Reserved for the Cat Read Online Free PDF Page A

called to identify a sad little corpse at the morgue.
    The place was clean, but threadbare and rather dreary. Despite having so many artists in and out, the only pictures on the wall were those cut out from discarded magazines and framed with little bits of wood from old crates. Even those tended to go for kindling in the winter. The bed didn’t even have proper blankets, just rag-blankets made of skirts too stained, worn, or torn to ever be worn again by anyone. There was nothing in this room that had not been used and discarded by someone else.
    Even me . . .
    The Metro, girl!
    The candle guttered out. She took that as a sign. She stole down the dark stairs and into the night, leaving nothing of herself behind.
    The Metro was crowded, but not so overcrowded that she had to stand. She had to run to catch the boat-train however, and by that time the bread and cabbage had worn very thin. She was, in fact, desperate for some food. The bag was heavy, she was tired, and her mind was in a dazed state where all she could think about was her growling stomach and the ticket in her hands.
    She took a seat, the bag at her feet, and as the train pulled out of the station, and the conductor began his journey through the car, collecting tickets, she had a moment of panic. What if he knew the ticket was stolen? What if it wasn’t a real ticket at all? What if—
    But he looked at it, collected it, and moved on without a second glance. She sighed, and when a vendor came along the aisle selling sweets and cones of nuts, she fumbled in the stolen purse for coins and bought some. Then she tucked back into the shadows of her seat and ate, slowly, savoring each bite. She had not had sweets or nuts since one of the patrons had brought some for all the girls. And here she had a cone of nuts and a whole bar of chocolate to herself.
    The cat in the bag at her feet was quiet, but warm; her shoes were so thin she could feel his warmth and the vibration of his purr. She had never been on a train in her life; the carriage seemed very grand, with its scarlet upholstery and its brass fittings. There were lovely lamps at intervals all along the car, fitted in between the windows. The windows were tightly closed, but there was a smell of soot in the air; some smoke from the engine escaped into the car.
    She peered through the windows, hoping to see something. She had never been outside of Paris either. But it was too dark to see; the best she got were glimpses of an occasional, dim light in the distance from some farm or other, the vague shapes of the towns the train passed through, and the lit platforms they occasionally stopped at.
    Despite the clattering, soot-scented, noisy reality of this journey, Ninette could not believe in it. It had an air of unreality for her, as surreal as any of the wildest canvases of the artists of Montmartre. She, Ninette Dupond, could not be doing this, sitting in a boat-train on the way to Calais. This must be a dream, a curiously vivid dream. . . .
    When the train pulled into the station, she picked up the bag and the cat and drifted out onto the platform still wrapped in that unreality.
    The cat slipped out of the bag and stood beside her on the platform, looking about alertly. Go and sit over there, he directed, with a nod of his head. Don’t move. I’ll be back.
    She looked down at him askance, but got no further word from him. The fact of his talking, however, only reinforced her feeling that this was all a dream, that in a moment she would waken in her bed back in Paris, and try to think of some prospect she had not yet considered as the means of paying the rent.
    But, because it seemed the right thing to do in a dream, she went and sat as directed, and watched people stream by on their way to and from the ferries. And thought about food. The chocolate and nuts were long gone. Dared she see if there was a café somewhere near here?
    Just as she was thinking about looking for one, she felt a nudge at her ankle.
    It