Free Mama Leone by Miljenko Jergovic Page B

about the floor, we’re making winter preserves, warming ourselves with their scents and colors, warming ourselves on the feeling of immortality among all this food to see us through the winter. Now we can sleep like bears and dreambig long bear dreams, until with the first days of spring, warmed, we wake from our slumber.
    With the cat the first fateful month entered our house: February. She was already a year and a half, her coat shone in the light, a cat ready for the catwalk at a world expo of miniature beauty. She was asleep on top of the television, but occasionally opened her eyes, eyeballing us huddled there in front of the screen with our hands in our laps, as if she didn’t like what she saw, as if bestowing a magnificent contempt upon us all. And then she just disappeared, leaving the house and not coming back for three days. On her return she was matted and muddied, one ear bitten. She went straight for her feeding tray, meowed her way around the house, and then curled up under the table to sleep. Been out whoring have we? said Grandma. The cat opened one eye, but under the eyelid was another she didn’t deign worthy of opening. She was smug; February had come.
    Two months later Mom was in a flap, we’re going to have kittens . Grandma scowled in Dad’s direction, and he scratched his head, the guilty party. I was peeing myself with joy. What are we going to do with so many kittens? It doesn’t matter, kittens don’t eat much, they’ll live with us, but next year when February comes there’ll be more kittens, and that’s okay too, even that many kittens don’t eat much. A thousand kittens don’t eat as much as Grandma, Mom, and me, let alone Dad when he comes to visit; he eats more than a hundred cats put together.
    At the beginning of May the cat tried to sneak into the linen cup-board, get out! Grandma trailed her, then she slunk under the bed, get out! Then she tried my toy box, get out! Grandma shunted her from one hiding place to the next, and I didn’t get it. She picked up the cat and set her down in a box of rags in the broom closet. That’s that , she said. What? . . . Doesn’t matter what . We sat there watching TV, Mom was flicking through the newspaper, and I forgot about the cat until I heard this weird meowing. It’s started! . . . What’s started? I jumped up. Come take a look , said Grandma knowingly. Don’t want to , I was a little bit scared. Come on, nothing’s going bite you . . . Do I have to? . . . Oh to hell with you if you don’t want to! But I did sidle up, peering out from behind Grandma and Mom. The cat was meowing, looking Grandma straight in the eye, but this time she wasn’t sneering, just inquisitively staring what’s this, what’s happening to me, I haven’t a clue, why didn’t anyone teach me about all this, why didn’t you tell me? But Grandma just nodded her head and whispered everything’s okay, it’s okay, everything’s going to be okay .
    Look, the first one! Mom yelled. A little lump that really didn’t look much like a kitten popped out of the cat. Then she remembered what to do. She licked the lump until it became a furry something. The tiny kitty was as big as a key ring. Look, there’s the second one! It’d been ten minutes. Look, the third! . . . the fourth! . . . the fifth! . . . Look, the sixth! Mom was hollering as if she were the courtier at a royal feline court and it was her job to announce the number of neonates the queen had borne to city and state.
    Now she needs peace and quiet , Grandma commanded, and Mom exited the broom closet obediently. I was proud of Grandma; it was like she had this infinite feline or maternal experience. But my pride was short-lived, because three days later something happened that I’ve never told anyone and which I spent years trying to forget. The season of great deaths had to come, so I could start