Column | As a tribute

Although we have had our new cat in the house for half a year now, I have only written about her once so far. Why? For the simple reason that cats also have a right to their privacy.

Some cats attach more importance to this than others and it is therefore a good idea as a new owner to discover where your cat’s preference lies. Some columnists, such as Simon Carmiggelt and Remco Campert, didn’t care – unfortunately I now also have to use the past tense for Campert – and wrote happily, whether the cat liked it or not.

The next generation of columnists is a bit more reserved and writes less about cats. Perhaps because the predecessors have already done so excellently, but undoubtedly also because there are the necessary developments in the field of animal rights. The Party for the Animals even wants to include the rights of animals in the constitution: “We strive to strengthen the moral and legal status of animals in the Netherlands by recognizing animals as beings with consciousness and feeling.”

When the mental climate changes so drastically, it is difficult for you as a cat man or cat woman to pretend that your nose is bleeding. Writing about your cat’s physical habits—from pooping to mating—has become perilous. Surely the columnist’s partner wouldn’t like it if he or she was described so candidly, even if it was in a so-called quality newspaper?

“Dear reader, what I have now experienced at home again – unimaginable. I come home from work early, it was mid-afternoon, no one seemed home, I walked upstairs, opened the bedroom door and what I saw moving took my breath away. I…”

If we humans don’t want to be in the newspaper with all our intimacies, why should the animals put up with that? So I completely understood when Anna, our cat, objected afterwards to that one column I devoted to her. In it I described her as an aloof cat who would only let her reserve go at night and then jump on our bed to be pampered. “Then she lets herself be touched almost lewdly and finally collapses happily between us,” I wrote.

“Disgraceful writing,” Anna judged. “Have you ever described what you yourself are up to in that bed?” (Whoever thinks that animals only talk in the stories of Koolhaas and Murakami is sadly mistaken.)

“It was meant to be humorous,” I defended weakly.

“Leave that to Carmiggelt and Campert, they were better at that,” she snapped.

I let her go, because I secretly wanted to describe one more new habit of hers. Nowadays, when I’m in the bathroom shaving (“wet”) in the morning, she scratches the door, steps perky, and cuddles on her side against the cool tiles to demonstrate that she is also early in the day. von Kopf bis Fuss auf Liebe eingestellt could be. She won’t leave until I’ve satisfied her.

I hope she doesn’t read this piece, so I urge readers not to send it to my house. If she does find out, I only have one defense: I meant it as a tribute to Remco Campert.