Pet King

The sounds and sights of his hometown had not changed one bit since he’d left when he was young.

Despite that it had been more than two thousand years since the dawn of Egyptian civilization, Fina could still hear the authentic Egyptian accent amongst the people who spoke it. Granted, some of the differences were highly detectable. Syllabic sounds and intonations had evolved drastically from old Egyptian, and sentences were structured differently. The influence of the Greek language and other foreign languages were present in this dialect that Fina now heard. She could not understand it, and she definitely had not expected it.

The land of Egypt had many dialect groups which not many could understand, and the difference in accents was normal.

Lazart and his daughter Kate stayed in the same place, and Lazart told his son Chris to check up on the situation. He was worried that the vast number of people in front of him was a sign of looming turmoil. The Copts always caused the worst unrest around the region.

Deep in thought, he absently turned his head, only to lock eyes with Fina. Looking at her stirred up memories buried deep in his mind.

Like many other ethnic groups, the Copts were a proud group. They valued their traditions and their way of life, and they refused to be assimilated into mainstream Egyptian society. They held on strongly despite having to live through trying times, carving out a tiny bubble of life where they understood how to live.

And it was precisely the will to exist and maintainance of their culture that became the driving forces for the Copts to thrive. They worked much harder than the Egyptians to attain wealth and social status. They knew that these were the ingredients that guaranteed their place in modern society.

Perseverance and hard work were the hallmarks of changing one’s fate. Although Copts accounted for only 10% of the total population of Egypt, their educational level was significantly higher than that of average Egyptian. Many Copts had also gone on to receive higher education and become highly qualified professionals. Copts made up a huge proportion of doctors, lawyers, and engineers.

The Saviles family, one of Egypt’s richest households, was of Coptic origin. At the height of their wealth, before the dawn of World War II, more than 40 of the largest 100 landlord families in Egypt were Copts.

Even more impressive was Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a Copt who had eventually become a United Nations Secretary-General, a highly coveted position. Not many ethnic groups in the world could claim this important position.

Early Copts also emigrated abroad and put down roots in other countries. They thrived in these foriegn lands as well. According to statistics, Copts accounted for the highest proportion of minority population doctors in the United States, exceeding even the sum of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean doctors combined.

Lazart had not been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he too had been able to make something of himself out of nothing. He opened his own jewelery store in the Khan el-Khalili market, dealing in gold and silver. The store provided his family and himself with a comfortable life. They did not need to worry about basic necessities. It also had the added benefits of maintaining harmony amongst his family and placing his household’s economic position in the top 1% of Egyptian households. He was contented.

The passing down of culture from one generation to the next was important for the survival of one’s tradition. Lazart and his family had attached the utmost importance to this. In private gatherings, family members had to converse in the Coptic language. Their shared history was also passed down via word of mouth, with the elders sharing stories and folk legends to children once they understood how to read and write.

When Lazart was a young boy, his grandpa had told him a story—a story about cats.

However, the story had been grossly distorted after two thousand years of being passed down by mouth. Each narrator added his own narrative to the story, and it was now indistinguishable from the original. The current story sounded more like a fairytale rather than a serious story. Yet while the story had changed, the protagonists had not. The story revolved around a family that, for unknown reasons, had been trapped in the desert. They were eventually rescued by a passing cat.

Such a story was lousy, with neither a spectacular moral nor a colorful ending. Its only saving grace was that the story did not allow a lousier ending where the cat transformed into a beauty and married the prince. Such colorful stories, if spread widely, would almost certainly be added to any book collection of folktale stories.

Alas, this story, along with many other folktales, had not been circulated widely, and had stayed heavily confined within Lazart’s family. When he was ten, Lazart had truly believed that the story had actually happened, but once he grew older, he came to his senses in the blink of an eye. Despite all this, he continued the age-old tradition of reading the same story to his children in the Coptic language. He knew that nothing sparked children’s interest in a language like a fascinating, albeit ridiculous, story.

Yet looking past the absurdity, deep in his heart, Lazart believed that his ancestors had had some connection with cats. The source of his belief came from a beautifully handcrafted tapestry made out of linen and wool. It depicted that very same cat.

When Lazart had first seen Fina, he’d instantly connected her with the cat depicted on the tapestry. The uncanny resemblance had drawn up memories of his own childhood and the absurd folktale. Fina was exactly what the tapestry showed. They had the same golden hair and unique spots. To Lazart, it was as if the cat had jumped out from the tapestry and entered the real world.

He could not take his eyes off Fina. He almost stopped breathing, but suddenly, his daughter Kate held his hands.

“Dad, are you okay?” Kate asked in fear. She’d noticed that her father was pale and sweating profusely. She thought that the riots were causing him all that stress.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Lazart muttered, raising his chin to signal her to look at Fina. “Remember the story I told you and your brother?”

Kate stared at Fina. “What a beautiful cat! Dad, are you seeing the cat in the story in this cat? I think it is simply a coincidence.”

Lazart shook his head. He had seen many cats throughout his life, but none of the cats had had such fur coats and markings.

He decided to ask his shop-owner friend about the cat because he did not think that this was an ordinary stray cat.

The shop owner was also a Copt. He told Lazart that the cat had been brought in by several Chinese tourists. Now these Chinese tourists were caught in the commotion and unable to get out.

Suddenly, his son Chris ran back and told his father what he’d found out about the situation.

Lazart was relieved to hear that the unrest was unlikely to be a precursor to something greater.

He thought to himself, “Shall I leave since this is not my business?”

He stood firmly in his spot. However, Fina kept staring at him, as if expecting something to happen. Not only were its coat and markings similar to the cat in the tapestry, but its eyes and aura also mirrored that picture.

Lazart gently walked toward Fina. The cat stood firmly in its spot, not moving one inch.

“Hello. Can you understand me?”

Lazart immediately felt stupid talking to the cat. He thought only children talked to cats.

Yet he could swear that the cat gave a slight nod of its head. He could not discern whether this was an illusion.

He pointed to the riot happening and asked, “Are your friends in trouble?”

The cat turned its head to the side, as if signaling to Lazart that this was too troublesome a question to answer. Nevertheless, the cat still nodded its head just slightly.

At this point, Lazart decided that not only would he help the Chinese tourists in the distance, but he would also ask them about the cat.

“Come. I want to help your friends get out of trouble.” He pointed in the direction of his shop.