VISITORS: fiction

Now that Vesta Clotilde had stopped locking her door and even left it ajar once in a while when she was expecting Tang, a cat came slipping in. A nondescript skinny little specimen who made no trouble. She didn’t mind so long as it didn’t interfere. She asked the delivering grocer to start including cat food.

Across the hall Tang had also been leaving his door ajar but his intruder was not a cat: it was a boy. About eight. Very thin. The sort of hair that looks almost green and doesn’t need to be cut because it is so brittle that it breaks off before getting to shoulder length. He tried to be as unobtrusive as the cat, slipping in quietly while Tang was meditating. (Yes, Tang was one of those meditating Asians. Now and then he suggested it to Vesta, who only laughed.) The boy seemed exhausted and mostly slept. He had nothing to say. Tang didn’t make him leave, though he began looking for placements, not quite with the boy’s consent. He wouldn’t eat anything but pizza.

“Feral.” Vesta tasted the word. “I looked it up. It is often coupled with “child” or “cat.” They say, “Wild Child” or “Wild Cat”, but properly speaking a feral animal or child is one who was once part of a domicile, cared for to some degree, but then either abandoned, thrown out or left of its own volition for some reason. Wild Child and Feral Child are different. Over a hundred cases of children are believed to have been raised only by animals. But we seem to have a whole generation of children whose parents either threw them out or let them go or never paid enough attention to know the difference.”

“Mowgli was a Wild Child,” said Tang. “A mammal is a mammal. Not so different at birth.” This afternoon he had baked a streusel coffee cake. “Ibn Tufail's Havy, Ibn al-Nafis' Kamil, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan, J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, and the legends of Atalanta, Enkidu and Romulus and Remus. Unreliable stories. Riddled with hoaxes. Throbbing heart-deep in all cultures. We long to be little savages, self-sufficient, skipping over the cold, hunger, pain. Broken expectations.”

“Why do we cling to the idea?” asked Vesta, reaching down her canister of tea bags. “Do we remember our own wish to be as independent as adults? Or is it a matter of wanting to get rid of a troublesome child? Or is it coming from the culture rather than individual? The idea that a child can survive on its own without adults. We don’t need to worry. I seem to recall that these Wild Child examples you suggest are rural, requiring big mammals to care for them. If I were they, I would hook up with a goat rather than a wolf. As much personality, better milk. But I suppose a pack is an advantage.”

“There are always dogs. But it’s even easier to survive as a child where the population is dense. An interstitial child who knows how to be unobtrusive is the opposite of an enfamilied child who gets what it needs by being obtrusive -- making a fuss. If there are lots of people in shifting assortments, a child can attach to one of them, slip away with food or clothing. Hitch rides or stowaway. Hole up under a church parish hall table during a potluck. Graze down a hotel hallway where trays of leftovers are put out for pickup.”

“What about your own Mowgli over there across the hall?”

Tang slurped his tea. He was trying Earl Grey. “Oh, he’s in the bathtub. I went by the Sallie Ann this morning and picked up some clean clothes.” He looked over at the cat, who was working on her feet, her flexible tongue cleaning between toes. “I think I should sit him down and work on his feet a little -- grease them up. Cut nails.”

“What does he say?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s the great crippling lack in the children raised by animals -- no language. Can a person think without language?”

“How would we know? But don’t animals do that?” The cat looked at them, scowling, passing judgment. Her ears twitched, her tail switched once -- whip whap.

“Behavior. Ears. Too bad people don’t have ears like dogs.” Her attention went to the taste of streusel and Earl Grey tea together. They were a good combination. “Do you think he’s HIV positive?”

“Can’t tell without blood tests. I have a feeling he’s had some medical care not too long ago. He doesn’t have pneumonia, thank God, because I don’t want to catch it. He doesn’t seem yellowish from hepatitis. No obvious lesions where I can see his body. He doesn’t appear hooked on drugs.”

“Sexually active.”

“Yup.”

“How do you know?”

“He slipped into my bed. I put him back out.”

“Were his feelings hurt?”

“Nope. He hardly seemed to have a reaction, not relief or anything else. It was just a kind of reflex, I think.”

“He’s warm enough?”

“Picked up a sleeping bag at Sallie Ann so I could have my extra blankets back.” There was a pause while Tang looked his hostess over. “You’re motherly after all!”

She dusted crumbs from her hands. “Oh, no. Not at all.” (He didn’t believe her.) “I’m just trying to scope out what his life is like.”

“Survival. Every little advantage for survival, but only for the next half hour or so. No long-term plans.”

She nodded, but it was hard to grasp. Her whole life was a long-term plan, a little engine of consciousness chugging along a line of thought through time, asking now and then, “How far am I? Where’s the next station? Am I closer? If I put this paragraph right here, what does that imply about fifty pages along?”

Tang nodded, drained his mug and poured more. Vesta had used a teapot instead of bags in mugs. He LIKED Earl Grey. “‘Be here now’ is a motto easier said than done.” The cat slipped out the door unnoticed. Tang heard a small sound in the hallway and knew what it was but said nothing.

Just the same Vesta Clotilde, not hearing the sound, registered the change in Tang, a shift in tension, a shadow. “He’s left just now, hasn’t he, Tang?”

“I think so. Maybe your cat went with him.”

“They both got what they needed here, a little rest, a little cleanup, a sleeping bag.” They sat looking at each other. “Should we go bring them back?”

“Oh, no. Things will unfold. I think they might know they can come back if they need to.” But they looked sad. In a little while, when Vesta reached for Tang’s mug, he took her hand instead, as though the going were unsteady.