I had never realised that my landlady Elke was a gattara supreme until the day she invited me to visit her house. It was a few days after I’d received the devastating news of Lizzie, and I welcomed this diversion from my thoughts. She called me when, as usual, I was sitting with my coffee at the picture window.
‘Come up and see my home.’
I knew that the property gazed out over the Ionian Sea, perched on the top of Capo Sant’Andrea, but I had never been able to discern exactly where or how you reached it.
‘There’s a little road that leads up on the left side of Isola Bella beach,’ she told me. ‘If you wait there, I’ll come and fetch you.’
The tall gate swung open as if onto a magical domain where few people were admitted. Then came the slow drive along a rough road winding upward and flanked by rocky outcrops and the towering prickly pear. As we turned into the final stretch, Elke slowed the car to a crawl and I saw the reason why: several cats, which had been sunning themselves, scurried away. She led the way up a leafy-lined path into the garden: the lush beauty of a Mediterranean garden where pots spilled brilliant flowers and there was a straggle of ferns, roses, bougainvillea and that strange bird-like plant, the strelitzia. But most beautiful of all were the cats, so many of them: lurking in the shadows, skulking among plants, having a playful fight in a pool of sunlight. The garden was a cats’ paradise. Tiny kittens regarded me with huge eyes, other cats pressed themselves against Elke’s legs and she bent to talk to them, calling each by name. Found, saved or abandoned by uncaring people, these were the lucky cats who had found Elke. They had their own little shelters set among the plants and she fed them twice daily from her huge store of food kept in an old abandoned church in the grounds.
We moved into the house, awash with light as if it were an extension of Isola Bella, its terraces seeming to hang over the sea. Then I noticed all the same lovely touches that made my apartment so homely: the pretty cushions and throws over the rattan chairs, a fat tassel hanging from a basket. There were more cats, too: Freddi, fluffy pale-grey Nuovola and a huge ginger tom. They did not mix with the outdoor cats but carried on a luxurious existence in this cool interior.
This was a revelation for me. While I had been secretly caring for Lizzie, I had had no idea that Elke continually rescued all these felines.
Idyllic as this setting appeared, it was also one of violence and death. As we sat outside with a cold drink, Elke told me about the tomcats that grab hold of the females and bite holes in their necks to keep them still while they mate.
‘So many of the kittens die. There are some nasty viruses in Sicily and their immune system isn’t very strong. It’s heartbreaking. You have to be strong if you do this kind of work.’
Later on I was to remember those words when I too encountered cruelty and fought death. And so I related a part of the story of Lizzie and how upset I was over the poisoning. I made no mention of the fact I had nursed her in the apartment.
Elke nodded. ‘A lot of people here hate cats; they bring their children up to view them as a health risk. You should have brought her here.’
I felt terrible, guilty and terrible, but then how was I to know that Elke was also a gattara?