Who owns whom?

My diary reminds me that I have to renew the lease on my flat. It’s been a year since we last moved, have you realised Fabi? She looks at me indolently from the box which, with feline skills, she occupies entirely. Meow! It’s probably my guilty conscience but she seems threateningly to say: “right on, sister!” Fabi is my cat (my it’s just a concession to the language: I am hers more than she can ever be mine). We’ve been sharing houses (six since we first met), partner (only one) and life for eight years. She’s a European cat, not in the sense of the cat breed but like member of EU (somehow) as her passport attests. We have never been apart, except during the year I moved to London (to reconnoitre the territory) and left her in Tuscany monitoring the other member of the family (my partner). When he as well obtained the overseas transfer, there was no doubt about the cat’s fate. Or at least I had no doubt: the rest of the world did not find reasonable to organise a transfer that looked complicated and not exactly cheap.
– We can initially leave her with your parents …
– Are you joking? They’ve got two other cats, Fabi does not like her own kind.
– With my parents then?
– And who knows them?
– I’ve known them for 31 years and you for 7…
– We may consider sending YOU back to your parents, since we know them.
– …

I enquired, called airline companies, vets, the Italian Foreign Office, the British government and the Italian embassy in London. Whatever the transport you want to use to get to the UK, your animal needs: 1. anti-rabies vaccine; 2. chip; 3. passport. While my fiancé took care of getting all required documents in Italy, I studied the itinerary from my London base. Initially, I thought that a two-hours flight was all it took but, as I discovered, low-cost airlines do not accept animals on board. Others put them in the hold, at the modest cost of almost £1000 for a medium-sized dog and slightly less for my fleabag (check the costs if you want to embark on the same adventure, maybe they have become more reasonable). A friend of mine commented “but if the cat died from fear during the flight, would they refunded you?” Goodbye Airplane! Time for plan B; after exhausting comparisons the outcome was:

Pisa – Florence (train)
Firenze – Milan (train)
Milan – Paris (train; in the sleeper, which recalls vividly to me Murder on the Orient Express)
Paris – Calais (train)
Calais – Dover (cab to cross the Channel)
Dover – London Charing Cross (train)
Charing Cross – home (tube)

I know it seems a nightmare, but it was, all things considered, a peaceful journey. The fleabag calmed down as soon as we get on the trains, she didn’t seem to mind the change. On the train for Milan to Paris we had a sleeper all for the two of us, equipped with a bed and a sink. I added Fabi’s bowls and litter and slept like a log; she was more nervous and seemed to wonder whether that was the new home. From Paris we could have taken the Eurostar, which in a couple of hours would have left us at London King Cross (where the Hogwarts espresso departs from, magical place), but pets are not allowed on board. So we got on a slower French train which, after going through a beautiful windswept Normandy, left us in Calais. There a cab (from a company which offers the service of carrying pets) took us to customs to check whether the feline was in full possession of all the due documents. I had there the only moment of sheer panic: despite having necked the bottle of homeopathic tranquilliser that the cat had refused, I kept replaying the scene at the vet where I brought her to have the chip installed.
– I’ve treated only one cat, for a lady who wanted to move to England.
– Well, it’s better than nothing.
– 15 years ago.
– …
– Are you aware that you have to leave your cat in quarantine?
– They abolished quarantine…
– Are you sure about it?
– Yes, I am.
– Completely sure?
– …
There was no quarantine, bless EU. Once we had the passport stamped, we were free to go, crossed the Channel, thanked the cab-driver and took the train to London. From there, it was all downhill. We got home after 26 hours and 10 minutes from departure. Both of us safe and sound.

Our new flat was modest, unfamiliar and rather dirty. And yet Fabi took only a few minutes to make it “home”: once the carrier was opened she rushed out meowing, identifies bowls and litter, sniffed and rubbed against every corner, then ordered us to lie down on the sofa (there wasn’t any bed) and started purring on our legs, perfectly satisfied. The change was big but looking at us it didn’t seem so. Probably it wasn’t such a big deal.

Brassens (who in his Le Testȃment promised to return as a ghost to persecute anyone who dared to mistreat his cats) once said:

… (the cat) is the most beautiful animal, the noblest. I prefer it to any other animal, I have always preferred it. It has a regal, wild independence, it refuses any imposed master. Its master, it freely chooses it and is a friend to whom it remains faithful until death. Without baseness, without any servility. From equal to equal. And that’s why I love it.
George Brassens

So when you happen to be the custodian of such a loyalty, you have no choice but to try to be worthy of it.