28

 

There is also a grave in the garden, reminding me that not only life, sprouting, and flowering, colors, and fragrances, but also death is present here. I am not referring to the predictable death of annual plants, which sprout at winter’s onset, bloom at its end, create seeds, and wither in summer, nor am I referring to what looks like death but is merely a kind of hibernation of bulbs and tubers, but a surprising death, an irreversible one, that strikes suddenly and causes pain.

I have had several deaths like this in the garden: the demise of my lemon tree, more of which I will tell later; the chinaberry’s execution, of which I have already spoken; and the death of my beloved cat, Kramer the Cat, who presided unchallenged over the garden while alive, and who is buried here today.

Kramer was about a year old when I got him, and he lived with me for eleven years. He spent most of his days sleeping deeply, as I described in the first of three children’s books I wrote about him. Kramer had a heart that remained awake while sleeping, not for romantic reasons but for tactical ones—even while sleeping he watched over the garden lest a dog or stray cat wander into it.

Kramer loved sleeping and he was good at it. Aside from his favorite snooze spots inside the house, he also had a few in the garden. His most beloved spot was in the shade of the buckthorn, close to the Madonna lilies and verbena bush. At first, I thought he had chosen this particular spot because of the agreeable fragrances of the two. Then one day I decided to investigate exactly what he was doing there. I laid myself down and realized just how calculating a cat he was: from where he lay, Kramer could see most of the area between the house and the street and the entire length of the garden path, from street to front door. When I opened the door, I could see him lying there, and he always opened his eyes, and we would exchange looks and yowls, but those coming from the street into the garden could not see him until he stood up.

If the visitor was a mere human, Kramer ignored his presence. If the person was familiar, Kramer would get up to greet him. If it was a dog or cat, he would charge at it without forewarning. Both escaped immediately, but unlike the cats, who simply turned around and fled, the dogs also yowled with terror, which greatly amused both of us.

Nothing about Kramer’s appearance hinted at such aggressiveness. He was a large cat, black from the tip of his tail to the end of his nose, but fluffy and plump and altogether affable. He did not appear significantly energetic or of athletic capabilities. Neither did he belong to the common variety of cats who bring home gifts in the form of butchered lizards or dismembered birds. All these little creatures were beneath his dignity, but when he spied a rat or snake, he would leap valiantly into action: hastening home to call on me to take care of the problem.

He had a special way of calling me in these cases, one of a number of cries and gestures that I learned to decipher: the one that said “I want to go out,” the ones that said “I want to come in,” “I want food,” and “I’m not enjoying this,” and the most special one, the beseeching one, which cried, “Let’s go home. I don’t want to go to the vet.” That sentence, by the way, was said in a single word that repeated itself the entire journey to the veterinary clinic, the word “gaaooooo.” In my opinion, when Kramer died, it was not merely a wonderful cat that disappeared but the last vestiges of a rare breed of cat able to pronounce the consonant g.

Kramer died from kidney failure leading to multiple organ dysfunction. During his last days he was hospitalized by his personal physician, Dr. Yair Ben-Tzioni, who made every possible effort to save Kramer. At the end, when it became evident that nothing would help and that Kramer was in obvious pain, I asked Dr. Ben-Tzioni to put him to sleep.

As mentioned, I buried Kramer under the buckthorn, near the Madonna lilies and verbena, a place where he loved to fall asleep while on duty. Whenever I pass by this spot, a few times a day, I remember and miss his presence. The relationship between us was one of love and understanding, and every morning when I open the front door, I wonder why Kramer does not emerge from his little sleeping box—at night he preferred sleeping outside, by the front door—to stretch before entering the house.

Kramer was the first cat I ever had and—in the meanwhile—the only one. When he died, the news spread swiftly through the village, and by the next day a few cats had showed up for an audition, hoping to take Kramer’s place. But cats are creatures who differ from one another much more than dogs, and I could not find a worthy candidate to take Kramer’s place in my heart and home. Some of them were more beautiful than he was, most of them were more alert, but not one of them was Kramer. They say that everyone is replaceable, but it seems to me that this is simply not true when it comes to Kramer.