The only witness to the crime was a cat. Read an excerpt from Dêbski’s new book

I saw him die: stabbed in the stomach, above the navel, under the breastbone. Desperately, he opened his eyes as if he had seen something wonderful, unique in life, but when life ends, when you die, you don’t see any wonderful thing or being, or any angel, or bony black Death. He also opened his mouth, perhaps to call for help or to warn someone? I didn’t hear anything, balcony doors and closed windows effectively muffled every sound.

And even before he fell on his back like a log, he started raising his hand, I don’t know, intending to hit the killer or to cross himself? As he fell to the floor, he grabbed the tablecloth with his fingers, crumpled it in his fist, and tugged it, and the ashtray slid across the table with the tablecloth. Jovan collapsed, tilted his head back, and gave me a farewell look.

The killer jerked his hand instinctively, intending to grab the ashtray, but gave it up, and the ashtray made it half its circular circumference to the edge of the table, perhaps a millimeter or two short of it falling to the floor, spilling its foul-smelling contents.

It didn’t fall.

With Jovan gone, everything in the room froze. Even the giant monstera hung from the flowerbed as if the leaves had suddenly run out of water. Silence, almost deathly, and then the slam of the laptop lid closing. The computer wandered out of the room under someone’s sweaty armpit.

I knew my door was locked, but I pushed it a few times with my paw anyway. They didn’t open. Maybe well? On the one hand, I was safe there, on the other hand, something told me to come in and… And?

So I stood on the balcony and looked at Jovan, actually at the soles of his shoes, above which a part of his face was sticking out: only the lower part of the chin and the nose. What is this face view called? It is en face, there is a profile, and there is no top and bottom. Not even frog or bird perspective. I don’t know…

A piece of chewing gum the size of a quail’s egg was stuck to the sole of his left shoe. Jovan served me this egg once a week. Each time he said that he was curious about its taste and that one day, when he was financially stable, we would eat together: me one, he – bigger – two. Or three.

I suddenly realized that I had acted like the last tailed ass: I should have run in front of the block to see exactly what the murderer looked like and where he was going. And I, the moron, stare at the sole and lick at the memory of delicious quail yolk.

Ferret bee!

He’s lying there beaten up, and I’m thinking about eating! I know, it’s called “battered.” It was Jovan who came up with all these word remakes. “Kottemplować”, “komkot” instead of “kompot”, “parkotmeter”, “kottuzjowane” and many others.

And he also came up with curse words like “ferret bee” and “make you sick!”

I stared at Jovan for a moment, then turned and jumped off the balcony, taking one last look at the door. You couldn’t see anything, the sun was shining on the glass

mirror.

Not so long ago I followed the same trail: jump into the lawn, ours was mowed, the tenants did not want a meadow that was fashionable this year. Pollens were harmful to allergy sufferers, mice disturbed timid ladies, hedgehogs were deterred by fleas. The city authorities were happy about the meadows, rubbing their hands while counting savings, so Jovan said. And the cats were happy. Cats could hunt at will for stupid voles and cunning rats. But only small ones, big ones are not for me, firstly, they never give up, secondly, they smell, thirdly, Kopacz once ate one of these and almost gave up! Wetka Ela from Grochowa said that he ate a kilo of poison and it was a miracle on the Oder River that he was alive. He survived, but looked like he didn’t for several months.

And he did not admit whether he lost his life. I think one is.

But not about that…

I didn’t want to leave early. Jovan was on the phone, Jebem ti mater! he growled, but the interlocutor didn’t seem to care. They finally made an appointment in an hour. I dozed off on the couch, but Jovan woke me up when he opened the bar and took a long gulp of alcohol from a flat bottle. Then he grabbed me, kissed me between the ears, and pushed me out the door onto the balcony. I wanted to show him that this was not the way to do it, I poked the flap, but he blocked it from the inside, so I decided to reproach myself: I sat on the rug and stared at it, running my paw over the glass every few moments. But this time it didn’t work.

It was boring. I started staring at other balconies, at trees, a magpie flew by, yuck! Mean and aggressive bird! I was alert until she disappeared, and then again, because she leered at me with her eye, and I had already tasted that beak once.

I yawned.

I started cleaning myself.

I didn’t notice anything change in the room. Maybe they were in the kitchen? Probably so. Jovan usually led guests to the kitchen. He offered drinks in various vessels, but no milk or cream. I stopped brushing my tongue, I froze because they started yelling at each other so loud that you could hear them through the sealed windows and doors. Jovan first waved his hands in front of him as if he were wiping glass, then clenched his hands into fists – his fists were like the heads of a cabbage – and shook them. Then he lowered his hands and hit them on his thighs.

And the other man suddenly straightened his arm from below, the knife he held in it drew a black streak in the air. It hit Jovan in the belly, soft under the ribs.

As Jovan fell, he took a large ball of checkered handkerchief from his other pocket, wiped the knife, and put it away. I fell to the floor, staring at him, he saw movement on the balcony out of the corner of his eye, turned around and took a step towards the balcony door. I wasn’t going to wait for his caresses, for his touch at all. I turned and landed in one bound on the gangway, scurrying across the shaved lawn into the bushes. I checked the back, of course he wasn’t there.

But something was following me. Something bad, born the moment Jovan fell on his back. I shook myself, but it wasn’t a cobweb.

After a while I realized that this must be death. They say cats have seven or even nine lives, but when Piksel died, I never saw him again… And Jovan? Or maybe he’ll get up soon, brush himself off, prick up his ears and open the balcony door, shouting “kici, kitty, kitty”?

I jumped on the balcony again, Jovan was lying on the carpet, nothing resurrected, stiff, with a dirty sole and dried gore. And the hand that had cracked quail eggs and taken sprats out of a paper bag and was now resting uselessly and hopelessly in a pool of blood.

I fuck you mother! And I? What about me?

The Seventh Life of a Cat – cover press materials of the Agora Publishing House