue cotton one that she always wore around the house: her ‘sloppy skirt’). She smiled at him, while nuzzling a tiny, radiantly white body next to her cheek. Sultan let out a hopeful ‘yip’ when he heard the wee mew of contentment. I started as if prodded by a sharp stick. I lifted my hand to her. She smiled and made as if to speak, then, thinking better of it, shook her head, smiling her secret smile. My memory, having its own desires, persisted in hearing her light and lovely Spanish-accented English: My love.

A current of air struck her face and hair. She turned into it and, with the passing wind, the age wrinkles smoothed, the fluttering hair darkened to its original shiny black. With a single straightening of her shoulders, she was young. She began to pivot slowly on her heel. Before the full force of her lively brown eyes could pass over me, she turned insubstantial, blowing away a strip at a time. Soon the moon disappeared behind ponderous clouds and the last light left the room. I lay on my back. Sultan had moved up to his favorite night position: draped across my right arm and half my chest. Pretty – whose weight I couldn’t even feel – rose and fell as my abdomen drew the tired life into my body.

The morning was bright. No-one awoke.

By Bob Ritchie.

Hailing from California, Bob Ritchie now lives on the lovely island of Puerto Rico, where he discovered, among other things, that wet heat is better than dry. Bob (as he calls himself) is a writer of stories and has penned several things that he believes are good. His work has appeared in Unlikely 2.0, Small Print Magazine, Triangle Writers Magazine, and others; two of his stories were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Neither won. Oh well. Go well.