FELIDAE
Akif Pirinçci
A novel of cats and murder
Special U.S. Edition
FELIDAE
A novel of cats and murder
Special U.S. Edition
First American eBook-Edition
Copyright © 2011 by Akif Pirinçci, Bonn, Germany
Translation Copyright © 1993 by Ralph Noble
Cover design by Ursula Pirinçci © 2011
Cover illustration by Andreas Liss © 2011
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions.
For Uschi and Rolf, the best!
And Cujo and Pünktchen, the brightest!
And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and cattle, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after its kind. And God saw that it was good.
—GENESIS
THE WORLD IS A HELL! What does it matter what happens in it? The world was so created that one sorrow follows another. There has been a chain reaction of suffering and cruelty on earth since its creation. Yet perhaps it is no better elsewhere, on distant planets, stars, and galaxies … Who knows? The crown of all that is loathsome in this universe and unknown universes is, very probably, the human race. The human race is so ... so evil, mean, cunning, egoistic, greedy, cruel, insane, sadistic, opportunistic, bloodthirsty, malicious, treacherous, hypocritical, envious, and—yes, this above all else—just plain dumb! Such is the human race.
And yet, what about the others?
1
If you really want to hear my tale—and I strongly urge you to do so—you must get used to the fact that it's not going to be pleasant. On the contrary, the mysterious events I suffered through last fall and winter finally made me realize that a life of harmony and tranquility is a brief affair—even for my kind. I now know that no one can avoid the horror that surrounds us, and that chaos can descend upon us all at any moment. But before I bore you with a lecture on the abyss we are all in danger of falling into, let me tell you this tale, a sad tale of evil.
It all began when we moved into that damned house.
What I hate most in life is moving and everything that goes along with moving; and since I believe in the theory of reincarnation, I'm convinced I must have hated it in my earlier lives too. Even the slightest irregularity in my everyday routine plunges me into a deep well of depression, which takes a great deal of mental effort to climb out of. But my simpleminded companion Gustav, and those like him, would change their home-sweet-homes every week if they could. They have elevated decoration to the level of an insane cult. They consult magazines on moving (which, in turn, keep them moving on a regular basis), hold heated debates about interior design late into the night, come to blows about the shape of toilet brushes for the optimal maintenance of hygiene, and are constantly looking out for new and better houses. Supposedly, the average American will move up to thirty times in his life. I have not the slightest doubt that such a practice irreparably damages mental health. My explanation for this harmful habit is that these pitiful fools have no equanimity and try to compensate for its lack through incessant moving. It's nothing less than a full-blown neurotic compulsion. Surely the Good Lord didn't give human beings hands and feet for the sole purpose of constantly transporting furniture and kitchen utensils from one dwelling to the next.
Despite which, I must confess that the old apartment did have its shortcomings. First of all, there were those billion steps you had to run up and down, day in, day out, if you didn't want to become an urban Robinson Crusoe. Although the building was built recently, the architect apparently thought the elevator was a diabolical invention and expected the inhabitants of his Tower of Babel to practice the old, tried-and-true method of step-by-step locomotion.
Then, too, the apartment was far too small. Although, to tell the truth, it was big enough for Gustav and me; you know how it goes: after a while, you want more and more. Your place has to be cozier, it has to be more spacious, expensive, and stylish—but I'm sure you've heard this all before. As a young rebel, you still have your ideals (if you don't already own a dream apartment). But later, if you still don't have your dream apartment and you find out that you aren't exactly the big bad rebel you thought you were, what is your fate? A year's subscription to Better Homes and Gardens.
So that's why we moved into that damned house.
When I first saw it from the rear side window of a Citroën CX-2000, I thought Gustav was playing a nasty joke on me—which would hardly have surprised me, considering his rather immature sense of humor. Months before I had heard him talk about "an old building,” "renovation,” and "putting in time,” but since Gustav understands as much about renovating houses as a giraffe does about stock market speculation, I thought this was merely a matter of nailing a little nameplate on the door. To my horror, I now realized what he had meant by "an old building.”
Admittedly, the residential area was elegant, even romantic. A dentist would have to convince his patients that they needed to have a considerable number of cavities in order to take up residence here. But it just so happened that the sad structure that was to be our future home looked like a rotten tooth in comparison to the turn-of-the-century dollhouses that surrounded it. Embedded in a tree-lined street of houses that were picture-postcard perfect, a street where the renovation mania of all those wizards looking for a tax write-off had wreaked havoc, this majestic wreck seemed to have sprung from nothing less than the imagination of a horror film scriptwriter. It was the only building on the street that had not been given a face-lift, and I tried to keep myself from imagining why that was. The
