How this happened when I never wanted so much as one cat is a mystery even to me. But of course I’d reckoned without the difficulty of turning my back on all the lonely street animals. Matters started modestly enough. My first cat was a tiny scrap of ginger who had followed tourists back to their accommodation one evening. They tried their best to persuade the hotelier to adopt it, but she was having none of it.
“What about you?” they said, turning to me. “You must want a kitten.”
I ran off a spiel about how often I would be away from home, but “it’ll freeze!” they said accusingly, whereupon a few flakes of snow fell obligingly from the sky.
That night I crept back to my rented house with a kitten tucked into my lapels. I called him Kısmet (Chance) and prayed that the landlord would let him stay. A year later a house-sitter took pity on a black cat who crept in through a window with her kitten while I was away. When I returned the kitten was mercifully absent but Hanım (Lady) was firmly ensconced in my sitting room. And of course she quickly became pregnant again.
I called the first of her three kittens Sevgi (Love), not knowing that this was a girl’s name when he was a boy. The second became Zeytin (Olive), courtesy of my landlord’s grand-daughter. In Beğendik, a check-out girl commiserated with me over the cost of cat food. It was immediately after 9/11. We were unanimous that the third kitten must be called Bariş (Peace) even though this was a boy’s name when she was a girl.
After that events spiraled out of control as cats came and went with far more coming than ever chose to leave.
“Does anyone want a kitten?” became my regular, desperate opener at social gatherings. Those people who already knew me quickly learnt to busy themselves with their needlework. Those who didn’t sometimes perked up with “Is it a Van cat?.” But as soon as I admitted that, no, it was the offspring of street cats, they too dropped their eyes to their embroidery.
Unfortunately it’s hard to be a responsible pet-keeper here. With cat food costing three times its UK price, I’m dependent on giant sacks cargoed in from Ankara. Worse still, Göreme has no vet of its own, and those who practice elsewhere in Cappadocia are mainly used to dealing with farm animals.
But enough is enough and I’ve just embarked on a mass neutering project.
The vet calls round to check on Papatya (Daisy) who’s making a fragile recovery. As he slams his car door his words are music to my ears.
“Have you got a young cat? My friend in Ankara would like one.”
Well, let’s see. I have a young cat, an old cat, a black cat, a tabby cat…
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia.
