The Mystery of the White Paw

“Charles?  Have you bought a cat?”

We were standing at our back-to-back letterboxes, retrieving the morning’s Oltner Tagblatt.

“Cat?  Oh – you mean Mr Munzinger.  No, I’m just watching him for a friend for a few days.  How did you know I had a cat, Boxer?”

“We share a front balcony.”  He pointed dramatically back to our houses  and up to the first floor.  “I suggest you leave the door closed during the cat’s stay.”

“Why?  Where was he?”

“At my breakfast.  Poached eggs on a crumpet.”

“Oh dear!  With a cheese sauce?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry.  I’ll keep him on my side.”

“Thank you, Charles.”

Later that day, I heard Boxer running up his stairs just next to mine (the shared walls are not as thick as the outside walls).  Then he ran down again.  I went to the room with the balcony to check on things. Mr Munzinger was looking out the window.

“No workmen out there today? That scaffolding should be coming down soon, eh, Mr M?”

I heard a banging on the wall next to me.  Boxer.  I opened the balcony door, holding Mr Munzinger in my arms.  Boxer emerged.

“There he is!  The scoundrel was in my house again, running up and down.”

“Oh!  I thought that was YOU running up and down.  No – he’s been here all afternoon, haven’t you, Mr M?”

“Charles!  Do NOT carry on a conversation with me and a cat as well, I beg you.  He was in here, I tell you!  Next time, I shall take a photograph.”

Two days later, Boxer messaged me a photo of a cat sitting on his kitchen table.  I hardly knew what to do.  I sent a return photo of the cat on MY kitchen table.  Boxer responded with a selfie of the most threatening expression, the devilish twinkle gone from his eyes.

The cat in Boxer’s photo was definitely Mr Munzinger.  But how could he have got into Boxer’s house?  Was there a secret passageway or a tunnel?  A catflap!  No, certainly not.  Was the cat a hallucination  taunting Boxer, manifesting itself after Boxer’s first, real experience of seeing it?  Did the cat have a twin?  I Googled the silliest idea I could – “How can a cat be in two places at once?” 

Of course, Schrödinger came up, as well as quantum cats, and even quantum Schrödinger cats.  Reader – there are roads I prefer not to travel.  The mind boggles enough just to live in Olten, with its Air Filtration Fog Eliminator (AFFE) and its ingenious PArk-Leit-System (PALS).  If only it could do something about its Cerebrally Centred Congestion Charge (CCCC – better known as Foresee) which is a tax on residents who ‘think too much’.

I went out to the street that evening to put out cardboard boxes for the monthly collection.  I saw Boxer standing sentry at the balcony window – so I waved, bravely.  Not to put too fine a point on it, he waved back.  He held up his hand mid-wave to signal me to wait.

A few minutes later, he came out with a huge empty carton, big enough for a bicycle or a flat-screen television (Is there any other kind these days?).  It nearly tripped him up as he gingerly walked down the granite steps.

“I am so glad I saw you, Charles.  I had forgotten it was collection day.”

“That’s a big boxer, Box!”

“Ha ha!  Charles!  You have managed to tell a joke!  A play on words!  Not very original, but most impressive, nonetheless, coming from you.  I must be having a positive influence on your cerebral centre.”

“Indeed.  Now – what was in this box?”

“A mirror, Charles.  I am not vain, but I do need to check my appearance occasionally.   I bought it last month and have hung it in the hallway.  Full-length.”

“Just like mine, I imagine.”

“Yes.”

“Probably the mirror image, eh, Boxer?”

“Charles, one play on words per day is enough for a beginner of your limited experience.  But, yes.  Our two mirrors are back-to-back, just as are our letterboxes.”

“May I see it, Boxer?  Your mirror?  Please?”

We went up the granite steps conjoined with mine and entered his house, which, as I have said before, is the exact mirror-image twin of my own, two of six in an unbroken row on our pleasant street. 

Readers must appreciate the feeling of entering such mirror houses.  All is the same, but reversed, left and right.  A mirror shows a reverse image, it is true.  When you look at yourself in a mirror and raise your right hand, the mirror image raises its left hand.  Now put a glove on that hand.  The mirror image will raise the gloved hand – not the left hand or the right hand – the gloved hand.  But – please do not ask why left and right are reversed, but not up and down or top and bottom.

In Boxer’s hallway hung a long mirror, exactly in position with the mirror I had hanging in my hallway.  I saw a tempest of crystal-red rain swirl before my eyes.  I felt the panic of drowning..

“Boxer!  Boxer!  It’s the SAME WALL!!”

“I shall get you a stiff drink, Charles, my friend with the cat.  Meanwhile, do you have your handy with you?  Good.  Find that photo of the cat I sent you the other day.  It has only just occurred to me what the solution is.”

He went into the dining room and returned with two glasses of whisky, no ice, no water.  I calmed down a bit, as I looked for the photo on my photo app.  There it was.  Boxer looked at it quickly, then opened his phone to my photo of the cat taken just minutes after his, which I had sent him in response.

“What do you see, Charles?”

“What do YOU see?”

“I see a black cat with one white paw.  And you?”

“I see the same.”

“Look carefully, Charles.”

“Yes.  The cat seems to be twisted around differently here.  The white paw is — !  Goodness gracious!  It’s on the wrong foot!”

“It is on the right foot, but, then, I mean, Charles, it is on the left foot, is it not?”

“What the devil are you thinking?  A twin cat got into your house?  A Doppelgänger?”

“Ah, Charles, the Doppelgänger!  Hesse had a great time in Steppenwolf with that theme.  The Jekyll and Hyde variety, to be sure, but the good cat/bad cat analogy fits here, as well.  Where is Mr Mustermann, anyway?”

“Why, uh, I left him in the sitting room.  He was reading Proust, I think, not Hesse.”

“That joke will cost you, Charles.  It will cost you.  Proust, indeed.  Finish your drink.  Then we shall, with your invitation, pay a call on Mr Marbles.”

So, we went over to my house and found Mr Munzinger in the sitting room, licking his paw – the one with the white patch. 

“Carry him down to the hallway, Charles, and put him in front of your mirror.  Let us see what happens.  Keep an eye on that white paw.”

In the hall, Mr Munzinger stood at the mirror, then sat down.  His reflection did the same.  Then, a strange thing happened.  The cat stood up and touched the mirror with its white paw.  Immediately, the air crackled with electricity, sparks flying out of the mirror.  The cat jumped at the mirror and, without disappearing from my hallway, appeared to have entered Boxer’s hallway on the other side of the wall.

“Charles, it was not Proust he was reading – it was Bulgakov!”

“Bulgakov?”

“Mikhail Bulgakov.  The Master and Margarita.  It seems we have been written into the Master’s story.  Your Mr Magician is in truth Behemoth!”

“This little cat?”

“Do you not smell the brimstone, Charles?  We were nearly dragged into the bowels of Hell by that infernal feline.  Quickly!  We must turn both mirrors to the wall at the same time to trap the devil in its own world between the mirrors.  I will go home at once to do so!”

“What will I tell the cat’s owners when they come for him?”

“Just say, ‘Mr Mephistopheles regrets to inform you of his sudden departure.'”

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Now, dear readers, you may not be satisfied with this explanation of Mr Munzinger’s behaviour.  How DID the cat get from one house into the other without any apparent means of entrance and exit, once the balcony door was shut?  How DID he appear in two places at the same time?  Can a spirit be trapped between two inwardly facing mirrors?  What this indeed a cat from Hell?  If you have not read Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, I suggest you do so at the first opportunity.  You needn’t know Soviet nomenklatura to enjoy it, and the story-in-a-story is breathtakingly beautiful. If you can suggest any better theory or solution to the problem, then please send them in.  We welcome your ideas and comments.

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