咬人猫The Biting Cat

Today the cat with the grey patch on its head added a little red to my mother’s hand again. It started when she complained to me that this cat never lets itself be held — every time, it restlessly jumps down. I didn’t believe her, because over the last few days, whenever I was writing or reading, the cat would rub up against me and hop onto my lap. My mother, naturally unwilling to admit that the cat she’d looked after for months had been lured away by me within days of my coming home, waited until it wasn’t paying attention and picked it up again. Sure enough, the cat fixed its wide brown-green eyes on her, gave a few cautious, testing kicks with its feet, then twisted around and leapt down like a dragon diving into the sea. But its two paws were still hooked in, and they left two bloody scratches on her hand.

When my family describes this cat, they always reach for the phrase “shifty-eyed.” It’s true — compared with the other one, this cat is not only sleek and smooth from its short fur, but its eyes are almost perfect circles, as if it had no eyelids at all, always kept that way as it looks about. When I come home, he’s the first to rush out, watching you from a distance; the moment someone leaves a room and opens the door, he seizes the chance to slip in, and if he’s caught being naughty he still lowers his head slightly and peers at you with those round eyes, full of grievance — usually right after he’s just scratched or bitten you, which leaves you both angry and amused. The other one is far more aristocratic: a cross between a Persian and a tabby, it takes after the Persian — pure white long fur, mismatched eyes, a broad face, and usually a gentle, refined air; yet at mealtimes it bares a fierce look, monopolizing the food and hissing to keep the biting cat away. We’ve given the two of them many names, and they’ve never once answered to any, so to this day their names remain unsettled — and so, for now, I’ll just call the one I’m writing about today the biting cat.

They say the biting cat bit people the moment it arrived. Back then it was terribly timid — at the sight of a person it would burrow under the bed, and it was often bullied by the other cat, so it went everywhere with great caution, walking as if on tiptoe, testing each step before setting the leg down. By the time I came home for the holiday, it had grown familiar with people, but that wary manner remained — and perhaps that is the source of its “shiftiness.”

At first I was even a little afraid of him. Every time I played with him, the instant my hand touched the tips of his fur the biting cat would spin around as if electrified, reaching for your hand with claw and mouth at once; if your reflexes were slow, you’d be left with a few tooth-marks, white or red. And if at that point you still had a mind to tease the cat, it turned into a game of whack-a-mole: the biting cat would fix the whole line of sight of its round eyes on the hand you hadn’t yet extended, but the moment you moved, its little white paws would smack down, unable to wait; and if you were confident you could pull back in time, it became a drawn-out battle — in which, of course, the one who ends up wounded is always you. So at the beginning I didn’t dare tease him first; each time I’d pretend to admire the view, and only once he grew curious about my movements and came over to me would I try to make contact. The first few times, I only dared touch his head lightly and rub the black fur on it, shaped like a little three-peaked mountain; as I gradually got better at dodging his paws, I could reach his back. He would of course never sit still to be stroked — the moment my hand slid from his neck to the top of his back, his little head would turn, and often, all at once, he’d clamp down and not let go.