Felidae on the Road - Special U.S. Edition Read Online Free PDF Page A

must go!' At first I could make nothing whatever of this; least of all could I see any connection with myself. As far as I knew Gustav never ate nuts, and I certainly didn't. So what nuts did she mean? Repeated with ever-increasing frequency, the remark began assuming disturbing dimensions when I realised that it was always made when I was around. And things became downright scary when she slowly but surely went on to wrinkling her upper lip, glaring accusingly at me, theatrically pretending to detect some disgusting smell in the air and sighing in an affected way, 'Dear me, those nuts must go!' The mystery of the nuts preoccupied me more than ever as the connection between 'nuts' and yours truly became clearer with every passing day. So during a quiet moment when they were both out of the house, I sat on the side of the bathroom basin, inspected myself in the mirror, and thought with all the keen powers of my mind. I was looking for something nut-like about myself, or more precisely, something nuts-like, because she always mentioned these nuts in the plural. No, my reflection showed nothing, or at least nothing like nuts. Unless perhaps ... oh no, that was too far-fetched - it was absurd, ridiculous, more than ridiculous, it was ... ( 2 )
    I saw them there in the mirror, dangling between my thighs like sacred fruits in the Elysian Fields, like revelations of power and glory, my nuts, those engines of procreation the good Lord gave me! At the same time, as if in a double exposure, I saw the vision of a surgeon emerge from this impressive still life, but a surgeon with a sinister difference, holding a barber's instrument - a cut-throat razor! In terrifying parody of his profession, he wore a scarlet coat, and the cap and mask which made his face unrecognisable were the colour of blood too. This horrific figure loomed closer and closer without actually stepping forward until its face filled the entire mirror. My breath faltered. Suddenly the hand holding the sharp blade rose and tore the mask from the face. Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene! I saw Francesca, her eyes boring into my innocent soul like icicles fired from a harpoon. That witch, that horrible woman, that brute was after my nuts!
    Shocked by this nightmare vision, I jumped off the side of the basin and ran into the living room, which was bathed in sunlight. I got up on my beloved tapestry sofa, which wasn't due for removal on Francesca's orders until some time in the next few days, and shook myself hard to clear my head. As I made myself comfortable on the cushions, my heart thumping wildly, I started working out the way she was probably trying to justify such a barbaric mutilation to Gustav. Of course I knew how many beans make five: I was well aware that some ninety per cent of my colleagues went around without any nuts to their name. After the op their faces usually wore the ecstatic expression peculiar to the ascetic disciples of a fraudulent Indian guru who has managed to have it all ways by making his home a brothel. They seemed to have lost more than their testicles; somehow or other they had lost their zing, their love of adventure, and even worse, they'd lost heart. Despite that, they sometimes became furiously aggressive for no obvious reason, as if they hadn't noticed their sad loss until they peed and saw their reflection in the puddle of piss. Experience told me, however, that all they did with their lives was sit on walls and window-sills mourning the past like pensioned-off border guards, keeping an eye on their territories but otherwise letting the world go by. If a queen on call ever did come their way by mistake and rolled, wailing sexily, before their dull eyes, they'd get all excited in a childish way, as if suddenly hearing echoes of a cry, long mute, from dark primeval times. I don't want to attract a storm of indignant protest with this description of misery, so let me add, with scrupulous honesty, that there may be exceptions among my comrades