Pussy Kate

“Pussssy-Kate! Pussssy-Kate!”

She heard him calling, but refused to budge this time. Why should she always be the one to jump into his arms—gaze into his eyes—snuggle up in his lap, close to his groin, charged with the odour of crushed hazelnuts, pinesap and dank weed? Oh! But there was no denying it: he was irresistible!

The Schlimmers lived in an immense chalet facing the highest mountain in the area: Mont Ventoux, situated in the Provence region of Southern France. Their son lived in Boston and they had one cat that loved to eat, hunt and sleep around. Their three-story scots pine chalet covered almost four thousand square feet, complete with the staff quarters, all designed entirely by Herr Schlimmer. He was an introvert whom the locals referred to as the hermit from Saint Gallen. The exposed beams, the wiggle-board treatments on the eaves and decks, along with the fanciful rails that frame the porch completed his signature hallmark as a leading international architect. The voluminous interior and high ceilings allowed for large gatherings, which usually never took place. The top-level porch jutted out over a twenty-meter cliff, like a bird’s beak suspended over the open air. It was a perfect place for Swiss blood to deliquesce in the crotch of vernal, voluptuous nature where beech trees, Atlas cedars and pines flourish along the hairpin curves of the winding roads, then disappear abruptly only fifty meters from the pinnacle of the mountain. The top, entirely barren, save a scrub or two, shines in the sunlight, glowing like a receding hairline. It was in this area, facing “Bald Mountain,” as the locals call it, that Herr Schlimmer built his nest.

Mont Ventoux’s strange appearance has made it legendary and uncanny tales circulate about mysterious occurrences in the surroundings of what some inhabitants have nicknamed the “Beast of Provence.” Situated at a two-thousand meter altitude, from the valley it looks like nothing but barren white rock. The very tip of the mountain sports an evocative nipple, hidden beneath what looks like dusted powder. Only the locals, the cyclists, or the rare soul who dares venture to the top of “Bald Mountain” know that the blinding whiteness is nothing but bare limestone, without vegetation or trees. From a distance, it makes the mountain's peak appear snow-capped, all year round.

The long drive up sinuous mountain roads to get to the Schlimmers has deterred many a prospective guest. But those who venture here receive a hearty welcome. They are served drinks and invited to stroll through the west wing with its breathtaking drop-off-terraces. In the brisk mountain air, the clinking of crystal can be heard—zum Wohl: bourbon for the gentlemen, santé: champagne for the ladies. On these chilly evenings, Herr Schlimmer’s wife would clasp the stem of the glass between thumb and forefinger and sniff at the bubbly prickles before washing down the frothy liquid in one gulp. Then she would extend her flute friskily: a smile flickering across her lips as she eyed her empty glass. Her husband would look askew as she came closer, rubbing up against him playfully.

“Freshen up! Again?” he would protest, obediently refilling the flute. Then in his clipped Swiss-German accent he would turn back to the guests who had braved this trip up to their chalet: “Note the position of Mont Ventoux—,” he gestured and paused to draw the wide mouth of the snifter up to his lips, taking a sip, swishing the bourbon around, and inhaling the savours with evident pleasure. His bourbon snifter extended, he pointed towards the band of sunlight sinking into the valley, and proudly announced: “This is the largest mountain range in the area. It dominates the entire region.” Then turning toward his wife, he would nod and say: “ja genau!”

With one hand cupped around her flute, the other gesturing out towards the cliff, she would nod her head, licking a champagne bubble from her lips, and comment on the rich wildlife in the area: “on a clear day you’ll see little nesting birds and large raptors.” After this terse commentary, she would ring for the majordome and gently beckon her guests towards the drawing room where the dinner table was waiting.

Herr Schlimmer had learned to master formulas, tables and calculations for engineering some of Switzerland’s most cutting edge architectural constructions. He had counted amongst Zurich’s most eligible bachelors. He was unflagging, restless and possessed the resilience to endure a Napoleonic sleep regime of four hours. After a long span of bachelorship, he confided to his mother that he had finally met a woman. “A woman from the New World!” she knitted her eyebrows, “what happened to Gretchen, your high-school sweetheart?” His mother had always hoped to conserve the family’s blue-blood heritage. She had commissioned one of St. Gallen’s local artists to paint her son’s portrait. Age twelve at the time of that arduous sitting, he wanted nothing better than to escape the acrylic smell of ammonia: pent up as he was in that small room, his chin held high, his back crying out in pain, with each passing stroke of the paintbrush. He had carried an innate dislike for Swiss walnut high-back side chairs ever since. The coat of arms of the Schlimmer family now hung next to his portrait in the sitting room of his chalet. As a young man, he had inherited the aquiline features particular to Swiss-German aristocrats. He was cut out for the cover of “Gentleman’s Quarterly,” but for some reason, he didn’t find himself handsome, so he dressed down, preferring large baggy trousers, and comfort to style.

He had never slept with his high-school sweetheart, or anyone else: at least not the ones he desired. This was a subject he could not broach with his mother. She had no idea how hard the chase had been for him. Now there was this woman who had become his wife and he would have completed his mission in life. He had tactfully found a means of divorcing his mother by marrying this American. When Andy came along, he decided to rent out his home in Zurich and moved his young wife to a more temperate climate in France. He built his refuge in the hills of the mountains where he could work on projects in hermetic solitude. They hired private tutors for Andy until he reached age six and then sent him off to the boarding school in Zurich where Herr Schlimmer, himself, had been sent to learn the inexorable rites of Swiss precision. Marital life suited him well. He no longer had to explain to inquisitive minds why he was still not married. As the years went by, his well-chiseled features gave way; his lean body became soft and flask. Nothing interested him more than a 3D layout on the computer, which had become his main companion, morning, noon and night, weekends and holidays included.

…………………….

“Pussy-Kate! Pussy-Kate!” his voice resonated over the hillside. “That’s enough, I’m not begging you any longer!” He slammed the large oak door and walked past his wife’s bedroom. The housekeeper had done her best to make it look the way it used to. A pack of Dunhill’s, half empty, lay on the bedside table, next to an open book. He forced himself to continue walking down the hallway, and then backtracked. Suddenly there he was standing in her room with those luxurious velvet curtains splayed open. He walked over to the nightstand. Her perfume seemed to emanate from the bedclothes. He sat down, feeling the suppleness of her body slip through his memory, irresistible, demanding, and acquiescent at the same time. There was a marble top gilt wood nightstand in the corner, with an open book. He flipped the book closed, glancing at the cover and muttered to himself: “Müll,” rubbish! He replaced it in exactly the same position, open to page 134. It wasn’t his fault, after all. No, he had remained the same. Only, she had changed since Andy had grown up, moved out and made his own life. Yes, she had changed. Change was distasteful and wasteful. He looked back down at the book. A bit of white paper had fluttered to the floor with her handwriting on it. She was always scribbling something. At all hours of the night—the later it was—the more she scribbled. He balled up the paper to throw it away. Of course he never threw anything away. He smoothed out the wrinkled paper and put it back under the book, got up to leave, then went back and sat down. Looking at the piece of crumpled paper at length, he felt a sudden urge to burn it. But he would read it first.

1) Love, a word that does not exist in his dialect.

2) Make love, Germans prefer: "Ich möchte mit dir schlafen;” or :“sex haben” – trans. I want to sleep with you, or have sex.

“Müll,” he hissed, smoothed out the paper and replaced it under the book.

…….

Down in the verdant surroundings of the chalet, Pussy Kate was on the prowl. On the hillside, a flock of sheep had sensed her presence. They scrambled together to form a pack—drawing away from the roadside, bells tinkling: their cautious baah baah broke the silence, warning that something alien was near. The cattle dotting the hillside were fully concentrated on snatching up the tufts of grass from the upper crest of the road where it grew highest, so as to alleviate the pain of grazing off the flat ground which strained their necks. Sometimes a swarm of gaudy cyclists would fly through the steep mountain slopes like a horde of insects—then disappear around a curve.

This is where she most liked to hunt. Fowl, in particular. There was a wide variety of fauna near the sheep farm: dozens of nesting birds, voracious raptors, including the goshawk, and short-toed eagle. The cool breeze carried the odour of a blue tit in her direction. Pussy-Kate hid behind an Atlas cedar, preparing to pounce on the colorful bird. But a large mother boar came running in her direction; the mother was on the trail of a red fox that had sniffed out the baby boars, dozing in the shade. A lamb bleated. The band of sheep stormed off in different directions. The mother boar charged. A tusk rose up from the cloud of dust, ramming into the rust-colored fur. Her piglets bounced up and gathered in a half-circle around their mother. Their high-pitched snorts succumbed to low grunting as their mother ripped open the corpse, splayed out before her.

Pussy-Kate had kept her position, not budging an inch, turning her attention back to the blue tit that had taken refuge in the tree hole of a large holm oak. The bird poked its beak out, tilted its white head with a blue cap to the right, then to the left. Hopping out timorously, it cocked its frail head downwards. On the lower branch, a spider was working madly to dislodge a fly from the orb of silky thread that held it hostage. The blue tit flapped its wings, warbled a few notes, turning a summersault in mid-air, just long enough to grasp hold of the end of the upper branch. Using its strong claws to hang upside down, it nicked the spider from its web and flew down to the ground. Pussy-Kate leaped out from her hideaway—pouncing onto the blue tit whose supple neck cracked as delicately as a pick-up stick. The spider fell from the tiny beak—thrust its spindly legs forward in a mad rush and disappeared into the blades of grass that bent gently in the wind. The bird lay there in the crushed grass—its lime-green breast heaving gently. It locked eyes with its tormentor for a moment. Pussy-Kate extended a soft paw towards its head and swatted it delicately. She circled the bird, once, twice, eyeing it closely. Then she sat down on her haunches, extended her foreleg and her bright pink tongue flicked out as she commenced her ablutions, licking her paw daintily. She stood up and stretched, swatting her tail at a fly buzzing around her buttocks. The sun was setting on the horizon. She blinked her eyes, turning her attention back to the feathered bundle with its little legs frozen upright against the grass blades. She gave it a quick swat again—examined it closely, circled in—smelling it up and down, then with a look of benign satisfaction, she toyed with its glossy ultra-violet blue tail, and in a fit of mindless joy, leaped towards the bird’s neck, which she gripped between her two paws, flipping it over once, twice, until it was on its back again. There it lay with its tiny claws locked stiff, in the open air.

She was afraid of nothing—with the exception of those rare, frightening streaks of vibrant color that would sometimes fly by: the bikers bodies grinding away, doubled over in the wind, their feet churning savagely, their eyes fixed on the empty space of the winding road. Tonight, they sounded like cicadas swarming down on her. A mass of color streaked by. In a panic, she stretched her haunches and headed straight away for home: bolting over the hillside, through the valley, not even stopping along her way to see Marly, Fritz or Castor. She ran faster and faster, forgetting the hunt altogether. It was growing dark: she could slip in through the service entrance. Quietly, stealthily, she approached. It was cold outside; she wanted to be in his arms. Feel him caress her sides, her chest, her stomach. Hear him murmur “Pussy-Kate.” Of course, he would need some coaxing. It didn’t come naturally to him, those words of affection—like her nickname: “Pussy-Kate.” Cuddling, stroking: none of this came easily to him. And it would be even more difficult this time since she had not come home this morning when he called her.

She approached the chalet and could hear him calling: “Pussy! Pussy! Pussy!” She pricked up her ears, thinking of the warmth of the fireside.

“Where are you, you little slut, you?” He pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose. He had opened the door to the main entrance and was standing next to his housekeeper.

Frau Schmidt pushed the door open wider; her voice glided over the mountaintop, echoing from hill to hill: “Pussssssy-Kate!” Her matronly figure filled up the entire doorway; she had camped her robust legs in a V shape, leaving enough space for the cat to scamper in. Pussy-Kate headed for the sitting room. Sensing the tip of a shoe graze her chest, she let out a sound that turned to a hiss when she saw Herr Schlimmer point his other foot in her direction. He gazed down at her. “You little whore you, where have you been?” His breath cut into the crisp night air: rancid, it smelled of spoiled milk, pipe tobacco and bourbon. “As if it’s not enough to schmooz about in our neighbor’s kitchen; don’t deny it, you’ve been roughing it up with Fritz, haven’t you!— Well haven’t you?” he raised his voice an octave.

Frau Schmidt was wearing the typical Swiss cotton apron, bleached to a glaring white. She turned towards Herr Schlimmer— furrowing her thick eyebrows; she placed her hands on her hips to punctuate her dissatisfaction. “Sir, perhaps you would like to dispense with that snifter. If I may say so sir, you seem a bit edgy tonight.”

He pulled himself up straight and muttered “ja genau!” —shoving the glass in her direction and then thinking better of it, retracted. Turning his back to her, he walked towards the portrait of Frau Schlimmer hanging at the entrance. Extending a shaky finger, he wiped off some dust from the edge and straightened the frame which was slightly askew.

“Sir,” the gap toothed housekeeper said gently. “It’s not easy, I know, but don’t take it out on Pussy-Kate.”

“Her name is Pussy now! Pussy, the whore— out for a good time, humping all the neighbors’ cats, gobbling down their food. You’d think we didn’t take care of that little slut!”

The housekeeper raised an eyebrow and stepped closer to him; her gap-toothed smile disappeared, leaving in its place a sagging chin and a slight frown: “Sir, that is not dignified. It’s the scotch talking, not you.” She tried to wrest the tumbler from his grasp.

The subject of their discussion sat there gazing at the two of them, striking a pose of indifference, but inside Pussy-Kate’s heart threatened to explode. Her gaze followed Herr Schlimmer’s every move: his quivering hands, his fidgety lack of composure. This was so unlike him. He had changed. Ever since Frau Schlimmer had left him that night. He was not the same man. Could this possibly be her protector? For the first time, she was afraid of something other than just the horde of bodies she sometimes crossed on the road toward Mont Ventoux.

The sound of Herr Schlimmer’s discordant voice broke the silence: “Out with her, out with her, I say, out with that little bitch!” He aimed the tumbler at Pussy-Kate. Frau Schmidt interceded, snatching the glass from his loose grip. Pussy-Kate jumped up onto the mantle of the fireplace with an air of defiant dignity. She turned to look at them again with blank aloofness that concealed her wildly beating heart.

“Sir, off to bed you go!” Frau Schmidt took him by the arm and headed him in the direction of the gloomy spiral staircase. He wobbled up the flight of stairs, obediently, shutting the door to his room.

……………………..

When the phone rang, Frau Schmidt ran over to the corner of the living room where Pussy-Kate was sitting. She picked up the receiver: “Hallo! Hallo!” she repeated, a bit louder the second time.

“Vera—it’s Katherine,” came a soft familiar voice.

She exclaimed: “Frau Schlimmer!”

Pussy-Kate moved closer to Frau Schmidt, striking a profile pose, her ear directly in line with the receiver.

“Frau Schlimmer, I can’t hear you, it’s breaking!”

“Vera, call me Katherine, please!”

“Frau Schlimmer,” she insisted, “you must come back. He won’t hold out much longer!”

“For nothing in the world, Vera! I just called because Andy’s coming home and he needs to know. I haven’t told him and I don’t want him to get his father’s version first. You must tell him for me… you must tell him the truth!”

“The truth! What is the truth, Frau Schlimmer?”

“Call me Katherine, Vera, Katherine!”

“You must come home. Nothing has changed. I have kept your room just the same, neat and tidy. You’ll feel right at home. Nothing has changed. Well, except for him.”

“He’ll never change, Vera, never. That is precisely why I left.”

“But, you have everything! What more can you ask for? It’s not my business, I know, but it seems to me that … well, you do have everything! When you met him, you must admit….”

“Vera , I know what you think, but you’re wrong!”

“Well, you must come back. I can’t deal with him, all alone.”

“Never!”

“For Andy, you must!”

“Now that’s why I’m calling you, Vera, please listen. I’m counting on you. I don’t have anyone else to turn to. Promise me! You’ll deliver this message before his father gets to him, promise?”

Pussy-Kate’s green eyes blinked open, slowly exposing the enormous black pupils which had dilated in the night.

“I promise. But he has told me a few things, as well, and I have eyes of my own to see. I have a heart too. He is in pain, Frau Schlimmer.”

“Stop it, Vera!—Now, listen to me. What has he said to you? That when Andy grew up and went off to the States his mother became a lust-ridden harlot? Do you really believe that? It wasn’t for lust that I left; it was for love, or rather the lack of it. A woman doesn’t just up and leave for the fun of it; she’s trying to fill a void, an abyss in my case.” She stopped speaking for a moment. “Do you know what it feels like to be invalidated? He’s wedded to his ego, not me!” She paused and took a deep breath: “Please tell Andy I’ll see him soon. Don’t let his father poison him with that Müll, that Spiel of his. Promise me! You have some influence over him.” She paused. “You understand? I have no ulterior motives. I just want to feel alive again, not civilized to death.”

“But, how are you going to get by? How will you survive like this on your own?”

There was no response, only the night owl hooting in the midst of the forest.

“Frau Schlimmer, Hallo, Frau Schlimmer!” The housekeeper hung up the phone gently. Perplexed, she slipped her hands in her apron and sighed.

The window above the gilt rimmed Louis XVI daybed was ajar; the moonlit night spilled into the spacious salon, casting a long shadow over the painting of Frau Schlimmer, situated just below the window next to the escritoire. Pussy-Kate turned her back to Frau Schmidt, stretched out her haunches and in one leap, was out the window.

When she thought about it, she knew the ropes in life well enough. She could have her stints when and where she pleased. Despite her physical appearance: her missing toe, her gnashed eye; she was not a beauty, she had no illusions about that, but she was an excellent hunter, and this in itself was an attribute.

She looked back, considering the warm smoke jutting out of the chimney, remembering the odour of Brautwurst, the fetid egg smell of his groins, the salty warmth of his prickly armpits, all those comforts she had learned to enjoy. Was that holding her back? Was it fear? What it him? No. Yes. A bit of both, surely. Her heart was racing. She bolted straight for the forest where Marly, Fritz, or Castor were probably waiting for her at this very moment.

Copyright © 2018 Sydney Alice Clark .