Literary Cats

I am an author and I have a problem.

My problem is my cat Barthélemy who thinks he is a co-author. For the last month or so I’ve been working long days dashing off a 1,200 page novel and he’s been with me nearly every step of the way. Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit: it’s taken me many years to write this epic story set in the South of France. But I have been spending the last few months editing, revising, and getting it ready to go to press for review copies, and most of the time Barthélemy has been curled up in his wicker basket which sits on my writing desk making occasional snide editorial comments. Or else, he wants to be fed; it’s hard to tell the difference.

By the way, his name—Barthélemy—comes from a mountain, Pic de St-Barthélemy, that is located in my novel’s primary setting, the Ariège, a French department famous in the Middle Ages as the center of the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars and more recently as a hotbed of the World War II French Resistance. Because of this connection, I get the feeling that my talkative white tabby claims some sort of proprietorship in the book.

The other day he wanted to check out what I was writing so he sprang up from the floor for his basket by my left elbow…and missed. He caught the edge of the basket and tumbled back to the floor bringing the basket down on his head. Now I know cats can’t blush, but there was no mistaking the look of chagrin on his face. I watched as he tried to right the basket by pawing at it, curious about how he planned to return it to the desk once it was upright. But I had to get back to work so I did the honors for him. Apparently, however, the experience was too humiliating for him; he decided to knock off the literary work for a while and go back to his day job.

“His day job?” you ask. Yes. Like all of us slaving in the literary world—where submitting a manuscript is like dropping a bouquet into the Grand Canyon and waiting for an echo—Barthélemy needs a day job to keep his furry head straight. By day, he’s a sock-transporter. He’s discovered how to get into drawers and his specialty is dragging socks downstairs and scattering them around the living room floor. It’s an amazing sight to see how he manages with long socks—he clamps down on the toe with his teeth and drags the remainder between his four splayed-out legs. It’s not graceful, but it gets the job done. At least he must think so, because he sings the whole way down the stairs.

“Sings?” you ask. Yes. This cat would make a Siamese seem shy, retiring, and reticent. Since the sock is in his mouth he can’t open his jaw so he forces a triumphant, “I’ve got another sock!” in a sort of loud cat hum that sounds like a wine-drunk coloratura soprano singing with a mouthful of spaghetti and meatballs at the opera’s cast party.

Thankfully, after he’s transported a pile of socks he’s exhausted and needs a nap, usually back in his writing basket. Which means I have some uninterrupted time to write massive epics…or short little pieces like this one.