The Hundred Names of Darkness Page 5

  “Horrible,” said Mara indistinctly as she tried to comb a bit of fur back that had been standing up from the damp. She yanked at the knots. “Makes me feel as if someone combed my fur the wrong way. There. All done now.”

  Begum stared at the Sender, at the cat who could send with such force that she could feel all of her surroundings, who could let creatures in this world brush past—through!—her without feeling more than slight discomfort. The calico’s whiskers prickled as she allowed herself to slide into Mara’s skin, and to imagine what it would be like to have the Sender’s powers. She loved the freedom being a Sender gave her, just as Jalebi and Umrrow and the rest loved being able to stretch a little further in their skins than most cats could. But she was beginning to realize how different Mara was from the rest of them.

  She dropped her head and washed her own paws, wondering what Mara felt like when she was sending. The young Sender was back to watching the cricket, and as her alert green eyes followed the ball, followed the quick movements of the Bigfeet, another thought came to the calico cat: what did the Sender feel like when she couldn’t send?

  “Mara,” she asked, “where are you now, back at home?” They were close enough to converse chiefly through their whiskers, only using mews for emphasis.

  “I’m in my basket, and the Bigfeet think I’m asleep—oh, good catch, well done, Bigfoot, almost as good as if you were a golden retriever!” said the Sender.

  “If the Bigfeet disturbed you, would you still be able to send?” asked Begum, though she thought she knew the answer.

  “No,” said Mara absently. “I can’t send when I’m walking around or climbing cupboards or playing. It takes too much effort and I can’t keep my paws straight.”

  The calico’s eyes flashed sudden understanding. “So you can’t send if you go out on your own into the neighbourhood.”

  Mara stopped watching the cricket match. “No!” she said. “I would be…” Her mew died.

  Begum said, “I understand. But why can’t you visit your neighbourhood through sendings? It’s not as good as being out on your own paws, but at least it would connect you to the other cats, wouldn’t it?”

  Mara fluffed her tail out and wrapped it around herself, cradling in its warmth. “I don’t want to,” she said. “They don’t like me. I heard them when I sent the first few times.” She stopped, remembering. Hulo’s low growl came back to her. “…That freak?” And Katar’s voice, the way in which he’d told Beraal once that she was a nuisance, a loud, noisy, alien creature. She had always felt it, the suspicion and the fear from the other cats; seen it in their eyes in her first few tentative sendings, once she was old enough to look closely, and she had overheard their discussions of her when she had crossed six moons.

  Begum listened, quietly, not interrupting as Mara poured out her memories of those hesitant, long-ago forays. She had stopped going out after a while, preferring to visit her friends—a clan of tigers at the zoo.

  “I smelled it in the air at the battle, too,” Mara said. She had huddled into herself, her eyes unseeing as she recalled that day. “They were every bit as scared of me as they were of Ozzy. They thought both of us were freaks. I only did it for Southpaw.”

  “That’s not entirely true, is it?” said Begum, her mew gentle and inquiring.

  The orange cat blinked.

  “When you came back with Ozzy, when he scattered the ferals, didn’t you hope somewhere inside that they would like you better?”

  “No!” said Mara. “Of course not! I wasn’t…I didn’t…well, maybe only a bit…it was so hard, bringing Ozzy all the way there! I thought they’d be pleased but they were only more afraid! I thought some of them would come to the house like Southpaw had and say hello, but they didn’t. Only Beraal came, and she thanked me, but she said she had nothing more to teach me, and then she got pregnant and then she stopped coming. And none of them came! Except Southpaw! They didn’t want to get to know me! And Miao talked to me, and I thought we would be friends, but then she died and I never got to know her because I’d never gone out, and she said I had to go out, but it was too late.”

  She was almost whimpering, shaking like a young kitten. Politely, Begum looked the other way until Mara had completed two rounds of washing and drying, and had fluffed her fur and whiskers back into shape. If the Sender had been a little younger, Begum might have comforted her; but she was almost full-grown, and it would have been rude to have treated her like a kitten in distress, much as the calico wished she could.

  Mara watched the cricketers, her green eyes darkening with memories. The clouds loomed over the two cats. In the branches of a giant neem tree, a family of cheels swooped and ducked and swerved as they played a complex game of hide-and-seek among themselves, their swerves far more like the manoeuvres of a mock battle than the gentle games of tag the squirrels had played among the roots. Chancha and Meechi ceded territory to the cheels, taking their quarrels off to the roof of the old mansion, soaring down from time to time to squabble with the squirrels for a change over the fruit and grains laid out for them. “Give me one piece! Two piece!” pleaded Meechi, as Chancha nibbled at a nut. “Check your claws!” squawked Chancha. “You have your own already!” Meechi’s beak clacked as she considered Chancha’s argument. “But that’s three piece! Four piece!” she said cunningly. “I want what’s in your claw—one piece, two piece!”

  Their calls made the place seem friendly, and Begum wondered whether Mara saw the quick lightning glances one or two of the cheels gave her—the tale of the Sender’s encounter with their fellow bird had travelled fast, she thought. The cats would not be troubled by the cheels this afternoon, if she was any judge of their behaviour; they were uneasy around this stranger cat.

  “Do you remember your dreams?” Begum asked the Sender.

  Mara thought about it, her whiskers quiet except for their quivering tips. “I remember seeing cats,” she said slowly. “A beautiful white warrior with long fur, who danced with a cobra on a rain-drenched roof; a fat striped one who sat with her paws clasped together. But I thought they were not real, that they were just memories from my sendings. Don’t you dream?”

  “I don’t send in my dreams,” said Begum. “None of us of the long whiskers do, though my mother spoke of a cat called Mehrunhissa whose whiskers were rumoured to walk the night. It was only a story, I never knew if it was true.”

  “Are they really sendings, my dreams?” said Mara uneasily, her ears twitching at the thought.

  “We spend a lot of time apologizing to Senders across the length and breadth of the land in your wake, young Mara,” said Begum, her tail flicking at the memory.

  Mara’s eyes were bright. “I’m sorry,” she said, though she was thinking with some curiosity of the cats she had met and wondering what the other Senders were like. Were all of them stern, like Begum? “So none of you send in your dreams, except for me.”

  “I wondered why,” said Begum, “and perhaps you’re sending in your dreams because you’re not going out. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but the only Sender we know of who stopped going out was Tigris, and after she became an inside cat, even her sendings became strange. She would send at unusual times, and sometimes she didn’t seem to know what she was sending. We’re Senders, but we’re also cats, like everyone else in the clan. We have to be both. Perhaps we have to use our paws as much as our whiskers.”

  Mara’s eyes were frightened. “I’ve been out only a couple of times, just a little way down the staircase,” said the Sender, washing her flanks in consternation. “But when I reached the bottom of the stairs, each time, I couldn’t go further. The outside is terrifying. And now I don’t know if I ever will be able to go out again.”

  “It isn’t too late,” said Begum, brushing her flank against Mara’s to offer reassurance. “It is frightening, yes, the first few times we go out on our own, but we will teach you how to summon us, instead of only being able to respond to our summonings. Then you can walk outside, and
we will walk with you; it might be less scary that way.”

  “Fish!” He had never heard Beraal mew like that, but he had never seen the beautiful black-and-white hunter like this, either. The sleekness of the previous year had disappeared. As she purred her thanks and head-butted Southpaw, the tomcat felt a pang of sadness go through him, sharper even than the pain in his back paw. The long, silky fur that had shone so brightly the winter of their war with Datura and his ferals, just four seasons ago, was matted and dull. Beraal seemed half her size these days, more listless than any nursing mother should be. Her ribs were starkly outlined, and as she curled around him, still purring at the young tom, he felt the thinness of her flanks, saw how the skin hung slack and loose now that the flesh beneath it had melted away.

  The jute sacks that he and Katar had dragged out for Beraal and her kittens, making a rudimentary shelter under the rusted Ambassador car behind the Nizamuddin garbage heap, were damp from the night’s bitter chill. But Southpaw settled down on the sacks gratefully, happy that there was a layer of comfort between him and the freezing earth. He watched, his brown eyes soft, as Beraal tore into the fish. The bigger kitten, Ruff, made tiny gnashing sounds as he ate, but the other, Tumble, only licked at the scales and then settled back, waiting for Beraal to mash the fish into softer pieces for her. They were both smaller than they should have been, Southpaw thought.

  Beraal glanced up from her dinner, her whiskers radiating contentment. “I haven’t tasted fish in—since summer, Southpaw! Thank you for bringing this to us,” she said. There were scraps of fish on her whiskers, and she cleaned them off with her tiny red tongue before taking another bite. Beraal had always been a fastidious eater, and her delicate habits had survived even the changes of the previous year. “Won’t you have some with us, Southpaw?” she asked, remembering her manners. “There’s plenty—those two haven’t had much of an appetite since the fight with the rats. I think they bled too much, and haven’t yet recovered, though they’re drinking my milk.”

  “I’ve fed well,” said Southpaw, “this is all yours.” He could have eaten the tail, the belly and sucked the last shred of pink flesh off the last fishbone. If summer and the monsoons had been difficult for the cats of Nizamuddin, winter had been harsh, a lesson in cold, hunger and fear. But the tom took his cue from Katar and Hulo—if they could let their skin sag inwards and suck in their stomachs, saving the few morsels from their kill for the nursing mothers and the young kittens, so could he.

  Except for the ferocious gnawing sounds made by the older kitten, Ruff, there was a rare sense of peace and contentment. The familiar, pleasantly vegetal stench from the garbage heap made up for the harsh stink of burning plastic and rubber from one of the Bigfeet bonfires further down the road. Southpaw ignored the pain in his leg, preferring to focus on the distant sounds of traffic. He found them soothing, the wheeze of the buses, the roar of the trucks, the clipped clatter of the rickshaws. Beraal sat back, washing her whiskers, and then she washed Ruff and Tumble, and combed her fur until it had lost some of its knots and tangles. The kittens squeaked as they made for her stomach, each finding its own particular nipple.

  —

  IT WAS ALMOST MORNING by the time Katar and Hulo joined them. Southpaw saw the wince in the grey tom’s eyes as he jumped down beside Beraal; the cold stiffened his injured flank and hip. Katar had taken his licks in the battle with the ferals, but more than the scars from last winter, it was the new injuries, the ones the Bigfeet were responsible for, that had weakened him. Perhaps it was only that the fog and the damp of the night had flattened their fur, but Southpaw thought uneasily that neither of the big toms had ever looked so drawn. Hulo’s thick black fur had parted in some places to reveal the shiny skin of old and new scars, and he seemed shrunk, as did Katar.

  They placed the night’s booty before Beraal. It wasn’t much at all—a few scraps from the butcher’s, carefully collected by Katar, a baby rat, so small that it would make a scant mouthful for the nursing queen. But Beraal touched her nose to each of theirs, her eyes shining in a way they hadn’t seen in many moons. Her green eyes gleamed with pleasure as she said, “I have something for you for a change! See what Southpaw brought us; there was so much that we saved some for you.”

  Hulo’s eyes widened when he saw the fish. Southpaw was astonished when the grizzled fighter let out a mew, as happy as any kitten might be. “Really, Beraal?” he said, “there is enough?”

  “More than!” said the young mother, sitting hastily on Ruff, who had popped up to stake his sleepy claim on the last of the fish. He squirmed under her fur, but the warmth sent him back to sleep, and soon he was cuddling with his sibling. Hulo needed no further invitation. “Fish!” he said. “A feast—I had forgotten its taste, it sings in the mouth. Thank you, Southpaw. Come on, Katar, don’t you want some?”

  But Katar’s whiskers were out, interrogating the brown tom. “Didn’t I tell you not to raid the Bigfeet houses, Southpaw?” he said. His mew was quiet, but all of them heard the anger behind it, and saw the way his tail was flicking from side to side.

  Southpaw said wearily, “You did.”

  “And yet?” said Katar, ignoring Hulo’s hissed invitation to come and eat it anyway, who cared where the brat had sourced it from. His sleek head was lowered, his back arching a little as he padded towards the younger tom.

  Anger lit slowly in Southpaw’s eyes, but it was unmistakeable. Instead of giving way before Katar, he got to his feet, careful not to let his injured paw touch the ground, and lowered his own head in challenge.

  “How many moons has it been since we’ve been slinking around like shadows, Katar? Scared to even step onto the roofs we used to roam so freely before? And has it helped? Have the Bigfeet stopped trying to hurt us, because we don’t go into their houses any more?” The thoughts he’d kept behind his whiskers for so long came tumbling out, pell-mell.

  From the park behind the market, the first chirpings of the babblers rose up in the air, telling them that dawn was here, but none of the cats paid much attention to the birds.

  “And so you decided on your own, without letting me or Hulo know, to take this risk?” Katar’s whiskers were crackling with fury. “We were at the dargah, hiding behind the butchers’ lane, when Mara told us. We’d have come back earlier, except that Qawwali and Dastan needed our help. The Bigfeet’s demolitions…” The tom’s mews trailed away for a moment, and then he recalled his anger. “You had no business doing this, Southpaw. You’ve put us all in more danger, and for what?”

  But Southpaw’s tail was lashing from side to side, too. “Beraal’s been starving for months,” said the young tom. “None of us have been able to hunt properly ever since the battle; not even you and Hulo. It’s not as though the Bigfeet will change. If they’re going to kick us around, and try to poison us, and chase us or hurt us, then the least we can do is get some fish and meat out of them!”

  Katar had more to say, but Hulo raised his whiskers, cutting both of them off. “Enough,” he said. “The last thing we need is squabbling among ourselves; and you’d better get back on the whisker link, you fools, do you want your mews to bring the Bigfeet here?”

  Southpaw saw the terror in Beraal’s eyes. Hulo was right. He and Katar never broke their stare, nor did their tails stop lashing, but the sudden silence allowed them to hear the clatter of the Bigfeet from the taxi stand nearby. They were setting up for the day, and the young tom felt a cold prickle of fear touch his spine; what if they decided to investigate? They were safe from most marauders under the abandoned, rusting car, but if they did have to shift, with Beraal’s youngsters in tow, the place was a trap. High walls on three sides, no real hiding places, open to the Bigfeet’s view. They should have been more careful.

  “It’s not just me and our kittens who’ve been starving,” said Beraal, using the link that allowed the cats to communicate by whisker over short distances. “It’s all of us, Katar. Perhaps Southpaw shouldn’t have done it, but you have to admit h
e had good reason. I hate not being able to hunt, much as I love my furballs.”

  “None of us have been able to hunt since the battle,” said Hulo, his whiskers holding the memories. “Southpaw’s right when he says we can’t live like this—slinking round like shadows. Though if we paid your price for hunting, you reckless idiot, we wouldn’t live for very long, would we?”

  “What price?” said Katar. Mara had only been able to tell them that Southpaw had raided a Bigfeet house, before her own Bigfeet interrupted the Sender. They had no details of the raid.

  “The brat’s broken his paw,” said Hulo. His gruffness hid the deep concern he felt. “Bad break, if I’m any judge. You would drag it over the roofs, wouldn’t you? Young idiot.”

  The babblers’ voices rose again, in alarm, and the cats stopped to listen. It sounded as though the neighbourhood girls were up early. Sa was screeching her head off in fury, and Re, Ga, Ma and Ni were backing her up in full chorus.

  “Pa and Dha are so slow,” said Beraal. “They never get out of the way in time…” She paused, her ears, keener than any of the other cats, cocked as she listened. “But they weren’t hurt. They ducked the stones, not that Sa will stop her screeching.” She used her paws to scoop the edge of a sack over her sleeping kittens and went over to Southpaw to sniff at the injury.

  “They aren’t slow,” said Katar. His tail was down, finally, and his whiskers had a small droop in them. “Unlike the other babblers, they haven’t got used to hiding from the Bigfeet, that’s all. My, Sa’s in a fine rage today—she’s rhyming her insults!”

  “May your skin turn white! May you look a fright!” they heard Sa sing. “When we’ve covered your ugly mug, you horrid scurvy thug, in scads of fresh bird poo, let’s see what you’ll do!”

  “Droppings on their head,” sang Ra in loyal counterpoint. “They’ll wish they were dead, and he’ll take to his bed, when he has droppings on his big fat head…”