This short story is not mine , it`s written by Dr.mohammed. abdelaaty , a professor in cairo university ..... i read it more than once coz i graetly admired it and i wanna you all to enjoy it like i did ...... a fter a few days i`ll but a translation into arabic
I fell in love with Noossa
by Dr. Mohamed Abd EL-Aati
Before I moved to my present apartment in one of the busiest roads of Giza, I used to live in a beautiful house in which I had a big garden where I used to sit late at night when the noise outside would vanish away. There, I used to have my dinner all alone in that garden, while surrounded with a few stray cats, which made my garden their asylum at night. I never liked cats in my life; but those cats used to do me a daily favour. You know, I lived all alone in that big house, and almost always had dinner, all alone, without any person to encourage me to eat. I have a bad appetite, if you ask me. Now, those cats would queue up for their share in my food, and I enjoyed having those uninvited guests insofar as they encouraged me to eat. Yet, I still hated them because as soon as they felt that there was nothing left for me to offer them, they would turn their faces away and leave, with ungrateful faces too.
It was in 1996 when all of a sudden something happened that changed my attitude towards cats. It was almost late afternoon when a kind of a mighty sand storm had turned Cairo into utter chaos and darkness. While I was lying in bed—half-asleep— I heard a big bang in the garden. So, I ran to the garden to find out what was going on outside. Guess what I found? A mighty tree branch had fallen into the garden, and beneath that branch there was a helpless newly-born kitten (couldn’t have been more than a week old). I pulled her away from that mighty branch and left her there, hoping that her mother would soon locate her and take care of her. I stayed there waiting for her mother’s arrival but that mother never showed up.
“What should I do? “ I kept asking myself till it was already dark, and the poor thing was mewing endlessly for help.
Later in the evening, my Gardner came to clean up the garden. So, I told him about the story that was making me very upset. But, he looked at me with a grin on his face, and said:
“Doctor, forget about that kitten, Allah will take care of her!”
“But Allah hasn’t sent her mother till now, it’s been 4 hours since I found her down there!” I replied angrily.
“Her mother must be looking for her now…don’t worry…she must be searching for food in this storm…and that takes time…you know,” He reassured me, and kept on repeating that stuff many times in ten different ways to prove his point. But, I was getting impatient.
“Amm Hosni (that was his name), could you take that kitten with you home, I know you have kids who will like her,” I suggested.
“Doctor, I already have eleven kids at home plus their mother…I can’t afford to feed my kids, and their ever-hungry mother…so how can I add another member to the family!” He spoke mockingly.
“I’ll give you all the money you need to raise her up, at least until she can rely on herself, then you can set her free, what do you think?” I asked.
“Doctor, it’s not a matter of money, Allah can provide us all with food…but my wife is very difficult, you don’t know her well! She will throw the kitten into the street the moment she sees her!” He spoke seriously.
“Never mind, Amm Hosni…perhaps Allah has sent me this cat to test me…I’ll take care of her myself…now go and get me some milk for her…and tomorrow I will find one way or another.” I said.
That evening I felt as if I was becoming a father for the first time. I was happy when she drank the milk and stopped her mewing siren. The next morning, I woke up early to feed her. And days passed. She was growing up rapidly. I decided to call her “Noossa” (as my Gardner suggested one day—but never told me why). A month or two later, she has turned into a beautiful young cat. Never seen such beauty in a creature. Each day we were becoming closer and closer. Whenever I sat to read, watch TV or do anything, Noossa would jump to sit on my lap, do something funny to attract my attention, then fall off to sleep.
My dinner-for-all at the garden was still taking place, but Noossa seemed dissatisfied, and possibly jealous, to see me feeding other cats. I could feel it on her face. At times, she started to attack some of those other cats (the younger ones of course), and, at other times, she would run as fast as her legs would carry her to snatch a piece of food I threw away to another cat; but, to my surprise, she wouldn’t eat it herself. The message Noossa wanted to convey to me was becoming obvious: “you must not feed those stray cats…I’m your cat, and I am the one who deserves your attention, not those street ones”. If only we spoke the same language, I would have told her that she did not have the right to be cruel to my guests—after all, she too was one of those whom she despises!
The older Noossa became, the more freedom I gave her to play in the garden with other cats whom she liked. But, I, too, was becoming jealous about her relationship with a cat boy-friend. She was now more keen on playing with him all the time, making my garden their meeting place and playground. I’m sure it was that little rascal who taught her to kill mice and eat dirty food. One day she came back from the garden with that young dirty boy-friend and together they started playing together on my clean carpet. I kicked that little devil out, and Noossa didn’t feel happy about it. She was no longer keen on sitting on my lap. The only thing she was now keen on was to go into the kitchen with me and stand staring at me while I was preparing food for her.
One day, Noossa went out into the garden and I waited for her to come back, but she never came back. I went out searching for her everywhere, asking whoever knew my Noossa whether they saw her or not; but nobody had seen her that day. My search lasted all night. I waited for her for days, weeks, months and years but she disappeared for ever. My memories of Noossa have remained, but I have always wanted to know why it all happened and why it all ended. Wherever she is now, I wish her all happiness, even though with that rascal.
