“A person who loves animals cannot be all bad.” We hope the saying holds up on the day of judgement. At any rate, when an abandoned cat was found in our neighborhood we felt obliged to take her in. She was beautiful and we gave her an appropriate name: Bella. We took her to the veterinarian for a first checkup. The veterinarian examined the cat and instructed us. We took him home an hour later, renamed Bello. It soon became obvious that Bello was born without a shred of ambition to do anything but rest, except perhaps to win a prize should there ever be a contest in the art of dolce far niente. I must say, however, that he is a cat like no other. Promptly at 9:15 every evening – he must have a clock in his head – he parks himself in front of my piano. I must then play a few pieces until 9:30, the bedtime he determined for himself. At this point he usually gives me a signal, a short miau. I know I am in danger of losing my mind, but this actually happens every night, give five minutes early or late. I have reached the stage where I talk to him like a person. On days when I don’t feel like playing I apologize and explain to him that I am too tired to read the music. Sometimes I have the impression that he isn’t even a cat but some mysterious messenger, a cat-alyst sent by Euterpe to stimulate my tired brain and to make sure that my fingers don’t forget how to find the C major 7. He has a Dionysian streak as well, that strange cat, for he tears into his cat food pellets as if they were ambrosia.
