The Cat of Cats

Of all the cats that guarded Milan's dilapidated, bomb-scarred old Central Railway Station, the best and bravest was Momi, a dirty-grey draftee from the Milanese back alleys. Sallying forth on mission after mission from her base in Control Tower C, Momi did more than any of her comrades from the other six towers to rid the station of the army of rats which swarmed over it after the Allied bombings of 1943. She was quicker to dodge the trains, more artful in picking her way through the lethal maze of high tension lines, fiercer and more cunning in the chase. One by one the other cats disappeared or died, but Momi stayed on, even condescending to learn a few parlor tricks (like raising a paw on command) for the signalmen in Tower C.

In all Momi's years of service, the towermen could remember her making only one misstep--that terrible time when, by accident, she stepped on a signal button on the tower control panel and brought a fast express screeching to a stop on the tracks below. Tower Master Eugenio Olivieri picked Momi up by the scruff of the neck that day and threw her out of the window, but Momi, battered and limping, returned.

Last week, an honored veteran of nine years, Momi sickened and died. A queue of sad-eyed Milanese railroadmen filed past the little mound of earth over her grave. "She was a cat of cats," said one of Momi's old bosses, now head of the Station Vehicle Section. "She will have a place here as long as the trains run."

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