SALVE ROMA! A Felidae Novel - By Akif Pirincci Page 0,3
Monumenti Antichi e Scavi«, thus the Roman Administrative Agency for Ancient Buildings and Excavations. As far as I understood Gustav’s hasty mumbling, he had been told that they had found hints on a so far overseen, early Christian catacomb at the Forum Romanum. In fact, on the very spot in which Gustav had believed it to be in one of his academic papers a few years ago. The Roman archeologists therefore looked at my good old jinx as the intellectual father of this discovery and insisted that he will personally jet there and supervise the excavation. His services would be worth fifty thousand Euros from the agency. They would even be willing to immediately pay half of the money in advance, if he left for the Eternal City this very day. So far so paradisiacal.
All our problems seemed to have solved at a single blow. And so it seemed for the problems in the near future. What more could I want? Two things: First of all, see Rome and die. Because over the years I hadn’t been able to resist Gustav’s passion for places which’s names were already firing my imagination. Rome – that wasn’t just a name but a dream that I had been longing for due to secret reading at his library. The Capitol, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Villa Borghese, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Campo de’ Fiori, the nooks and grannies of Trastevere, the thousand churches, the glorious palazzi, the dignified weather-beaten bridges across the Tiber, the countless fonts, the Vatican ... Yes, I felt like in a former life I myself had been purring in Rome and had spent my days on earth on those with pillar rudiments fitted roof decks of this Capital of the World. All roads, even mine, led to Rome; that was something I had always been sure of. As to die without having seen Rome would have been a life and death of no importance.
Gustav, provided with the sensitivity of an anvil, sure enough didn’t have a premonition of my longing when he told me about his working vacation. And he even took it to the next level when he confessed that he didn’t plan to take me with him. That already was an infamy beyond compare! He should stick his reasoning that I would disturb his work on the excavation where the sun doesn’t shine. Shedding streams of tears, I had still been willing to sit tight, wait for his return and keep only dreaming of Rome. If he had just left me my plan.
But he didn’t intend to. With what we come to the second reason why I didn’t just wish him the rope around his obese neck but the complete torturing routine of the inquisition. My can opener had something vicious in mind. He wanted to give me over to other can openers during his absence. But not even to Archie, a straightjacket hedonist, who lived upstairs and probably earned his money by lending his body to prospective physicians as an incarnation of a chart about drug abuse. Because this guy had already left for the south a few weeks ago, as apparently the call of spring had reached him a little early. You know ... dwelling on nonsense and ripping off people also works well under southern skies.
No, Gustav, really had something evil in mind for me. During his absence, he wanted me to be in »professional care«. At a home for my kind, called – disgustingly cute – »Guesthouse Paw«. Irresponsible humans brought their pets there during their holidays or stupid business trips. Incredible! Shocking! Animal disregarding! I was to be send to jail and listen to the tragic lifetime confessions of lonely, soft-minded fellow prisoners day in, day out, so my so called owner could be celebrated as the Einstein of Archeology in beautiful Rome. My answer to that: Absolutely out of the question!
As early as one second after Gustav had finished panting about the happy news and left for the bedroom to pack his clothes that for the most part were remains from the seventies, a new plan stirred in my brain cells. Yes, this might work ... Though only if the animal foe would carry the backpack that looked like the monstrous hunchback of a gnome from a fantasy movie, like he usually did. Also, only if he, like the scatterbrain he was, forgot to lock it at the top. This way it really might work. And if it did,