The Cats of “Fausto” and Marina

Instead of accepting the friendship, the grandfather opposes the “useless” cat, wanting to kick him out of their home. To him, the cat is trash, just like Marina’s broken glass collection. Nevertheless, the girl remains compassionate toward the cat: “¿Qué culpa de haber nacido demasiado débil? ¿Qué culpa de haber nacido?” (Matute 2002: 574). Even when she feels she has no choice but to follow her grandfather’s wishes and leave the cat behind, Fausto follows her, refusing to leave her side (575). When in a fit of anger the grandfather kicks Fausto, the girl believes him to be dead and is unable to feel or really comprehend her loss (576). Soon after, shattered glass at the bar where the girl and her grandfather stopped for sustenance reminds the girl of Fausto, a treasure just like the broken shards (577). The allusion to the glass as a treasure, just like the cat, is pertinent to the girl’s character, able to see beauty even within her unfortunate circumstances. Feeling helpless, she searches for the cat, finding him alone and visibly sad (577). Underscoring Fausto’s helplessness causes both the little girl and the reader to feel compassion toward the small being, understanding how the reality of the cat is mirrored in the little girl’s own life.

The space reserved for Fausto can be compared to that of the girl’s grandfather. One day when attempting to busk, he is told to leave a corner by another busker who had already claimed the post (Matute 2002: 576). The grandfather angrily obliges; the scene highlights the difficulties that the grandfather encounters in his attempts to provide for himself and his granddaughter. When the young busker appears later at the neighborhood bar, he apologizes to the old man, commenting on his own financial situation, unable to share (577). Fausto and the large cat from the school kitchen interact in a similar manner. Worried that she won’t always be able to protect him, the girl decides that Fausto must learn how to find food on his own, unnerved by his vulnerability. She pushes him into a school kitchen, hoping he will learn from the healthy cat sleeping inside and snatch some food (578). Fausto finds the remnants of the cat’s food in a dish and goes to eat, making the girl proud, if only for a moment, before the large cat shoos Fausto away. Little Fausto is startled with fear, trying to escape as quickly as possible: “Iba llena de terror … salió como llorando” (579). The idea of feline territoriality between the two cats furthers the girl’s understanding of the social implications surrounding her – there is not room for everyone, creating a clear parallel between this instance and that of her grandfather and the other busker. This scene unfortunately also marks a change in the relationship between the girl and her cat with the girl demonstrating less warmth toward the creature, the feline immediately taking note of the shift in her body language, approaching with caution (579).

Questioning his lack of utility and survival skills, the girl decides that the cat is worthy of one last chance, bringing him to the old chapel in the hopes that he could be helpful in catching the rodents that infest the property (Matute 2002: 579). When she returns a few hours later to check on the cat’s progress, she is told that instead of killing the rodents, Fausto was found playing with one, failing his task (580). A man at the chapel therefore suggests: “Lo mejor que puedes hacer es ahogarlo. No sirve para maldita la cosa. Ni siquiera es bonito. Mátalo, y dejará de sufrir, porque ésta muy enfermo,” the threat of violence against the cat palpable (580). Reflecting on the man’s speech, the girl reconsiders again the cat’s utility, the story culminating with her decision: he is useless and therefore must die. Sealing his fate, the text reads: “Fausto, de pronto, había dejado de temblar. Sus ojos brillaban, brillaban. Pero ya no parecían estrellas … La niña cogió a Fausto por las patas de atrás y le golpeó la cabeza contra el bordillo de la acera. Fausto tosió por última vez. Y, ésta, sí que parecía un hombre … Los ojos de Fausto se apagaron” (581). The eyes of the cat are noted just before and after she kills him, highlighting the creature’s emotions and the fact that the girl no longer sees Fausto as a treasure, his eyes no longer considered beautiful like the stars. When the girl finally returns home for the night, she admits to her actions: “Abuelo … he matado a Fausto. No sirvía para nada…Abuelo, apuesto algo a que te vas a morir” (581). She falls asleep with ease, the grandfather realizing the lesson he imparted to the child. He starts to cry, praying for Fausto, and coming to terms with his own reality. The tale ends: “Y nadie le oía ni le hacía caso,” cementing the idea of the grandfather’s place in society as also being cast aside just like the cat, Matute providing commentary on the bleak reality under the dictatorship (581).

The characters in this story, other than Fausto and his namesake, are all unnamed, making it possible through the narration to assign a similar if not equal reality to other figures. Though the case of poverty, lack of a childhood, and instability are not unique to this girl, by leaving them anonymous, Ana María Matute creates a commentary on the realities of twentieth-century Spain and the burdens of the dictatorship. Indeed, throughout the short story, Fausto symbolizes sickness, death, poverty, and violence for the little girl and her grandfather. The nine-year-old transitions at the moment of murdering Fausto from a child without a real childhood into an adult. In a similar fashion, Ruiz Zafón’s Marina, though a longer text, employs similar symbolism through the use of a cat, demonstrating how Marina and her father are also caught up within their own impoverished circumstances, marked by illness.

Marina follows fifteen-year-old Óscar Drai, as he stumbles across both a new friend, Marina, and a Gothic mystery in the shadowy streets of Barcelona. A flâneur of sorts, he walks along “unas de las zonas ‘muertas’ del barrio” (Ruiz Zafón 1999: 14). An uncanny sense begins to unfold as the ghosts of Barcelona’s past are remembered as he comes across an abandoned house. This sense of uncertainty intensifies as he feels that he is being watched: “Estaba debatiéndome entre la fascinación morbosa hacia aquel lugar olvidado y el sentido común cuando advertí dos brillantes ojos amarillos encendidos en la penumbra, clavados en mí como dagas” (14). These glowing yellow eyes on the property are quickly identified as belonging to a cat:

After being attacked by an unknown figure in his boarding school, Óscar flees to Marina’s house as he feels safe there. He finds Marina writing with Kafka at her side, the cat providing her constant companionship (Ruiz Zafón 1999: 143). Apart from Óscar, Kafka is Marina’s only friend, and she affirms their relationship through acts of care, compassion, and protection. In return, Kafka rolls around in the sun, sits by her feet, and constantly watches Marina, demonstrating their strong connection (30, 98). When the Blaus invite Óscar to the beach, Kafka comes along as well, sleeping in the car. Upon arriving, he walks around as if he knows the way, a member of the family accustomed to the family trip to the beach (100). Óscar’s acceptance within the family is felt even more deeply once Kafka warms up to him, choosing to sleep on his clothes, marking his territory as including Óscar (147).

Death is symbolized by Kafka’s presence. Unbeknownst to Óscar, Marina has made plans for them to stake out an old cemetery, the space that ultimately connects their lives to the mystery behind Kolvenik. When Óscar arrives at Marina’s house for their outing, he is immediately greeted by Kafka, foreshadowing the space of death that is to come (Ruiz Zafón 1999: 33). According to Elisa Martí-López, “as depositories of social relations and belief systems, cemeteries are at once the locus and the instrument of power” (2017: 211). Following this idea, the cemetery immediately becomes established as the locus for the mystery. In fact, Martí-López suggests a cemetery as one of Pierre Nora’s lieux de mémoire (211). Pierre Nora believes, however, that:

Marina’s take on death is mature for a teenager, as she has had to accept the fact that she will soon be gone due to her incurable unknown illness. She explains to Óscar the reality of the cemetery, understanding what it represents: “Aquí están los recuerdos de cientos de personas, sus vidas, sus sentimientos, sus ilusiones, su ausencia, los sueños que nunca llegaron a realizar, las decepciones, los engaños y los amores no correspondidos que envenenaron sus vidas … Todo eso está aquí, atrapado para siempre” (Ruiz Zafón 1999: 36). It is here that the main mystery of the novel begins, as a woman dressed in a black cloak arrives at the cemetery to visit an unmarked grave with a picture of a black butterfly (37). In fact, the image of the black butterfly is present here for the first time, being the secondary animalian harbinger of sickness and death seen within the underlying Gothic mystery of the book, leaving Kafka to symbolize Marina’s life and death.

The falsehood behind Germán’s failing health intensifies when Marina announces that she and her father must travel to Madrid to see a specialist: “Un médico de La Paz, toda una eminencia, había aceptado someter a Germán a un tratamiento que todavía estaba en fase experimental y que solo se había utilizado un par de veces en toda Europa” (Ruiz Zafón 1999: 76). Though Óscar is sad to see them go, he consents to taking care of Kafka. Mentioning the cat signals to the reader that the fate of Marina is intertwined with the presence of the feline, the lie of her father’s ailing health acting as a cover for her own illness – a lie that Óscar easily believes. For instance, when Marina seems to be sick after escaping the greenhouse, she brushes it off as if a bad smell had made her nauseous. She composes herself after a few moments, and Óscar believes her excuse, thinking nothing of it and getting her back home to eat – only to be greeted immediately by Kafka: “A mí me miró con desdén y corrió a frotar su lomo sobre los tobillos de Marina” (50). The presence and comfort provided by Kafka acts as a foreshadowing tool – the cat aware of her fate while Óscar remains aloof.

One night when staying with the Blau family, Óscar is woken up by a cough. He calls out Marina’s name, but there is no response. He goes downstairs in search of Marina and instead encounters Kafka: “Los ojos de Kafka brillaban al pie de las escaleras. El gato maulló débilmente y me guió a través de un corredor oscuro. Al fondo, un hilo de luz se filtraba desde una puerta cerrada. La tos provenía del interior. Dolorosa. Agonizante. Kafka se aproximó a la Puerta y se detuvo allí, maullando” (Ruiz Zafón 1999: 167). Following the ideas of symbolism presented in this chapter, the presence of Kafka signals Marina’s poor health, acting as a guide for Óscar to find the sick girl. And yet, pages later when Óscar finds a note from Marina stating that she and her father had to rush to the doctor with a plea to feed Kafka, he somehow does not even consider that it could be due to her health and remains ignorant about his friend’s reality (173). Upon their return, Óscar reflects, still aloof: “No costaba imaginar que el médico no había manifestado buenas noticias sobre la salud de Germán. Decidí no preguntar sobre lo que parecía evidente,” continuing to believe the lie that Germán is ill (176). Óscar’s belief that the Blaus’ experience is marked by the father’s health obscures his understanding of the situation.

Kafka is last seen in the novel perched on Marina’s lap. This scene is followed by Óscar unable to sleep, ultimately deciding to take a walk to the old cemetery and pushing forward the novel’s underlying Gothic mystery (Ruiz Zafón 1999: 177). Kafka’s presence therefore signals the end of seeming normalcy within the narrative. The cat’s presence marking the transition is important as, until this point, the text has mostly focused on Óscar and Marina. The shift to the mystery – the story of Mijail Kolvenik, Eva Irinova, and Dr. Shelley – drives the climax of the drama when these characters all die. Fitting into the Gothic trope, Xavier Aldana Reyes notes that even “Dr. Shelley is inevitably the scientist in Marina, a novel where corpses are patched up with metal and wood and reanimated Frankenstein-style” (Aldana Reyes 2017: 175), which gestures toward the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. It is only after the near-death experience that comes with solving the Gothic mystery that Óscar stops visiting his friend, believing she needs space after all the chaos. After some time apart, Óscar finally decides to visit Marina, hoping that his presence will be welcomed (Ruiz Zafón 1999: 269). When he enters the house, he finds Germán crying:

In Derrida’s The Animal that Therefore I Am, he outlines the idea of nakedness or being laid bare when considering nonhuman bodies (2008: 4–5). The notion that vulnerability parallels the naked condition from a human perspective is an important approach to understanding the experience of Fausto. Indeed, Fausto is laid bare – his wounds and vulnerability are made evident – whereas Kafka’s nakedness as a nonhuman feline characterizes his strength and fearsomeness as a hunter. The gaze reflects back from Fausto and penetrates the subject’s vulnerability. Kafka’s gaze is strong and dominant, creating a feeling of the uncanny within those who do not know him, whereas Fausto begs for comfort, sympathy, and care in his gaze. The gaze of his little girl, first filled with pity and purpose, later shifts to disgust, whereas Marina’s gaze upon the cat remains consistent, filled with companionship and respect. These ties between the gaze and their subject create a tension that oscillates between the human and feline characters to expose their respective vulnerabilities.

Unlike Fausto’s fate, there is no violence against Kafka. The girl in “Fausto” is caught up in the violence of her reality, while Marina sinks into the surreal reality of Kolvenik, a man who attempts to rebuild his body with wood and metal after it is deformed by a disease. Marina is not defined by violence like the unnamed girl in “Fausto,” but she connected to violence, both in terms of the Gothic fairy tale and of the bleak representation of post-dictatorship Spain’s attempt to move forward from the ruins of its civil war. It is she who guides Óscar into the cemetery, giving them the opportunity to observe Eva (or to them, the woman in the black cloak) visiting the unmarked grave and puts them on a mission to solve what happened. Though the cat represents Marina’s death, in Kolvenik’s tale, it is the black butterfly, Teufel, a butterfly that dies and comes back to life, that represents the gruesome deaths within his story.

The socioeconomic condition of the main families in “Fausto” and Marina is a critical element that needs unpacking because it demonstrates the realities of dictatorship and post-dictatorship Spain and the experiences of children left to grow up in a space once decimated by violence. Descriptions of the young girl’s home in Matute’s “Fausto” highlight the poverty that she and her grandfather face: “Vivía con el abuelo, en una sola habitación con un hornillo, la Ventana y los jergones para dormir” (2002: 573). The girl has shoes that are too big, and the pair is pitied by their neighbors. As noted by DeLong and García-Fernández, “La descripción de la barraca, el barrio y los personajes, contrasta con el ambiente cercano de casas más grandes a tan solo tres manzanas del colegio” (2023: 46). There is no indication that the girl has any toys, with pieces of garbage and shards of glass relegated as treasures that decorate her space.

Óscar also observes the socioeconomic situation of the Blau family when he is invited to stay for dinner:

The oppression deriving from the Spanish Civil War and its following dictatorship on not only twentieth-century Spanish society but on literary production continues to be a point of analysis for Spanish literary historians. As noted by Katherine O. Stafford, “the Civil War continues to be inscribed into many of the cultural practices, products, and activities in Spain, and reveals the war to be one of the primary defining elements of identity for Spain’s citizens” (2015: 167). Indeed, Ángel Viñas critiques, “In Spain, the myths propagated by Francoism have survived, conveniently freshened up, and are mobilized in today’s political conflicts” (Viñas, qtd in Faber 2018: 90). These reflections help identify the importance of revisiting twentieth-century Spanish literature to better understand the cultural implications of the time. As Astrid Erll remarks, “literature as a medium of cultural memory is therefore first and foremost a phenomenon of reception” (2011: 160). It is within this approach to literature as a mimetic device for understanding the past that Matute’s work defines the state of poverty caused in the post-Civil War period, which persisted for many during the dictatorship. The post-dictatorship trauma is still evident in the streets of Spain within Ruiz Zafón’s work.

In both stories, the young girls are paired with older men who are sick (or in the case of Germán, perceived as sick). In “Fausto,” the girl is living with her grandfather, indicating that she is otherwise orphaned. The nine-year-old girl only has her grandfather left, a fact the reader realizes when he recounts a time when the child’s mother had been alive (Matute 2002: 577). A cause of death is not provided, leaving it up to the reader to imagine what happened to her parents, informed by the violence of Spanish history. Indeed, the grandfather’s condition is also made apparent from the story’s beginning, described as “Amarillo y rugoso como un limón exprimido,” likely suffering from liver disease based on his jaundiced condition (573). His health is failing: “hacía muchos días que el Viejo estaba enfermo, con un catarro muy fuerte, sin poder salir a la calle. No podían ir con el organillo, y se pasaban las horas lamentándose de su mala suerte” (573). The little money they make comes from her grandfather busking, competing for different corners while the girl follows along, collecting money from anyone who stops to acknowledge them. This job becomes difficult for the grandfather due to his ailing health. His cough sometimes stops him from leaving home, his last cold has affected his hearing, and his strength wanes, making it difficult to carry around the instrument.

In Marina, the absence of her mother is felt across the novel, in particular because her father, Germán, was a painter, with portraits of the lady all over the house. When Óscar first sees Marina he observes: “Una bicicleta emergía lentamente de la bruma. Una muchacha, ataviada con un vestido blanco enfilaba aquella cuesta pedaleando hacia mí … Mi mirada ascendió por aquel vestido escapado de un cuadro de Sorolla hasta detenerse en los ojos, de un gris tan profundo que uno podía caerse dentro” (Ruiz Zafón 1999: 25). This description is significant for two reasons. First, the color and depth of her eyes, which as Óscar later realizes, match that of her mother’s portraits covering the walls. And, second, the reference to a Sorolla painting places imagery of Marina into a painting just like her mother. Kristen’s death from an unknown disease acts as foreshadowing for Marina’s own fate. For example, when Óscar goes to the Blau residence, he sees Kristen’s eyes as those of Marina. When Óscar questions Germán, asking if it is in fact Marina who is sick, he responds that she has “el mal de su madre,” foreshadowing Marina’s fate through the loss of her mother from the same disease (270). Even Óscar lacks a family – he stays at a boarding school, and his parents do not see him over the school holidays. Perhaps this is the primary reason he masquerades as a member of the Blau family, spending as much time as possible in their home, trying to escape the monotony and loneliness of his boarding school.

Germán Blau’s perceived illness is observed by Óscar throughout the year he spends with the family. When they first meet, Óscar remarks: “El rostro de Germán, que había imaginado de ogro, se volvió delicado, casi enfermiso” (Ruiz Zafón 1999: 29). This description becomes critical to Óscar’s understanding of the Blau family as he is quickly convinced that Germán is sick and not just elderly. This is reaffirmed when Marina observes that “Germán no está muy bien de salud” (30). When Germán falls asleep at the dinner table one night and is embarrassed by his lack of energy, it is reiterated again for Óscar that the man is unwell, making him feel compassion for the old man and for Marina (52–3). Marina keeps the act up, telling Óscar that “todos los lunes acompaño a Germán al médico, al hospital de San Pablo” (61). Though it is later revealed to be a lie, in the moment, the excuse is convincing to Óscar, who sees Germán as sickly from the start.

Poverty and illness are compounded within these two stories, both the unnamed girl and Marina experiencing life in twentieth-century Spain. Although within the narratives they are central characters, the description of their lives and homes marks them as peripheral beings, othered through their position of poverty within twentieth-century Spanish society. Matute and Ruiz Zafón attempt to re-create within their works a society in which the reality of these girls is affected by the violence of the past, their lives already impacted by loss before the stories begin. In their state of loneliness, their relationships with cats become critical to their lives and for understanding the sickness that surrounds them.