The cats, unlike the roommates, provided genuine and stable company. When I was a child several animals passed through my parents’ house: a rabbit, a German Shepherd, a hamster, and two European house cats who never met each other. While I considered the pets of my childhood to be mine, they were never my responsibility. All I had to do was enjoy them; their care was in the hands of my parents. But the cats I had as a student depended entirely on me. From the moment they entered my life I felt I had to protect them, and it was that feeling, completely new to me, that made me adopt them.

They appeared one unusually cold morning in December. Marisa, my thesis advisor and someone who was becoming a friend, called to tell me she had found them in a plastic bag in the street, tied together by someone who obviously wanted them dead. They were kittens still too young to be weaned. I was so moved by the story that I said I would take them and immediately went to pick them up. My compassion toward them grew when I opened the box and saw them, voicelessly mewing and still trembling from going so long without oxygen.

“Keep a close eye on them,” my advisor recommended. “They may have suffered lesions on their brains. It wouldn’t hurt to bring them to a vet.”

That’s what I did. I took them to the clinic she recommended and there I learned their approximate age and sex. They were a male and a female. He, black like a bad omen with little white markings between his nose and whiskers; she, striped, a bit reddish, rather small in frame and thin. A poet and an actress, I thought. I decided to call them Milton and Greta. Months later, when they’d recovered and began to reveal their true personalities, I’d find that the names couldn’t have suited them better; the male displayed a sullen disposition, but also an incredible generosity; and the female, the attitude of a diva fully aware of her beauty. I barely got to see them in the first days after I brought them home. As soon as we arrived and I took them out of the box they ran and hid behind the refrigerator. The sound, I imagine, reminded them of their mother’s purr. Instead of trying to force contact upon them, I’d leave them plates of food and milk so that they could eat when they were alone and felt safe.