“Hello?” said Madeleine. “We’re here with you, Franklin. Won’t you please speak with us?”
The group sat in a circle around the dining room table, staring at a candle placed at the center of their wheel. When Franklin’s voice arrived, the flame bowed; it seemed he was transmitting from the light itself:
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name’s Madeleine. We met on the trip over, do you remember?”
“What do you want?”
“Just to speak with you.”
“What about?”
“Yourself. I’m here with Frances and Malcolm. Maybe you’d like to say hello to them?”
Franklin was silent.
“Hello, Frank,” said Frances.
“Hello.”
“How are you?”
“Oh, you know. You’re there with Malcolm?”
“That’s right.”
“Malcolm?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“What’s this all about?”
“All what, Dad?”
“The hocus-pocus.”
“Just that you ran off, you know.”
“Yes?”
“And we were curious about where you’d gone to.”
“No one place,” said Franklin. “I’m behaving nomadically.”
“Are you in- or outdoors?”
“Out.”
“Aren’t you cold?”
“I am.”
“Are you hungry?”
“A lot of the time.”
“What do you do all day?”
“Not much. Walk around.”
“You’re living by your wits,” said Mme Reynard. “I admire that.”
Franklin paused. “Who said that?”
“Mme Reynard is my name, and I’m so very happy to meet you. I’m a great friend of your wife and son. Honestly, they’ve had the most remarkable influence over me. I believe friendship is a greater force for good than any religion ever was, don’t you agree?”
“I’ve never thought of it before,” Franklin said.
“Think of it now, and I’m sure you’ll come to see it my way. And I can tell you that Frances and Malcolm have been worried sick, actually sick—worried to the point of illness—about you.”
Franklin said, “Frances, who is this person?”
“She just told you who she is, Frank.”
“Reynard,” Mme Reynard repeated. “Can you not hear us well?”
“I can hear you.”
“Well, I want you to know that I think of you already as a friend. I have friendly feelings toward you, and I hope that we can become just as close as I already am with your fine, fine family. I find your plight ever so fascinating, and I have so many questions I want to ask you. For example: do you think cat thoughts or man thoughts?”
“Frances,” said Franklin.
“Have you fallen in with a mad cast of plucky, down-at-heel characters?”
“Frances, please.”
Frances patted Mme Reynard’s hand to quiet her, but she either didn’t comprehend the hint or chose to ignore it: “Is there love in the dingy back streets? I would imagine one’s senses become all the more acute under such duress, and romance must seem doubly significant. Think of the phenomenon of the procreation boom just after a war. It’s the human spirit standing its ground, saying, in effect: I will not be repressed. It’s actually quite moving, if you take a moment to ponder it.” She looked about the table to see what effect her words had had on her friends but there was none, or, if there was, it was subdued to the point of imperceptibility.
Malcolm asked, “Why’d you run away, Dad?”
“Good question. Great question. Why don’t you ask your mother why?”
Malcolm asked Frances, “Why did Dad run away?”
Frances said, “It’s pretty complicated.”
Franklin said, “It’s not that complicated.”
Frances was staring at the candle; its light was quivering in her eyes. “Where are you, Frank?” she asked.
“I choose not to answer that,” said Franklin. “Does anyone want to know why?”
“I do,” said Mme Reynard.
“Me too,” said Madeleine.
“I do and I don’t,” Malcolm said.
Franklin said, “It’s just the small matter of Frances’s intention to kill me with her bare hands.”
All in the room looked at Frances, whose noble bearing held for some moments, but soon toppled as she sputtered, cackling madly. The sound startled Julius, so that he spilled his wineglass onto the tablecloth. “I’m sorry! Excuse me!” He was mortified with himself; he hurried into the kitchen in search of a towel.
“All right, who’s that?” Franklin asked.
“Julius is his name,” said Mme Reynard. “I don’t know him very well but I have a good feeling about him. He’s been so helpful and chivalrous.” When Julius returned, towel in hand, she told him, “Say hello to Franklin.”
“Hello,” said Julius softly, face burning as he mopped up the wine.
Mme Reynard said, “Julius cuts a romantic figure: the man in the night, seeking. He’s after answers, information. It must be a terribly rewarding job, Julius, is it?”
Julius bobbed his head back and forth.
“But to have a quest,” said Mme Reynard. “That’s what I find most enviable. My life has been utterly questless. And I’m very sorry to say it, I can tell you that.”
“Sorry, what’s his quest?” Franklin asked.
Julius briefly explained his role in the story.
“And Frances pays you for this? Frances?”
“What?”
“You pay this joker a fee?”
“Don’t be rude, Frank.”
“And what about this Madeleine? What’s her take?”
“Shut up, Frank.”
“Hey, Julius?” said Franklin.
Julius was still working to remove the wine stain. “Yes?” he said.
“You found this Madeleine, who’s now found me, is that right?”
“Right.”
“Then what are you still hanging around for? If your work’s already done?”
Julius said, “I asked to stay . . . I wanted to see . . .” The wine wasn’t coming up at all. “Do you have any soda water?” he whispered to Frances, who shrugged.
“Frances?” said Franklin. “Listen to me.”
“All right.”
“Listen to what I’m telling you, Frances.”
“I’m listening, Frank.”
“These people? Your new buddies? They’re charlatans. They’re pretending they don’t know each other when in fact they’re working in tandem to con you.”
“Well, that’s just silly.”
“I’ll tell you what’s silly. You want to know what’s silly? I’ll tell you, if you want to know.”
“You simply don’t know what you’re talking about. Julius and Madeleine are both lovely people, and they’ve been so helpful, and I’m very happy to’ve made their acquaintance.” She raised her glass in tribute to her new friends. Mme Reynard tugged Frances’s sleeve; she too wished to be complimented. Frances said, “And you, dear.” Mme Reynard beamed.
“Fine,” said Franklin. “Let them have it all. What do I care? But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He paused. “Why do I suddenly feel like I’m the punch line to a drinking game? What do you people want?”
“You know what I want, Frank. I’ve gone to some length to locate you and I find your refusal to come home perfectly vulgar. I never asked you for anything in my life and now I want this one thing from you.”
“One little thing.”
“I’ve earned it.”
“How?”
“I could have done anything,” said Frances. “I could have been anything. I gave you my life and you turned it into bad television.”
“I made you rich.”
“I was already rich.”
“Running on fumes when I met you.”
“Anyway, the money’s all gone—”
“Whose fault is that?”
“—the money’s all gone and I want you, I demand that you come home and accept what’s owed you.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll check with my secretary and get back to you. Hey, Malcolm?”
“Yes, Dad?”
“What do you think of all this?”
“All of what?”
“Your mother wants to kill your father.”
“Yeah.”
“Any thoughts on it?” said Franklin.
“To be honest, I’d just as soon not get involved.”
“Nice. That’s nice. That’s family for you.”
Malcolm made a funny face. He cleared his throat. “I guess what I really mean to say, Dad, is: I don’t know that it’s fair for you to ask me to weigh in on something so personal as this considering the fact that I don’t know who you are, have never known who you are, and not because I didn’t want to but because you never so much as parted the curtain for me, never showed me the slightest preference or kindness, even as a child when I worshipped you and all I ever wished for was for you to take me by the hand and walk me through any motherfucking park, pat me on the fucking head, for Christ’s sake was I that repellent a creature to you?” Malcolm stood and hurled his cocktail glass against the wall. It exploded and he stalked out, slamming the door to his bedroom.
“What’s eating him?” asked Franklin.
“He just told you what’s eating him, Frank. He hates you.” Frances was patting her hair to sculpt it.
“Right,” said Franklin. “Right. Well, it’s been great catching up with you, Frances, but I think I’m going to go back to starving to death, if no one objects.”
Mme Reynard objected. She had, she said, more questions than time would apparently allow, and would have to accept that the bulk would remain unanswered, but before he rang off, she asked that Franklin humor her, and share with the assembled an overall summation of the experience of becoming a cat. Franklin sighed as he considered his answer. “On the whole it’s been frustrating, I guess is the word.”
“How is it frustrating?”
“Well, I have all my old thoughts and desires but I can’t do anything about them. I miss being alive, as a man. I enjoyed it.”
“You always seemed so angry to me,” said Frances.
“I was. But I loved being angry.”
“You did not.”
“I absolutely did. That’s something nonangry people never give angry people credit for. It’s fun, being mad. I loved my work. I loved the game of it. I loved money. I loved getting away with everything.”
Frances told him, “But you didn’t get away with it, did you?”
“I got away with a lot. More than most, anyway.”
“Yes, but look at you now.”
Franklin was silent for a while. The candle flame flapped, then pulled itself taut. “Fuck you,” he said, and the flame snuffed itself, and all at the table sat contemplating the drift of smoke.