Reh and the Mystery of the Area Rug
Reh was a mystery from beginning to end. We found her at the SPCA, an abandoned cat who had clearly been the runt of the litter – she never grew larger than your average 9-month old kitten. The only sound she ever made was a tiny little cry; not even half a meow. A quiet little “reh” was all that ever came out of her, so we thought it must be her name.
Even so, she was beautiful and dainty and as feminine as any creature could wish to be. Every one of her long, silky calico hairs was kept clean and just in its proper place – her elegant, feathered tail was a thing of magic when she swept it along your chin just to let you know she appreciated your worship of her loveliness. The photo above is NOT Reh – it’s the closest I could find to her. She was much smaller and far silkier even more feminine-looking.
Reh was our first cat – adopted when we were in our first apartment, and when times were tough and we camped out at a relatives’ place she boarded with a friend of ours who fell in love with her and was unhappy when we finally claimed her back again. She could be charming as well as beautiful and she only stepped out of line once in the several years of our friendship. She bit Al, who picked her up and threw her – but of course she landed on her feet and from that moment on she adored Al and couldn’t get enough of his attention.
A true romantic, Reh would climb up onto the bed toward dawn every morning, lie on my chest and purr as loudly as a motorboat. If that didn’t wake me up she’d take my lower lip in her teeth and gently give me a nip and I’d start awake to see her eyes simply dripping with love (she’d still have my lip in her mouth at that point) and I’d pet her silky back and there was no better way on Earth to start a morning.
Yet she’d been abused; or so we surmised. From the day we adopted her, Reh was deathly afraid of brooms and though we encouraged her, she wouldn’t play any of the usual games you associate with cats. No catnip toy, no string of wool, no feather on a stick would tempt her. She’d just look at it scornfully and sit tall as an Egyptian goddess and make sure her fur was tidy and in its proper place. Yes, she was seriously beautiful and knew it but we could never get her to frolic.
Well, being newlyweds Al and I didn’t have a lot of furniture in our living room; just a couch and a small table, an aquarium, a TV, a rather large chair we inherited from Al’s father, and a small, hooked area rug in front of the chair to keep one’s feet warm on the cold, wood floor.
One morning upon rising we strolled into the living room to find the area rug on the opposite side of the living room floor from its chair. A brief question assured each of us that the other hadn’t moved it, and when we met up with our friend Jesse (who’d visited the prior evening) he claimed innocence of having moved the rug, too. Well, no big deal; we slid the rug back to its proper place in front of the big chair and went about our business.
The next morning it was back across the room.
This happened several nights in succession.
Now, in an apartment with only three occupants (not counting the fish) there can only be a brief process of elimination unless you want to consider ghosts, intruders with area rug fetishes, or inordinately strong winds coming through the air conditioning system. We knew Reh was moving the rug; we just didn’t know how or why she was moving it.
Finally we pulled a stake-out. Shortly after shutting out the lights we crept quietly back to peer cautiously into the living room and in a short time we watched our shy, unplayful cat ready herself at the far end of the living room. She revved up her legs as though she was about to pounce on a mouse then ran full speed across the room, leapt onto the big chair, did a quick launch off the chair back and landed squarely on the area rug, which slid all the way across the room with Reh, like a surfer hanging twenty riding it from one end of the room to the other.
Reh would never play this game when anyone was looking – so we let it be her secret for all her life. She remained a queen of dignity and loveliness, and even protected us when the kitten Al brought home for me made an aggressive move. Out of nowhere Reh leaped on the little tyke and showed him that scratching me was NOT going to be tolerated! The story of that kitten is for another post; for that was Piwacket, the magical cat.
Reh put up with our love of animals even when we adopted Fearless Fosdick from the SPCA. He was a 95 pound Old English Sheepdog (yes, he’s for yet another post). In we walked with this excited, enormous walking matted ragmop whose nose immediately sniffed out the fact that there was a cat in the house.
Reh was horrified. Imagine this tiny, beautifully groomed cat looking up at 95 pounds of unkempt fur with a nose sticking out of bangs that were always too long. She was terrified at first and spent two entire days cowering under the sofa until we formally introduced them. After that she accepted Fos as part of the family and even tried to groom him. Talk about spitting in the ocean! Oh, he frustrated her immensely! See, she wasn’t much bigger than two of his paws put together, and on many occasions she’d sit herself down in front of him and meticulously lick one of his paws and straighten out that wooly fur and use her own paws to try to align the difficult bits and fuss and fret and manipulate to get that huge paw looking the way it should. She never really succeeded but Fosdick was grateful. He’d watch her ministrations dutifully and once she was done he’d express his gratitude the way every good dog does; he’d lean down and give her a big, slobberly old lick! (keep in mind that one stroke of that tongue covered her entire body, head to foot!)
If you can imagine a cat expressing unadulterated disgust on her face, you’ve imagined Reh every time this happened, and it happened not infrequently! Like an insulted mother in law, she’d back away and hurriedly put her own fur back in place, licking and fussing hurriedly, as though her underwear had shown itself to the public while she was promenading on Fifth Avenue! Oh, the shame! The scandal!
We still had Reh when our daughter was born, and Reh had had enough. She’d put up with the Old English Sheepdog and the Siamese kitten but now a HUMAN kitten? Impossible! Rachael was perhaps half a year old when Reh leaned in and bit her on the head. No, it did NOT go over well. Reh was told in no uncertain terms that this was never to happen again, and she stayed away from Rachael from then on.
It was only about a year afterward that she suddenly stopped grooming her wonderful fur. A quick trip to the vet discovered feline leukemia, of which that lovely creature died, shortly thereafter.
