Chapter 06. How They Named Me Baht

The yellow thread stayed hanging in the room.

Sometimes I went to it on my own. I would touch the blue thing with a paw and listen to the paper answering with a small dry rustle. Without Sasha’s hand the game came out shorter, but the thing had a memory by now. It knew that he and I had once come to an understanding.

And I was still just called little one.

It was a handy word. You could say it from the doorway, drop it into the bowl along with the food, leave it lying beside the blanket. I almost answered to it. Almost — because ’little one’ will do for a great many things. A scrap of chicken is a little one. So is the dust under the cupboard. A kitten is a little one too, but not forever.

A day later they all came in together: the man, the woman and the boy. A quiet, family sort of attention gathered in the air. The boy squatted down and grinned at me.

‘We ought to name him.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘It’s about time,’ the woman put in at once. ‘It’s all “little one” this and “little one” that.’

After that a different game began. This time it was not a thread being caught, but a sound.

They went through names. Some of them dragged on too long. Others fell heavily, as though you would have to haul them along the floor behind you. I sat on the blanket and listened. A name can be tried by ear as well, after all. Either it catches on something inside you, or it goes straight past.

‘Rouble, maybe?’ the boy suggested.

The word went rolling across the room, round-sided, with a woody taste to it. I listened, but it seemed to settle straight down on to the floor. Heavy. You would not carry it far.

‘Rouble?’ the woman echoed. ‘Bit grim.’ ‘Buck, then!’ The boy leaned forward.

That sound was green and rustling, like a dry leaf. Almost a playing sound, but fidgety somehow.

‘Buck? No.’ The woman shook her head. ‘We had a parrot called Buck. He died. Bad luck.’ ‘Don’t name parrots,’ said the man. ‘They talk too much.’

The boy sighed and scratched behind his ear.

‘What about Euro?’ the woman suggested.

Euro sounded soft, like warm milk, but far too thin. Not a name for a cat at all — more the whistle of a draught in a crack. A cat with a name like that would have to be thoroughly tame, and sleek, and easily frightened. I flattened my ears. I did not fancy being a Euro.

‘Euro’s a show flat,’ the man said with a grin. ‘Smooth, expensive, nobody lives in it. I want a cat, not laminate.’

He said nothing for a moment, then suddenly slapped his knee.

‘There. Baht.’

He looked at me and added:

‘The Thai baht. Short. Got a ring to it. Won’t fall apart on the way.’ ‘Baht?’ The woman narrowed her eyes, trying the sound on him. ‘Baht. It suits him.’

And there the sound stayed. Short, springy. It was easy to throw across a room. Easier still to catch.

‘Baht,’ the man repeated. ‘Baht,’ the woman took it up. ‘Baht it is, then!’

I lifted my head and squeaked in reply. The people laughed. The boy slapped his hands down on his knees, and the woman said it once more, more quietly, as though tasting the name.

The short sound went from voice to voice and came back to me every time, and my head turned to meet it of its own accord, before I had time to think. My ears knew it faster than I did. Somewhere at the edge the yellow thread was still hanging, the warmth of a hand still holding — and this short springy sound was already mine. I fell asleep no longer simply in a room. I fell asleep in a place where I could be called.