The Great Sicilian Cat Rescue (9 page)

Angela was definitely a cat person. I couldn’t imagine her reacting in the same way towards a dog. Ask most people and they are likely to dub themselves as either a cat or dog person. Research suggests that our choice of a furry friend says something about who we are. It seems there are differences between cat people and dog people. A University of Texas study found that those who define themselves as dog people are more extrovert, agreeable and conscientious, while those who prefer felines are more adventurous but also prone to be neurotic and anxious. Where a sense of humour is concerned, those who prefer dogs are more likely to enjoy slapstick, while cat lovers may prefer irony and puns. Both groups, however, talk to animals, see themselves as close to nature and are generally optimistic.

A
day or two into our endeavour, the locals joined in, amazed by the success of the traps I had bought. In spite of our attempts to keep our activities secret, people found their way to the summerhouse, wanting to watch the operations, and we had to shoo them away. Besides the traps I had bought some sets of stacking cages, which allowed three cats to be separately housed one on top of the other, thus saving a lot of space. On the whole, the felines were remarkably quiet and, in the midst of all this coming and going, Frank and Ross calmly carried out their veterinary duties.

The atmosphere was tense with concentration. We felt we had to speak in whispers. On the first day I wondered if I could watch the operations. Elke was already accustomed to this and encouraged me.

‘Yes, come on, Jenny,' Frank added. ‘If you want to take photographs and document the project, you need to see what it's all about.'

He lifted an anaesthetised cat onto the table and covered its side with a drape. Elke handed him a scalpel.

‘Oh, dear!' I muttered and shrank away.

‘OK, OK!' Frank murmured. ‘You're not about to see a load of blood. Once we used to make a big incision but now it's more like keyhole surgery.'

He was right. I watched his skilful fingers move swiftly and surely and in minutes it was over – with, as he said, very little blood. Elke gently lifted the cat and laid it in a recovery cage. Soon I was an old hand, helping with sterilising the instruments and handing over medication. But many of the female cats were already pregnant and I never got used to the necessary aborting of kittens.

In the Public Gardens I found a beautiful grey tabby, which had obviously been abandoned as she came to me quite readily. I fell for this pretty little thing and was anxious when it came to her turn for the operation. Unable to stay to watch this one, I went outside and stood staring down at Isola Bella without really seeing it. After a while Elke came out of the summerhouse.

‘Don't worry, she's fine, Jenny.'

Isola Bella swam back into focus, the bougainvillea seemed a more intense magenta against the blue sky; I felt absurdly happy.

There was tragedy too. One evening, Nino came over from his
trattoria
with a tiny kitten wrapped up in a blanket.

‘This cat is sick, I think. Can you do anything for her?'

She was a scrap of a thing with milky, newly opened eyes. They stared at me and my heart went out to her. Elke gave me some special milk for kittens and a pipette and I fought to save her, not sleeping for two nights while she lay beside me in her little blanket on the pillow. On the second day I was close to tears. I willed her to live, giving her all my strength. The rest of the world didn't seem to exist – it was just this tiny scrap and me.

Elke left the summerhouse and came over to where I sat.

‘Let me take her to the house at Isola Bella, it will be quieter for her there.'

‘You'll look after her?' I queried anxiously.

‘Of course I will.'

The next day she told me gently that my little kitten had died on the way down and I realised she had wanted to spare me this. Dear Elke! In future, I would remember her wise words: ‘You have to be strong if you do this work.'

I quickly realised it was the wrong time of the year to choose for this venture. June in Taormina is a month of intense heat and we worked in conditions sometimes exceeding 40°C (104°F). Elke had brought in fans for the summerhouse but, the moment you stepped outside, the sun burned fiery hot. I dreaded the trips I had to make to the pharmacist, rushing along the Corso under that scorching sun to pick up more sterile gloves and other supplies.

As the days went by, we became increasingly anxious that word was getting round. We were engaged on something that was technically illegal, flouting Sicilian bureaucracy, which involves mountains of paperwork and so-called laws never carried out. For example, the public sector of the veterinary
service, ASL, is supposedly responsible for the neutering of feral cats but it does little if anything about it. The Town Hall agrees it is necessary but money always goes somewhere else. To set up as a private vet, as my friend Giulio told me, you must conform to a tome of rules before being issued with a certificate. All this is exacerbated by two unpleasant traits in the Sicilian character: envy and craftiness, a readiness to inform on anything that might be another's success, adding complications to my apparently simple aim of helping the cats. Nevertheless, during my trip, over a hundred cats were neutered and treated successfully with antibiotics and eye creams.

We were terrified that someone would report us to the police and had to be very careful it was only feral cats we neutered. Towards the end of the week we had a drama. Once more Nino came over from the
trattoria
. We had managed to catch and neuter a number of the feral cats he fed outside the restaurant kitchen. Now he brought a large handsome cat and asked for her to be ‘done' as well. Was she feral? Oh yes, of course. Frank operated on her that evening and we put her in a carrier to recover. We couldn't understand why Nino was so anxious to have her back.

Later that evening he called us in a panic: the cat didn't seem well.

‘Let her rest,' Frank told him.

Nino called again. ‘I'm really worried about the cat, I think she's dying. I'm going to call a local vet.'

This was the last thing we wanted. If a private vet believed, at least theoretically, that we were taking money out of his pocket, then we would almost certainly be reported.

‘I'll go over and see him,' Frank sighed. He was on the
point of packing up for the day to go back to Elke's house for dinner.

‘Guess what?' he said when he came back. ‘That cat wasn't feral, it is his wife's cat – she was away for a few days and Nino thought it was a good opportunity to get it neutered. Now she's coming back in a couple of days and he's panicking.'

We were appalled. If anything happened to this favoured feline, there would be trouble.

‘Don't worry,' Frank continued. ‘There is nothing wrong with that animal, she is just getting over the anaesthetic. Give her another twenty-four hours and she'll be fine.'

He was right and Nino came over, full of apologies and an invitation to eat in his
trattoria
on our last night. We made doubly sure all cats were feral after that.

By the end of our week's work we were worn out, but jubilant, too: all the cats had come through without problem, cats that were now going to have a better quality of life. It was time for a celebration.

Nino stood in the entrance of his restaurant beaming broadly. It was obvious the cat had made a good recovery.

‘Welcome, welcome, my friends!' He waved an expansive hand to the long table set out on the terrace. It bristled with wine glasses and cutlery.

‘Make yourselves at home.'

The meal began: it was sumptuous, beginning with
antipasto
. In English we call it the ‘appetiser course'. For the French it is
hors d'oeuvre
, in Italy it's called the
antipasto
. It can be hot or cold, cooked or raw, a delicious invitation to the feast that is to follow: the smooth texture of a tuna pâté contrasting with the brilliant colours of parsley, lemon slices
and olives, marinated with herbs, stuffed olives with a nutty almond or hot spicy filling, or dark purple kalamata olives, all adding their own flavour and colour. The colours, the artful composition, reminded us that it was time for pleasure, relaxation and indulgence.

Glasses were refilled and we tucked in. Then came the first course, my favourite
Pasta alla Norma
, and then fish, simply grilled with lemon and herbs. More wine and a pause before the desserts arrived, the cassata and panna cotta, the ice cream!

A special guest joined us: Dorothea Fritz, the legendary German vet who directs Lega Pro Animale for the sterilisation of cats and dogs in Naples. Dorothea studied in Munich, then worked in Greece before finally arriving in Naples. Visits to the
canili
, the cruel dog shelters provided by the state, left a lasting impression. She saw more than 450 inmates, living skeletons of dogs, who endured a life of sickness and uncontrolled reproduction. Dorothea decided she could not turn her back on this terrible situation. She acquired a plot of land and in 1986 Lega Pro Animale was born. A small woman with cropped grey hair and a lovely smile, the years of combating authorities have honed her into a tough fighter, unafraid to stand up to any authority. She had come to Taormina for a few days and agreed to accompany me on my proposed foray to the town hall.

This is a seventeenth-century building in Corso Umberto, near the Duomo, Taormina's main church. Its pinkish façade, featuring an arched portico and motifs such as a Star of David, resembles something one would expect to see in Venice. Inside, there is luxurious marble inlay and impressive
framed windows sporting coats of arms. A cloister, enclosing an impressive flight of marble stairs, brings you to the first floor.

Here, there is the scene of much coming and going, of people standing in the corridor, clasping their
documenti
. They wait to be admitted, glaring at the closed doors. Suddenly, one such door opens and a personage shoots out and off down the stairs, called away on an urgent errand.

‘Come back tomorrow!' The mayor's voice floats back to those who wait and shrug: ‘
Muh
!'

At a desk in one corner a man like the dog Cerberus, Hades' loyal watchdog, guards the entrance to the council chambers. But the conduct of the mayor and the councillors is a constant source of argument along the Corso. Faults in administration, rising rates and taxes, the cost of living… all this is chewed over. The people of Taormina are great talkers and one of their favourite subjects is party politics.

‘He's not going to be here,' Cerberus told me when, for the third time, I climbed that magnificent staircase.

‘But this is important,' I protested. ‘I know Taormina lives by tourism,' I added, trying a different tack. ‘You need to sort out the feral animal situation.'

‘Why don't you go to the tourist office?' the hell dog shrugged. ‘If it is to do with tourism.'

‘It is the mayor I need to see. And I have a very prestigious vet arriving in a few days' time. She has asked me to make an appointment.'

By now I was desperate. I knew that Dorothea was only there on a flying visit.

‘
Muh
!' said Cerberus.

The following day, as soon as I could take a break from cat catching, I was back at the town hall. Cerberus was deep in conversation with another man and they eyed me disdainfully. I was only a woman, after all.

‘You know what I've come about,' I said. ‘Surely the mayor can find a few minutes? Several local vets want to attend a meeting too, people like Dottore Grasso.'

‘Grasso?'

I nodded.

The men exchanged a look; the visitor murmured something: I had obviously struck a chord. Cerberus rose and went to tap on the illustrious one's door. He disappeared inside. After a moment he returned.

‘Monday at 10am,' he said. His tone was begrudging.

I wondered how my cause had been described. The mention of Grasso had obviously turned the tables in my favour but I was a foreigner and naturally suspect. It put me in mind of the phrase
essere sistemata
. Luigi Barzini, the Italian writer who delved deep into the national character, had something to say about this. The Italian people live in constant political chaos, unable to trust government, public institutions or their neighbour. Envy and jealously are rife. To be
sistemata
is to create a protective shield against this precarious life. A safe, secure job, not aspiring to greatness (such as a university degree), not drawing attention to yourself, marrying and having children provides a sense of inner and outer order – in other words, being
sistemata
. Were they fearful I was trying to disturb this comfortable, if deaf and blind, existence?

Frank returned to America and Elke and I cleared out the
summerhouse. The following day, I met up with Dorothea and we descended on the town hall for our meeting with the local dignitaries.

The mayor, the vice mayor and about a dozen Sicilian vets were assembled in one of the chambers to greet us.

‘So, what is all this about?' the mayor demanded. ‘Are you animal activists?'

I felt Dorothea stiffen. She had obviously been accused of this before. Her voice was firm, her tone cool.

‘Spaying and neutering of stray cats in Italy should be performed free of charge by the public veterinary services, but very often this service does not work well or the numbers neutered are not high enough to make a difference in the territory. We should not forget that a cat at five months of age can already be pregnant and there can be up to four litters in just one year. On average there are three kittens in a litter, but we have found cats pregnant with ten kittens.'

Ten
! A collective gasp went round the chamber. This was news to the councillors and maybe the vets too.

‘And where do you stand in all this?' the mayor wanted to know.

‘I want to stress to you how vital it is to have a proper programme for neutering feral animals,' Dorothea continued. ‘If they are left to breed in this way, they suffer and people employ other, more cruel methods of control. In the years I have lived in Naples we have established a spay/neuter clinic and it has made a real difference. If a place to operate could be provided in Taormina, we could initiate a similar project here.'

‘I don't see why not,' observed the mayor. ‘It seems like
a good idea. I should think we could provide such a place somewhere in the town.'

He turned to confer with the others, who nodded their heads and murmured agreement. I noted a surreptitious glancing at watches – were they thinking about lunch? It certainly appeared our time was up; our hands were shaken and we found ourselves once more out in the blazing hot Corso Umberto.