Banshee Cats

From my first day in Egypt, almost two years ago, I quickly identified two mortal enemies:
Elevators and Cats.

The decrepit elevators housed within nearly every crumbling concrete building in this city often amount to little more than a 3-sided box pulled through the air with a pulley. While these elevators do make full use of the marvels of modern technology—such as electricity—the ancient metal gates you must pull shut behind you and the rickety ride give you the sense that the Hunchback of Notre Dame could just as easily be the one pulling you up by a fraying rope, and that you are only a prayer away from plunging to an early end.

But I’ve told you all of this before.

No, my dear readers, the enemy of the day is the ever-present, ever-screeching, ever-diseased and mangy street cats of Cairo.

Now, I should preface this all with a disclaimer that I was traumatized by cats from an early age. It all began with cat-sitting the obese Cali—my friend’s calico cat—for a Christmas vacation. I’ve never been a cat person. Or, rather, I’ve never had the opportunity to be a cat person. Hailing from a dog family, I was used to pets that 1. Love you unconditionally 2. Have low IQs and no crafty agenda of their own and 3. Have a bone structure.
Cats were too shrewd, independent, and limp for my tastes.
Cali smelled the fear.

One cold December day, I punctually arrived to add Meow Mix to her bowl and dutifully scoop the litter box (one cred point to cats for their hygiene).
Cali was waiting, lurking in the shadows.
For whatever reason that possessed her feline brain, she suddenly sprang out from behind the door, hair raised and hissing, and sunk her cat claws into my arm. She dug her talons in so deeply that she actually hung there from my forearm for a moment or two before I dislodged her and she ran off screeching.

For the rest of Christmas vacation, I made my mom go to feed the cat, too afraid of another unprovoked attack.

So, from that day forth, cats and I kept a respectful distance. Claiming a mild allergy, I’ve been able to dodge the little demons fairly well. The exception to this was when our upstairs neighbors in Seattle decided to force their housecats to become “outdoor” cats—a decision the two little monsters resented deeply. They would sneak in through our windows and cracked doorways and take up residence under my bed (or in the arms of my more accommodating roommate, who objected to when I insisted on addressing the creatures as “Cat” when I knew their pet names perfectly well). In such instances, I would stare into their soulless, yellow eyes and yell “Cat! Out!”—as if cats responded to such yelling.

Rather, they would return my stare and casually saunter out of my bedroom—letting me know that it wasn’t that they were impressed with my reprimand, but simply had better things to do than hang out in my boring bedroom anyway—proving once again that cats have the exact personality of 13 year old girls.

Now, cats in Cairo are another breed entirely. Equally creepy, but doubly diseased and much jumpier. As strays rather than pampered pets, they slink around nervously, pawing through garbage and dodging cars. Ordinarily, I would prefer to simply ignore them.

Except I can’t. It seems that my roommates and I inadvertently moved into a rough neighborhood in Cairo.
“But Alissa,” you protest. “Isn’t it true that you live a block away from the Nile, and can almost see the Four Seasons hotel from your balcony? And what about your claims that Cairo has one of the lowest crime rates in the world?”

Yes, all true—but I wasn’t talking about humans.
My apartment building is actually in a little quad, with patches of concrete and plants in between the neighboring units. The noise, I should mention, echoes terrifically as it bounces back and forth off of the concrete towers.

I began to notice trouble about a month ago, when I was woken from my sleep by the screeching sound of feline banshees coming in from my balcony window. “My God, what is happening to that cat?” I gasped. Soon another cat joined in the fray—an honest to goodness cat fight. I never saw the damage, but if you told me that neither one was left with a single bit of fur afterward, I would have believed you. The sound is awful.

Then the next night. The sound of a screeching cat is kind of like that comical Fred Flintstone yelp when a cartoon character suddenly finds themselves sitting on a fire or pot of boiling water: yeeeeeOWWW!
Just knock it up a few dozen octaves.

Soon, I was woken up almost every night by the sound of cats in agony—gashed, slashed, and freaking out. I can only conclude one thing: gang wars.
Now, I try not to know anything about cats—what they eat, if they’re nocturnal, if they live alone or in packs. Don’t know, don’t care, don’t want to know.
But it seems to me that this kind of violence can only be attributed to some kind of turf battle or cat muggings or some crime-crazed situation in which innocent bystander cats wandering between the buildings on my street are getting jumped. There is no other way to explain the incessant screeching at all hours of the night.

A few nights ago, it was the worst it’s ever been. One cat was wailing and wailing, pitching its voice higher and raspier each time. It went on for an hour. Now, I can’t promise that this actually happened, or if I had merely lapsed into a half-dream state—but in my mind, someone threw something at the cat to put it out of its misery, and all of the neighbors started clapping.
Sounds like wishful thinking. But this is exactly how bad it’s gotten—that I, quite uncharacteristically, have begun wishing for the death of one of God’s creatures. Maybe all of that particular species of God’s creatures. God save us from the banshee cats of Cairo.