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The Cat That Vanished Will was stupefied with exhaustion, and he might have gone on to the north, or he might have laid his head on the grass under one of those trees and slept; but as he stood trying to clear his head, he saw a cat. She was a tabby, like Moxie. She padded out of a garden on the Oxford side of the road, where Will was standing. Will put down his shopping bag and held out his hand, and the cat came up to rub her head against his knuckles, just as Moxie did. Of course, every cat behaved like that, but all the same Will felt such a longing to turn for home that tears scalded his eyes. Eventually this cat turned away. This was night, and there was a territory to patrol, there were mice to hunt. She padded across the road and towards the bushes just beyond the hornbeam trees, and there she stopped. Will still watching, saw the cat behave curiously. She reached out a paw to pat something in the air in front of her, something quite invisible to Will. Then she leapt backwards, back arched and fur on end, tail held out stiffly. Will knew cat-behaviour. He watched more alertly as the cat approached the spot again, just an empty patch of grass between the hornbeams and the bushes of a garden hedge, and patted the air once more. Again she leapt back, but less far and with less alarm this time. After another few seconds of sniffing, touching, whisker-twitching, curiosity overcame wariness. The cat stepped forward, and vanished. Will blinked. Then he stood still, close to the trunk of the nearest tree, as a truck came round the circle and swept its lights over him. When it had gone past he crossed the road, keeping his eyes on the spot where the cat had been investigating. It wasn’t easy, because there was nothing to fix on, but when he came to the place and cast about to look closely, he saw it. At least, he saw it from some angles. It looked as if someone had cut a patch out of the air, about two metres from the edge of the road, a patch roughly square in shape and less than a metre across. If you were level with the patch so that it was edge-on, it was nearlyinvisible, and it was completely invisible from behind. You could only see it from the side nearest the road, and you couldn’t see it easily even from there, because all you could see through it was exactly the same kind of thing that lay in front of it on this side: a patch of grass lit by a street light. But Will knew without the slightest doubt that that patch of grass on the other side was in a different world. He couldn’t possibly have said why. He knew it at once, as strongly as he knew that fire burned and kindness was good. He was looking at something profoundly alien. And for that reason alone, it enticed him to stoopp and look further. What he saw made his head swim and his heart thump harder, but he didn’t hesitate: he pushed his shopping bag through, and then scrambled through himself, through the hole in the fabric of this world and into another. He found himself standing under a row of trees. But not hornbeam trees: these were tall palms, and they were growing, like the trees in Oxford, in a line along the grass. But his was the centre of a broad boulevard, and at the side of the boulevard was a line of cafes and small shops, all brightly lit, all open, and all utterly silent and empty beneath a sky thick with stars. The hot night was laden with the scent of flowers and with the salt smell of the sea. Will looked around carefully. Behind him the full moon sone down over a distant prospect of great green hills, and on the slopes at the foot of the hills there ere houses with rich gardens and an open parkland with groves of trees and the white gleam of a classical temple. Just beside him was that bare patch in the air, as hard to see from this side as from the other, but definitely there. He bent to look through and saw the road in Oxford, his own world. The turned away with a shudder: whatever this new world was, it had to be better than what he’d just left. With a dawning light-headedness, the feeling that he was dreaming but awake at the same time, he stood up and looked around for the cat, his guide. The Cat That Vanished 消失的猫 威尔累得脑子都木了，他本可以继续向北，也有可能在某棵树下头枕草地昏昏睡去；但是，正当他站在那儿，试图让头脑清醒些的时候，他看见了一只猫。 那是一只母斑猫，就像莫克西一样。她轻轻地走出靠着牛津一侧街道上的一个花园，威尔正站在街边。他放下购物袋，伸出手，那只猫便跑到他身边，在他的手指间来回蹭起脑袋，就像莫克西常常做的那样。当然，所有的猫都是那样的，尽管如此，威尔还是渴望回家，以至于热泪充满了他的双眼。 终于，这只猫转身跑开了。正当夜晚她还要巡视自己的领地，捕捉老鼠。她轻轻地穿过马路，朝着角树林另一边的灌木丛走去，然后在那儿停了下来。 威尔继续盯着她，看看猫行为怪异。 她伸出爪子去拍打它前面空气中的某种东西，某种威尔看不见的东西。然后她向后一跃，脊背拱起，毛发竖立，尾巴僵直伸着。威尔了解猫的习性。他更加警觉看着，只见那只猫再次靠近那个地方——就在角树与花园树篱的灌木丛之间的一块空草地，又拍打了一下那里的空气。 她再次向后一跃，但是这次跳得没有那么远，也没有那么害怕了。又是几秒中的嗅来嗅去、爪子触碰、胡须抽动，终于好奇心战胜了警惕性。 那只猫向前一跳，然后就消失了。 威尔眨了眨眼睛。然后他静静地站着，紧靠离他最近的一棵树干，这时一辆卡车转弯驶过来，车灯照到他的身上。卡车开过去后，他穿过马路，眼睛盯着那只猫一直在打量的地方。这并不容易，因为他无法把目光集中在某件东西上。但是当他靠近那个地方，设法仔细观察是，他看出了端倪。 终于，他从某些角度看到了。看上去就像有人在距离路边大约两米的地方将空间切开了一块土地，它大体呈正方形，边长不到一米。如果你与那块空间处在同等高度，从侧面看你几乎看不到它，从后面则完全看不见它，因为透过它，你所能看到的一切与这一边的完全相同：被一盏街灯照亮的一片草地。 但是威尔深信不疑，另一边的那块草地在一个不同的世界里。 他不可能说得出所以然来。只是他马上就知道了，就好像他知道火会燃烧、善意是美好的一样。他所注视着的是某种完全不同的东西。 仅仅是这一个理由，就足以吸引着他俯下身子向更深处望去。他看到的一切使他头晕目眩，心跳加速，但是他却没有迟疑：他把购物袋塞了过去，继而自己也钻了过去——穿过现实世界框架上的这个洞，进入了另一个世界。 他发现自己站在一排树下。那是一些高大的棕榈树，而不是角树。像在牛津一样，那些树木沿着草地排成行。只是，他所处的是一条宽阔的林阴大道的中央，在布满繁星的夜空下，所有的店铺都静悄悄的，无人光顾。在这个炎热的晚上，空气中弥漫着鲜花的芳香和海水咸咸的味道。 威尔仔细地环顾四周。在他的身后，满月映照着远处的青山的轮廓，山脚下的斜坡上坐落着带有富丽花园的房子还有一块树木丛生的公共绿地，一座古典风格的庙宇在其上闪着微微的白光。 空气中的那个空洞就在他的身边，无论是从这边还是那边都难看见，但是确定无疑地存在着，附身向空洞的那一边望去，他看到了自己的世界——牛津的街道。他不禁一颤，转过身来：无论这个新世界如何，总会好过他刚刚离开的那个世界。带着逐渐出现的眩晕感觉，那种处在半梦半醒之间的感觉，他站起身环顾四周寻找那只猫——他的向导。 |
