Frau Eva

I named her Frau Eva, after a character from a book I can never forget. They called her the Universal Mother, a fitting title for my Eva. Everything from the summery coat she wore to the way she would strut about the house suggested a kind of grace I always imagined that character to possess. But my Eva possessed something beyond even that. It was those eyes of hers. There was a definitive nature to them that no one else seemed to notice but me. It was as though there was something she was not telling me, or perhaps she wanted to but could not find the words to express it. “She’s just a cat after all” I would tell myself by the time she grew noticeably tired of trying.

She died three weeks ago. The kid down the road served her a generous amount of chocolate whilst she was out on one of her leisurely strolls. I refused to believe what the kid’s mother was telling me, I thought surely my Eva would have known better. “She’s just a cat after all” I reminded myself as I took hold of her stiff corpse.

We buried her out back, my Frau Eva. I hadn’t had the chance to mourn her passing before she began visiting me in my dreams. She did know, she always knows – she reminds me of that fact every night with surprisingly very little grace, my Frau Eva. She refused to tell me why she ate the chocolate, no matter how many times I would ask. “I’m already dead, why does it matter anymore?” she would say.

Her departure from my physical world was swiftly followed by the arrival of another. The very hole I sought to temporarily fill with her company, filled itself. Eva never spoke of Her to me, nor did I of Her to Eva. I figured she was waiting, so I waited, and waited, until the night she would visit me in my dreams for what would turn out to be the last.

As the moon took its place amongst the sparsity of stars in the night sky, I retired, only to be shaken by the light tap of her velvet paw against my window. I watched her for a moment as she gawked at me – standing, then, on her hind legs to let herself in before I had the chance to get up.

“Love huh?” she said.

“I’m afraid so” I replied.

“We’re going for the cool guy act, are we? Cute. But go on, let’s hear it.”

I reached inside my bedside drawer to fetch my notebook as she circled the foot of my bed, poking, prodding and kneading my duvet until she was satisfied, before setting herself down.

“Thought of a name yet?” she asked.

I hadn’t. But that, she already knew. And so I began my recital.

I looked up hoping to catch her reaction as she hurled out the soggiest fur patty I had ever seen.

“Just so you’re not mistaken, that’s the feline equivalent of vomit,” she said

“You’re an ass”

“Don’t be so sensitive. I thought it was sweet. A little dramatic maybe, but sweet nonetheless.”

I knew that was the closest I was going to get to a compliment, so I reeled my neck in and accepted it. I reached over to my bedside drawer once again to tuck away my notebook, and as I turned back around, she was gone. She would not return the next night or the night after that.

I told Her about Eva, I thought She could help me make sense of things, and for a second I thought I saw that look in Her eyes, but She was just as lost as me.

I sometimes wonder if She knows, the same way Eva knew.

I wonder if She will one day shake me with that definitively knowing gaze, the way Eva did.

I know this is unlikely, but I suppose it doesn’t matter.

I have found in Her more than I thought I needed, more than I could have ever asked for.

And I’m sure my Eva knew that much too.

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