“The Story Behind The Kitten”

People ask whether the title of my blog refers to me. Am I the “kitten”?

No, I’m not but there is an interesting story behind the name. A few weeks after I had moved back to Romania, my girlfriends and I were out shopping. We were in the local market looking at clothes and we came across a fortune teller. My friends said lets check her out. Inside there was an old gypsy woman, and she offered to read our future. My friends knowing that things had been chaotic for me recently, offered to pay for a reading.

The old woman got out her cards and shuffling them a few times, then she began to lay them out o her little table. She “mmmmm-ed” and stroked her chin as she turned each card over. My friends kept asking “What do you see?”

Finally the old woman looked at me and said “Have you meet a cat recently?”

Of all the things she could have asked, that was perhaps the strangest. When I said I had not, she replied “You will then.”

“You have know much trouble lately. Problems and disappointments, that the cards tell me,” she continued. “But you should not give up hope. Things will get better. There comes a visitor in you life which will bring you good luck. Let me tell you a story…”

* * * *

“Many years ago when Bucharest was young and her men went to sea for trade there lived a young woman named Rowena. A beautiful dark haired girl, some whispered there was more than trace of gypsy blood in her. For Rowena’s mother, who had died when she was young, had been wise in the ways of plants and herbs.

Rowena’s father worked as a clerk in one of the large shipping houses ad sometimes when the day was nice and Rowena was not busy, she would bring her father lunch and they would share it on the dockside watching the ships come in. While they ate, Rowena’s father would tell her tales of far off lands. He had been a sailor in his youth.

The owner of the shipping house, Ivan Stanislow, had been a good man. A captain of some fame, unfortunately he and his ship had been lost that year. His son Peter had inherited, and while he had his father’s good looks, Peter was a cold hard man who looked down on the people he now employed.

It came to be that Peter noticed the fair Rowena, and taken by her beauty decided he would have her for his wife. He sent her flowers and letter but Rowena rejected his advances for she knew he had a cold heart. Her rejection infuriated Peter for he was not a man who took no for an answer easily.

One day a shipment of goods arrived from Amsterdam. Among them a collection of fine jewelry destined for the Turkish Court. There was great concern when it was discovered a priceless necklace was missing. A search ensued.

Neighbors found Rowena washing and told her “Go quickly to the shipping house, they have arrested your father!”

Rowena could not believe it, for her father was an honest man but when she arrived she found her father in chains. The stolen necklace had been found hidden in her father’s desk. “Let us talk,” Peter said to Rowena. He lead her into his office.

“Your father will go to prison for the rest of his life but I have a proposal. If you become my wife then it might have been he was only holding it for you to see, and he would not be a thief then.”

Rowen knew the truth then, that Peter had done the deed. She had no real choice for it was as Peter said, her father would die in prison if she did not agree. “I will be your wife,” she told him. “But know this, you will never have my heart.”

So they were married.

Weeks became months and months became years. Rowena was the lady of a grand mansion and Peter trying to soften her heart gave her fine clothes, beautiful jewelry and all the material things his money could buy. Though he loved her, he loved her like a thing to be owned. Rowena was all things a wife should be. Dutiful, obedient, even sharing Peter’s bed but she was true to her word.

And so it passed that Peter’s love for Rowena soured and turned to hate. It started with small cruelties, petty insults and other little things but when Rowena did not react, Peter got crueler still. He ignored her, spoke badly to her, would strike her and then as insult, Peter took a mistress.

While Rowena outwardly appeared not to be affected by Peter’s cruelties, in truth her life made her very sad. Her only joy was her occasional lunches with her father. He had escaped prison over the necklace but not long after that, his eyesight had failed and he was let loose from the shipping house. Rowena supported him as best she could. Stopping by one day she found him ill and even though she paid for a doctor, her father had worsened and then died.

With her father gone and the strain of Peter’s hostility growing, Rowena grew greatly depressed. One night late, she found herself standing at the end of the old North Pier, alone and just gazing out to sea. Very old, part of the pier had fallen into the water a few years ago leaving jagged beams and boards among the rocks. Ships avoided it and used the newer one to the south side of the harbor.

The pier still got use but of a grimmer kind. Widows and lovers, whose men had been lost at sea, were know to fling themselves off it in suicide. And Rowena’s thoughts were black and dark that night.

Then something strange happened. Rowena heard a small cry below her in the dark. She peered down and there among the splashing waves was a cat, clinging to a wooden beam for dear life. It meowed and looked up at her as if pleading for help. Rowena didn’t hesitate. She carefully climbed down the slippery pilings and pulled it to safety. Cold, wet and shivering, Rowena saw it was more kitten than cat. How had it come to be here she wondered.

Back on the pier, the kitten burrowed into Rowena’s clothing, settling into the pocket of her cloak. Safe and warmer it began to purr. Rowena laughed and for the first time since her marriage felt a great weight lift from her soul.

Winter gave way to Spring and with the change Rowena’s spirits turned for the better. Where before she had spent her time alone in her rooms, she now took a greater role in managing the mansion. The kitten became a regular fixture around the great house. It would disappear for hours and then Rowena would turn and find it playing with a piece of string, or simply sunning itself on a windowsill.

The servants noticed the change in their mistress and noticed too the new visitor. One day Rowena stepped out a door and found several of the maids in hushed conversation. One laughed and Rowena saw the kitten at their feet playing with their skirts.

The one person who was not aware his household had acquired another member was Peter. He hardly spent time there, preferring to sleep with one of his mistresses or at a friend’s after a night of gambling.

(to be continued…)