By William Jack
Preface
Sometimes, the fate of the whole world hangs by the thinnest of threads. A young czar, for instance, collects the wrong string of genes from his parents. When he bleeds, a bearded priest wanders out of Siberia to save him. By the end of that particular tale, a thousand-year monarchy meets its end, and the world would never be the same.
And not too very long ago, a stray cat named Koshka came to save the world that replaced that
monarchy, in a tale that's even stranger.
Prologue
The rain let up and the puddles steamed in the afternoon sun. It was the kind of weather that makes a cat hot and itchy all over. Koshka found a dry spot on the cracked pavement, lay down on his back, and stretched his paws out to the sky. The crooked pavement felt good against his fur.
At the corner, sweating humans stood in the shrinking puddles, waiting their turn to take a smeared tankard from the lady with a kerchief who tended the beer tank.
Koshka fell off into the kind of deep slumber that comes only on hot days. Then a car door slammed at the curb. The dozing cat's ears pricked up, and like miniature radar dishes, turned towards the street. It was a solid thud, not the usual tinny ring of a Moskvitch or Zhiguli. There was danger in the air.
Koshka opened one eye warily, then the other. With good reason did he open his eyes, he decided. He had discerned the menacing thud from the thick door of a Zil limousine.
Koshka narrowed his eyes and looked warily towards the street. The Zil sat crouched at the curb like a sway-backed monster with chrome teeth and a long, black torso. It all spelled danger, and Koshka slunk low to the ground, ready to pounce, if necessary.
Now Koshka, of course, knew that the Zil itself hardly presented a menace. It was the people inhabiting such limousines who presented the danger. To make matters at this particular moment even more menacing, Koshka noticed that the Zil's windows were blackened, like night itself.
#
Koshka squinted hard. He spotted two stout figures inside.
"You mean this--this dump?" asked the man in the back seat. He pointed at the Glasnost Hotel, Koshka's home.
"We admit it needs some--some work, Dmitry Borisovich," came the squeaky reply from the front seat. "It needs a little renovating perhaps."
"Renovating?" thundered Dmitry Borisovich. "It needs to be torn down, that's what it needs!" He pulled his thick frame from the Zil. "Ai! It's a disaster! That turret up there is ready to fall off. The whole damn building leans to the left. And, why, the walls are crooked and peeling-"
The man in the front grabbed a sheaf of papers and jumped to the pavement. "We can paint over the stucco," he offered.
Dmitry craned his neck. "Paint won't hold those crumbling walls together or keep that rotten roof from caving in!" Then he shook his head, and his eyes narrowed. "Comrade Byelkin, if this is the best you and your committee can do-"
"It's--it's--they call it a masterpiece of pre-revolutionary design," Byelkin chimed in. "Look it says right here in this art book." He thumbed through its pages. "'The edifice at 27 Popov Street, presently called the Rossiya Hotel, is an excellent representative of 'Fin de siecle' architecture.'"
"I don't care if it's hammer and sickle!" came the reply. "It's an ugly dump, and it's falling apart!"
Koshka crept closer, ever so softly, ever so quietly. Something was up--some new thing was in the air. something wonderful or awful, and he had to find out. He let his paws brush every so softly across the cracked pavement. Arriving at his destination, he stretched out lazily on the pavement, surrounding himself with a studied aura of nonchalance that only the wisest of cats can attain. His ears turned towards the two comrades.
Comrade Byelkin's voice rose as his throat tightened. "But the Amerikan businessmen, the Kalifornians--they said they wanted an old building--'one with character,' they said, one with historical and architectural value-"
"This sloping old dump is the best you can find?' demanded Dmitry. "It's ready to fall apart! And the neighborhood--it's a slum. You want foreigners to see this squalor? Why, look, there's a fat old alley cat sprawled right out here on the sidewalk, in plain view!"
Koshka took immediate offense. He leapt up, landing on all fours, stretched, and then smoothed down his fur. A fat old alley cat indeed! Why, he was stocky, sturdy, that's all--built for the Saint Petersburg winter.
Byelkin pleaded with the scowling human. "Please, Dmitry! The Kalifornians have picked this building, so we have no choice. We'll put our best people on it. We'll call in Liuba Smetanova from the culture ministry. And Rassolnikov too, right from headquarters. He'll take charge. You'll see. It'll work out in the end."
"It had better!" snapped Dmitry. "Or heads will roll, and yours will be the first!" He stepped back into the Zil.
Byelkin rushed back to his seat. "Why, in a year's time, you won't even recognize this place!"
The Zil sped off in a cloud of blue smoke.
Koshka shivered. Times had been fraught with danger lately. First there was glasnost, then perestroika, then no more talk of glasnost and perestroika, then coups. It was all chaos and change. And now those crazy officials were up to no good again, on Koshka's very own block.
Like any cat, Koshka was wary of change. He had already seen enough change, enough sadness in his short life. He shuddered. He knew that when officials came around in Zil limousines, they invariably brought change, and it was never for the better.
#
By evening a cool breeze came crept in from the Gulf of Finland, and Koshka momentarily forgot about the Zil that appeared from out of the steam of the August afternoon. It was time to play, after all--time to forget troubles, to enjoy the breeze wafting through the court yard. And then, like a well-timed miracle, a ball of string presented itself.
"Playing again, Koshka?" asked the old red cat from his trash pile. "How can you be so--so immature! Why don't you grow up, child?"
"I'm not a child," Koshka answered politely, retrieving the ball he had just flipped into the air. "I am nearly as old as you."
"Well, then, you should act it!" the old cat sputtered. "And, and--think it too!"
Avvakuum was the name of the old red cat. Years on the city's streets had hardened his outlook. He had a very low opinion of life, of progress, of cats and of humans.
Koshka flicked the ball into the air, then dived for it. One paw rushed forward to push it away, and the other paw shot out trying to catch it.
"You're--you're impossible!" said Avvakuum. "Grow up!"
"I'm just trying to have some fun!" Koshka said, diving for the ball.
"Fun is not a part of life," said Avvakuum.
"Oh, I think it is!" said Koshka. "Life is always playing games with us." There was a sad ring in his happy voice--the kind of resonance that comes only from those creatures who have experienced large doses of joy and sorrow.
"You're impossible!" said the old cat. He flicked his tail, turned, and headed for his haunts across
the court yard. "You'll never learn. You'll never get on in this world."
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