The Fable of the Lion and the Cat

THE FABLE OF THE LION AND THE CAT

Once upon a time there was an American cat who went on an organized
group tour to Africa. One of the scheduled activities on the tour was a
photo safari. They saw giraffes and hippos and zebras, but the cat's
attention was caught by a gorgeous big lion. She thought he was the
wisest and strongest cat she'd ever seen (after herself, of course),
and she took lots of pictures of him. The lion also noticed the cat,
and thought she was the daintiest and cleverest cat he'd ever seen
(besides himself, of course), and he did everything he could to impress
her, roaring and shaking his mane and relaxing most gloriously in the
sun. The cat was so enamoured by the lion and his display that she
whispered to him the name of her hotel and her room number, and he came
to her that night. They snuggled in feline ways. The cat thought the
lion smelled like the sun in the dust of sweaty chases in ancient
lands, and she couldn't get enough of him. The lion thought the cat
smelled of fresh milk and fish (he'd never heard of fish) and shampoo,
and he almost wanted to eat her. They stayed up all night reflecting
the moon into each other's eyes.

By morning they had decided that this was the one true love of their
lives, and that however impossible or unreasonable it seemed, they
would spend their whole lives together. After all, they purred to each
other, we're two cats, and cats do what they like and don't care what
the other animals think. And the cat went on the photo safari every day
and the lion went to her hotel room every night for the rest of the
week.

Then it was the end of the organized group trip and the cat had to go
back to America. The lion understood that she had some affairs to
attend to and some vaccinations to get before she could come back and
roam the wide grassland with him forever.

The last night they spent together was filled with promises and
demonstrations of eternal love. The cat wept that the lion would forget
all about her as soon as she left Africa; the lion laughed and said of
course not. The cat said he'd probably start consorting with the
lionesses as soon as she was on the plane; the lion snorted and said
he'd had enough of lionesses. But the cat was still afraid and claimed
to know only too well the promises of lions (even though this was the
first lion she'd ever met). The lion was at a loss to convince the cat
of his total devotion.

Finally around three in the morning the lion took the cat walking
through the jungles and grasslands under a half-moon so bright they
felt its light warming their backs and tails. After a while they came
to a great cage that had been abandoned there by Theodore Roosevelt.
The lion was going to explain to the cat the workings of the lock and
the key but the cat already understood such things. So the lion made
his offer.

I will go into the cage, he said, and you lock the door and take the
key. This way you will believe I belong to you, and I will know you
will return to release me.

The cat was most moved and astonished at this gesture of faith, and she
closed the door of the cage with the great lion inside and locked
herself in with him. They spent the night kitty-cuddling and purring
and making plans, and at dawn the cat walked between the bars with the
key on her collar, promising to return in a week, maybe two.

A week passed, then another, and the lion, although he was very hungry,
greeted each day with more hope than the previous, thinking: today,
surely she will come.

But in the middle of the third week he got a package from his lover. He
opened it with haste and trepidation to find, under a letter of very
reasonable excuses and renewed vows, about a hundred dead mice and a
dozen Florida oranges. He emptied the box out completely to make sure
the key wasn't in it, and he was delighted not to find it, for he took
this as a sign that the cat was still on her way. He enjoyed the food
she sent him (he'd never eaten anything like it) and he generally felt
very well cared for.

The lion spent the whole winter in the cage waiting for the cat to
return, and it wasn't nearly as bad as it sounds. The cat wrote to him
often, describing the latest complications of cat life and declaring
more and more fervently that her return to Africa was all she could
think about and was her first priority (after taking care of one or two
important situations back home). She sent the lion more than enough
food to keep him from starving to death, and always things he'd never
eaten in Africa.

Meanwhile, the lion lay around behind bars without particularly
regretting his freedom. He had always been a lazy lion (except during
the tourist season); the only difference was that he did his sleeping
and dreaming in one place instead of two or three. Sometimes his
friends would come and chat with him through the bars. They thought he
was crazy for getting himself stuck in there and offered to help him
break out, but he said no, his cat would come for him. They had never
seen a cat, but it sounded like a small and fragile sort of animal and
the lion's friends raised their eyebrows at him. But they saw he was
happy and they went back to their hunting.

Sometimes the lion's heart grew heavy at sunset or at moonset, special
moments he would have liked to share, but he considered himself lucky
to witness them at all, knowing that animals not in love are too often
oblivious to such beauty. Overall, he said to himself, I'm far richer
with my cat than I was with my liberty. And he waited comfortably for
the next package.

In the course of the year, the conditions in the cat's life that
prevented her return, instead of clearing up, became more complicated.
In addition, the cat's friends and family (who were all mortally
terrified of lions, even though they had never seen one) made
disparaging comments about the relationship. They remarked that lions
had messy hair and fleas and drank blood and kept harems. The cat tried
to remember if her lion had ever displayed any of these
characteristics, but her main souvenir of her lover was the big key
around her neck, and this made her think of the cage more than of the
lion himself. Sometimes she told herself that she was a horrible cat
for having locked him in; other times she couldn't believe he'd really
let her do that to him, and decided he was a horrible lion who had a
copy of the key and was at this moment frolicking with the
lionesses.

So letters from the cat got shorter and rarer. She couldn't write
because she was confused and she couldn't send food because she was
busy. The lion was very understanding for a month or two, but
eventually he had to face the evidence. Days came when he couldn't even
stand up, he felt so hungry and abandoned and ashamed.

Last I heard, the cat's parents were encouraging her to date dogs, and
she probably will sooner or later because the neighborhood's full of
them and they're always chasing her. She still wears the big key around
her neck. It becomes her and impresses everyone, and when people ask
she dramatically tells a story of a lion imprisoned for her, which
neither she nor her listeners take seriously. But sometimes, alone
under the moon when the dogs have run her ragged and the complications
of being a cat don't really seem that important after all, she clings
to the key with both paws and roars like no normal house cat ever did.
Then she cries herself to sleep, hoping impossibly that the lion isn't
dead of starvation and vowing to go rescue him at sunrise. But she
always sleeps through sunrise.

As for the lion, he got thinner and weaker and thinner until one day,
quite by accident, he noticed that in such a state of emmaciation he
could walk right through the bars of the cage. He headed for the open
plains, where he promptly slaughtered a gazelle.

JAB 12 june 1999