Recently, I bought a barely used Third Edition of Roget’s Thesaurus at a garage sale in Chehalis, where I had stopped for a break on an exhausting drive from Portland to Vancouver, B.C. The story that follows had been typed on four single-spaced, folded sheets that fell out of the book when I opened it at home. The unknown amateur writer probably created this odd, highly derivative story close to the first publication of the Third Edition in 1962. I hope that his writing, mawkish and unpolished as it is, helped him deal with the sadness and grief that he seemed to have a hard time keeping at bay. I inserted paragraph breaks and corrected typos, but otherwise left his stilted verbiage alone. If it helps you ask a question or uncover a dream of your own, it has achieved more than could be reasonably expected.
Three unforgettable nights
Some time ago, after our son went to India and was never heard from again, Mary, my wife, and I took two cats into our house. They lived with an old man who sailed his model boats on the pond in Torpenady Park. where we often saw him. He couldn’t care for them anymore after a stroke had blinded and partly paralyzed him. Said to be about two years old, they were shy when we first met them. We didn’t even see them well, just enough to notice that they were both small tabbies. One of them seemed to be a little braver and more curious than the other. They might have been in shock after the recent changes in their home. His daughter, who had been good friends with our Penelope when she was still alive, implored us tearfully to shelter and feed them “to honor those we love.”
Both cats were males, neutered and apparently in good health. When we brought them home, they went into hiding in Penny’s former room, and we didn’t see much more of them for weeks. They ate and used their boxes near the laundry station in the basement. When one of us was down there, they hid behind a stack of suitcases. We called them Giorgio and Pietro.
Eventually, they began exploring the house. They played and chased each other through the rooms and up and down the stairs, but kept away from us. We didn’t hear their little voices until toward the end of the second month. When we saw them, they looked back at us with great intensity, but without curiosity. They never responded when we tried calling them. They ate when my wife and I weren’t nearby, but usually left food behind, not like other cats who gobble up whatever you serve them.
I wondered what was going on with these two. They weren’t like any of the other cats I’ve shared most of my life with. Sometimes, when I was awake in the middle of the night and curious what they were doing, I got up and went downstairs to the living room. Every time, they sat or lay on either end of the couch near the picture window, surprised but not startled.
What if the opera is in trouble?
One night in October, I rose because I heard some kind of shriek, or maybe laughter. I was walking down the plush, carpeted steps when it occurred to me that it was a better idea to watch Giorgio and Pietro from the landing halfway.
I did not see them. But two large persons sat on the couch. One was a dark-skinned woman in a sleeveless maroon dress. She wore a necklace made from light red and orange slivers of coral and similar bracelets on each wrist. Her feet rested on top of silver-strap sandals. I could not see her face, because she wore a tiger mask. It was so realistic that the eyes appeared to be following the outlines of the drawings in the book she held with both hands. The tiger fur covered her entire head and somehow blended into the umber skin just a finger’s breadth above the coral necklace.
The tiger mask moved in a convincing, natural manner when the woman spoke. “The opera had to cancel Rheingold next season because they’re unexpectedly short of funds,” she said. “Maybe we should donate some more. It’d be a shame.” Her voice was in a very low range, and her accent reminded me of South Africans I met when I traveled the country to purchase tea for packaging and resale at Clarkston.
The other individual was a man, judging from his grunt of approval and his figure. He wore a beige three-piece suit with some kind of large, blue marble fixed to the lapel. The skin of his hands and bare feet was almost the same color as the suit. I couldn’t see this man’s face, either. He wore a lion mask fringed by a generous mane. It made his head appear very large and looked as natural as the woman’s tiger disguise.
“I’ll call Rodolfo tomorrow,” the man said in a hoarse bass voice. “He can get a transfer going. I need to talk to him about stopping the support payments to Mrs. Woughlerby, anyway. She needs to get back on her own two feet.”
“It’s a little disappointing that they haven’t thought to call on us, don’t you think?”
He chuffed. “You can be sure they haven’t forgotten us. Maybe they think we’re tapped out.”
“Infuriating,” the tiger woman said. Long black claws shot from her fingers when she stretched her hand out on the armrest to her left. “That conductor never even said hello at the preview gala.”
“He’s an arrogant young man. Too much success, too soon.”
I didn’t know if these two would be glad to see me or if I should better head back upstairs and lie down. The man rustled with the newspaper on his lap. Judging from the fonts, the lack of color, and the yellowed paper, it was several decades old. I was glad that the noise covered the tiny squeak in the floor I caused when I shifted my weight.
They had heard it, though. Both raised their heads just a little. The woman stared in my direction, but didn’t seem to notice me, or chose not to let it show. “I don’t even like Rheingold all that much,” she said. “It’s not all that long, but still gets plenty tedious.”
The man yawned like a lion in an animated movie. I saw his huge teeth and his large tongue. “I like it when the giants stomp in,” he said. “I like their names, too. I always thought they were intriguing.”
“If we had kids, we could call them Fasolt and Fáfnir,” the tiger said. She made a coughing sound that was maybe a laugh.
“It’s a bit late for that, though. And they would probably find these names ridiculous.”
“So we’d have middle names for them. Like Cleo and Charles.”
He said, “That sounds a lot more like kittens. But it’s water under the bridge, just like what I’ve been reading. How come we buy a paper and it’s from 1921, anyway?”
“I thought something wasn’t right when I got out of the car at the service station while you were chatting with Donald. When I crossed the street to visit the newsstand, I almost fell over the small man who was passed out by the curb. Everything in the little shop was old and dusty. The gentleman behind the counter couldn’t have been more than twenty, but they didn’t even have a proper cash register, just a portable set of drawers with brass knobs to keep coins and banknotes. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“We should see what other publications and refreshments they sell,” said the lion man. “Might be interesting, don’t you think?”
The tiger woman sighed, or maybe she suppressed a sneeze. “Maybe. But we might not even understand what we’re looking at. Let alone why.”
“You’re right. And of course we won’t be here long.” The lion man yawned again and shook his mane. “I’m sleepy.” He threw the newspaper to the floor and lay down on the couch with his back facing out. A lion’s tail stuck out of an opening in his trousers. It swished in the air a few time and then came to rest curled around him.
The tiger woman turned back to her book, but I was sure she was aware of me and every anxious breath I took. I decided not to push my luck. I returned to the bedroom as quietly as I could, holding my breath until I felt safe.
Both cats were on the couch when I got up a few hours later and went downstairs. They didn’t pay any attention to me, but ate heartily when I fed them.
From time to time, I went down to the landing when I had a restless night and was curious about what Pietro and Giorgio were up to. Nothing remarkable happened. Sometimes I saw both, one, or none of them. When the cats were there, they slept, groomed themselves, or rested, gazing back at me.
Preparations for a spectacle
One night in March, I woke up and heard unfamiliar noises downstairs. It sounded like somebody was scraping or maybe sanding a piece of wood. What’s more, every few seconds, a sharp blade swished through paper or fabric. I tried to ignore these sounds, because they were probably the last impressions from a dream, just like the crashes and explosions I hear in other dreams. They often sound as if a large bird shattered the bedroom window with incredible force, but they’re clearly not part of the shared world and, thankfully, never wake up Mary.
This was different. I was wide awake and the noises continued. I got up. I had barely reached the landing when I saw the two persons sitting by the large table in the living room. They both wore thick, light brown overalls that were too big for them. They had rolled back the sleeves to keep their hands free. They appeared to be male humans, but they had cat-like whiskers below their noses.
The taller and heavier man held a curved, shiny knife in his hand. With gentle, careful strokes, he shaved thin strips from a cube of wood sitting on a rotating board in front of him. A crude face was drawn on one side of the chunk of wood. It was clear to me that the carver planned on carving a skull. Piled up to his left I saw what looked like bones, a rib cage, and a spine carved from the same kind of blond, wood with orange marbling. I could imagine that a complete skeleton assembled from these parts might be about as tall as a three-year-old child.
The carver was olive-skinned, bald, and looked to be in his late fifties, older by about fifteen years than the other man, who sewed folded, printed pages together into sections. I assume these were going into a book, and I even saw the heavy cover waiting on the table. I wasn’t sure whether it was from leather or maybe oiled or stained wood that was partially covered with leather strips and ornamentation. It gave an impression of age and dusty authority. Several sections with hundreds of pages already piled up on the table, but at least as big a stack of printed, untrimmed and unfolded pages still needed to be processed. The bookbinder looked like he might be Japanese. The printing on the pages appeared to be in lines, not columns, but I couldn’t see them all that clearly.
“I didn’t enjoy the performances in Berlin,” the bookbinder mumbled. At least that’s what I thought he said.
The carver looked up with a quizzical expression on his face. “Big city like that should be full of things you can write about and print. Didn’t you find it interesting to watch people’s faces and eavesdrop on them?”
“There was no magic left.” Something wasn’t right with the bookbinder’s mouth. “I wanted to pay attention to the pigeons and the dogs, not the people, who were all drab and monotonous. But the pigeons there didn’t reveal anything much. They talked about the best ways to poison people. And about motor coaches. I didn’t even know pigeons cared about any kind of vehicle. And the dogs wanted to know what my rules were before they would tell me anything at all. I didn’t know what to say to them.”
“See, when I come to a place like that, I have a piece of wood in my pocket. I take it out when I’m sure nobody’s paying attention and carve it into a likeness of what it feels like to be there. It makes it easier to know how to talk to people.”
“Does your dance troupe come from a certain city, then?” the bookbinder asked.
“I imagine they’ve seen the big old cities,” the carver said. He was almost whispering. “But they don’t want to go back there. At least not the way I carve and paint them. Like this gentleman here.” He held out the hand with the block of wood that was in the process of becoming a skull. Did he look in my direction and give me a wink? I wasn’t sure. If not, what was he doing with his face? “He was a famous race car driver who started writing romantic novels when he couldn’t pay attention to his driving anymore. From one day to the next he practically forgot about it. Now he’s making women happy, and some men, too, I bet.”
The bookbinder shoved a mound of paper cuttings into a rusty waste can that sat half under the table. “The only mystery worth wondering about is why people can’t see or hear what’s obvious,” he said. He lengthened the last few syllables almost into a chant. “That’s what I want to know.”
“When his lordship’s head is done, I can assemble him and the rest of the group, and soon we can watch them all put on a ballet,” the carver said.
“I promise I’ll have the songs and ballads ready by then. Would you like to hear—”
“Not now, though,” the carver whispered with another glance in my direction. “They’re watching us. You don’t have to tell them everything.”
“Shall we test them?” the bookbinder asked. “What if I ask them to read a page of what I’m working on?” He stuck his hand into the pile of pages yet to be folded and trimmed, pulled out one, and held it up while he turned in my direction. “Read this! Come here and read this aloud!” he shouted.
The page was covered with letters of different font sizes. It lacked proper margins and was smudged at the edges. I leaned across the railing to see better, but couldn’t even tell what language it was in. My throat hurt as if I’d been coughing all evening. The bookbinder was not ready to let me go. He yelled, “Coward! Come here and read!”
I ran upstairs, closed the door behind me, and took a breath of relief when I was back in my bed. All was quiet downstairs.
The cats looked older and heavier the next morning when I finally saw them. They didn’t come for their food. I had no idea where they were hiding and was worried they had somehow escaped the house. Toward noon, Pietro came into my office, a strand of spiderweb and a wood shaving stuck to his head. He must have explored a nook I didn’t even know about.
Invitation to the dance
Over the next few months, it sometimes appeared that Giorgio and Pietro were ready to interact with us and let us touch them, but they retreated every time when we came near them. They were not as hyperactive and chased each other less often. Pietro scratched Mary when she tried to pick him up one day, and she wept.
The next time I woke up and knew that something extraordinary was going on I didn’t hear any odd noises. What startled me was the silence coming from downstairs. I was frightened and shivering even though this late August night was warmer than the average summer temperature. I was also very curious.
What or who were the two creatures I saw? They were stout, at least two meters tall, and covered with dense, golden-brown fur. They had long ears, like donkeys, snouts like bears, and large blue eyes. The dark green skin on their graceful, elegant hands with long fingers and pointed, shiny fingernails was the only part of their bodies that was hairless.
Each of these individuals held a cross brace, to which a wooden figure was attached with almost invisible strings. Both figures were complete human-like skeletons, one in red and one in yellow. I immediately recognized the yellow one, because I had seen its skull when the carver was still working on it. The red skeleton wore a top hat and held a rough stick in its hands. The yellow one’s weapon was a sword, which gave of orange and pink sparks. A maroon fez with a long puff sat askew on the yellow skull.
The two puppeteers were completely silent, but I heard their fast breaths while they moved as rapidly as they could to make the two skeletons fight. Because they weren’t very expert at this, the sword and the stick mostly agitated the air, nothing more.
After a couple of minutes, the yellow skeleton let go of its sword, whirled on the spot a few times, and sat down, crossing its legs. Its adversary hopped up and down on the spot and waved its stick around. Then it, too, stopped.
“You’ve won, Barbara,” said the puppeteer handling the red skeleton.
“It’s an honor to match forces with you, Roxanne,” said the one who let the yellow skeleton’s upper body lightly sway from left to right and back.
Roxanne shook her head and said, “The outcome has not been decided. There is no outcome.”
“I hear the truth in your voice. And yet.”
“What?”
“We need to finish,” Barbara said. She made her skeleton marionette pick up the sword and hurl it at Roxanne’s stick fighter. The red skeleton evaded and kicked the fallen sword in my direction.
“Bad idea,” Barbara commented. “We won’t get any help from them. From him and his wife.”
I couldn’t help it. I waved in their direction and tried to smile. Were they bears? Women? Their voices sounded ancient, but not tired. Later, I wondered why I wasn’t afraid of them.
“He doesn’t know,” Roxanne said. And, turning toward me, “You don’t know. Not a thing.”
“That’s funny,” Barbara commented. “Sad, too.” Pause. “Shall we go see if we can help him?”
“Sure.”
Barbara and Roxanne both faced me, and so did their skeleton marionettes, both standing with arms raised, but without their weapons. The two—bear women, I suppose—took a few tiny steps forward. Their sighing, strained breathing sounded as if flames could spring from their snouts any second. I smelled the musky, salty odor of their fur. The skeletons lacked eyes, but I was sure they were staring at me.
I tried to speak, but couldn’t get a word out. Now all four were looking up at me.
A few quick, vigorous movements from the two bear women propelled the skeletons up into the air and onto the railing that supported me. The yellow one was astride on it and reached for my right hand. The red one stood tall, removed its top hat, and tried to give it to me. Their wooden parts clacked and rattled and rubbed against each other whenever they moved.
I took a step back. The skeletons leaned my way. It was time to get away from them. I turned and raced upstairs. I heard their horrible clacking and rattling as they came after me. When I slammed the bedroom door behind me, they kicked and scratched it for a few long minutes.
Then I heard what I thought was Barbara’s voice, but I couldn’t understand what she said. The noise stopped. I wiped the sweat off my face with a corner of the blanket. The rest of the night didn’t bring me any sleep.
I was still asleep when Mary got up to visit the cemetery, although later she lied and told me that she visited her sister at the public library. When I woke up, Giorgio and Pietro sat near my bed, calmly watching me. The bedroom door was wide open. For a moment I thought their eyes had turned blue, but it wasn’t so. I was still tired, so I dozed a little longer. Then I got up and fed the cats. I decided to stay in bed no matter what I heard or didn’t hear in the nights to come. As it turned out, strange events like those I describe here never happened again.
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