Of Mewlings and Meowlings and Things that Go Bump in the Day

Somewhere between my bed and unconsciousness, in that half-awake state that comes when I’m too tired to wake up but too overheated to fall back asleep, I was dimly aware that light was starting to seep in through the window. The hammering would begin again soon. A shockingly loud crash broke through the silence. The workmen rebuilding the apartment two doors down usually like to get an early start. Today it was earlier than usual. I drifted back to sleep.

I awoke a little while later, stumbled out of bed and began staggering towards the bathroom. It was hotter than usual and I hadn’t been sleeping well. I made it as far as the door to my bedroom before a dangling seven-meter long strip of corrugated plastic blocked my path. Looking up, I realized this strip had once been part of my ceiling. Two of its neighbours were already on the floor, while another hung loosely beside it.

The roof of my flat is made of identical strips of plastic, all laid side by side. The structure is similar to the corkboard ceilings one finds in school classrooms. Between these strips and the metal roof above, a crawlspace is formed. It provides a convenient place to store electrical wiring, plastic water pipes, cobwebs, dust, and discarded animal hair. Previously, I had been unaware of the last three items on this list. Now, I found myself breathing them in with the morning air. The workman really had been more enthusiastic than usual today.

Still, something else seemed out of place. It wasn’t just the dangling bits of ceiling and the dusty furballs covered in cobwebs floating lazily in front of me. I blinked my eyes. Yes, that was it. A fresh series of paw prints was neatly laid out in the dust covering what had once been the upper side of my ceiling. I pulled on the hanging strips, loosening them from what remained of their grip.

They fell, adding their voice to the clamoring hammers nearby. The floor was a mess. Resolving to clean it later, I headed for the shower.

Srey Hem was at work that morning. I told her about the problem. “The cats again?!” she exclaimed. “This has happened before?” I asked. “I’ll call my sister,” she replied. Srey Hem’s sister is my landlady. She doesn’t speak a word of English. It took her two days to arrive.

In the meanwhile, I returned the following afternoon to find a mysterious urine-like smell had taken up residence in my kitchen. I poked my nose into the bathroom adjoining the kitchen and inhaled deeply. A plethora of smells greeted me but urine wasn’t one of them. I had eliminated myself as a suspect. Back in the kitchen, the plastic bag in which I keep my rice was mysteriously open. Some animal seemed to have been pawing through it. Was it the cats again? I quickly dismissed the thought. If some intrepid cat had leaped into my house via the ceiling, he or she would never have been able to leap back out again. As there was no cat now trapped in my flat, there was no reason to suspect one had been there before.

Eventually, I tracked down the source of the smell. Whoever was responsible for eating my rice had also taken liberties both on and under my kitchen sink. I threw out the rice, mopped under the sink, and scrubbed its top thoroughly. I settled down to cook dinner, eat, and read a book. A few hours later, I re-entered the kitchen, flicked on the light switch, and headed for the sink to clean the dishes. There was a clatter of noise to my right. I turned my head, glanced around, and saw nothing. Slowly my eyes fell on a large cardboard box in the corner, under the table where I kept my rice. Hesitantly, I shuffled towards it, nudging it with the edge of my knuckles. The curtains that my landlady had left in the box were far too light to account for the weight that I felt inside.

With trepidation, already knowing what I would find, I peeked into the darkness under the table. Two glowing eyes stared back at me. I jumped back. “Raaa-eeeenh-rrrrr!” growled the cat as it leaped out of the box and bolted for the front door, returning soon afterwards to stare at me from the entrance’s edge, its eyes full of hurt innocence. I don’t know which of us had been more frightened.

Taken During Friendlier Days: One of the Neighbourhood Cats

When Srey Hem’s sister arrived the next day, she had an interpreter and several of the workmen from the flat two doors down with her. Rather than searching for contractors, she had offered to hire them to fix my ceiling during their off-hours the next day. I explained with some difficulty that I would be away then, visiting ruins in Takeo province. Using the interpreter to work out the finer points, we arranged for me to leave my keys with the neighbours. Happy that all was resolved, Srey Hem’s sister left, complimenting on me on my Khmer on the way out the door. “You know a lot of Khmer.” she said. “No. I don’t,” I replied, “I’m learning.”

By the next evening, my roof was repaired.

Two weeks later, it happened again.

I came home for lunch from work. As I opened the door, the welcoming sound of a vicious catfight erupted from my kitchen. The ceiling in my kitchen had fallen in and two or more cats were obviously fighting over the spoils. I was frustrated, angry, and unarmed for fighting cats. The broom that I wanted to use to shoo them out was trapped in the kitchen, in the heart of the battle. I improvised.

“Raaaaeeeerrrrr!!” I meowed. The fighting stopped. “Raaaaeeeerrrrr!” I growled at them again. The fighting became more intense. There were bumps and crashes. Before my astonished eyes, the ceiling fell down on top of my kitchen table. Apparently, the fight had, until recently, been taking place not in the kitchen, but above it.

A cat leaped from the end of a newly dangling plastic ceiling strip and bolted past me towards the front door. His erstwhile opponent soon followed on his heels. I was left alone in the flat to contemplate the stunning mess in my kitchen. I resolved to spoil myself by eating at a restaurant that night.

The pattern was repeated. I called Srey Hem. Her sister arrived the next day. Confident in my ability to discuss the problem in Khmer, she had neither interpreter nor workmen with her. This was a bit of a mistake. I looked up the word 'cat' in a dictionary, added the words for 'again' to it, and mimed the actions of walking and falling, before pointing to the kitchen. Between my inability to conduct a conversation and the workmen’s inability to arrive on schedule, it was another week before they stopped me at the end of a lunch break to ask to be let in to do the repairs.

Leaning against a wall in my kitchen, I watched two of them, bouncing up and down on a two by four. One end of the wooden plank rested on the metal bars of my kitchen window. The other had been propped onto a massive triangle made of plywood and protruding nails. In the middle, these two men reattached my ceiling and wobbled, while two others provided them with moral support.

My roof was again repaired.

In the meantime, I occasionally hear noises from the ceiling above my bed. I suspect it’s nothing to worry about…