A tale of two kitties

Once, when I was around eight years old, I adopted two lovely orange kittens from a stray cat’s litter. I christened them Katinka (had a light brown spot over one green eye) and Bibingka, who was quite plain. I loved them both dearly and played with them much to my grandmother’s secret chagrin. Lola Ching must have hated cats. I don’t think she much liked dogs either, never saw her treat a four-legged pet with affection. In fact now that I recall I think she looked at them with disdain.

But she loved birds. She took care of pet canaries for many years in her room, listening to them sing their joyful trills in the morning, trying desperately to breed them without success. She had three cages of canaries in her bedroom in Sta. Mesa, moved them all to Bel-Air with her until they all died. I think they were the cause of her lung cancer.

I remember in Sta. Mesa she built a big pigeon house in the garden but she didn’t seem affectionate with her birds either. She would stand and look but I don’t remember her ever cooing or making any sounds of affection. She would just stand and admire them.

However, Lola Ching bought me little yellow ducklings whenever I went to market with her, allowed me to make them swim in the batya where our clothes were washed. And when Boo, my mother’s Dalmatian, later hunted them down, Lola had the cook turn the duck into asado for lunch, breaking my fragile heart into chunks. Lola was very practical. She had the dead duck cooked because sayang, wala namang sakit, pinatay lang ng lintik na aso.

Lintik na aso, told me Lola didn’t like dogs but was quite tolerant of Boo who only chose to be close to my mother and me. Not clear to me then but suddenly so clear to me now my grandmother hated cats, a subject she must have discussed with my mother who reluctantly agreed to her secret plan because one morning I ambled into the kitchen where Katinka and Bibingka always were and they had disappeared into thin air.

Where are they? In tears I asked my mother.

 Their mommy picked them up. They’re going home to their dad in the province. They’re sorry but they had to go, my mother explained. Once again, my little heart was broken.

 Our house in Sta. Mesa was the last house in a row of four. It had the biggest garden because the road ended there and so our garden included the width of the road. At the back of the garden was an unpaved road that led to the ricefields and the slums behind our house. There was just a small path made by the folk who would walk from their homes to V. Mapa, but close to our wall was wild grass and sunflowers growing recklessly. My bedroom was closest to that area. The day my kittens disappeared, when I went to my room I heard the sounds of kittens mewing. Maybe it’s Katinka and Bibingka, I told my grandmother. It certainly sounded like them. My grandmother did not reply. My mother, who was there said, No, they’re in the province by now. But she cast an accusatory look at my grandmother, who looked away.

Lola must have told Rodrigo, our driver, to put the kittens in a sack and throw them over the wall while I was still asleep. She did not realize that they would be crying, mewing, all day and all night, for days until the poor little kittens must have died.

From then on I had a dislike for cats, developed an allergy to their fur, would get asthma attacks if there were cats around. I wonder if that deep dislike for cats came from losing my beloved kittens. Now I’m sure it did. Lola must have been secretly delighted.

What is the lesson in this piece? Is it really simply a Tale of Two Kittens? No it is about the mother-daughter relationships of the 1940s and 1950s, between my grandmother and my mother, both of them very dear to me, but both of them hostile to each other and the undercurrents almost invisible to the naked eye. I was always caught in the silent war between those two women both resting in peace now.

Lola learned her lesson. There were many stray cats in the neighborhood. Periodically she would tell Rodrigo to catch all the cats, put them in a sack, drive them to Makati — then big stretches of empty fields with wild grass —and set them free there. She learned to avoid a repetition of the constant mewing and mewling of Katinka and Bibingka.

And my mother — did she learn a lesson too? She bought a dog, a Dalmatian. We called him Boo.

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