Gina and I lay back on the twin beds of our inn, already in pajamas at eight o’clock, and watched the Camino kitten tear around the room. Too tiny to climb the curtains, he pranced and dashed from corner to corner, while I on my phone sent frantic, pleading emails to Dr. Javier’s list of rescues. We must leave Spain in two days! I typed. We cannot take the kitten with us! Of course, we couldn’t. Besides the fact that Air France informed us a cat must be 14 weeks old to fly, possess a valid passport, and have had all his baby vaccinations, we simply couldn’t. I was cat complete, with three male rescues from the street who had achieved a relationship of loving détente after years of hostilities. To introduce a Spanish gato into my happy home, a home in California coyote country as well? No. Gina, too, was sorry, not possible. It had been five years since she had lost the second of her beloved, rescued dogs, and tonight she insisted she still wasn’t ready. Grief colored her home just south of San Francisco: a sense of loss lingered in the beautiful antiques and the fine family heirlooms the dogs had made their own; sadness still clung to the exquisite rugs, the expensive collectibles, the fragile frames, and the sentimental mementos among which her dogs belonged. Still, life there was pretty, and peaceful. Before the dogs there were cats, six of them at various intervals, and though the most perfect and devoted of pet moms, Gina tonight insisted, no, I am not yet ready to risk such heartache again.
Later we watched, transfixed, as the kitten greedily took his syringe of formula, and then – hear him roar! – transformed into the wildling he was.
“I’m glad he can’t reach the chandelier!” Gina was sure he absolutely would swing from it if bigger. Pouncing upon ankles, nipping at shins, dashing in mad, mad circuits hither and thither, our spirited orange michi made us fall in love – objectively.
“Oh, this kitty will make someone so happy.” I peeled him from the back of my thigh, where he had climbed to attach with his tiny but piercing claws, and cuddled him to my face where he exploded into purrs. I was in a state, dare I say, of pure kitten bliss. “He is SO CUTE.”
And thus the night went. Between the syringe feedings, the crazy-cat antics, and the sudden naps our gatito would collapse into, curled purring in Gina’s arms or mine, we found ourselves dissolving into a puddle of love as silly as that of the vet and Lucia. Yes, we cooed; yes, we kissed; yes, we cheeped and sang: we both showed that kitten, as had Dr. Javier, that he was safe, he would be loved, and he would have the happiest of forever homes.
It simply would not be with either of us.
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The next morning, we knew. We knew like you know the man you’ll marry. We knew as sure as the sun sets in the west and the stars spangle the sky at night. We knew as if the Angel Gabriel himself had dropped from a dream to say, guess what: Do not be afraid. You have found favor with God.
“Okay, I’ll take him.” Gina had not even had her first cup of coffee, and when her eyes flew open, she sat up with a start – and knew.
“And I will stay here with him until he’s ready.” I knew, too, but the very idea of staying behind while Gina caught our flight home came as a shock. Four months!
We looked at each other in disbelief. We had come to Spain to walk the Camino and now, besides dropping out after only three days on the Way, life was diddling bigly with our reality.
“What will you do?” Given that I had serendipitously quit my job only days before our trip, Gina could hardly fathom how I’d fill my months in Europe without work, without friends, and utterly planless. “Alone? Like, by yourself? With no one? Solo?”
“I won’t be alone. I’ll have kitty.”
Then, an alluring idea arrived. What will I do? Nothing! Yes, I will do nothing. I will hang out; I will lie around; I will just be – all while taking care of the spotted, orange gatito that now, after gulping with gusto his wake-up syringe of kitten-milk, was stretched out, upside-down, and purring in Gina’s lap. It will be wonderful. Maybe.
“You’re going to lie around for four months? Seriously?” Gina was incredulous. “Since when have you just hung out for even two minutes?” Okay, maybe I wouldn’t exactly lie around, but I was in Europe! Why not recreate the life you have at 23 – you know, take all the savings you earned working as a waitress or whatever, and blow it roving around, unfettered and free, to see where the whim will take you? Why not bum around France – my favorite – like life is one big bowl of cherries, all of it lying ahead, and knee replacements…or walkers…or memory care so foreign a faraway concept as to not exist at all in the fantasia of fun you’re having? Yes, please; I’ll do that.
“I’ll call him Camino.” Gina and her new kitty: now a done deal. “Camino de Santiago.”
“With his family name Madeira, after you?”
Camino de Santiago de Madeira seemed an awfully big name for such a tiny kitten, but given the size of his paws in proportion to his body, it was easy to imagine him grown into a great, big gato in the tradition of Barcelona’s famous bronze The Cat by artist Fernando Botero – with its well-fed figure, cherubic face, and handsome, extra-long tail. Perhaps he was even descended, if only in spirit, from the iconic Iberian lynx native to the cork woodlands of southern Spain and known – feared? – as the Spanish Tiger. All we knew was that from the snow-white tip of his orange-ringed tail to the fierce play-bites of his killer baby teeth, little Camino was a miracle to behold. Even Leonardo da Vinci understood why we were smitten: “The smallest feline is a masterpiece of nature,” he said. What we didn’t yet see was how the wiggly wonder given to us as a startling surprise straight from the Camino would prove to be a gift as significant for our lives as the bomb the Angel Gabriel dropped.
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