Mr Kleinmann's Cat

1022 Words5 Pages
1. Summary The short story is about an elderly Jewish man, Mr. Kleinman, who gets his cat, Timmy, stolen from him. One day, Mr. Kleinman is rushing home to his apartment, with a newly purchased liver; he is going to feed to his cat. When he arrives at his apartment, Kleinman cannot find Timmy, instead he discovers a small note written in poor English: Someone has "cat-napped" Timmy. The "catnappers" demands a 50-pound ransom for the cat, but Kleinman is not a man of wealth, and cannot afford to pay the full ransom. Kleinman makes an agreement with the thugs that catnapped his cat: He will have to give them his next weekly pension money, and the cat will be his once again. The days slowly pass, and when the payment day is about, something fortunate happens. Timmy manages to escape from the thugs, and makes his way back home and Timmy is later reunited with his owner, Mr. Kleinman. In the end, when Mr. Kleinman finds Timmy at his apartment, he murmurs "How kind!” as if the catnappers had returned Timmy out of their own free will. 2. Mr. Kleinman and where he lives As I said before, Mr. Kleinman is an old Jewish man. Kleinman is not a man with a lot of money, in fact, he is quite poor. He lives off his small weekly pension payouts, and he has barely got enough money to get by. Kleinman lives in a small, rugged apartment, in one of the less desirable neighborhoods of London. Kleinman is not a lonely man; he has a cat named Timmy, which he treats as a son. I can imagine he moved to the United Kingdom from war-ridden Germany shortly after World War II. (He mentions living in Magdeburg, Germany years ago - and judging by the language, currency and such; I believe he now lives in England.) Kleinman is haunted by an incident that occurred back when he lived in Germany during World War II. He signed a lot of papers at the local police station; the
Open Document