Review of "A Puppy in the Sun" by Ani

Review of Mariyana’s “A Puppy in the Sun”


Having read Hemingway’s story, I, to be honest, felt a bit depressed. Such a strained relationship between the characters, so many emotions, most of them false, so much left unsaid. This was the original story. Phew, I thought, luckily we have an upcoming parody, can’t wait to read something to brighten up this cold night. Well, I do not intend to sound nasty, but “A Puppy in the Sun” sounded even more depressing… If only the task itself didn’t require some “chortle”, I would have applauded Mariyana’s story.

A perfect reflection of “Cat in the Rain” – this is what you get when you put a minus in front of “A Puppy in the Sun”, like in a mathematical equation. The only problem is I did not get to laugh. Parody, after all, is about laughing, isn’t it?

Nevertheless, if we ignore the not-funny part, I like the precision of Mariyana’s mirror story – each and every element is as if gently handled with a pair of tweezers only to briefly examine it and then to pin its total counterpart, while at the same time managing to keep the original grimness of the story. This does not sound easy. I was intrigued by the way Mariyana succeeded in making rain and heat seem equal – too much of either is never welcome; cat and dog seem interchangeable; a bad relationship still being bad whether the characters try to hide it or not, etc.

Still, unfortunately, exchanging white for black does not make the story an original piece of writing. What the reader expected to see, if you ask me, was not simply a reflection, but a reflection in a distorted mirror – a funny image to giggle at. The simple switch of different elements is a signal of lack of creativeness – which I am sure is not the case here, maybe just the task was not right.

Task 6 - "Desert Temple" by Irina

Desert Temple

The group of campers were waking up. Some were slowly getting out of their sleeping bags, others remained lying, perhaps feeling too tired and hungry to lift themselves up. Carrie was one of the latter. She had just raised herself on her elbows. The stark beauty of the landscape dazzled her. The intricate patterns of the brown hills in the distance were glowing in the morning sun. The air was still fresh from the night’s cold and the heat hadn’t set in yet, the scorching heat of Arizona in the afternoon. She was partly looking forward to it, for the night had been freezing. The whole group, about sixty people, had spent the hours of dark and cold with just sleeping bags to protect them. Actually no, she was one of the few who had resisted the temptation of buying a Peruvian poncho for just $250, when Jean, the chief of Ray’s assistants, was offering them. Carrie took this experience seriously, she had joined the Spiritual Warrior retreat to achieve harmony in life and she was determined to follow all of Ray’s commands. The idea was to test your endurance and clean your body, and if she had to freeze and sweat for that, freeze and sweat she would. “I’m determined to make it through. This will change my life,” she thought. She was annoyed at some of the others who kept complaining about the fasting. “This was not a five-star hotel, you’re here to become better people and you will have to work hard on that,” she wanted to tell them.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the camp, James Arthur Ray, a well-built, 38-year-old man with a big smile and ego had just finished his breakfast in his tent and now he was updating his Twitter page. “Hm, I love google ads, always relevant. Here, I love this BMW, a couple of retreats like that and I’ll be able to buy a dozen of these, not that I need them, but it’s a good feeling, to know I can buy all this stuff…I’m a genius, I love myself. That’s what all the others should do – reach out and grab what you want, like I do. The Law of Attraction. Ok, let’s focus now… Jean tells me my dear sweet followers are a bit grumpy this morning. Maybe it’s been enough fasting, these guys aren’t as trained as those monks in Tibet that I interviewed about the benefits of fasting.”

He called out: “Jean, dear, would you be so kind as to offer the camp the buffet meal we were saving for after the sweat lodge. I’ll order an extra meal for later. I think some refreshment would do them good.”

“But you told them the fasting rule was very strict and important. How shall I explain this?” Jean, a small plump woman in her fifties, was puzzled.

“Just tell them they have worked hard and their Spiritual Leader thanks them with this inspirational buffet meal that he has sanctified in his meditational dreams during the night,” Ray said, opening himself another bottle of cold water.

The day continued much like the previous few days of the retreat. The devoted believers listened to Ray’s revealing philosophy. He taught them the Secret – you can achieve anything, yes, anything with the power of your thought. And all the body-purging exercises would help them learn how to make their wishes materialize. Damian spent the meditation time in strenuous efforts to imagine his promotion at work. Meryl could almost touch the Pear-shaped diamond necklace by Christie’s. And Jeff knew his new restaurant would turn a huge profit so he’ll be able to finally afford that scuba diving vacation in the Great Barrier Reef. Panny pictured herself married, 4 inches taller, with hair twice as long and no pimples at all. And they were all confident and secure, “This retreat is worth each and every cent of the nine thousand dollars I spent on it,” they all thought. This was the final day and there was a feeling of fulfillment among the group.

Ray shared that too. For the past few days he had enjoyed the status of a god, a prophet who knew the answer to all problems – the simple formula – know, feel and receive. This was all based on The Law of Attraction, the scientific evidence that all our thoughts attract events. He had talked to many people, traveled to sacred places all over the world and knew many stories of ordinary people who had believed in themselves and grabbed their opportunities. His followers adored him and obeyed all his commands. “I can’t wait to get the feedbacks from this retreat, I can smell the praise… and with the series of future retreats coming…then I’ll write another book or two, maybe that will get me on Oprah, or Larry King again… I’ve always known I was born to be a prophet… This is the mission of my life, to help others achieve success in life like I did.”

The retreat concluded with the ancient Native American ritual of the sweat lodge. The traditional tent was already built – a low structure covered in plastic sheeting with a hearth in the middle. Scolding, lava-hot stones were brought in by Ray’s assistants and as he poured water and incense over them, he explained the cleansing purpose of the ritual to his followers, all of them packed together in the small tent. They would purify their bodies and souls, the heat would evaporate all dirt from their spirits. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, very close to each other, they listened to the inspired words of their prophet, who kept bringing in more and more meltingly hot stones. They were lulled by the vapors and his voice. Sleepy and nauseous, vomiting and gasping, yelling for water and nudging each other to see if your neighbor is still awake, they all knew this was the beginning of their new, happy life of riches, promotions and new shoes. Nobody thought of trying to go out – this would have been sacrilegious. They could see nothing in the dark excruciating heat, scorching their very souls inside their lungs. From this human boiling pot some of them arouse, finding new heights of the tent, then realizing they have actually left the tent and were again in the chill outside evening desert air. They had achieved everything one could hope for in life, they could now float freely above the desert shrubs and in an instant they were on top of the intricate-patterned brown hills touching the orange purple glow the sunset had left behind.

Around the sweat lodge they had just left, ambulances were gathering. People were crawling out, spitting blood, mucus flowing from their eyes, crying for help, struggling to breathe.

James Arthur Ray was already on his way to his car. A bit dazed from the last round of the ritual, he was thinking about how difficult his mission had become and how he would overcome this minor obstacle on his way. For he was sure that nobody would understand what had actually happened in the sweat lodge, all the joy his followers had shared, all the purity they had acquired, he knew there would be accusations, for police had arrived with the ambulances. So he opened his laptop and before driving off sent a quick email to Joe Tackler, a man with lots of experience in publicity.

Task 2 - "Breaking News" by Irina

Irina Hinova

Breaking News

[Advertisement]

[SparkReports theme tune]

[Camera 2]

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to SparkReports – the most trusted name in news. I’m Sland Gosper. Stay with us as we try to get to the bottom of the political scandal that has shaken the Cabinet. It is rumoured that some Ministers may hand in their resignations by the end of the week.

But first let us try and go back to the beginning of this story and find the actual causes of the scandal, which started with last week’s fiasco at Miss Cosmetics. This is what the chief manager of the contest Robert Pattison told us:

[Video no. 53.17- Robert Pattison interview]

“So, Mr. Pattison, tell us how it all happened.”

“From the beginning we were prepared, we knew just what to do, for hadn’t we seen it all a hundred times?—the good people of the town going about their business, the suddenly interrupted TV programs, the faces in the crowd looking up, the little girl pointing in the air, the mouths opening, the dog yapping, the traffic stopped, the shopping bag falling to the sidewalk, and there, in the sky, coming closer – the huge majestic sequin-covered pageant platform – descending graciously onto the main square. As always, we had kept the time of the event in absolute secrecy. Nobody knew the exact time or venue – would it land on the main square, or the stadium, or float on the lake …”

“Yes, right, but was there anything different in the rules this time? It’s said that some of the girls knew there’d be a change and reorganized their daily beauty routines to follow the new fashion trend, but they had little time to get the desired results. Perhaps there was a leak?”

“No, no, no, everything was as in previous years. The candidates for the title Miss Cosmetics were expected to lead their usual lives and follow latest fashion trends and were called for the show only two hours before it started. Nobody had expected it would… turn out like that.”

[video no. 72.00 –Miss Cosmetics contestants interview]

“I’ve been preparing for a whole year, you know. Fashion magazines, latest products, first row in all Fashion Guild shows – cause they set the trends, you know. I felt ssso disappointed, my heart like broke, you know, cause just 30 minutes before we went on stage, we were just lining up to fly up on the platform, you know…Oh, it’s so hard for me to take it…”

“All I can tell you is – like… half an hour before the show this bloke, Robert Somebody, he just came in and went ‘You’re all totally disqualified. The latest trend in tan is orange and you’re all mauve or pink ivory.’…apparently the Fashion Guild had just… like issued a totally new fashion trend. I was like how could they do this to me! That was totally uncalled for, I did everything…”

[studio]

[Sland Gosper on camera 3]

“As you can see, Ladies and Gentlemen, the girls are all devastated. The only one who had somehow anticipated the new trend was Anna-Sui Redmond, her tan was impeccably orange. Being the only contestant, she was crowned Miss Cosmetics according to the rules of the contest – the one closest to latest fashion trend wins. Since she is the daughter of Celeb Redmond, the Minister of Greens, Education, Gardens and Greenish Garments, rumours about corruption led to the launch of an official investigation. Miss Redmond said in her father’s defence that her orange tan was casued by a fault in the sunbed at her beauty salon. She added that the fault was discovered too late for her to have a tan repair and because of that she had fallen in a deep depression and she had learned about the new fashion trend only when all the others did. Nevertheless, Mr. Redmond is accused of using classified Fashion Guild emails, to which he had access as an official, to his daughter’s advantage. Another fact that fuels suspicion is his Garden project. Here’s what he said yesterday on the phone to our reporter:

[Recording no. 45.07 – Redmond interview]

[Redmond photo on screen]

“Mr. Redmond, why did you choose orange for your project? Our sources say you had to order extra paint for the trees and you even exceeded the ministry budget. There are also rumours about ministry officials selling orange paint on the black market days before the announcement about the new trend… ”

“Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that ... that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems ... and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died.”

“But why exactly orange, who gave you the information?… [The line is dropped.]

It seems the connection failed…”

[studio]

[Sland Gosper on camera 1]

It seems there is trouble in store for Mr. Redmond. The Cabinet is soon expected to issue an official statement…

***

The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen – ” and then the camera stopped. TV screens went gray. But that bothered no viewers because they had flown out of their homes with the same speed and urgency as the TV presenter and the whole SparkReports crew had left their places, followed by the cameramen and everybody else down to the cleaners and the night watchman. For the news had pierced the whole town like a lightning – two major cosmetic factories - Bêtise sans arrêt and À la folie, had closed down because of a power failure due to bad management by the Ministry of Energy, Electronic Music and Elegance. People were lining up in front of cosmetic shops to buy large supplies of beauty products because with the political crisis already under way, nobody knew when cosmetics production would be back to normal. And with all the orange-tinted bronzants and eye-liners already in stock, God forbid the Fashion Guild issue a new trend.

TASK 8 - "Night of the Wet Cat!" by Tsvetelina

“That’s it, I’ll go torch the damn fleabag.” Valerie was hysterical. She was hysterical and was hysterically clutching a zippo lighter in one hand and a hairspray in the other. It was raining in through the open window. Someone dumped a tangled mass of spaghetti leftovers from a window on the upper floor. A sticky meatball brushed her nose and crash-landed on the window sill. She didn’t notice.

“You’ll do no such thing.” That came from the unoccupied corner of John’s mouth. The other corner was occupied. Lucky Strike. John was languidly chopping carrots. The carrots were orange. His nails were yellow. He was in the company of a dead salmon. It was staring at him from an oval white plate on the kitchen counter. It didn’t say much.

“It won’t stop mewing. I’m out of laundry pins and it hid under the table anyway. That mewing freaks me out. Plus, it’s wet. Wet cats stink like hell. I’ll go dry it out.” The door slammed shut behind her. The meatball on the window sill was sticky.

“Don’t get wet. These are my only good socks you’re wearing.” The chopped carrots were piled in the baking tin. They were still orange. John decapitated a fennel bulb. His cigarette resting in peace in the ashtray, he now started whistling a tune from “La Traviata”. The kitchen filled with the sound of sparrows being strangled. The salmon didn’t mind.

The landlord was allergic to peanuts. He was a retired cook for the US army. He had lost his left eye in a freak accident involving a cripple Venecian prostitute, a stiletto heel and considerable amounts of cheap grappa. He was replacing the light bulb in the lobby, strenuously stretching his scrawny arms to reach it while precariously balancing his asparagus of a body on a red plastic bucket. When Valerie rushed past him, creating a whirl strong enough to make him clumsily grasp for the lamp cord he squeaked under his bushy moustache: “Jeez, woman, where’s the fire!?”

“Oh, we’ll have one alright!”

“What’s with the hairspray? Having a bad hair day, are we?”

“I’ll go torch a cat.”

“Well, I’ll be damned! What for?”

“It won’t stop mewing. It wails like a friggin’ siren.”

“The guys from my platoon in Vietnam never complained of such nuisance. Cats tend to be very quiet when served with rice and soy sauce, if you know what I mean.”

“John silenced a fish for dinner. I have a cat to torch.”

Valerie turned her back on the peanut intolerant, cat-cooking, one-eyed asparagus perched on a red plastic bucket and darted off towards the mewing, wet, stinky, hairball-vomiting, rat-eating, soon-to-be-torched fleabag. The sky over Bologna was full of night and rain. On the splashy pavement there was a tangled mass of spaghetti leftovers. On the same splashy pavement there wasn’t a wet stinky cat. On the window sill above her there was a lone meatball. The lone meatball was sticky.

John’s only good socks were soaked. Valerie’s hair looked like a tangled mass of spaghetti leftovers. Her hairspray couldn’t do anything about her bad hair day and it couldn’t torch the cat that wasn’t there. What it could do was nest in the nearest trash bin. Valerie squelched in the lobby. The landlord attached to the bushy moustache was perched on a red plastic bucket.

“Dinner ready yet?”, mumbled the orifice under the moustache.

“The damn fleabag’s gone!”

“Oh, well, look on the bright side. Maybe it got run over by the milkman’s truck.”

“Yeah, yeah. I hope it’s cat pate by now. Or dog food.”

The apartment smelled of roasting silent fish. John was in the john. Valerie looked down through the window. She wished her hair was short. That way there was a chance she wouldn’t look like a mafia cuisine specialty. On the pavement below there was a cat who wasn’t there.

“Did you torch the damn fleabag? Are my only good socks ruined?” John’s voice carried from inside the john.

“There’s spaghetti on the pavement and on my head.”

“I told you we’re eating fish tonight.”

Two hours later on the kitchen counter there was a cooling speechless fish with a stupid expression, snuggly buried in multi-colored vegetables. On the window sill there was a contented pigeon with a sticky meatball in his belly. The doorbell rang. Valerie opened, wearing John’s not-so-good-but-dry socks. The landlord smiled sheepishly which caused his bushy moustache to part in the middle – a telltale sign he was allergic to peanuts. He held a baking tin in his hands. There, snuggly buried in rice and splashed with soy sauce, lay a roasted quiet cat.

MARIYANA REVIEW

This is a neatly written story which follows very closely the style, the setting and the characters in the original. Actually, the writer’s most noteworthy achievement is her way of preserving the minimalistic tone of Hemingway’s version.

However, there are hardly any changes to speak of. The only more significant alteration seems to concern the animal – the cat in the rain has become a puppy in the sun. Another modification: the American husband and wife have, for some reason, assumed names. Also, the husband is not reading a book but a gardening magazine, which is probably meant to trivialize the situation, and in this sense is a good idea.

Other than that, the closest the story comes to comic distortion (which is a very important aspect of what a parody is about) is George’s retort at his wife’s fuss over her hair: “I’ll buy you a wig”, said the husband unconcerned.

To cut a long story short, there is too much overlapping between Cat in the Rain and A Puppy in the Sun to call Mariyana’s endeavour a parody.

MILENA REVIEW

Ms Stoilova has based her parody on modifications of the setting of the original and some alterations in the female character’s personality. In this version, the American wife is more blatantly vain and naïve than Hemingway’s American wife. She is obsessed with making her girlfriends feel “green with envy” and she likes “the pink that the new Cosmo reported to be trendy this year”.

Also, her rhetoric is magisterially pro-occidental: she thinks of the Japanese as “small yellowish people”. It is in this culture gap that the humour constitutes itself. The American I-want-it-all-I want-it –now ethos is pitted against the Eastern respect for convention, and the situation is quite promisingly funny. The woman’s inability to make out why it wouldn’t be possible to have something if you pay for it opens up a goldmine of comic possibilities, which, I think, are not fully deployed. Actually, I would have extended the dialogue with the receptionist.

The part I enjoyed immensely is the one with the husband watching those “corpulent diaper-wrapped giants with female hairdos.” This moment reminded me of a chapter in David Lodge’s novel Changing Places where an American professor in England zaps through the channels in an attempt to find some American football and all he gets is a sequence of tedious sports like archery and soccer. If the writer had extended this paragraph, this could have made for some mighty good humour. Once again, I think, the comic potential could have been used more fully.

All in all, Ms Stoilova has done a good job of adhering to Hemingway’s economical style and she is quite good at manipulating the characters and the situation. And the “origami tree” at the end of the story is a killer of an idea. I would have appreciated a few more laughs, though.

SNEZHANA REVIEW

From the very beginning, Ms Bezus does a very good job of both following and straying (for comic effect) from Hemingway’s original. The artists with their easels, for example, are here replaced by “grannies …enjoying the buzzing of horse-flies around the toilets while trimming handkerchiefs with lace.” The artistic atmosphere of Hemingway’s Italian environment has given way to “the rural ambiance” of a provincial German town with all the kitsch that will, probably, go with it. The collocation “rural ambiance” itself is a winner, as the pretentiousness of the noun clashes with the down-to-earthness of the attribute. I would have trimmed some of the adjectives in this description, however. You may have noticed that Hemingway hates the accumulation of adjectives. So a sentence like “...a backyard equipped with fully functional authentic outdoor toilets dating from the early 19th century” doesn’t sound like Hemingway at all.

After this descriptive paragraph, the story keeps following the logic of the obverse and it actually goes from strength to strength. The American wife’s role is here taken over by a Japanese husband, who is after a rat rather than a cat, and who wants to kill it rather than hug it. The keeper is a cartoonish corpulent Frau, whose assistance in the pursuit of the rat adds a further touch of the absurd to the situation. To me, the ludicrous actually reaches its peak with the “large raindrop hanging from her pale Aryan nose”.

Then, the suddenly feminized Japanese husband, whose vanity is meant to repeat and pervert the American wife’s, is another brilliant idea. So is the abrupt switch to the guy’s belligerent mindset with: “I want this rat’s head on a silver plate. It’s my duty to offer it as a gift to my brave ancestors.” The ending, albeit a bit too bloody, is also appropriate in the context of a parody. The only detail I would slightly modify is the slip-stick comic moment when the German Frau pokes the husband’s behind with her umbrella. I found this a bit cheap.

Actually, what I liked most about the story is that it uses Hemingway’s text as a matrix which allows it to highlight and deliberately distort some cultural stereotypes. I was amused.

So, the Germans always win at the end of the day, right?

Task 8 - "American Cherry" by Milena

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Task 8 - "Rat in the Rain" by Snezhana

The elderly Japanese couple was in Germany for the first time. They were visiting the picturesque provincial town of Alfeld. The hotel they were staying at was facing the river, but their window overlooked the place's main attraction - a backyard equipped with fully functional authentic outdoor toilets dating from the early 19th century. Beautiful marble tables were set in front of the toilets for the guests’ convenience. On sunny days grannies would sit in the rural ambiance, enjoying the buzzing of horse-flies around the toilets while trimming handkerchiefs with lace. No flies were buzzing now because it was raining. The toilets were all vacant except for one, where the dim light filtering through the cracks in the wooden door betrayed somebody’s presence.

The Japanese gentleman stood peering through the window. Outside right under the first of the marble tables he saw a rat. The rat was hiding from the rain but at the same time it seemed to be glaring at him and showing him its teeth.

‘How dare this rat glare at me like that. I’m going down to kill it with my ninjato[1],’ he said suddenly.

‘Do you want me to go and do it with my kaiken[2]?’ asked the elderly wife from the rocking chair she had rested herself in.

‘No, it belongs to me. I’m not coming back without its head.’

‘Be careful with your kimono,’ she murmured from the insides of the chair as he closed the door on his way out.

The husband went downstairs. He passed through the lobby where the hotel keeper sat behind her desk drinking beer. She was a big German matron in a crimson silk dress, her muscular neck and massive biceps bulging under the fine fabric.

‘Gute nacht’, said the husband. He was impressed with the frau’s warlike appearance.

‘Schönes Wetter heute,’ she responded in a thunderous voice.

The husband did not speak much German but he thought that the hotel keeper was indeed very polite, so he turned to her and bowed reverently. Then he opened the door, took out his ninjato and prepared for combat. Suddenly he heard a flapping sound and at the same time felt a poking sensation in his behind. He turned around and saw the hotel keeper who had unfurled a large umbrella without measuring the distance and now was giggling with embarrassment.

‘Not get wet, you,’ she boomed and lifted the umbrella above his head.

‘Arigato,’ said the husband and they stepped into the cold rain outside. They reached the backyard where the toilets glistened mysteriously in the moonlight. The husband carefully examined the space around the tables with the shining ninjato ready in his hand, but the rat was gone.

‘Warum du out in rain?’ humbly asked the formidable frau.

‘There was a rat.’ said the Japanese gentleman and pointed under the first table.

‘Rat…rat…’ the hotel keeper started mumbling to herself, scratching her head.

‘Yes, a rat. I saw it from my window. It was hiding from the rain under that same table. It glared at me and showed me its teeth.’

He looked at the hotel keeper who by that point had become rather confused, a large raindrop hanging from her pale Aryan nose.

‘Go in...get wet...’ she said and smiled somewhat hesitantly at him.

‘Alright then,’ agreed the husband and reluctantly sheathed his ninjato.

They went back into the hotel lobby. The husband watched the hotel keeper as she folded the umbrella and violently shook it to get the water off. ‘Impressive woman,’ he thought, ‘gentle yet brave.’ He pressed his palms together and bowed reverently again.

‘Oyasuminasai,’ he said and went up to his room. He opened the door and saw his wife still crouching on the rocking chair. She was listening to haiku on her iPod.

‘Did you kill the rat?’ she asked as she removed the buds from her ears.

‘No. It was gone.’

‘Maybe it was struck by lightning. After all, the bold do receive their punishment.’

‘It was mine. Its head should have fallen under the infallible blade of my ninjato. Maybe I should have taken its miserable life with my shuriken the very moment I saw it from that window…’

His wife had resumed listening to haiku.

He walked up to the big mirror that hung on one of the walls and took off his pants. He carefully examined his thighs, his left buttock, his right buttock and his six-pack. Then he started tensing them rhythmically like a bodybuilder.

‘Do you think it would be a good idea if I wax my legs?’

His wife removed the earbuds again and, after a moment of consideration, replied ‘Only legs won't do. You should go for chest and back as well. Maybe there, too,’ and she nodded sagely at his loins.

The husband stepped back from the mirror and went to the window, peering through the glass into the mellow German night.

‘I want to be smooth. I want to be silky smooth. Like the silk of a kimono. Like the silk of the hotel keeper’s dress..’

‘What the hell..’ started the wife.

‘I want this rat’s head on a silver plate. It’s my duty to offer it as a gift to my brave ancestors.’

‘Why don’t you try some haiku?’

The husband still stood with his pants down in front of the window. He couldn’t stop thinking about the rat. The rat in the rain. The rat that had laughed at him and then ran away. The shame had almost covered him from head to toes when someone knocked on the door.

‘Wilkommen,’ he responded.

The door opened and there stood the formidable frau, the hotel keeper, in her crimson silk dress, bloody cleaver in one hand, slain rat in the other.

‘Entschuldigen Sie bitte,’ she said solemnly, ‘Rat!’

---

[1] A short Japanese sword that the ninja historically may have carried

[2] A dagger formerly carried for self-defense by Japanese women of the samurai class