With breakfast over, I walk up the stairs to the second floor study to write for a couple of hours, my study being the only place I have been able to write consistently, looking out to the nearby hills, Mount Ascension to the southeast, and Mt. Helena to the west.  My cork bulletin board on the bookcase next to my desk displays postcards from a few of my favorite places: the Grand Tetons; the Madison River in Montana; and Canyon de Chelly. There is also a postcard from the Hemingway Museum in Oak Park, showing Hemingway with his favorite cat on his lap, a black cat with some white markings, named “Boise,” a stray he found at the Ambose Mundos Hotel in Havana and took home to the Finca. He named Boise after the US Navy cruiser.

Seeing that postcard reminds me suddenly of my own cat, Katya, who is outside. I quickly go downstairs to check on her, and find her, as usual, yelling at the back door to get in. From the time we took her in off the street in Belarus, eight years ago, she has been high maintenance, bossy and vocal.

I open the back door, and she comes in fast, her tail up, and her raspy voice going non-stop.  I have been especially nice to her lately, since she is recovering from lymphoma. She is on prednisone, and in remission, but there is no telling how long she will be okay.

Sheri and I got Katya in 1999 in Minsk, while serving in the U.S. Embassy where I was the acting Ambassador. We first noticed her in the Embassy courtyard in April, as Belarus was emerging from a long winter.  She appeared one day on the compound, like a lot of other stray cats. One of our guards claimed she jumped over the wall from the Russian Embassy next door.

But this stray was special. She was the femme fatale of cats, a European shorthair, the typical Russian cat with snowy white fur and patches of gray. But, she was the ultimate model, not enough gray to take away from the overall white impression, like a birch tree on the snowy Russian steppes.  Seeing birch trees would remind me of her.

She was thin and had a kind of Natalie Wood cat face, with slightly oriental eyes, pure white, distinct lips turned up at the corners, a beauty mark near her nose, and those famous bright Russian eyes.  Hers were jade, and laser-like, locking on you with great intensity when she wanted something.  It was like the world stopped still, no sound, no movement anywhere, noting but her, frozen, communicating a most important message directly to your eyes. She was the most determined animal I had ever seen.  She was determined to get food and wouldn’t stop bothering people until she got it. And need food she did.  We discovered later that she was pregnant.

She walked with beautiful, quick ballerina movements, almost like dancing, making those fast short steps as if on the ballet stage, almost on tip toes like Anna Pavlova playing “Giselle,” the beautiful country girl.  When she walked slowly, she sashayed.  She had a beautiful voice, raspy when most serious, and otherwise very loud and soprano.  And, it didn’t stop.  It went on and on, sometimes almost like a siren.  A local newspaper at the time had an article about several performing cats that had disappeared from the Minsk Animal Circus, which was located near the Embassy, leading me to wonder if she could be one of those?  She certainly acted like a prima dona.

I first heard about our new stray at my desk in the front office, when one of the staff said to me, by the way, “have you seen the new cat on campus?”

“No, but there are always strays around.”

“No, this one is unique.  She accompanies people along the sidewalks, talking to them loudly as they go along, walking beside them and looking up, begging. There is something interesting about her.  Maybe it’s her determination to get fed.  Half the Marines and your secretary, too, are feeding her.  Look behind Post One, you’ll see open cans of cat food on the floor.”

“This is the first time anyone has mentioned a particular cat.  Usually the Marines are quick to drive them off.”

“Not this one, this is their first defeat.”

The next day, I got the treatment when I left the chancery building to walk across the annex.  With her walking beside me, I could tell she was a real survivor.  There was something about her that got to me. On the second day of her following me around the compound, I called my driver and asked him to pick up the cat and take her to my apartment. My secretary was happy the entire day, on the phone, telling everyone.

Sheri didn’t know about our new cat, our first pet, until she got home. We named her Katya. She was Sheri’s first pet, and a few months later Sheri nursed her to health, using vodka to clean her stitches after a bad spaying operation at the local clinic. Thereafter, Katya became devoted to Sheri. Each morning, I would wake up to see Sheri at the bedroom desk in Minsk, doing paperwork, and Katya would be sitting on her lap, facing Sheri, eyes in a trance, kneading on her.

Katya loved anything from the table, but she also ate crusts of hard bread and even old potato skins, revealing her background in the alleys during Russian winter. She was a bit wary of people, probably having been chased.  For some reason, she didn’t like closed doors in the house. We would learn over time she was fearless with other cats, even toms, never giving up her territory her yard.  Screaming at them with her loud voice, the sound always stopped them.  She had no doubt relied on that scream on the streets. She was serious and didn’t play with cat toys.  We gave her a ball, but she stood on it with her back feet, looking confused.  Life had been serious. I admired her for that.

As she got older, and I began to take her to the vet for her regular check ups and vaccines, surprised to find she would give me love bites on my knuckles when we got home, knowing I was helping her.  At some point, I started taking her on walks down the street. She loved these walks, without a leash, and would start across the yard towards the sidewalk when I called out to her, “pa shli,” or “lets go” in Russian. As a show of appreciation, she would rub against my leg as she passed me, leading the way. I always spoke to her in Russian.

It was shortly after we moved to Montana, that Katya came down with lymphoma, falling off a table one day, unable to get up, gasping for air.  I carried her to the vet, who cut her open to explore, finding swollen lymph glands.  She was dying, and I devoted my full attention to her, being home and not working.  Sheri and I force fed her after her chemotherapy, after she had stopped eating. That went on for seven weeks, but she finally started eating on her own.

Sitting at the dining room table now, after finishing my work upstairs in the study, I see through the hallways that Katya is lying in her donut-shaped cat bed on the library floor near the bay windows. She has lost weight.  I walk over quietly and look down at her as she lies on her side, eyes closed, sleeping.  Her legs are extended over the side of the donut, and are crossed. The white fur on her side is ruffled, what is called “rough coat.”  And, there are bare patches of skin on her forelegs where the fur has been shaved to place i.v.s, and on her stomach where she had been cut open.  The sun catches her face.  She has throwing up a lot lately. I can see her sides moving, breathing deeply, but, at least, her nose and nostrils are not flaring. I have to watch for that because the doctor said if she started having breathing problems we would have to put her down to avoid her having breathing panics.

I walk back to the dining room, proud of my little girl from the streets. Hemingway must have felt the same way about Boise.    (October 2007)

I awoke slowly, sleeping until nine. Through the bedroom window, I could see the golden hills of Mount Helena.  The night before, we had watched a doe and her two fawns eating the crab apples that had fallen on our lawn.  I could hear children on the playground of the elementary school across the street, a lot of yelling that sounded good and reminded one of humanity and society and civilization.  Sheri had gotten around and left for work an hour before.

I walked down the stairs, and crossed to the library where I found our two cats, Tweaks and Katya. Tweaks lay on the floor vent. Her mom, Katya, was sitting on the windowsill above her, looking out through the large bay windows to the street outside.  I petted each in turn, saying hello, walking to the kitchen, where I fixed a cup of Prince of Wales tea, scanning the local paper while waiting for the water to boil.

Upstairs, Anne Morrow Lindberg’s Steep Ascent was waiting on the nightstand.  I would read a bit later this morning, enjoying my retirement.   Sheri had left the local paper on the dining room table, and I scanned the front section.  Most of the news was about the welfare of bears in Montana and Idaho, about disputes over land in Helena Valley between developers and environmentalists.

I tossed the front section aside and turned more carefully to the sports page, to the American league half of the baseball page.  How did the White Sox do last night?

After scanning the local paper, I fixed myself a soft-boiled egg, reminding myself what our friend Timothy from Billings always said, that there are two things worth living for, breakfasts and weekends.  I grilled three slices of thick cut bacon, not too crisp, while boiling water for soft-boiled eggs.  I used an egg holder to eat the eggs, reminding me of hotel breakfasts in Europe. I would sacrifice lunch, limiting myself to two meals a day.

On certain days, especially in winter, I would walk downtown to the No Sweat Cafe for eggs, hash browns, and sourdough toast, taking breakfast in a compact wooden booth and enjoying the banter of locals, or else go to The Fire Tower coffee shop across the street for scrambled eggs and toast and Columbian coffee, in either case picking up a Wall Street Journal from the newspaper rack near the Irish Bar, enjoying real news as I ate.  It was nice being downtown on cold days when customers opening the door would create steam on the windows.

Once a week, I would drive to The Filling Station, a local creperie, for country sausage and egg crepes and cup of expresso, the best meal in town, the sausage coming from a friend’s ranch in Montana. Jeff, the creperie owner, was a caterer and personal chef for a wealthy patron in town, and traveled a lot to Latin America and Eastern Europe.  He would return with good stories about Rio and Prague. On warm days, you could sit outside at metal tables on Ray Eames chairs, and enjoy the sunny skies and the view of Mt. Helena, rising up only a few blocks away.  Occasionally, I would go with my close friend, Herb, to Starbucks for coffee.  Small towns are all about routines.

Gathering the breakfast plates from the dining room table, I said to the cats, “Okay girls, ’tanned’ food, which meant canned food in cat baby talk.  They got Fancy Feast liver and beef in the purple label can. They quickly gobbled it down. Katya then went outside after her doorman had opened the kitchen door, exiting rapidly, licking her lips, with no thank you goodbye look.  I went back to the dining room and my paper.

Tweaks followed me back to the table and jumped up, lying directly on the section I was reading.  We both knew it was our special time together.

Tweaks and Katya were the typical shorthair Belorussian cats, mostly all white fur, except for occasional gray patches on their sides and foreheads, with white fur creating a part in the gray on the foreheads, giving them a Don Ameche look. Tweaks had slightly slanted, oval Tartar eyes.

Tweaks and I went through our routine of many years, which I called the “palster walster,” a three part movement, which meant my touching her nose with my right index finger, then her elbow, then back up to scratch her under the chin with the same finger.  She would always anticipate the third movement, beating me to the punch, moving her head down to catch the index finger on the way up to her chin, pushing her chin under the finger. She would purr all the while and make her short, almost silent, “cak” noise at me.  Tweaks was easy to train, and knew lots of tricks.  With Tweaks, there was lots of eye contact and “cak”s.  I bent down and kissed the top of her head.

“I love you Tweaks.”  She responded by looking up with her intense amber eyes and “cak”ing. We had communicated like this since she was a kitten in Belarus, with her retrieving a small piece of Styrofoam, or “peanut,” which I would flip from the bed, or a rubber band I would shoot across the room, saying “bring me that pea-nut,” or “bring me that rubber band.”   She would dart off and bring them back to me.  Thus, she was my “rubber band” or “rubber band girl.”  Anytime I said, “you are my rubber band girl,” or “how is my pea-nut girl?” she would respond with a “cak.”  She loved being rubber band girl above all else.  No matter how tired, or even half asleep, she would respond with a chirp, even if she didn’t open her eyes.

“Tweaks, do you mind if I read my newspaper?”  Tweaks looked at me, gazing up to see whether I would tolerate her not moving.  She pushed her head into my hand as I reached out to slide the newspaper from under her.  She looked down sharply at the paper as I tugged at it.  If only I could get the sports section out.  She moved her paw to block this effort, slapping it down on the newspaper where I was tugging.

“Why do you always have to lie on the dining room table, anyway?”  Tweaks readjusted on the paper, curling around so she could face me straight on and look in my eyes, talking to me with her “cak” answers.  Touching her nose and ears to see if she was okay, I felt under her collar for lumps on the back of her neck.  I knew her illness signs, the hot ear, neck lumps, and wet nose.  She was okay.

“Don’t think that slightly wet nose will get you treats.”

But, all she wanted was her morning attention.  She was my cat and was reinforcing it.  I was her guy, from long ago, since she was a kitten, well before the third cat, the Siamese “Fiji,” arrived.  Katya was Sheri’s cat, Tweaks was mine. We all knew that.

I got up and walked to the kitchen and came back with the red, steel bristled brush she loved.  She jumped down and followed me to the living room floor. As I brushed her back and sides, she stretched out on the carpet in contentment, her paws making a kneading motion. She lifted her head if I stopped, looking me straight in the eyes with a quiet “cak.” for “get on with it.”  I brushed her around the collar and on the shoulders and around the ears, her favorite places.  She pushed her wet nose against my wrist as my hand passed by with the brush.  Her eyes said, “We are pals.”  She began purring more loudly now.  She never wanted to stop the brushing.

“Are you my palster walster”?

“Cak,” she answers

“Are you my rubber band”?

“Cak”

“Are you my pea-nut”?

“Cak”

“Stre-e-e-t- c-h,” I said

On cue, she rolled onto her back and stretched out, exposing her soft furry white belly, which I rubbed.

She looked up, as if in heaven, having her belly rubbed, closing her eyes.

She rolled back over, and I rubbed the back of her black ears.  She pushed the side of her face against my hand in a show of affection.

“Are you my ‘med-sester’, Tweaks”?

“Med-sestre” is “nurse” in Russian, a nickname we gave her as a kitten, for watching over her mother Katya, who was sick in the bathroom, lying on the floor under the sink, after a botched spaying operation. Tweaks refused to be shooed or pushed away. Later, she stuck by me as well, once, when I was recovering from food poisoning in Belarus, and again when I was down with rheumatoid arthritis in Arlington and had the shingles in Albuquerque.  Some cats are born nurses at heart.  Even now, I notice, Tweaks is constantly checking out Katya, who is taking prednisone for lymphoma.

While brushing her, I noticed Tweaks’ fur sticking to my face.  She is shedding.

“Of course, you are my med-sester. How many times have you been there, on my bed when I was bed ridden, all day, purring under my extended arm, barely moving, not leaving the room all day.”  I felt like Bogart talking to Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca”: “Then why didn’t you leave me in Lille when I was sick and the Germans were nearby.’

I started “Paws on Paws,” another of our routines, placing my finger gently on her white front leg.  She was not crazy about this, but tolerated it.

She slowly pulled her leg out.  She stretched out her neck, and pushed her wet nose against my hand, maneuvering her head down a bit to get it under my palm for a head pat.  Her right ear, I noticed, was a bit warm. She wanted it scratched, and angled her head.

“Do I get a head butt?”  I lowered my head and she obliged with a neck extension into a slight head butt with me.  She knew that made me happy, and was looking for eye contact.  She stretched out long on her side, her paws reaching out forward, beyond her head.  Her eyes were closed and back legs crossed.  I petted her, running my hand from her head down her side,

“Excuse me Tir.”  “Tir” means “Sir” in cat baby talk.

“Purr.”