FELINES ANONYMOUS

FELINES ANONYMOUS

THE PEACE PARK CATS part 1

It was a very hot summer in Gorizia (a beautiful, small Medieval castle city in north east Italy) and the air conditioning didn’t work in the computer room.  The old professor was very bothered because she was learning map analysis on the computer and often made a mistake.  Then she would go down stairs to Daniela’s room and knock on the door and looking helpless try to explain her new mistake.  Daniela was young and happy and very patient.  She bounced up the stairs and went into the computer room.  “No wonder, it is so hot in here” she exclaimed, “Take a lunch break and then I will show you.  At about two o’clock the sun will be off the windows and it will be more bearable for working.  I will come up then”.  So the old professor took her basket from her room and went to the small delicatessen where Signor Remzo made her a dry Italian sandwich with ‘am inside it because that was the only English word they both knew and she said “Thank you very much Signor Remzo” and he bowed over the counter and smiled. 

The old professor was wondering where to eat her sandwich and then she remembered the small Peace Park next to the old Synagogue. This was in the Jewish Quarter of the old city where the streets were narrow and winding and there were many little shops although now many were closed. So she walked down the shady side of a small alley called via Malta around the corner to the right and a little way up the cobble street.  Next was the old Villa Ascoti where the inventor of Linguistics once lived, now there was a small museum but most of the building had been converted to Council flats for elderly or unemployed people.  Next door was the Peace Park which has tall stone gateposts with big iron gates and a plaque in memory of the rabbi whose house was once here next to the Synagogue.  In the Peace Park there is an olive tree for peace and understanding, a path with roses either side and a grass area with a play story of Esther from the Old Testament.  At the end there are three wooden benches, one with shade from a Plum tree so this is where the old professor sat.  The view was beautiful with the church clock tower of St. Antonio which the old professor could actually see the time and across the roof tops to the hills beyond the small city and the sky was deep blue which reminded the old professor of her home country.  As she sat on the bench a big cat with a flea collar rubbed up against her, “Hello pussyfoots” said the old professor.  “Meow”, said pussyfoots and sat in the old professor’s basket.   So the old professor gave pussyfoots some of the ham from her sandwich and she eat it happily and then ran off when a lady came jingling her keys.  The old professor was glad the cat had a home and people to look after her. 

 After a little while relaxing in the Peace Park the old professor went back to work and Daniela explained how the problem happened, which was very simple really, and the old professor wrote everything down carefully so she wouldn’t make that particular mistake again.  But she also asked Daniela what the polite word for “Thank you” was in Italian.  “Grazie mille” said Daniela (who is Portuguese but she was learning Slovene and knew a lot of Italian words as well).  In the afternoon the old professor made a lot of progress and was very happy and as she walked home she thought, “Tomorrow I will have lunch in the Peace Park again”.  And that’s how it all began.

All through that long hot summer Senor Remzo made the old professor an ‘am sandwich and she sat with her basket on the same park bench.  The Policeman walking through the park always said “Buongiorno signora, buon appetito” and pussyfoots was renamed Persistence because she wanted most of the ham from the old professors sandwich, not just a little bit so the old professor bought a packet of cat food every day as well as her sandwich. Persistence ate both.

Then it was autumn and the leaves fell from the Plum tree and the misty, grey, rainy days were very often.  The old professor found a large plastic bag to put on the wooden bench and bought an umbrella to put over her and her basket. Persistence still came and tried to sit in her basket. The old professor met her humans and their old dog.  The Policeman still said “Buongiorno” and other people walking past with their dogs or going shopping also smiled and said “Buongiorno”.

 

Then in the winter Persistence disappeared and the old professor was a little lonely.  As it became colder the old professor bought a Chinese take-away dish for lunch but instead of Persistence there were two little kittens in the Peace Park.  One was a soft ginger colour and the old professor called her Princess Buttercup, the other was a beautiful tawny grey and her name became Shadow.  The old professor knew these were little wild kittens without a home or humans to care for them and they would always need to hunt but she also liked the little wild birds so every day she shared her lunch with Buttercup and Shadow, the old professor ate the Chinese vegetables and gave the meaty bits to the little cats.  And they grew and grew all through the winter but never came close and the old professor didn’t try to touch them.  All through the winter time the old professor wrote a book about the maps and the people who had lived in the map land and Daniela graduated and went to live in Ljubljana.  Sometimes the old professor felt very tired but there were Buttercup and Shadow always in the Peace Park.

SHADOW

In the spring while the Plum tree was dropping blossom on the old professor Persistence came back as if she had never been away.  But it was the Lenten time and the old professor had a cheese sandwich (Signor Remzo said formmagio) that Signor Remzo had made especially for her.  Persistence didn’t like cheese and was a little cross, but in the basket she found a packet of cat food and tried to bite it open.  The old professor was sad because she had bought it for Buttercup and Shadow but she gave it to Persistence.  Shadow ate some of the cheese from her sandwich but that day Buttercup was hungry.  All the long walk home the old professor wondered what to do about three hungry cats and she decided that she would buy some chicken wings and cook them. And that is exactly what she did.  She also bought a lunch box and after she cooked her dinner she cooked six pieces of chicken, two for each hungry cat and put them in the lunch box and found an old plate.  Next morning everything went into her basket.  At lunch time she put the chicken on the plate a little way from the bench underneath the Plum tree, but oh dear, Persistence wanted all the chicken and hit the little cats when they tried to take a piece.  The old professor was very sad; it had seemed like a very good idea.

 The next day the old professor brought the plate and the lunch box and put one piece of chicken on the plate.  Shadow and Buttercup watched her from under a bush.  After Persistence ate all the chicken the old professor put another piece on the plate.  When Persistence finished that piece she was satisfied and went to have a wash.  Then the old professor put the rest of the chicken on the plate and put it near the bush where Buttercup and Shadow were hiding, and everyone had enough.  As spring passed into summer every work day the same thing happened.  When the cats had finished the old professor would pick up the bones and put them in the garbage bin.  As it became hotter and hotter the old professor made a water bowl in the shade for the little brown birds and the Peace Park cats.

 

Then one day Shadow didn’t come for lunch.  The old professor became very worried and a little bit frightened so she hid two pieces of chicken near the water bowl where a clever little cat would find them.  For a long, long time there was then just Persistence and Buttercup and a little pile of bones in a secret place every day.

 As summer faded and the leaves were gently falling down the old professor saw Shadow, she was mewing desperately.  Across the car park she noticed a boy with his family holding a small grey kitten and the old professor guessed Shadow’s secret.  The boy, his mother and dad all got into a big new car and drove away.  “I hope they will be kind to Shadow’s kitten” the old professor thought with all her heart, “I am so sorry dear Shadow” she said kindly.  Sometimes Shadow would come for lunch and sometimes not, the old professor thought she had become very frightened of people.

 And in the next winter the old professor sat on her plastic bag on the park bench with her drippy umbrella trying to keep her basket dry and little bits of her and sometimes Buttercup came but sometimes not.  Then one day Buttercup brought Tansy.  The old professor was so happy, but always Tansy was shy and would wait until her mother had eaten then creep to the dinner plate.  The old professor started to make little extra treats just for Tansy but Buttercup was a little jealous so the old professor stopped.  There must be a way, she thought, that the mother cats teach the little kittens about what is safe and clean.  Always the old professor worried that the Peace Park cats might be hurt or poisoned, but she believed Saint Francis would help take care of all of them.  Sometimes after dark or at weekends the Peace Park had rough visitors who left rubbish and broke things.  But always it seemed that the Shadow, Buttercup and Tansy were safe.

MIDNIGHT and TANSY

It was spring again and there was Sunni, a new kitten of Buttercup’s and so very hungry.  Persistence came back again and chased Sunni and Tansy into trees on the path near the Scala (stairs going down to the car park near the High School). Then Midnight came, a big grown up smokey grey son of Shadow and he chased Persistence away and lay down in the grass. He was the king to look after all the wild Peace Park cats.  There were three gingers, Buttercup, Tansy and Sunni and greys, Shadow and Midnight. One day, just at the end of the school year there was a big lunch time concert at the high school near St. Antonio’s Church.  Midnight and the other cats sat on the steps of the Scala and watched and watched all the lights and loud music. But very soon after, just before the old professor went on holiday to Scotland, Shadow introduced Gillard, another bundle of beautiful ginger fluff.  “Oh dear,” thought the old professor, “I hope there are enough of Mr. Rattus rattus family to feed you all while I am away”.  But in summer time hunting is much easier in the Peace Park because silly people leave a lot of rubbish.

 When the old professor came back it took nearly a week for Buttercup, Shadow, Tansy, Sunni, Midnight and Gillard to remember it was “lunch time”.  But there was an old black and white cat hiding in the bushes and he came to eat lunch.  The old professor saw he had a chest wound but it seemed to be healing.  She called him Mr. Pickwick because he was elderly and black and white and a very, very long time ago when she was a little girl in the mountains of Australia she had a black and white cat called Whiskey.  As the Peace Park cats remembered to come for lunch at 11 o’clock Pickwick taught them something new, to sit on the park benches and wait, then when the basket appeared through the Peace Park gate, run to meet it and try not to make the old professor fall over.

So now there were four lunch boxes for cats and four plates, a bread roll for the old professor and her lunch box of fruit salad which doesn’t interest the Peace Park cats at all.

Just recently, around the edge of the Scala, through the bushes there is another cat, large like Pickwick so it has had a home with humans before, and the old professor watched and watched and thought of Shadow’s first kitten taken away, could this be the same? She thought.

 

Slowly, slowly Misty came for lunch, she is very pretty like Shadow but bigger and her fur is longer and she loves to be patted by friendly people passing through the park and she knows how to eat from a dish. Sunni and Gillard haven’t learnt yet, they take some meat from the plate and hide to eat, but now every day Shadow has a plate on the right side of the old professor’s bench and Midnight eats what she leaves for him,

Buttercup’s plate is on the left side and Tansy eats when she has had enough; Pickwick has his own dish because he is greedy (I am sure he didn’t mean to be)  and Misty eats first sometimes if Gillard and Sunni are not there but last if they are.  There is always enough food for eight cats and they know when the loud bells ring at 12 noon the old professor picks up the bones and pack up the plates and goes away.