Little by little I regained my enthusiasm for my studies and for my upcoming trip. That year I didn’t go on some beach vacation. Instead I focused on preparing for the professional exam and packing all of my belongings into boxes. Cautiously at first, so as not to disturb the young family. Then more boldly as it got closer to my due date. Knowing what Milton and Greta meant to me, Marisa offered to take them. And when Greta’s brood was old enough, she’d find them good homes. She had a huge house with a garden, and promised me they’d be no trouble.

“Just the opposite. They’ll fill the void from your leaving.”

I knew the cats couldn’t be in better hands. But still, I promised her it would just be for a little while as I got settled in Princeton.

The day of the professional exam came and I was confident as I took it. My grades were as high as we’d expected. I told my landlady I’d be leaving the apartment. Once all my books were boxed up I started to pack my bags and either store or give away the clothing I wasn’t bringing. People came and went from my apartment, buying or taking things, loaded down with bags of books or cookware. The move was taking over the apartment with an increasingly frenetic rhythm, like a phenomenon with a will of its own. Greta’s kittens ran all over the place, climbing on the boxes, the stacks of books, and the living room furniture. The only thing that remained in its place was the dresser drawer, soft and cozy, like the last bastion of an epoch coming to a close, in which I often wanted to hide. In there, where the eight of them slept increasingly cramped together, nobody seemed fazed by the change. But it only seemed that way. Marisa and I had decided that she’d come for the cats two days before I left and one day before the moving truck came for the furniture. I don’t really remember if we’d spoken in her office or on the phone. But one thing is for certain; the cats understood.

The evening before, when I came home after an exhausting day of higher-education bureaucracy, I noticed that the cats weren’t there. I searched the whole apartment for them and I looked for a way they could have escaped from it. The only thing I was able to determine was that the balcony door was open. I cannot describe the grief I felt. We hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye. “Cats do decide,” I remember thinking. I felt like a fool for not having realized it.

Fungus

Fungus