Free Cat People by Gary Brandner Page B

bad news."
    Irena went into the den and turned on the television set. She clicked from channel to channel, looking for a newscast, but found nothing but game shows and reruns of ancient situation-comedies. Frustrated, she snapped off the set and went back up to her room.
    For an hour she poked around, arranging and rearranging the things in her drawers and the wardrobe chest. She critically studied the sketch she had begun yesterday of the St. Louis Cathedral. It still did not look right. She tore the page from the spiral-bound book, crumpled it into a ball, and dropped it into the wastebasket.
    Growing more restless by the minute, she stepped through the window onto the balcony that stretched across the front of the house. She leaned on the iron railing for a while and watched the cars that moved up and down the street under the heavy old elm trees.
    Finally it became impossible to stay in the house. Irena gathered up her sketchbook and tote bag and went downstairs. She found Femolly in the kitchen, sitting at the red-checkered table, doing a crossword puzzle.
    "I'm going out for a while," Irena said.
    Femolly's answer was a noncommittal grunt.
    "Do you think I'll need a raincoat? The clouds look kind of threatening."
    "Won't rain today," Femolly said, looking up briefly.
    Irena hesitated for a moment. "Well, I'll see you later." She left the house with Femolly's eyes following her.
    The St. Charles streetcar took her downtown, where she found a taxi and told the driver where she wanted to go.
    After a few minutes the taxi rolled to a stop before a tall gate in a red brick wall. A dilapidated ticket booth stood outside the gate. Beyond the bars a few gloomy buildings of Southern Gothic architecture were visible. People strolled the grounds unhurriedly.
    "Is this it?" Irena asked the driver.
    "This is what you asked for, lady. The old New Orleans Zoo."
    Irena fished in her bag for money to pay the fare.
    "Sure you wouldn't rather see the French Quarter?" the driver said.
    "I've seen the French Quarter."
    "If it's a zoo you want, why not let me take you to Audubon Park? It's bigger, newer, cleaner, and there's a lot more to do there."
    "No, thank you," Irena said. "This is the one I want."
    The driver shrugged, took her money, and drove off, shaking his head over some tourists' peculiar ideas of fun.
    Irena paid a dollar at the ticket booth and walked through the rusting iron gate into the old zoo. It did not have the open, antiseptic look of more modern establishments, but there was a certain scruffy charm to the place.
    The air was cooler in the zoo than out in the city, thanks to the profusion of trees and shrubbery. Irena inhaled deeply, eryoying the raw, wild scent of the animals.
    The tourists who wandered about the old zoo were a different breed than the hurrying, anxious crowds that milled up and down Bourbon Street. For the most part they were older, more conservatively dressed, and seemingly under no compulsion to see everything in one day. And there were children here. One group of dark-eyed youngsters was shepherded along by a pair of nuns dressed in the old traditional habit. The children chattered happily in Spanish while the nuns clucked over them.
    As Irena strolled past a gift shop near the entrance, an elderly man and woman came out wearing new sun visors that had nicknames stitched on the band. Deedee and Big Sam. They smiled warmly at Irena. She smiled back, then continued down the path following a sign that read: Primates.
    She passed a large cage where twenty or so South American monkeys clambered about the concrete ledges and swung through the branches of a dead tree. Their bright little eyes watched the people walking by. Irena did not linger. She had never liked monkeys. Their behavior was too much iike that of humans. It embarrassed her. If you stood long enough before a cage full of monkeys you would recognize most of the human foibles. There were the bullies and the cowards, the sneaks and the