The wedding was over, the guests had left, and our daughter moved in with her husband. The flat fell silent. After a week of empty days, my wife and I decided to get an animal, hoping it would fill the void left by our child and revive our parental instincts to feed, train, walk, and clean up after a creature. I also wished that, unlike our daughter, the pet wouldnt bite, steal my cigarettes, or make nightly noises in the fridge. We hadnt chosen a species yet and planned to decide based on where we found it.
On Sunday we drove to the Bird Market. Near the entrance cute guinea pigs were on display. I glanced at my wife inquisitively.
Those wont do, she cut off. We need a land animal.
The fish were mute, and the parrotsbrightly colored and chattytriggered my wifes allergy to bird feathers. A monkey caught my eye; its twitchy movements reminded me of a teenage daughter. But my wife promised to lie between us like a corpse, so I gave up. In the end, wed only known that monkey for five minutes, while I was already accustomed to my wife.
That left dogs and cats. Dogs require constant walks; cats bring their own headaches, and I cant picture myself as a kitten seller at a subway station. So we went for a cat.
We recognized our cat instantly. He lay in a plexiglass tank surrounded by clueless kittens. The kittens nudged his fluffy belly with wet noses, paws fluttering lazily. The adult cat slept. A placard on the tank read Kuzya. The seller told a touching tale of a hard feline childhoodhow a grownup dog, once a companion of the cat, nearly bit him and left no room for the poor creature in the apartment.
Visually, our choice was a purebred, handsome gray Persian. Yet there were no papers confirming that his flattened nose was a breed trait, not an injury. In the absence of documentation, the cat was officially called Kaiser, though he readily responded to Kuzya. We bought him.
The journey home was smooth; Kuzya hissed quietly under the car seat the whole way. In the stairwell, aware of my aversion to mutilation, my wife teasingly asked, Are you sure he isnt neutered?
I tensednot because Im against sexual minorities, but because a neutered cat reminds me of Quasimodo, a creature grotesquely altered by humans. I laid Kuzya on the landing and performed a quick urological check. In the dim stairwell the fur-covered genitals were invisible; his plump belly was tangled in clumps of hair. I tried to summon any zoophilic feelings and brushed his perineum. He yowled, but the damage seemed minimal.
That day, while we were inventorying the fridge, our daughter dropped by. Seeing Kuzya, she left a halfgnawed cake untouched and lunged at the cat. Together with my wife they shoved him into the bathtub and washed him with baby shampoo, then wrapped him, dried him with a towel, and finished with a hairdryer.
Once he looked presentable, my wife started combing out the matted fur. Kuzya thrashed obnoxiously. I left him to it and headed to the kitchen with a beer.
The peace shattered with a scream and a crash. Glass shattered, a howl erupted. I set the bottle down and followed the sound. My wife sat on the couch, swaying to her own whines, bloodstained scratches protruding from her hands. Scissors and tufts of cat hair littered the floor. My daughter and I stood over her injured body.
What happened? I asked.
She stared at us with mournful eyes and wailed again, He killed me! He killed and ate me!
My daughter bolted into the hallway; I chased after her. On the floor, amidst a puddle of broken perfume bottle, lay Kuzya. His eyes were wide, ears flattened, tail curled. In his jaws clutched a trimmed tuft of his own furhis trophy. Spotting us, he proudly placed the prey at his paws and shouted a loud Meow! as if to say, Take that, you terrorists!
It turned out that when my wife reached for the tangled fur under her arm, Kuzya thought she was about to cut him into a hat. He leapt away, leaving a respectable patch of fur (luckily only the outer layer) in her hands, then scrambled around the room, knocked the perfume off the table, collided with a mirror (miraculously intact), and hid behind the curtain, later discovered in a pose that seemed to scream, Ill tear you all apart, just come closer.
My daughter laughed until she hiccuped. I tried to stay solemn, but when Kuzya emerged from behind the curtain, looking like a victorious general, and began licking himself in the middle of the room, I couldnt hold back either.
My wife, gripping her scratches, glared at us, Are you insane? You almost killed me and youre laughing!
Mom, he was defending himself! You should have seen your face when he broke freelike a horror film! my daughter protested.
Yes, CatPsychosis, part one, I muttered, wiping tears.
We cleaned the wounds with iodine (my wife hissed louder than the cat), untangled the fur together, each holding one of Kuzyas paws as if restraining a dangerous criminal. He endured, but his dignified stare made it clear: the house now belonged to him, and we were merely temporary servants.
From that moment, real life with the cat began.
He turned out not just to be a cat, but a cat with personality, principles, and, as we later discovered, a sense of humor.
First, he chose his ownerme. Not because I fed him (my wife did), not because I brushed him (my daughter did), but because I was the only one who never tried to bathe, trim, or shove him into a carrier. I simply opened the fridge for him when he sat nearby, gazing into my eyes with a hypnotic look, as if to ask, You wont let a sick old cat starve, will you? I never did.
Second, he set the house rules. Sleep only on my pillow, head positioned exactly on it, while I nestle at the edge. Wake me precisely at 6:47a.m., no minute early or late, with a gentle bite on my toe. If I pretended to be asleep, the bite intensified; if I rose immediately, he rewarded me with premium purrs.
Third, he waged a guerrilla war against my wife. While she cooked, he perched nearby, staring as if she alone caused the famine in Somalia. When she passed, he pretended to trip over her leg, collapsing with a tragic meow. His most terrifying weapon: at 3a.m., he would leap onto her chest with his eightkilogram body and purr loudly in her face. She would awaken screaming, Get this monster out! while Kuzya calmly slipped to my feet as if that were the proper place.
With my daughter, their relationship was a lovehate dance. She visited, brought him toys, which he hid inside my slippers. She tried to pick him uphe would wriggle free and sprint away. When she left, he would sit by the door for hours, meowing mournfully, then later sabotage her by toppling forgotten items from shelves.
Five years passed.
Kuzya is now thirteen. His coat is thinner, his muzzle even flatter, his gaze wiser and a bit tired. He runs less, spends most of his time napping on the radiator wrapped in my old sweater. Occasionally his joints ache, and I carry him to the vet, where he behaves like an emperor: allowing blood to be drawn only after he personally sniffs the doctor and approves the syringe.
My daughter lives on her own, with her own family and a Siamese cat (a troublemaker, but thats another story). She visits rarely, but each time Kuzya recognizes her, rubs against her legs, and purrs for a long time, as if forgiving past grievances.
My wife has settled. She now pours cream for him first thing in the morning, and he tolerates her groomingthough only for ten minutes before he declares, Enough, woman. Occasionally I catch the two of them on the couch: she reading, him asleep on her lap, both acting as if this has always been the norm.
I still wake up to a light bite on my toe at precisely 6:47a.m. Now, instead of jumping up, I linger, stroke his head, and whisper, Whats up, old bandit, giving orders again? He purrs backsoftly, but unmistakably. I realize everything is as it should be. We wanted someone to keep our parental instincts alive, and he fulfilled that.
He taught us to care, to forgive, to laugh at ourselves, and to cherish each day. He became more than a replacement for our daughter; he became a family member who chose us.
Sometimes I watch him sleeping on the windowsill in the sunlight and think, If only all people were like thisproud, honest, lovingnot for show, but because its simply right. And when the day comes that hes gone (a thought I try not to entertain), Ill tell my grandchildren, We had a cat named Kuzya. He was the best among us.
For now he lives, commands, purrs, and every morning at 6:47 reminds us its time to get uplife goes on.
And we rise, because hes right.
