Cat Country Page 5

  According to him, five hundred years ago the Cat People planted and harvested crops and had never heard of reverie leaves. Then one day a foreigner brought some of the leaves to Cat Country. At first only the upper classes could afford to eat them, but then they began to import the trees and everybody became addicted. Within fifty years, non-eaters were in the minority. Eating the reverie leaves was an exceedingly carefree and convenient way to live. There was only one thing wrong with it: although the leaves seemed to do wonders for stimulating one’s spirits, they had exactly the opposite effect on the hands and feet. Farmers no longer planted their crops and labourers no longer tended to their tasks. Everyone became idle. At this point the government issued an order prohibiting the eating of reverie leaves. At noon of the first day that the order was issued, the queen was in such pain from withdrawal symptoms that she thrice slapped the king across his royal mouth – Scorpion moved aside another slab of the history – and the king was in such pain that his only reaction was to weep. That very afternoon another order was issued making reverie leaves the national dish. Scorpion commented that in the entire history of the Cat People, there was no other act as honourable and humane as this one.

  During the four hundred years after reverie leaves were made the national dish, Cat Country’s civilisation progressed several times faster than it had before. (For instance, in twenty thousand years, not one poet had ever before used the expression ‘precious belly’.)

  But this is not to say that there were no social and political upheavals. By three hundred ago, the cultivation of reverie trees had become widespread; but the more leaves people ate, the lazier they became, and gradually they even became too slothful to plant the trees. It just so happened that precisely at this point, Cat Country experienced a flood year – Scorpion’s grey face seemed to turn pale as he spoke, for the Cat People were terrified of water and many reverie trees had been washed away. The Cat People could have gone without any other crop, but not reverie leaves. Now that they were hard up for leaves, they couldn’t afford to be indolent any more, and all over the country people began stealing. The government decided that too many robberies were being perpetrated, and issued a most humane order: from now on, stealing reverie leaves would not be considered a criminal act. Thus the last three hundred years of their history had become known as The Age of Plunder. There was really nothing wrong with that, for stealing is an act that most fully expresses a man’s freedom; and freedom had, throughout their entire history, always been the highest ideal of the Cat People.

  ‘In that case, why is it that you still plant the trees?’ I asked in Felinese. In its true Felinese form, the question goes like this: ‘In that case’, one expresses by a twist of the neck; ‘why is it that’, you express this by rolling the pupils of your eyes twice; ‘you’, one simply points at the other person; ‘still tree trees?’ (The listener will understand the first ‘tree’ as a verb.) There’s no way of expressing the ‘still’ of my original question.

  When I finished my question, Scorpion closed his mouth for a bit. The Cat People normally go around with their mouths open, since they don’t use their noses too much for breathing. Thus, a closing of the mouth is used to indicate either gratification or deep thought.

  His answer was that at present there were only a few dozen people who planted trees and all of them were very powerful politicians, military officers, poets and landlords all rolled into one. They had to plant the trees, for if they didn’t, they would lose their power. To be in government you needed reverie leaves, for without them you’d never get to see the emperor. To be a military officer you needed reverie leaves as rations for your troops. You needed them to be a poet too, for reverie leaves can make you daydream. In sum, reverie leaves were omnipotent and once you had them you could tyrannise your way through the world. ‘Tyrannise’ was one of the most exalted words in the vocabulary of the upper-class Cat People.

  The most important task for Scorpion and the other landlords was to devise ways of protecting the reverie leaves. They had soldiers, but they couldn’t possibly use them, for Cat Country’s armies so pride themselves on ‘freedom’ that when they have a good supply of reverie leaves to eat, they simply won’t obey orders. Furthermore, the landlords’ own soldiers often robbed them. One could tell from the tone of Scorpion’s voice that, according to the Cat People’s way of looking at things, this kind of behaviour was to be expected. So who protected the reverie leaves, if not the soldiers? Simple: foreigners. Every landlord had to support a few foreigners as guardians. The awe the Cat People had for foreigners was one of the distinguishing characteristics of their nature. Because of their love of ‘freedom’ they couldn’t put five of their own soldiers together for more than three days without one of them being murdered. Consequently, fighting a foreign army was a virtual impossibility. With apparent satisfaction, Scorpion added, ‘Our ability to murder each other grows stronger every day; and the new ways of mutual massacre that we have devised are almost as ingenious as the new devices that we have discovered for writing poetry.’

  ‘Killing has become a kind of art,’ I observed. Since there is no word in Felinese for ‘art’, I used our Chinese word, yishu. I explained its meaning to him at great length, but he still didn’t understand it. However, he did succeed in learning how to say this one Chinese word.

  In ancient times they actually had fought foreign countries, and had even won on occasion, but within the last five hundred years – as a result of constantly massacring each other – they had completely erased from their minds the very concept of fighting foreigners, and had devoted themselves exclusively to doing each other in, hence their unusual awe of foreigners. If it weren’t for the support of foreigners, their emperor wouldn’t even be able to safeguard his own supply of reverie leaves.

  Three years previously, another flying craft had come. The Cat People never found out where it had come from, but simply remembered it as a kind of large, featherless bird. So, when my spacecraft arrived, they knew that another intruder was among them. They assumed that I was another Martian, for it had never occurred to them there might be another planet besides Mars.

  Scorpion and some of the other landlords had run to the spot where my craft had crashed, in the hopes of recruiting another foreigner to guard the reverie trees. The foreigners that they had originally invited in to do this job had, for some reason or other, all gone home, and now they were faced with the problem of recruiting new guardians.

  They had agreed that once they had recruited me they would take turns in using me, for recently they had experienced great difficulty in obtaining foreigners. They had originally planned on asking me if I would like to work for them. But when they discovered I wasn’t a cat-man, they couldn’t decide how to handle me. Having never before seen a foreigner like me, they had been extremely frightened at first; but seeing that I behaved in such a docile manner, they had soon changed their plans from asking to shanghaiing. (These were the big shots of Cat Country, and therefore not at all lacking in guile; moreover, when the occasion demanded, they could even bring themselves to take a few risks.)

  Looking back on it, I realise that had I used force at the very outset, I certainly could have frightened them away. However, perhaps it was just as well that I had not, for though I could have frightened them away for the time being, they certainly wouldn’t have been willing to leave such a scarce commodity alone for very long. Besides, I wouldn’t have been able to find anything to eat on my own. But on the other hand, maybe letting them capture me might not have been such a good idea after all; for once they had me in captivity, although they continued to fear me, they had ceased to respect me.

  Seeing how tractable I was, it had occurred to each of them simultaneously that it would be far more profitable to monopolise me, rather than share my services with the others. If one of them could make off with me then there would be no need to discuss the terms of my servitude; all he’d have to do would be to give me enough to eat. At this point, ev
ery one of them decided to go back on his word to the others and see if he couldn’t make off with me himself at the earliest available opportunity. Breaking treaties and disregarding solemn agreements was, after all, a part of ‘freedom’. I could tell Scorpion thought his success in finally making off with me was something to be very proud of.

  After they had tied me up and thrown me into that little boat, they had all taken a shortcut to that sky-topped little room to wait for the river to bring me to them. They themselves were so afraid of water that they didn’t dare get in the boat with me. If the pilotless boat turned over on the way, then, of course, the fault would be with my own bad luck and have nothing to do with them. The room was not far from a stretch of sand where the river almost totally dried up, so they knew the boat would surely run aground at that spot.

  Once having installed me in the little room, they had gone home for a meal of reverie leaves. They could not carry the precious leaf with them, for travelling about with a supply of reverie leaves would be very dangerous indeed. For this reason, they seldom took long walks; the risk they had taken in coming out to the spot where I had crashed was a special exception.

  Scorpion’s stand of trees was closest to the little room, but it was still a long time before he came to visit me as one must always take a nap after a meal of reverie leaves. He knew that the others were unlikely to return before taking naps, and given the head start afforded by the proximity of his stand of trees, he fully expected to get there first and make off with me. But no sooner had he arrived than the others turned up; he had been unprepared for that. ‘Fortunately, you scared them away with that yishu,’ he said, pointing at my pistol as though he felt especially grateful to it. (After that he began calling anything that was difficult to describe as yishu.) Now I began to understand everything that had happened to me since my arrival. I asked him, ‘What were those leg-irons made of?’

  He shook his head and told me that all he knew about the material was that it had come from abroad. ‘We import a lot of foreign things because they’re so convenient to use,’ he said, ‘but we’d never stoop to imitating them, for we are the most ancient of all the countries on Mars.’ He closed his mouth for a while and then observed, ‘When we go walking we always have to take handcuffs and leg irons with us.’ Perhaps he was making a simple statement of fact, or perhaps he was pulling my leg – I couldn’t tell.

  I asked him where he stayed at night. That little sky-topped hole that I had occupied was the only structure I had seen in the forest, and I was sure he must go to some other place to sleep. He didn’t seem interested in answering my question, but rather asked me if I’d give him a stick of yishu so that he might show it to the emperor. I gave him a match and broke off my questioning on his sleeping habits; for in a society where people emphasise freedom a great deal, everyone must have his own secrets.

  I asked him if he had a family. He nodded his head. ‘After we’ve harvested the reverie leaves, you can go home with me and see for yourself,’ he said.

  I wondered what tasks he had in mind for me back at his home. ‘Where is your home?’ I asked.

  ‘In the capital where the emperor resides. There are lots of foreigners there. You’ll be able to see your own friends.’

  ‘I am from Earth. I don’t know any Martians.’

  ‘Well, you’re a foreigner anyway, and all foreigners are friends.’

  There was no point in explaining things to him any further. I just hoped that we’d get the reverie leaf harvest in quickly so that I could go to the capital and have a look around.

  A LAND OF PEEPING TOMS

  MY RELATIONSHIP with Scorpion, as I perceived it, could never be one of friendship. That’s the way I saw it at any rate. Perhaps he was sincere in wanting to be my friend, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to like him. For even if he was sincere, then – and this was true of all the Cat People – even his sincerity would be totally self-centred. For it seemed that the main reason Scorpion made friends was in order to use people for his own benefit. During the past three or four months I had not for a single day put out of my mind the desire to go and bury the corpse of my old friend. But Scorpion availed himself of every means he could devise to prevent me from doing so. This in itself was an indication of his selfishness; it also showed that the concept of friendship was totally foreign to the minds of the Cat People. I say he was selfish because to him it seemed the only thing that I’d come to Mars for was to guard the reverie trees. I say the concept of friendship was foreign to him because he forever reminded me that my friend was ‘already dead, so what’s the point in going to him?’

  He refused to give me directions for getting back to the place where my friend’s body was, and he watched over me like a hawk to make sure I didn’t try to find the way myself. Actually if I took my time (all I’d have to do would be to follow the bank of that river), I’d certainly be able to find that area again. But every time that I got more than half a mile out of the forest, Scorpion would be sure to pop up out of nowhere and block my path. He’d stop me, but he wouldn’t try to take me back by physical force. Instead, he’d tell me about a number of stories in which he figured as the victim, and make me feel sorry for him, as though he were an old widow relating her tale of woe. Snivelling and wiping the tears from his eyes, he’d go on and on; and before I knew it, he’d make me forget my own troubles completely. Behind my back, no doubt, he pursed his lips and sniggered at me for being such a simpleton; but even realising this, I still wasn’t able to harden my heart against him. In fact, I almost began to admire him!

  I didn’t entirely believe all that he told me and decided to check things out for myself. But he’d already guarded against that, for he never allowed any of the other inhabitants of the reverie forest to get close to me. I saw them only from a distance, for whenever I dashed over in their direction, they would immediately disappear. This certainly must have been in compliance with orders issued by Scorpion.

  I decided not to eat any more of the reverie leaves. Scorpion’s exhortations against such a course were exceedingly smooth, sincere and devious. ‘You can’t stop eating them as you’ll get thirsty, and water is scarce,’ he said. ‘Moreover, if you stop eating them, you’ll have to bathe – and what a bother that would be! Besides, other foods are too expensive, and not good to eat anyway. And the atmosphere contains a slow-acting poison that the reverie leaves protect against; you will surely die if you stop eating them!’

  Despite all this, I still held fast to my decision not to eat them any more. Then he started snivelling and wiping his eyes again; I knew that this was his last resort. However, this time I couldn’t afford to be soft, for I realised that Scorpion’s plan was to have me eat reverie leaves until I became just like the Cat People. I couldn’t allow him to manipulate me at his own sweet will like that, and I had already made the mistake of being too easygoing with him. I wanted to get back to a human kind of existence. I wanted to eat, drink and bathe. I was not going to allow myself to metamorphose into something only half-alive, like the Cat People. If by going without reverie leaves I could live humanly and rationally as I had before, then it would still be worth it even if I only lived a few weeks. Even if I were to be offered eight thousand years of the half-dead existence of a Cat Person, I should still refuse it. I explained this to Scorpion, but he was, of course, unable to understand. He probably concluded that my brain must be made of stone. But, come hell or high water, I had made up my mind on this point and I would not change it.

  After negotiating this point with him for three days without arriving at any conclusion, I was forced to resort to my revolver. However, I had not forgotten the concept of fair play, and placing the revolver on the ground between us, I told Scorpion, ‘If you insist on my eating the reverie leaves, then one of us has to die. Either I kill you or you kill me, I don’t care which. You decide!’ Scorpion ran six or seven yards in the other direction. He couldn’t kill me. A gun in his hand was less useful than a stalk of straw in th
e hands of a foreigner. Besides, he wanted me, not my revolver.

  We arrived at a compromise: I’d eat a reverie leaf every morning. ‘Only one leaf, only one little piece of our treasured leaf, in order to work as an antidote against the poisonous vapours in the air,’ said Scorpion. I had put my revolver away at his request, and he now sat, pointing a short finger at me. He would provide me with an evening meal, but getting water would be difficult. I suggested that I go down to the river every morning to bathe and at the same time bring back a jar of water. He didn’t approve. Why should I travel such a distance every day just to bathe? It was stupid, especially since I’d have to carry a jar all the way. Why not simply relax and eat reverie leaves instead? ‘There are good things right before your eyes, but you don’t know how to enjoy them,’ – I was positive he’d say something like this, but he didn’t. Furthermore – and this was what he really had in mind – he’d have to accompany me. I said I didn’t need his company. But he told me he was afraid I might try to run away, and that’s what he was most concerned about. Actually, if I planned on running away, I could do it whether he accompanied me or not, couldn’t I? I asked him that question straight out, and he actually closed his mouth for a full ten minutes or so. I was afraid I had scared him to death with my implied threat.

  ‘There’s really no need to accompany me. I’ve decided not to run away. I swear to you that I won’t run away,’ I said.