“Mornings with My Cat Mii” by Mayumi Inaba

A much-loved memoir about a Japanese author’s relationship with her cat is translated into English for the first time by award-winning translator, Ginny Tapley Takemori. Writer Mayumi Inaba won many prizes for her stories and poems before her untimely death from cancer in 2014. She was well-known as a cat lover, particularly her calico, Mii. This modern classic—published as Mornings with My Cat Mii in Britain and forthcoming as Mornings without Mii in the US—describes the close bond they shared over the 20 years of Mii’s life.

Inaba first comes across Mii in 1977 while walking near a river in Tokyo. The new-born kitten has been abandoned and is caught high up in a fence. Inaba rescues her and gives her a home. The pair stick together through two house moves, a divorce and Mii’s health issues as she ages and Mii’s eventual death.

 

Mornings With My Cat Mii / Mornings Without Mii, Mayumi Inaba; Ginny Tapley Takemori (trans) (Harvill Secker, October 2024; FSG Originals, February 2025)
Mornings With My Cat Mii / Mornings Without Mii, Mayumi Inaba; Ginny Tapley Takemori (trans) (Harvill Secker, October 2024; FSG Originals, February 2025)

While Mii is a major character in the story, she is also a useful device for generating challenges for the protagonist. When she first comes to live with Inaba and her then-husband, the couple are living in a small, rented house with a garden in Fuchu City. When the owner wants to repossess the property, the couple must find another home which allows pets, a near impossibility in Tokyo. Happily, Inaba discovers an old wooden house to rent in Kokubunji. It’s managed by the owner’s elderly parents, who seem not to notice—or at least never ask about—Mii’s existence. Both Inaba and her pet love the quiet, rural location, particularly the nearby shrine with its cedar trees. Meanwhile Inaba pursues her day job as well as writing at night, kept company by the cat sitting at her feet.

Alas, after a few years, the family is forced to move on again. Inaba’s husband has been posted to Osaka and they are living apart. She could join him in Osaka but the relationship has soured and Inaba is reluctant to give up her literary lifestyle. In any case, she won’t be alone because Mii is always waiting for her when she comes home. She decides to leave the marriage and stay in Tokyo.

Finding a new home is again problematic because landlords won’t accept cats. This time the answer is for Inaba to buy her own flat in Shinagawa. It’s a very different proposition: a high-rise in a neighbourhood devoid of greenery. Mii makes her dislike of the new environment clear and, one night, goes missing. Inaba is distraught. Although Mii is found, the event makes Inaba realise the importance of her pet, both as an emotional support and as a muse. Inaba writes:

 

As the long, long years passed, I was crawling out of a dark tunnel. The days I had spent without knowing what I wanted to write had nurtured me without my realising it. It had all started with a kitten.

 

Today’s reader may question some of the ways Inaba treats her pet, which could be construed as selfish. Indeed Inaba notes that neko, the Japanese word for cat, is also slang for geisha and admits that Mii performs a similar role for her in entertaining and companionship. However, as Mii gets older and sicker, the relationship is dramatically reversed. Because Mii’s internal organs lose their elasticity and no longer function, Inaba has to help her excrete urine and faeces through massage. The process creates an intimacy between them that Inaba has never felt before.

What does such devotion say about Inaba? She is obviously capable of deep emotion and loyalty, yet is unable to find a worthy human recipient. Would a better choice of husband have made a difference? Or is it that pesky words, Inaba’s very bread and butter, actually obstruct communication between humans whereas a non-verbal exchange with a cat can be understood instinctively and without judgement? Then again, it could be that only the passing of time and ageing allows the kind of personal growth necessary for connection. Inaba’s spare style leaves plenty of imaginative space for the reader to ponder the alternatives.

When Mii dies, Inaba has her body cremated and returns to Kokubunji (in the middle of a typhoon) to bury the ashes where Mii was happiest. She finds that their former wooden house has  been replaced by a concrete structure; the shrine is now a public park. Everything has changed in the intervening years, even Inaba’s own neighborhood, so imperceptibly that she has barely noticed. Instead of being despondent, she realizes that the sun will shine again. Inaba writes:

 

I didn’t have any particular faith, but the one thing I did believe in was light. Just being in warm light, I could be with the people and the cat I had lost from my life … Mii had returned to the light, and I would still be able to meet her there hundreds, thousands of times again.

 

Ending on this note of redemption, the story is full of positive energy. Whatever is happening in the wider world, there is always love, even if it’s not the conventional kind.


Jane Wallace is a Hong Kong-born journalist and author living in London.