Gordon Brown

The Cats of Rue du Lille

 

 

           I had not long been in Croix before the great catastrophe took place. Being not far from the coast, the sleepy little town had become quite a favorite for all the law students, so much so that my own dear companion Michel Briard had rented an apartment there and with a recommendation from his professor, had secured clerical position at the offices of Garnier and Deschamps.

            It was this appointment which was the subject of conversation that afternoon when the first tremors occurred.

            We were seated at Michel's favorite cafe at Rue du Lille, equidistant from his apartment and the Hotel Du T———, where M. Deschamps had residency. Michel was complaining, as he did every day over his afternoon coffee, that the firm refused to provide him with a position commensurate to his skill.

            "I suspect it was the old man doing..." Michel sighed, dropping another cube of sugar into his coffee. The "Old Man" was his name for Dr. Defarge, who taught legal ethics at the University of S- P——-.

            "He has never approved of me, or any of us, truthfully, but knows he cannot prevent us from practicing. Ah, so he sends us here and conspires with that demented bastard Deschamps to keep us from any major suits."

            "It's true..." I moaned, seated across from Michel. "I swear that if the old man were given the opportunity he would have us filing papers in the Sudan!" I had likewise been "helped" to obtain a position as a clerk in the offices of M. Morel, who specialized in maritime cases.

            "Consider yourself fortunate-" Michel began, pausing to sip his coffee. He did not finish his sentence, instead making a face and unceremoniously spitting the coffee back into the cup. Michel snapped his fingers and the waiter appeared at our table.

            "Boy!" Michel snarled, "Why is this coffee cold?"

            "I am unsure, sir..." The waiter began.

            "Do you not know that I am a lawyer with the firm of Garnier and Deschamps? I have a good mind to bring a suit against your establishment for the danger you have put me in!"

            "What danger, sir?" the waiter said, appearing confused.

            "Did I not just tell you that the coffee was cold? Practically freezing! I have sensitive teeth and God knows what nerve damage this may have caused me! Bring me a fresh cup at once, and if I see it on the bill, I will see to it that you never work at another restaurant in this miserable village again!"

            The waiter bowed stiffly and withdrew the cup. After he had gone, I whistled slowly and smiled.

            "Truly Michel" I said, "You will make a fantastic lawyer."

            But Michel was not listening to me. He had turned his attention instead to a tattered tabby cat, pacing  up and down in front of the cafe.

            "For some two hours now that cat has been doing this..." Michel said, "What possible purpose can it have?"

            I tried to hail the cat but it did not even glance at me.

            "Hey!" I shouted, "Psst psst psst! Madame Chatte!", but it continued to pace up and down in front of the cafe.

            "You fool!" Michel exclaimed to me, "Do you not recall that cats originate from Africa? You must address it in Arabic! Sayyida feline!", he shouted at the cat, "salam! Will you come here a moment?"

            The cat stopped its pacing and stalked over to Michel's feet, where it proceeded to lie down in a patch of sunlight.

            "Sayidda feline," Michel said, "Why were you marching like that?"

            The cat looked at Michel with large green eyes and wriggled its nose.

            "Have you not heard?" she said, "We cats are on strike."

            "On strike!" Michel sputtered, "for what possible reason?"

            "We are tired of working ourselves to our deaths and begging for scraps. We are calling for a reasonable working day and an assurance of at least two cans of sardines and one songbird per month."

            "You scoundrel!" Michel shouted, "You would bankrupt the town and fill your pockets with the earnings of hard-working citizens such as ourselves!"

            At this Michel kicked the cat, who limped sulkily back to its post out on the street.

            Michel turned to me.

            "You see this? This is what makes our nation laughed at. First the cats go on the strike, and next the dock hands, and next the waiters and cooks, and soon the entire country is brought to a halt."

            "This is true indeed" I murmured. "Were the authorities to be more firm-handed with this layabouts we might eliminate these problems altogether."

            On our return to Michel's apartment on Rue du Lille, we passed by the butcher's shop, which was quite surrounded by a number of cats.

            "Ahoy, Jean you scoundrel!" Michel called out at the butcher, who was trying in vain to shoo the cats from his door. "What's all this then?"

            "Michel, you thieving bastard" the butcher lamented back, "These cats, they claim they have unionized and are taking collective action against me!"

            I reminded Michel of the cat at the cafe some hours ago, and Michel shouted "Is it sardines and birds they want?"

            "Worse!" The butcher shouted, "They are now demanding that they be given weekends to themselves!"

            "Shameful!" Michel and I cried together.

            "Where is the government protection of business?" Michel said. "I have half a mind to petition the mayor and city council for action to be taken against these immigrants and hooligans."

            It was not one block further that we came across a similar such scene, in which a great number of Persian and Siamese cats had placed themselves upon the road, disrupting traffic entirely. The single gendarme found himself quite overwhelmed, moving one cat only for another to take its place.

            "What do they want now?" Michel asked, and the gendarme, nearly moved to tears of frustration, threw up his hands.

            "They are claiming that they are foreign nationals whose ancestors were brought to this country against their will. They are demanding that the be given full-voting rights as citizens and that the state issue a proclamation recognizing their expatriation as a war crime!"

            "God help us!" I shouted and Michel nodded his head vigorously in agreement. "Do they not see how much better they are here than the cats in their homelands?"

            "Michel, my friend," I exclaimed, "We must demand that the mayor declare a state of emergency! If the state does not immediately intervene on behalf of the economy, these sorrowful cats are sure to bring us all to ruin!"

            "I could not agree more!" Michel replied.

            Although cats had surrounded the mayor's offices on Av de Saxe, the mayor himself was fortunate enough to have been out when the encampment began. Through a lengthy series of telephone calls, it was agreed that the mayor, the archbishop, and other leaders of business and industry would begin to meet at M. Deschamp's residency at the Hotel Du T———. At the urging of all, it was agreed that a fine should be imposed on anyone striking without a permit from the office of the mayor, and that if the fine could not be paid, the offending party would be sentenced to no fewer than two days in the town jail.

            "That will teach those damn cats!" Michel declared.

            On the contrary, more cats than ever began to flood the streets, shutting down entire quarters of the village. Again and again they were carted away to the jail, however, they only responded by raising their demands.

            "We are fed up with attempts to limit our freedoms and cultural expression. We demand that our right to yowl late in the evening be both recognized and protected."

            In vain, the mayor, archbishop, and the rest of us sought to identify the ringleaders, but were unable to do so. We sent gendarmes disguised as cats to infiltrate the protests, but their manner of speaking easily gave them away and their false tails easily came loose from their trousers. Now the cats demanded that "election days be made paid public holidays" so that they would not "have poverty or employment used to keep them from acting out their democratic rights".

            Against the counsel of Michel and the archbishop, the mayor accepted M. Deschamp's advice to offer the protesting cats a compromise. It was proposed to the cats that a dog be made the chief of a subcommittee on feline affairs, but they would have none of it.

            "They are incorrigible bullies and thugs," it was agreed, and so the mayor found himself without recourse but to declare martial law. All cats in Croix would be imprisoned in the town jail, and this action was carried out swiftly and without mercy. So full did the jail become that it could scarcely hold all of them, and the handful of police tasked to stand guard complained incessantly of exhaustion and allergies. Indeed, on more than one occasion, guards were caught asleep on the job, curled up under an avalanche of kittens.

            Perhaps this should have been our final warning, but alas- we did not see it until it was too late.

            The news came on a Friday morning, when we were all celebrating at the cafe, that Officer Gabriaux had not been relieved for duty after yet another double-shift.

            "What will he do?" We laughed, "Go on strike?"

            And perhaps he did. Or perhaps he succumbed to exhaustion and collapsed on duty, or perhaps he betrayed us all, tempted by some unknown promise from his captives.

            It was not four hours later that it was discovered the cats of the town jail had taken it over, and their former prison had now become their citadel.

            Sending up a tremendous mewing, they streamed out and overpowered the police. They hijacked incoming milk trucks, commandeered parked cars, expropriated properties. They even laid siege to the cathedral, eventually capturing it and converting it into a museum and public art gallery.

            It was only by a miracle, as the archbishop would say, that we escaped, having used a secret passage beneath the hotel that M. Deschamps used to sneak prostitutes into his quarters. It was our intent to head for Royan, however, on the road we met refugees from that unfortunate city as well. There too, the cats had revolted, ousting the government and establishing a provisional revolutionary council to handle the redistribution of property and the assignments of rat-hunting.

            Our party has headed for the past two days eastwards, joining an ever-growing stream of fugitives from all across the country. It will not be long now until we reach the border, and tonight I believe even Michel will join the archbishop and I in our steadfast prayers that the insurgency will not have crossed national boundaries.

            If it has, then truly, all is lost.

 

 

 

Gordon Brown is a former ex-pat recently moved back to the US from the Middle East. He spends his time working as a vocational counselor and downing more energy drinks than is healthy and/or sane. Any leftover time is spent taking care of his dogs, of which he has none. He writes from Las Vegas, Nevada.