~ Cats in the Cradle of Civilization ~

by

C. L. Kraemer

Splintering sounds of pottery hitting terra cotta tiles evoked a scream from Glenda and brought her running into the living room. Pandora hunkered down over the broken vase growling lowly, her eyes blinking furiously, and tail swishing. She reached out a paw and pushed at a large piece of pottery in the middle of the broken shards.

“Shame on you!”

Glenda stomped into the kitchen. Dustpan and broom in hand, she marched back to the fireplace hearth to clean up the pieces of the shattered vase. She muttered as she began sweeping. As Glenda reached to clear away the piece of pottery the cat was toying with, Pandora arched her back and spat.

“That is quite enough.” Glenda swooped down, grasping the cat by the back of the neck, and rendered her motionless. “You will stay in your carrier for the rest of the night. What has gotten into you?” She deposited Pandora unceremoniously in her carrying case.

“Until you get a change of attitude, Miss Thing, you will remain here.”

She bent to finish the task of cleaning when a flash of color caught her attention. Leaning closer, she realized she was seeing a form in the pieces of broken pottery. She delicately brushed away the dust and bits of vase.

“Oh, wow.” Before her lay a four-inch statuette of Bastet, cat goddess; small emerald eyes from within an ivory body staring up at her, and clutching a sistrum in her hand. “Wait a minute.” Glenda jumped up, ran to her office, and returned with a picture in hand. She knelt and compared the picture to the item lying on her hearth.

“This looks identical to the one in the picture Nasim Shabouh sent me. This little statuette is either a very good imitation, or I need to warn the new antiquities director about the merchandise his cousin is selling.” Sweeping the small artifact into the dustpan, she put the broom on the floor and, clutching the picture in her free hand, carried the pan and picture to her office where she settled both on her desk. Reaching in her drawer, she removed a pair of thin, white cotton gloves which she donned. Experience had taught her prevention was worth your life when dealing with artifacts-real or presumed real. Reverently, she picked the statuette out of the dust pan with one hand and, with the other, grabbed the jeweler’s glass which resided on her desk. She moved the picture to the center of the desk, turned on her lamp, and securing the jeweler’s glass in her eye, began to inspect the little cat goddess currently resting in her palm against the pictorial fact. It never ceased to amaze Glenda at the talent exhibited by some of the forgers whose work she’d viewed. There’d been a show of forgery handiwork her first week on the job. She’d made a point to spend time in the small gallery studying the works; recognizing antiquities meant also being able to recognize the forgeries. She reached her hand to the phone.

Until I can verify whether this is or is not genuine, I shouldn’t involve Omar. If it’s real, he probably doesn’t know about it.

Glenda slid open her bottom drawer and pulled out a shoebox. Rummaging through the items tossed randomly inside, she concluded this was nothing more than a catchall and she had enough of those scattered around the house. She opened the top drawer and grabbed several pairs of the thin, cotton gloves to line the shoebox. She laid the tiny cat in the box, secured the lid, and replaced it in the bottom drawer, which she slid shut. She leaned back in her chair and pondered her next move.

Should she contact the director? Surely, he’d come across this situation in his tenure at the Cairo museum. Or should she wait until… what? It wasn’t as if the statuette would glow blue if it was a fake. How was she going to handle this load dumped on her?

And what about her cat? Pandora, normally a sweet-tempered, docile cat, acted so irrationally Glenda was prone to believe the artifact was authentic.

Weren’t cats more sensitive to smells than people were?

She swung the chair around and e-mailed her freelancer about the article he’d sent and the figurine he’d photographed.

Mr. Shabouh--were there any inscriptions on the little statuette? Any unique forms, or etchings, that will identify it as the real deal and not a reproduction?

Glenda pushed the send button. She pulled up the magazine layout and began to work on getting the month’s issue ready for print. A looming deadline waited for no one.