Cat Named Sobaka

Abstract

On the coldest day of the year, in St. Petersburg, Russia, as my daughter Eva, friend David, and I walked up the stairs from Brodyachaya Sobaka (an underground tavern, Stray Dog), we beheld a shivery kitten crouching on a cement step along the stone wall. David, a delinquent publisher of Israeli fiction in English translation, picked her up. She could be sick, I said. You pick her up just like that? What should we do with her? he asked. We'll take her, we can't let her freeze to death, I said. She's cute! said Eva.