by Janis Patterson
I was born a Leo, so it naturally follows that I love cats
and have had at least one for most of my adult life. My mother, of course,
disliked any kind of indoor animal, which accounted for a lot of our conflicts.
Of all the cats I have had, Sakhmet was the most memorable.
Some backstory – sometimes back in the 1940s someone had dumped a pair of
Siamese cats out in the country behind my grandparents’ barn. They had stayed
and interbred until over the generations a recessive gene had become dominant,
resulting in a tribe of pure-black Siamese.
I had just moved into my own place and was determined to
have a cat, so – with a little cunning, a lot of luck and a great deal of
smelly cat food – I captured a tiny little black kitten. I didn’t know what I
was getting. Born feral, she never really domesticated. We lived in an uneasy
truce for the next 20 years. I named her Sakhmet after the unpredictable
lion-headed Egyptian goddess, and the name fit her to a T. Sakhmet could easily
have been the last living saber-tooth!
Her vet, who both respected and feared her, said that she
had all the Siamese traits – small feet, a heart-shaped face, a voice that
sounded like a baby being skinned – but she was completely black (and never got
a gray hair!) with enormous eyes that went from green (happy) to gold (better
leave until she calms down).
Sakhmet hated people. I was tolerated because I was the
bringer of food, but whenever visitors came to my apartment she vanished.
People I had known for years swore up and down I didn’t have a cat, that I
merely went outside, gathered tufts of hair from the bushes and rubbed them on
the carpet so that people would think I had a cat!
Sakhmet was also the most intelligent creature (including
some of the two-legged ones I dated) I’ve ever seen. She could turn lights on
and off, loved to answer the telephone and could open any door in the place. I
had to keep the front and back outside doors key-deadbolted just to be sure.
This was during the heyday of the dinner theatre, when you
could have a buffet dinner and then see a play with some of the older
luminaries of Hollywood.
I was an actress then and was delighted to be cast in UNDER PAPA’S PICTURE, a
piece of froth starring the late great Eve Arden. There are several blogs worth
of stories from that play’s six-week run, but I’m going to tell only one.
It’s a well known fact that Miss Arden was a great animal
lover, and as we had to spend a fair amount of time in the green room waiting
for our cues, we would regale each other with tales of our furbabies. She
became entranced with some of Sakhmet’s adventures, but I never dreamed where
it would lead.
The play ran over the Christmas holidays, so I decided I
would have a great big party for the cast and crew. The party was a success,
until someone asked where Miss Arden was. Well, I had seen her and her husband
Brooks West arrive, and he was in the living room talking to someone, but there
was no sign of Miss Arden.
I went looking. It was not that big a place, so I soon found
her, and my heart almost stopped. She was in my bedroom, lying flat on the
floor and scrunched about three-quarters of the way under my bed, cooing to
Sakhmet, who was doubtless as far into the corner as she could get.
I thought I might die. Not only was Eve Arden (Our Miss
Brooks!) under my bed, she was under there not only with a half-wild cat who
hated everyone but a generous herd of
killer dustbunnies as well!
It all worked out all right. She just got one clawing from
Sakhmet, and it only took a minute or two to detach most of the dustbunnies. For
the rest of the play she talked again and again about meeting the legendary
Sakhmet. She never mentioned the dustbunnies. Thank goodness.
Once when I had to take a trip I frankly blackmailed a
police officer friend of mine into taking care of her at his house. He was a
patrolman, over 6 ft tall and very fit, but he was no match for Sakhmet. I came
home to find her back in my apartment, with a shredded pillowcase and a tray of
food and water just barely beyond the swing of the front door. She had lasted
exactly two days at his place before terrorizing his family so much that he
gave in and brought her back. For the remaining three weeks of my trip he drove
almost ten miles each way every day to feed and water her.
One Thanksgiving I came home to stay the holiday with my
widowed mother. I brought Sakhmet because the weather was deteriorating and I
wasn’t sure I would be able to get home again to feed her. The three of us
ended up being snowed in for a number of days. Before it was over the war
between Mother and Sakhmet made me think seriously of simply abandoning the two
of them and hiking back to my apartment through the snow. It was only four
miles…
Sakhmet always liked to lie on shiny, slick fabric. In the
den Mother had two antique chairs that were covered in a glorious satin.
Sakhmet loved them. Mother was afraid she would have an ‘accident’ on them.
Mother covered the chairs with towels, but the next morning the towels had been
scraped off onto the floor and Sakhmet was spread in luxurious abandon over the
satin. The next night Mother tried pillows. The next morning they were on the
floor. The next night Mother gave up and moved both chairs into the living room
and shut the door.
The den was carpeted in a beige shag (this was a number of
years ago) and there were definite impressions of each chair’s four legs. In
the morning – as neatly as if it had been plotted with a ruler – in the middle
of each chair’s impressions was a small, brown gift. Mother said she had been
right, that Sakhmet had had an accident. I said no, that was no accident, it
was a deliberate! The next day the snow melted – thank you, God! – and Sakhmet
and I went home.
Though she was sometimes difficult and often downright
weird, Sakhmet was also a loving companion. She would lie on my desk while I
wrote and slept every night in the small of my back. She was a big part of my
life.
Sakhmet lived for 21 years. Toward the end she was very
frail and ill, and I was so selfish I could not bring myself to do the right
thing and have her put to sleep. She took the decision out of my hands. I had
to be out of town, so Mother – unwilling to have Sakhmet in her home again,
though this was many years later – drove the 4 miles to my apartment every day
to feed her. Sakhmet waited until I was out of town to die. Mother buried her
in the most beautiful part of her back garden and put flowers in her grave.
I’ll never forget the feeling of coming home to that empty,
empty apartment. I’ve had many other cats since Sakhmet’s passing, but none
have equaled her in intelligence or personality. Or temperament. Unfortunately,
all my pictures of her perished in the disaster of a flood caused by a burst
pipe, so all I have of her is memories. Sleep well, my dear old friend. I still
miss you.
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