silent again and looked at all our faces. ‘No. That would be a mistake,’ she continued. ‘I want you to understand that dividing your food with the cat would be wrong. The reason being that you are precious beings, chosen by God, and the cat is not. That’s why you should eat all the food yourself.’ The nun had this terribly serious look on her face.
“At first I thought it was some kind of joke. I was waiting for the punchline. But there wasn’t one. She turned her talk to the subject of human dignity and worth, and it all went over my head. I mean, really, what was the point of telling that kind of story to kids who’d just entered the school? I couldn’t figure it out—and I
Sumire thought it over. “Do you mean whether it would be okay in the end, to eat the cat?”
“Well, I don’t know. She didn’t take it that far.”
“Are you a Catholic?”
Miu shook her head. “That school just happened to be near my house, so I went. I liked their uniforms, too. I was the only non-Japanese citizen in the school.”
“Did you have any bad experiences?”
“Because I was Korean?”
“Yes.”
Again Miu shook her head. “The school was quite liberal. The rules were pretty strict, and some of the sisters were eccentrics, but the atmosphere was generally progressive, and no, I never experienced any prejudice. I made some good friends, and overall I’d say I enjoyed school. I’ve had a few unpleasant experiences, but that was after I went out into the real world. But that’s nothing unusual—it happens to most people.”
“I heard they eat cats in Korea. Is it true?”
114
“I’ve heard the same thing. But nobody I know does.”
*
It had been the hottest time of day, and the early afternoon town square was nearly deserted. Almost everyone in town was shut up in a cool house, taking a nap. Only curious foreigners ventured out at that time of day.
There was a statue of a hero in the square. He’d led a rebellion in mainland Greece and fought the Turks who controlled the island, but was captured and put to death by skewering. The Turks set up a sharpened stake in the square and lowered the pitiful hero onto it, naked. Ever so slowly, the stake went through his anus, and finally all the way to his mouth, taking him hours to die. The statue was supposedly erected on the spot where this happened. When it was erected, the valiant bronze statue must have been quite a sight, but over the intervening years, what with the sea wind, dust, and seagull droppings, you could barely make out the man’s features. Island folk hardly gave the shabby statue a passing glance, and the statue itself looked like it had turned its back on the world.
*
“Speaking of cats,” Sumire had blurted out, “I have a very strange memory of one. When I was in second grade we had a pretty little six-month-old tortoiseshell cat. I was on the veranda one evening, reading a book, when the cat started to run like crazy around the base of this large pine tree in the garden. Cats do that. There’s nothing there, but suddenly they hiss, arch their backs, jump, hair standing on end and tail up, in attack mode.
“The cat was so worked up it didn’t notice me watching it from the veranda. It was such a strange sight I laid down my
115
book and watched the cat. It didn’t seem to tire of its solitary game. Actually, as time passed it got more determined. Like it was possessed.”
Sumire took a drink of water and lightly scratched her ear.
“The more I watched, the more frightened I became. The cat saw something that I couldn’t see, and whatever it was drove it into a frenzy. Finally the cat started racing around and around the tree trunk at a tremendous speed, like the tiger that changes into butter in that children’s story. Finally, after running forever, it leaped up the tree trunk. I could see its tiny face peeping out between the branches way up high. From the veranda I called out its name in a loud voice, but it didn’t hear me.
“Finally the sun set and the cold late-autumn wind began to blow. I sat on the veranda, waiting for the cat to come down. It was a friendly cat, and I thought that if I sat there for a while, it would come down. But it didn’t. I couldn’t even hear it miaowing. It got darker and darker. I got scared and told my family. ‘Don’t worry,’ they said, ‘just leave it alone and it’ll come down before long.’ But the cat never came back.”
“What do you mean—never came back?” asked Miu.
