“Bonjour,” said a paint-spattered, disheveled woman in her thirties, in a thick Québecois accent standing just inside the door I hadn’t completely shut, since we were supposed to have the entire fourth floor to ourselves. We were both fast asleep, dog-tired after the move from New York to Montreal, I on the semi-inflated, lumpy vinyl aerobed I had managed to locate in one of several dozen of our unmarked cartons, and JP on his cushiony, sheepskin-covered mini-mattress that never gets boxed, wrapped or otherwise hidden from sight. JP sighed—he didn’t even attempt a bark—and rolled onto his side facing the wall. I tried to shake myself awake.

“Bonjour…” I finally muttered.

“I’m sorry but this place is not livable for him,” the woman said, shaking her finger in JP’s direction. Something about her tone caused JP to stir, stand up and stretch. In contrast to our Manhattan digs, in Montreal I’d sought size over luxury—a fixer-upper loft with 3,000 square feet of unfinished wood floors for JP to run around on, a sink, a shower, a loo and not much else—and thankfully had stumbled upon a landlord who preferred to see American dollars rather than my Canadian working papers.

“At least he’s got room to move around,” I smiled. JP began to sniff at the floor and walls.

“I mean to say that he cannot live in this building,” she said doubtfully, her own eyes scouring everywhere. “Pas possible. Not with Bernard in residence.” A cat meowed from somewhere above and JP instantly spotted the massive ball of jet black fur perched atop a water pipe that climbed the length of the wall and extended along the ceiling. The two beings stared at each other.

“Bernard?” I queried.

“The first thing the landlord tells me when I arrive: ‘No pets!’” the woman said, by way of a non-answer. I hadn’t thought it necessary to clear a dog. Given the artsy/industrial location of the warehouse and its state of disrepair—one might have expected to see other, less domesticated critters living among the building’s loose floorboards and bricks—I didn’t imagine that JP’s presence would attract much attention or pose a damage risk.

“So you have a cat…” I persisted.

She shook her head. “He is my model … but he answers to no one.” She stomped across the room to an old wooden ladder leaning against a wall and proceeded to climb to the top rung, nearly sending herself toppling as she leaned toward the cat. “Come to Sylvie,” she cooed. He didn’t. “Don’t think he is afraid,” Sylvie tossed to JP as she reached for the now snarling, trembling creature. “This is not fear, but rage that his space has been invaded!” With that, Bernard leapt into the air, landing clumsily on the floor. He slid his well-fed body into a gaping hole at the base of the water pipe and shimmied down to the loft below. JP looked at me with a kind of stunned disbelief—he’d never encountered a cat in his habitat … or a woman who didn’t like him.

* * *

I explained to Aristo, the fifty-something, fatherly Greek landlord, that I genuinely hadn’t noticed the no-pets clause in the lease. His own wool trousers were dotted with some kind of animal fur that belied his stern expression, and he admitted that the rule was not because of a dislike of animals, but rather for the protection of a timid squatter named Aphrodite, the abandoned runt of a stray’s litter for whom he had left milk since she was a kitten. Aphrodite flitted from warehouse to warehouse, unhindered by other predators, keeping his entire block of real estate free of rodents.

“She is small, but she is good.” Aristo demonstrated about eight inches with his hands. “So tiny. I like to know she is safe.” Aristo was particularly understanding after I assured him that JP harbored no ill feelings toward cats and offered to pay an additional security deposit for the inconvenience. As I signed the rider to the lease, Aristo remarked that he hadn’t seen Aphrodite in a while. I thought it best not to mention that she had been evicted—or worse—by a very large cat named Bernard.

* * *

We saw neither hide nor hair of Bernard over the next few days, although there were bountiful sightings of Sylvie—the hole in our floor was directly above the sleeping quarters of her atelier—and the artiste had worked herself into an audible, creatively distracting frenzy over JP scaring away her muse at the onset of cold weather … and only a few weeks before her next exhibition. JP, too, had become obsessed with the lingering dander that Bernard had left at every window and crevice to taunt him. On the day of the first blizzard of October, Sylvie’s weeping below was matched by JP’s whining above.

It was normally an effort to get JP to venture outside in poor weather, but today he was anxious to walk. The wind was gusting and several inches of powder had fallen in less than an hour, and I marveled at JP’s new appreciation of winter weather. He barely gave me a backward glance as we trudged through the crooked and quaint streets of Old Montreal to the banks of the St. Lawrence River, where he marked the occasional bare tree or pile of raked and weather-matted leaves. When we reached the docks of the old port, the point at which we usually stopped and turned back, JP surprised me further by climbing down an embankment to a hodgepodge of boxes, tin cans and blankets. When JP stuck his nose under the makeshift shelter, there was activity underneath and I expected a homeless person to emerge.

“Meeeooowww!” JP stepped back to allow Bernard to slither out from under the edge of a canvas. Looking haggard but none the lighter—Mice must be plentiful along the banks, I thought—he purred melodiously. JP wagged excitedly and edged closer to sniff, but as I climbed down to the river’s edge, Bernard’s singing turned to hissing. JP scolded him with a bark. Offended, Bernard arched his back and bared his teeth. When that drew no reaction from either of us, he straightened up, turned and plodded through the snow and up the waterfront in the direction of town.

JP bounded off after him, not predatorily, but keenly interested, ignoring my pleas for him to stop. Encumbered by his robustness and the weather, Bernard’s progress through the slippery, cobblestoned streets was slow, and so even I had no trouble keeping up … and by the time we reached the Rue de la Commune, cat was actually following dog! Clearly there was an animalistic mission here that I was not privy to. The early evening rush was more bustling than ever as the Montréalais raced home to beat the storm. Still, people smiled and dipped into the entryways of the 18th-century stone and brick buildings to let the unlikely duo pass.

* * *

“You’ve returned!” cried Sylvie whose head appeared outside her third-floor window as JP and Bernard approached. Bernard shimmied up a lamppost—gaining a few inches, then losing a few—until he was positioned on top of the light below the window on the second floor of the building. Bernard crouched. JP barked what sounded like a warning. Then the cat propelled himself through the air to the window ledge, sliding across it, barely avoiding tumbling off the other side. Determined to court this admirable feline, JP took the safer route through the door and up the stairs.

* * *

In the hallway, Aristo tried key after key from several rings—we had called him when it became obvious the cat wasn’t leaving the ledge to go anywhere but inside the vacant loft. JP exhaled his impatience. “I’m hurrying!” Aristo said. JP nudged me, as if I had some power to speed things up, and then paced until finally Aristo had the door open. The cat was covered in snow, appearing frozen solid except for a small paw scratching weakly at the glass. JP ran to the window and pressed his nose against it. Aristo pulled on a long chain and Bernard blew in with the cold air.

Sidestepping JP, Sylvie extended her arms to the cat. “Thank God you’re alive!” she cried, and burst into tears. Before she could snatch him, Bernard squirmed, dropped to the ground by JP’s feet, shook off the snow, aimed for another exposed water pipe … and slid downstairs.

“That’s my Aphrodite!” called Aristo. “My tiny little…”

* * *

“Girl!” Sylvie exclaimed. “Bernard est une fille? I mean, I never actually checked…” By the time we humans reached my loft below, JP was acting as midwife to the androgynous cat, who had already given birth to one kitten. JP prodded and licked the newborn clean and then followed Aphrodite, aka Bernard, to a far corner of the loft, where she dropped another under his nose. “But my exhibition!” Sylvie said. “The series is La Vie de Bernard. I cannot possibly call it the ‘Life of Aphrodite’!” Aristo let out a bellow of laughter. Sylvie looked as though she were about to cry. “The invitations have all been printed!”

Aristo shrugged, picked up a wrinkly kitten between his fingers and caressed JP. “So call the little maman Bernardette, if you want,” he suggested more somberly.

* * *

JP, Aristo and I were guests of honor at Sylvie’s exhibition: Bernardette et JP, Une Histoire d’Amour au Vieux Montréal. On each invitation, Sylvie had hand-painted ette after the name Bernard … and she added liver-colored Dalmatian spots to a few of the paintings. Bernardette, née Aphrodite, back to her petite self, sat beside JP and her six adorable kittens, all of which were adopted by patrons before the night was out. All, that is, but one. With Aristo’s blessing, Sylvie kept the runt … and JP made room for two others on his bed that winter. He and Bernardette raised the little boy as their own until the bittersweet day the following spring when Sylvie’s newfound success as an animal portraitist took her and little Bernie to Paris. Bernardette, a diehard Quebecer, is still a squatter in Old Montreal’s warehouse district, but JP is comforted by the cat hairs permanently woven into the sheepskin … and by Sylvie’s parting gift, a family portrait adorning the wall just above it.

 

 

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