162
PARTISAN REVIEW
"I don't know, Mrs.
Horvath~
I am sure." He was overpowered
with disgust that he should be haggling with this obtuse woman over
the life of a diseased cat, and that he should be confronted by so
iiTelevant a question which he could not answer and which, in spite
of its fatuous context, made him feel that because he could only say
he did not know, like an unprepared schoolboy, his mind was growing
dull. And just as he was preparing to bid the manageress good morn–
ing and to hurry to his office to plunge himself into work, she threw
out a remark more imbecilic than the first but one that utterly con–
founded him. She said, "My son protect birds from cats just like
America protect Jews from Hitler."
For a moment, before he had collected himself, he read an awful
symbolic wisdom into this absurdity. Unhampered by learning, in a
country where she could not read the language and could barely
speak it, where she could be influenced only by the most basic of
national prejudices and loyalties, she was truly a natural enemy. Here
was the perfect, the pure hatred; the real thing was in Mrs. Horvath's
simple heart. He was not so far gone yet as to think that she was bent
on getting rid of the cat out of vengeance. Her reasons were more
human than that ; she did not like cats and she wanted to indulge
her son. But at the same time, there was something so sure in her
figure of speech that it was as if, from now on, she would implicitly
believe it, would even repeat it in later conversations.
In reply, Dr. Pakheiser only smiled. On his way out, he gave
Milenka a pat on the head and said loudly, "I-yi-yi-yi, bad puss!"
and walked jauntily round the house to his car, whistling. Whistling,
as the phrase went, in the dark.
All spring, Dr. Pakheiser trod on eggs. Each evening when he
came home and parked his car in the backyard where Freddie was
at work on his bird traps,
his
heart constricted with apprehension.
This would be the night, he thought, when Milenka would not come.
The boy, grinning even as he pounded in the nails, looked up with
a dispassionate greeting. "Hi, Doc. This is for me to get me an
oriole in, see? And that there one is for me to get me a purple grackle
in. I lure 'em- I know how they whistle and I whistle and they think
I'm a bird- and then they get in this little place here, see, and I pull
a string and the door comes down and they can't get out. And then
I get 'em so tame they'll eat right out of my hand." Once or twice
the doctor inquired about his school with the intention of keeping
things running smoothly between them. He went to the nuns to
whom he referred collectively as "Sister." "Sister flunked me in Latin
but she gave me B in Algebra and D plus in English." But it bored
