364
PARTISAN REVIEW
just taken out of it, and, too, he did not want to use the old woman's
food. He squatted on the bed, ignoring the cat, and looked out. He was
waiting for a pigeon to come to the balcony. They often did. The cat
turned its head to watch too. A yard apart, not looking at each other,
they were united in waiting for whatever might come. The door to the
balcony was not locked. Ben set it ajar.
It
bisected the tiny balcony. Then
neither Ben nor the cat moved. At last a pigeon came, but to the wrong
part, safe behind the door, and then, soon after, another, to the part
where....Ben had leaped out, and the bird was in his hand. He was
tearing off feathers when he heard the cat's sound, which it always made
when a bird was out there, or on the railing, a rusty, hungry noise. Ben
ripped some flesh off the bird and flung it down. The cat crept out and
ate. The blood was dripping from their mouths. Then there were only
feathers blowing about, and some blood stains. The cat went back in.
So did Ben.
It
was not enough, those few mouthfuls of flesh, but it was
something, his stomach was appeased. He saw the cat's eyes closing: it
was trusting him enough to sleep. Ben curled up on the bed beside the
cat, and when Mrs. Biggs came in, towards evening, the two creatures
were sleeping side by side on her bed.
She took it all in, some feathers clinging to the blood clots on the bal–
cony, the stale smell of blood, that there were only a few inches between
Ben's back and the cat's. She wasn't well. She felt bad. Her heart hurt.
And she was tired: at the end of a long wait at the doctor's, among
grumbling people, she had been given some pills. But what had she been
expecting?-she scolded herself-a cure? She set packages down on the
table, untied a scarf from her head, drank water from the tap, and then
stood for a while looking down at her old big bed-at the cat, at Ben.
She lay down along its edge, and watched the shadows come on the ceil–
ing, and then it was dark. Ben slept his noisy, unhappy sleep. The cat
was as neat and quiet as-a cat. The old woman dozed off, feeling her
heart beat painfully in her side. She woke because Ben was awake, and
pressing his back against her.
"Ben," she said, into the dark. "I'm not well. I'm going to bed for a
day or two to rest up." He made a sound that meant, "I am listening."
"Did you get the certificate?" A silence from Ben, and something like a
whimper. "Did you see your mother?"
"I saw her. In the park."
She already knew the answer but asked. "Did you speak to her?" Ben
moved against her side, and whimpered again. "I don't know what to
suggest next, Ben. I'd go with you to the place-you know, I told you
about, where you get certificates, but I'm not well."
