254. The Temple of Mayet

 

254. The Temple of Mayet

“I can’t take you anywhere, because I don’t know where I can take you,” I said to Alpin. “You are so difficult to travel with that you have given me traveller’s block.”

“You think too much, Arley. To get somwhere, all you have to do is start  walking. Walk!”

“I wouldn’t ask Atilla’s horse to just start walking,” I said, “and I won’t ask you to either. I have to be sure who I will be visiting you on.”

“Well, then take me to the Cat’s Meow Temple. How do we get there? Which way should we start to walk?”

“I don’t know and I am not going to ask Cathsheba.”

“Ask your brother Atty. You have to lecture him, you promised Jocosa you would. So you are going to be speaking to him anyway.”

“Actually, I have already asked Gatocatcha,” I said, “though with a view to taking you nowhere near there.”

“Then you know! Start walking.”

“Gatocatcha says he has no idea. He says he has heard of The Temple of Mayet, but has never been there.”

“Well, what is stopping you from taking him there? What kind of a cat owner are you, that you don’t take your pet to worship his goddess and receive her blessing?”

“Gatocatcha says this temple is not a place of worship for cats. It is a place for anyone who walks alone.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It is a place for people who cannot count on anyone. Or who don’t want to. They teach these kind of people how to turn into cats when they need to."

“Nobody can make it without help. What would I do without servants like you and me mum?”

I chose to ignore that he had called me his servant. After all, he had included his poor mum in the lot.

“When these solitary people become dejected and feel they can no longer move forward, they call on the cat goddess Bastet, and immediately they feel that they can walk alone again.”

“Fine. So it’s a place for misfits, rejects and whackos. Born outsiders and born losers and the lot. But even they have to eat, don’t they? What does Bast feed them?”

“I have no idea. Ice cream?” I was immediately sorry I had said that.

“Right! Depressed people eat a lot of ice cream. And so do you. It´s your favorite food. I heard you say that once.  And cats  love cream, so it all makes sense. Let’s go for that ice cream.”

“Not without warning,” I said.

“AAAAAAAAAtttttttttyyyyyyy!” shouted Alpin.

And my poor brother popped up, looking very alarmed.

“What? What has happened? What?”

“Nothing,” I said. I didn’t want to mention the temple, so I decided to do what I had promised Jocosa I would do. “Your choice for a mother-in-law came to see me and said I had to give you fair warning that she will not hesitate to hex you if you don’t treat her daughter right.”

“That must be some kind of joke of hers,” said Atty. “It’s her daughter who treats me like dirt. That's common knowledge.”

“Has she kicked you out of her house again?” asked Alpin, temporarily diverted by Atty’s predicament. “My mum says your girl is almost as raddled as she used to be. But she’s on your side, Atts, my mum is. She says you are a lovely man to have interested in one.”

Atty nodded.

"Thank your mum for her support," he said.  

“Ah, the cat will call you back every time, my mum says. Who else would put up with her and her mother?”

“She does always call you back, doesn’t she, Atty?” I asked my brother.

Atty again nodded.

“It always seems to be the definite time, but then she suddenly has things to do, and she scats me off to do them by herself.”

“As long as she doesn’t go off with anyone else. And it’s just like I told you. She never will because she won’t find anyone willing to be as much her doormat as you are,” said Alpin. And he added, to be nice, “You’ll be alright. There’s no substituting you. The older she gets the crankier she will be, and nobody will dare even approach her.” But he couldn’t help saying more. “Are you sure you haven’t already been hexed, Atts? It’s kind of weird that you keep returning to this ungrateful woman.”

“No, she hasn’t bewitched me or anything like that. My grandfather checked that out. First thing he did. He concluded neither she nor the Jocose Gang had bewitched me. Nor anyone. He assured me I was only being silly.”

“Well, maybe you are,” said Alpin. “You can have practically anyone else, or so everyone says. I hear you’ve even been hunted for like a feral animal by certain enterprising ladies who were to raffle you among them once snared.”

"I don't care what anyone says or  thinks of me. This is what I want."

Even I had something to say. It suddenly ocurred to me.

“How is it that Aunt Cybela has let you remain single? Haven’t the twins tried to find you someone more adequate?”

“Uff! There was a time when they didn’t give me a minute’s respite. But Aunt Cybela finally had to give up trying and tell the twins that she had seen very clearly that there would be no one but Shebie for me. Then the three said they admired me for loving so truly and even wished me luck. And they started hounding Shebie, who almost scratched them.”

“I suppose they had to admire your tenacity. All this is very romantic of you indeed,” said Alpin. "That can't be denied."

Atty nodded.

“They can appreciate that, if anyone can. Nick Sweetquill even said he would write a novel about me. With a happy ending.”

“If you aren’t  stalking your girlfriend today or maybe precisely because you are, could you take us to the Cat’s Meow Temple?”

“Sure,” said Atty, “but why? Are you walking alone, both or either of you? I’m welcome there because I almost always do.”

“Nonsense, Atty,” I said. “You have a whole family ready to give you support any time you need it. You have no business being in a temple for people who can’t count on anyone. Grandpa may be right. Maybe you are being rather silly.”

“I know I have support. But not in this particular matter. And it’s what matters most to me. Everybody wants me to forget Shebie. And I look such a woeful wretch when I drop by the temple chasing after her that the cats have no heart to turn me out.”

“You hear that, Arley? They don’t turn anyone out. Not even a headstrong spoiled brat like your brother who should know better than to chase after women who don’t deserve him. Come, Atty, I have this hankering to see that place. Does it admit sightseers?”

“I’ve never seen any there. Just a lot of cats and loners. Lovers of liberty too, they come to pay homage, give thanks and pray that they may always be free.”

“Atty isn’t going to take you there, Alpin,” I said.

“Why not? It sounds like they may be used to selfish people there. Look at your stubborn brother and his crazy girlfriend. Aren’t they both being selfish in their different ways?”

And then, before more could be said, a mist enveloped us. It lifted after a nanosecond, and we were standing before a small, crescent-shaped lake. In the centre of that was a sort of temple. It was painted a young green, and had tiles with bluish daisies all over the front. Except on  its entrance, which was quite wide and painted a darker shade of evergreen.

“Is this it?” asked Alpin. “I don’t see any cats.”

“Look up,” said Atty, nodding upwards.

There were cats lounging on the clouds above the lake.

"These cats were once people?"

“They are both cats and people. You know that animals here can turn into people when they want to. And we can turn into animals when we want to. How long one can hold a certain shape depends on what one is at heart. Shall we board the barge or fly there?” asked Atty.

“If it was you that just brought us here, you don’t know what you’ve recklessly done,” I couldn't help scolding my brother. “I don’t know how many times they may have kicked you out of here before or even if they ever have, but this – this will be the definite time.”

“What?” said Atty. “Didn’t you say you wanted to come?”

I was beginning to think that maybe Atty, who won all the jousts and every game he played, and was looked up to by everyone, and whom even Nono Darcy respected, for Darcy would refrain from participating in a competition when my brother was a rival so Atty could win as fairly and squarely as he truly deserved to, was possibly not as clever as he was cracked up to be. “This man is as silly as Uncle Rich and maybe even as Aunt Jocosa,” I thought, beginning to understand how someone like Epon could be part of our family. Not that I have anything against cats who are pleased to be cats. I love mine. 

“Don’t you know who Alpin is?”

“Oh, Og! I forgot, Arley!” said Atty.

We were half way over the lunar lake and its sacred lotus flowers by then, and I was seriously tempted to tell him what I thought of him, but held back because I felt I was beginning to sound too much like Grandpa.

“You see?” said Alpin. “He’s self-centered.He can’t think of anything but his own problem. I won’t have any in this place. I'll fit in just fine.”

“I honestly hope you are right,” I said.

When we reached the steps before the temple door, a great big orange and white cat with an Egyptian headdress, a sort of nermes or nernes - I never remember the name of it – came out to receive us.

“Who have you brought here, Atty?” she asked, eyeing us cautiously.

Atty introduced us to the cat and said her name was Neferlily. 

“They were curious to see what this place looked like.”

“I’m curious to know what you eat here,” said Alpin. “I have noticed there are no fish in the pond.”

I was about to say thank you, we´ve seen what we wanted to and we are leaving right now when the cat laughed and asked Alpin, “Is your tummy hungry? Not just your soul?”

“I’m always hungry,” said Alpin.

“You needn’t feed him,” said Atty. “I just wanted to show them the view of the temple in the lake.”

“Wait here,” purred Neferlily.

She returned with another cat that carried a great big bowl of the sort used to feed not kittens but Great Danes, full of sweet coconut mice and salty fish-shaped crackers.

“This is it?” said Alpin. “Where is the ice cream?”

“Do we have ice cream, Pedubastis?” Neferlily asked the other cat.

“Sometimes. But not today.”

 “No wonder you walk alone,” said Alpin. He was about to start insulting the cats, so I pinched his arm.

“Ow!” he said.

And I said, “Start walking! Our summer trip has just begun.”

“On the water? But where are we going?” asked Alpin.

“I have no idea. Like you said, we will walk and that will take us somewhere. Maybe we will find Prester John.”