Page 36 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

do. Under the streetlight ahead of me, that person appeared again. He squatted
there and slaughtered a black cat. When the black cat screeched the first time, I
thought I was going to lose my mind. And that’s when I entered the cave on the
left side. After I entered the cave, I heard that startling screech again. I’d better
hurry ahead. After five or six steps, I saw an exit and came out. I turned around

and, sure enough, saw the back of that house. I wanted to return to the cave
because I could still hear the cat’s screeching. Where was the cave? I recalled
what Woody had told me and felt my way for a while along the wall, but to no
avail. I couldn’t find the entrance. All I could do was rest for a while under the
eaves. If I walked around aimlessly, there might be an accident. The cat was still
screeching. It would probably die soon. I curled up and squatted in order to get
warm. Two stars trembled above the wall in front of me. The night air grew
colder, and the stars trembled more violently, as if they would fall. I remembered
the stars in the sky above the grasslands: they were linked, motionless, in the
night sky. They were stars of eternity. What in the world were these two stars? I
was concerned about them. Sure enough, just as the cat screeched one last time
and stopped breathing, one of the stars fell. It even skipped a couple of times in
the sky and drew a “W” in white. “Hey, Rat, you mustn’t get lost in that kind of
thing,” Woody said to me from the cave. He must be hiding in a warm place, and
had left me out here in the cold. He didn’t approve of my stargazing. Okay then,
I wouldn’t look. I’d close my eyes. But I opened them again right away. It was

so scary: I saw—no, I couldn’t speak of the things I saw. Never. I didn’t dare
shut my eyes again. My heart couldn’t stop thumping. I was still fearful. I’d
better just look down. What was going on with Woody? He didn’t go home, and
yet he didn’t go far away, either. He just wandered around the slum. What a
strange child! Had he seen the stars in the grasslands? Probably not. If he had, he
would have left here a long time ago. The city’s glass houses were nothing
compared with the sky of the grasslands. One was like an elephant, the other like
a centipede in the corner of a furnace. Hey! What was I thinking of just now?
Was I looking down on the centipede in the corner of the furnace? Those glum
things were awful. You couldn’t figure out what they were thinking. They also
loved getting together, and when lots of them assembled, the scene was
absolutely disgusting. Oh, the wind that I feared so much was rising again—
gnawing my bones. Woody, Woody, you’re heartless. You should at least allow

me shelter from the wind. I opened my mouth to scream, but I had lost my voice.
Even though I tried very hard, I was the only one who could hear myself. I
looked up. In the darkness above the wall, the stars had disappeared without a
trace. My eyes were liberated; I could see whatever I wanted. I saw the man
straddling the wall and holding the dead cat in his arms. The streetlight reflected
his pale face. Every now and then, he put his nose close to the cat’s body as if