Buddy

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.........translated from the Spanish by Maureen Shaughnessy

‘I’m not really much of a cat person, but yours seems nice,’ she said, looking directly into your eyes. It was like when a teenager tells their parents, ‘My friends all drink, but I don’t.’ You were playing the part of the innocent, well-intentioned parents, so you actually believed her at first.

As she spoke, she gave the cat two half-hearted pets on the back. Then she removed her scarf, sat down, accepted a beer and spent the rest of the night deliberately ignoring the cat, making it clear that her gesture of affection had been purely to keep up appearances. Not that the cat would have let her get away with much more. ‘He’s really skittish,’ you tried to make the case. ‘Okay,’ she said, and kept talking. It irritated you. Not the fact that she didn’t like cats in general, or yours in particular – that didn’t matter so much. It wasn’t like you had any intention of starting something serious, something steady – or whatever the right adjective was – with her or anyone else. Maybe that was why. Because using the cat was the easiest way to score. You’re shy and a little awkward, so you ended up saying something like, ‘Look at the little guy,’ or ‘Sometimes he climbs up there and does this or that,’ or ‘Did you know cats like to knead your clothes?’ If he’s in the mood he’ll let you and whichever girl pet him together, and you’ll use it as an excuse to get closer to her so you don’t have to explicitly mention the tenderness brought out by the cat. You’ve seen it, that tenderness. You tell them you have a cat and they say something like ‘Oh! A kitty-cat,’ or ‘How cute!’ or ‘What color? That’s sweet!’ Once you get them back to your place, you pet him and he curls up on your lap and then you see it: that sparkle in their eyes, the tenderness. Suddenly, they like you more just for petting a cat.

It made you nervous that she didn’t like the cat – not because you cared, but because there wasn’t that tenderness to fall back on. It only came up once, when she asked, ‘Does the cat sleep with you?’ She didn’t even call him by name. She said ‘the cat.’ You answered, ‘No, never,’ and even if that was a lie, you’d have said it all the same, because you knew she’d never cross the threshold of your bedroom if she had to share that territory with him. ‘The cat,’ she’d called him.

When she started coming over more often, she switched to ‘your cat,’ as if to emphasize she had nothing to do with the creature, to underscore that the clumps of fur strewn around on the floor or the shredded roll of toilet paper in the bathroom were, in the end, your responsibility. You had to at least let her know the basics: ‘Just remember to keep the windows shut, please. He might jump.’ You lived on the eighth floor and in constant fear that your cat, in his distracted pursuit of a fly, would leap out the window and plummet to his death. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, explaining how her best friend’s cat had fallen from a sixth floor apartment, promising she wouldn’t forget.

‘What was its name?’

‘Felix.’

‘The cat?’

‘Oh, no. Felix is my best friend. The cat’s name was Gladys.’

You gulped.

‘Did she die?’

‘Yes. Falling from the sixth floor, what do you think?’

‘Right.’

‘Now he has another one. Named Gloria.’

You didn’t find that story particularly reassuring because every time she finished a cigarette she left the window cracked, not entirely shut, meaning the latch was open and the possibility remained. Her lack of tact when discussing the dead cat that had fallen from the sixth floor made you think: what would affect her? You started to think she wouldn’t even care if your cat jumped out the window.

Her goodbyes were always the same. She’d leave your apartment with her trademark confidence, which had stood out to you at the time, and surely if you thought you saw it then it must have been there. She’d give you a kiss, grab her scarf, her bag, her coat and disappear without a word, without the slightest gesture toward the cat, not even a pat on the head. For your cat. You knew you’d see her again, but you never knew when. One day, for the first time in months, after she left you felt like seeing her the next day, or even later on that same day; you wished she hadn’t left. She’d said she had a party to go to. Said she wanted to stop by her place. Deep down, you thought, it was for the best. You had a party, too.

Then, out of nowhere, who knows what happened with her social life: she stopped going to parties. Who knows what happened with yours because you, too, stopped going to parties. It seemed neither of you were even invited to parties anymore. Out of nowhere, one week she wanted to see you on Friday, so you met up. And you wanted to see her on Saturday, so she stayed over. And on Sunday neither of you said anything, so you spent the whole day together. And when Monday came, and it was time for work, meaning she would inevitably have to go back to her life and you to yours, you both made a point to say, ‘See you this evening.’ It took being together for seventy-five hours non-stop until she finally mentioned the cat. ‘He’s actually not all that bad, after all,’ she said.

‘You hate my cat, don’t you?’ you came out and said.

You were undeniably in love with her by now, so you needed to know where she stood with the cat.

‘I don’t hate him,’ she said.

You both fell silent.

‘But you don’t like him either,’ you finally let out.

‘I just don’t care,’ she admitted.

Then she said it was you who she really liked, and you forgot about the cat, too. You started sleeping together all the time and she, who’d been so guarded up until that point, suddenly flung open the doors to her house. All of them, not just the front door. Also the drawers and the closets. Often, too, the windows. ‘Leave whatever you want here,’ she said. Soon you discovered that she got up earlier and had more combinations of clothing than you; she kept her mascara, comb and moisturizing cream in her bathroom, and her house was closer – there was no question – to where both of you worked. The cat, your cat, spent endless days alone, as if you’d gone on a trip. You’d stop by on your lunch break to refresh the kitty litter and make sure there was food. Then you’d leave, eager to see her again, to kiss her again, this woman who had all but made you forget about your cat. One night, for practical reasons, the two of you ended up back at your place. ‘Look, try petting him,’ you told her. ‘Oh, no, you can’t force affection,’ was her response. She was the real feline here.

That night your house seemed colder and more uncomfortable than usual, and her body warmer and more inviting, although it always was, and in between kisses you told her that you wanted to live together. She said she did, too. You said, ‘I mean now.’ She was silent. A week went by and she said, ‘Okay, now.’

‘If you want, we can wait,’ you said. She shook her head. ‘Well, think it over.’ She shook her head again and drew closer to hug you. You stopped her: ‘It would have to be with the cat.’ She was annoyed. ‘You’re infuriating, really! You’re so obsessed with this notion that I don’t like cats! Where did you even come up with the idea, anyway?’ Actually, her sister had mentioned it, her best friend had confirmed it and her coworkers and childhood friends had all agreed. Apparently it was one of her defining traits. ‘Great, everyone else seems to know me so much better than you.’ ‘Don’t get upset,’ you told her. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ She shook her head and looked at the cat, ‘Come here, Buddy.’ The cat obeyed. Once on her lap, she petted him, saying, ‘How are you and I supposed to get along, Buddy, with all these expectations? Go on, tell him: it’s too much pressure.’ It would have been an exaggeration to say this was the first time she had called Buddy by name, but it was probably only the fourth or fifth. ‘He’s going to scratch up your furniture,’ you warned. ‘Oh, please,’ she giggled a little and the cat hopped down, ‘because what scares me most about moving in together is the cat scratching up the couch.’ You raised your eyebrows. Then you felt it – the fear, her fear. You were the real scaredy-cat here. The fact that he hardly even meowed in the taxi from your house to hers was unprecedented, not to mention how well he adapted to the new space. Naturally his preferred spot was her armchair, her green velvet armchair, and you braced yourself for a territorial dispute, but somehow they found a way to both sit on the small chair at the same time. ‘One thing’s for sure: he is not allowed on our bed,’ she said. During the first few weeks, you trained him, wanting everything to go well, and scolded Buddy if he got the nerve to step anywhere near the door of the bedroom. You insisted, ‘Please, just be careful with the windows.’ She rolled her eyes and said, ‘I know, I know,’ offended that you’d treat her like she was careless. But she was careless, which is why you treated her that way. You begged her to give up smoking with the excuse that it would be good for her health, but really, you just hated how every time she lit up it meant another open window.

Fear of love is like a fear of cats. A fear of ambiguous and imprecise silences, the feline predisposition to whim. A fear that they’ll suddenly leap on top of you, without warning, their footsteps muffled by the gentle padding of their paws. That they’ll sidle up, settle in, rub against you, purring – and then, just when you’ve grown used to their heat and their shape, they’ll leave without an explanation. It’s the fear of being dismissed, ignored – there they are, looking all soft and fluffy, when they suddenly bare their claws and hiss at you. It’s the fear of inconsistency, incoherence, sudden movements. One moment they’re affectionate, and the next they’re not. Now they want your company, but then they suddenly scamper off. But it’s also the fear of intrusion, incomprehension. Of sharing your space with another mammal, of them hurting and not being able to tell you what hurts. Fear of one’s own reaction in another’s company, fear of the sofa, the bed and the bathtub getting covered in little hairs, fear of being stared at with those feline eyes, as if they know something about you that you don’t. But what is love, after all, if not discovering oneself through another’s company, someone who stares at you as if they know something about you that you don’t, while the sofa, the bed and the bathtub get covered in little hairs?

One night you came back from a short trip; it was the middle of the night when you got home. You knew she’d be asleep, but were put off by the fact that he was nowhere to be seen. ‘Buddy,’ you called out softly. The cat wasn’t there. A sudden panic clenched your chest – because fear of love is the fear that it’s gone. You checked the kitchen, the bathroom, the study, you looked under tables and on top of radiators. Buddy wasn’t there. A breeze tickled the back of your neck. When you turned around, you noticed the window at the end of the hallway was open. There, on the living room coffee table, was the dirty ashtray, the butt. Your panic quickened. You understood that she’d been careless, but not malicious; you tried to feel sympathetic and not get angry. You rushed down the hallway and grabbed hold of the window, scanning the sidewalk below. Buddy wasn’t there. You looked left and right. You calculated the distances. Maybe he’d jumped from the windowsill to the rooftop. Maybe he wasn’t dead, just lost – because fear of love is the fear that someone won’t come back. You had to wake her up and ask: how long ago did you fall asleep? When was the last time you saw him? How could you forget to close the window? You flung open the door to the bedroom, ready to shake her awake and say, ‘The one time I left you in charge of him…’ To say, ‘Is it that hard to close a window?’ You had so many things to say to her that when you turned on the light you didn’t have time to bite your tongue. Instead, you shouted her name despite what the lightbulb revealed: cat and woman curled up together in the white sheets.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, groggy. ‘Nothing,’ you said, kissing her forehead, relief twisting your face into a wry smile. The cat jumped off the bed as if to say three’s a crowd, settling onto the green velvet armchair in the living room. Then she slid out from under the covers and walked slowly toward the door, still in her pajamas. ‘Where are you going?’ you asked. ‘To close the window in the hallway, I left it open,’ she said, still half-asleep. When she came back and wrapped her arms around you, suddenly, you hadn’t heard her, because her footsteps were muffled by the bare pads of her feet.