The Cats in the Doll Shop (4 page)

I sit down on the tarpaper surface of the roof, pulling my knees to my chest, and balance Bernadette Louise on top of them. I'm still thinking about the doll I plan to make for Tania. If I want to finish it before she arrives, I'd better come up with something soon. I ask Bernadette Louise
her
ideas about what would be a good doll to make. Not that I expect her to answer me. I don't believe my doll can talk. But when I'm alone, I do like to talk to her. It helps me sort through things. I always feel better afterward.

The warm breeze ruffles my hair. I can hear the sounds of my parents' guests downstairs. Someone is singing another song, this time in English, and everyone joins in on the chorus. But suddenly I am distracted by a sound from below: it is a thin, urgent wailing. No, not wailing. Meowing! It must be the ginger cat. I know it in my bones. Did she have her kittens? Is she in trouble and crying for help? I look down at the box in the yard. It is empty, but still the meowing continues. Where can she be? I grab Bernadette Louise, and hurry back downstairs to find out.

Trudie has already fallen asleep, but I find Sophie in the kitchen, nibbling on a piece of sponge cake. The rest of the guests have moved to the parlor, and so for a moment, we are alone.

“Put that down and come with me!” I say. Something about the tone of my voice makes her stuff the rest of the cake into her mouth as she follows me outside. The meowing of the cat is louder now. I tug on Sophie's arm and point. We see a man with a broom sweeping vigorously. He has a big handlebar mustache and a big belly hanging over his belt. Why is he out here at night sweeping?

The answer quickly becomes clear. Ginger Cat (for that is now her name in my mind) must have had her kittens. Only instead of using the nice safe box we prepared for her, she went and gave birth on the gray blanket we saw stuffed in a corner of the fire escape. I can just make her out in the dark. I can also see some small shapes next to her—kittens! Clearly this man doesn't want them there, because he is sweeping them right off the fire escape and into the yard below!

Sophie clutches my hand fiercely as Ginger Cat and her kittens tumble from the fire escape, two stories down. Together, we both gasp out loud, as if we were one person. The man shakes out the blanket, and clutching it under his arm, climbs back into his apartment. We can hear the window shut with a loud
thud.
The meowing continues.

“Oh no!” Sophie moans. “How could he?”

“Let's call Papa,” I say. “He'll know what to do.” I can see Sophie hesitate. But the sound of the meowing is so pitiful that she agrees. We run back up the stairs alongside the doll shop to our apartment, where Papa is now playing a harmonica. “Papa, we need to see you right now!” Sophie says, her voice low and urgent.

“I was in the middle of playing for our guests,” Papa says with a smile. “Can't it wait?”

“No, it can't,” she says. I see her eyes pool with tears, and Papa must see it, too, because his smile fades as he turns to everyone and says, “Please excuse me. I'll be right back.” Sophie never, ever cries, so if she is crying now, I think Papa must know there is a serious reason.

“What is it, Sophie?” he asks gently when we are alone. She turns to me and says, “You tell,” before pressing a fist to her trembling mouth.

“Something terrible has happened, Papa,” I say, grabbing his warm, comforting hand. “You have to come now, so you can see.”

“Tell me what this terrible thing is,” Papa says, but instead of answering, I lead him down the stairs and out the back door. We stand in the yard, where the sounds of meowing continue to pierce the velvety blue night.

“Cats meowing? Cats meow to communicate with each other. That's not so terrible,” he says.

“Oh yes it is,” I say, and I explain about the man, the broom, and the terrible fall from above.

All at once Papa stiffens. “Did the man have a thick mustache?” he asks. We nod, and Papa adds, “I know him. He runs a shoe repair shop on Hester Street. He's bad tempered and mean to his employees. And I've heard that he deliberately does shoddy work so people have to come back and pay for another repair. I'm not surprised to hear what he's done.” The meowing continues. “Not surprised, but disgusted all the same. You girls were right to tell me.”

Papa strides across the barren yard and pulls himself up and over the brick wall that separates it from the yard adjoining ours. Sophie and I sit down on the ground and wait. After about fifteen minutes, we hear Papa rustling in the yard behind ours, and once more, he is up and over the wall. This time, he stumbles as he lands. Then he picks himself up and brushes off his pants.

“Did you find them?” Sophie asks in a small voice. “Are they all right?” Her fist is back at her mouth again.

“I found the mother cat,” says Papa. “She's fine.”

“And what about the kittens?” I am not sure I want to hear the answer.

“I only found one kitten,” Papa says carefully.

“But there were others. I saw them.”

“They didn't survive the fall.” Papa's face is grim as he delivers this news.

Sophie and I just look at each other, stricken.

“What about the one kitten you did find, Papa?” I say finally.

“He's alive. But I think he broke his back leg in the fall. It was dangling in a very peculiar way. It didn't look right to me,” Papa says.

“That's so sad!” I burst out.

“Yes, it is,” Papa agrees. “But his mother found him, and so at least he'll be fed.”

“What about his leg?” I ask. “Do you think it will heal?”

“I don't know,” Papa says.

“What if it doesn't?” Sophie asks.

“Well, the leg might wither and fall off,” says Papa. “I saw that happen once, to a cat back in the old country. She hurt her leg in a fall from a roof. The leg just sort of hung there for a while. Eventually, it dropped off.”

“That sounds terrible,” Sophie says.

“Not as terrible as an infection. A cat can live with three legs. But an infection could kill him.”

Sophie and I are silent, thinking about that for a moment.

“What will happen to the cats?” asks Sophie.

“There's not too much more we can do right now,” Papa says. “We can leave scraps out for the mother. If she's hungry, she'll come and find them. Her kitten isn't ready to eat solid food yet anyway.”

“We already set out some food,” Sophie says. She shows Papa the box with the rags and the dish of fish scraps. Neither one of us mentions the cream.

“You girls can keep setting out scraps. But don't try to find the cats, and whatever you do, don't touch them. I don't want either one of you getting scratched. Or even worse—bitten.” He turns to go inside.

Once Papa has gone, my sister turns to me and in a small, almost desperate voice says, “That man who swept the cats off the fire escape . . .”

“What about him?”

“How could he have been so cruel? How could anyone?”

“I don't know,” I tell her. For a moment, it seems I am the big sister, and she is the younger one. I put my arms around her in a fierce hug, and just as fiercely, she hugs me back.

The next day, we get dressed up and go with our parents to the
shul
on Rivington Street. Sophie wears a velvet dress Mama made out of an old drape, and the garnet earrings. I wish I had a dress like that. Trudie and I wear nice dresses, too, made of black and ivory striped ticking. But they are not as nice as Sophie's dress. When I complain to Mama, she says that since Sophie is older and almost a young lady, it's important for her to start wearing more grown-up looking clothes. My turn will come, she tells me. I sigh. It feels like a long way off.

After
shul
, we don't go to school but back home where we spend time in the yard, looking for the cats. My friend Esther comes over, and we tell her everything that's happened—seeing Ginger Cat, the box, the food, the man with the mustache, the wounded kitten. Esther can't believe that the man could have been so cruel. “I think he should be arrested!” she says.

Ten days after Rosh Hashanah is Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. This year, Sophie decides that she will fast for the whole day, just like Mama and Papa. In the past, I felt grateful that we didn't have to do that. We girls would skip breakfast, go to
shul
in the morning, and then come home for lunch. I still don't want to fast all day, but I am not sure I like it that Sophie is moving away from us.

During the next couple of weeks, we keep a lookout for Ginger Cat and her kitten, but we don't see either of them. I even go up to the roof, because I think might be able to see better from up there.

The first time, I see nothing. I try again the next day, after school, and I am rewarded by the sight of the kitten nestled close to Ginger Cat. They are both lying near a stunted, nearly bare bush. The kitten doesn't have much fur, and he is as scrawny as the bush. Still, I wish I could pick him up and cuddle him. Ginger Cat looks very gentle and sweet lying there with her baby. Although Papa warned us, it's hard to believe she would ever scratch or bite.

I go for several more days without seeing him again. But the next time I spot the kitten from the roof, I notice something truly amazing. He is trying to stand up! He balances, shakily, on his three good legs. The fourth, with its useless paw, dangles behind him. I watch as he pulls himself up, then flops back down. He tries again, with the same result. Then he tries a third time, and manages to remain standing for several seconds longer. I am so proud of him! Although it is clearly hard, he is trying to stand up all by himself. And somehow I have not only the hope but the faith that he will be able to do it.

I also notice that he's starting to grow fur—he's like his mother in color, only lighter, as if someone has mixed white paint with the orange. I rush downstairs so I can tell my sisters. “Guess what I saw!” I say to Sophie and Trudie, who are in the kitchen peeling potatoes. I tell them all about the brave little cat who is just so, so, plucky—that's what he is! And then I realize: his name should be Plucky.

“Plucky,” repeats Trudie, as if trying it on for size.

“I like it,” says Sophie. “It fits.” The glow of her approval stays with me for the rest of afternoon.

I have been so busy cat-watching that I almost forget that today is the twenty-eighth of September—that's the day when we are supposed to start checking the Shipping and Mails section of the newspaper. When we look, we see that Tania's boat is due to arrive tomorrow!

“Can we go with you to get her?” I ask Papa. He has finished working at his desk in the doll shop and is putting all his papers together. “Please?”

“You have to go to school,” Papa says. “You'll see her when you get home.”

That night, Sophie, Trudie, and I stay up talking long after lights out. This is one of our last nights in the big, old bed, and I am so glad. Squashed in between my two sisters, I feel like a jack-in-the-box, ready to pop out any second.

“How will she understand us?” Trudie asks. “She won't know any English.”

“We'll have to teach her,” Sophie says. “That's going to be my job, remember?”

“We can all help,” I say quietly.

“Oh, of course,” says Sophie. “I'm not sure how much time I'll have anyway. I'm very busy in school.”

“I hope she doesn't bring too many things with her,” Trudie says, looking around our small room. “It's already crowded enough in here.” Shifting once more in the tightly packed bed, I have to agree with her. Still, I am eager for Tania's arrival.