Macavity in “Cats”
Wednesday
Among the many stories emerging from the Paris massacres is the role that one man, the Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud, played in these attacks and a number of earlier ones. Although always implicated, he is never caught. When I learned about Abaaoud, I thought of T. S Eliot’s “Macavity: The Mystery Cat.”
If it seems inappropriate to connect a piece of light verse to a mastermind murderer, let me explain. The poetic parallel helps us understand the baffling popularity of ISIS among young people around the world. Its recruitment success has been one of its most distinctive and troubling features.
A New Yorker article lays out Abaaoud’s escapades:
In early 2015, Abaaoud turned his attention back to Europe, and he has since been linked to a number of foiled attacks in France and Belgium. In August, a young Moroccan living part time in Molenbeek boarded a Paris-bound train in Brussels armed with a Kalashnikov, a pistol, and several razor blades. The gun jammed, and passengers leaped on him. French officials say that Abaaoud was also involved in a plot against Parisian churches this April, which was foiled after the gunman accidentally shot himself in the leg and called for an ambulance. His car was filled with automatic weapons, bulletproof vests, and fake police armbands. And, in January, after a terror bust ended in a shootout in Verviers, in eastern Belgium, federal police found a laptop belonging to Abaaoud. Two suspects were killed in that raid, both of whom lived in Molenbeek. Abaaoud was not found, but soon afterward he boasted, in an ISIS publication, that he had slipped into Belgium to guide the attack before returning to Syria. He wrote, “I was even stopped by an officer who contemplated me so as to compare me to the picture, but he let me go, as he did not see the resemblance!”
Two nights ago I heard an expert on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show discuss how impressive Abaaoud has been. Not only would it have taken months to assemble expertly constructed suicide bomb vests without alerting the authorities, but during that time Abaaoud would have had to keep engaged young men prepare to commit suicide for the cause.
Abaaoud’s penchant for slipping through the clutches of the police adds to his allure. Young people are drawn to romance, and watching Abaaoud’s escapes may invoke a thrill similar to what we experience watching Macavity dodge the law. Why sympathize with the poor Pekinese that is “stifled” when the “Napoleon of crime” (allusion to Moriarty) does it with such effrontery?
Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw—
For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air—
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity’s not there!
Macavity’s a ginger cat, he’s very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he’s half asleep, he’s always wide awake.
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
For he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square—
But when a crime’s discovered, then Macavity’s not there!
He’s outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard’s
And when the larder’s looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke’s been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair
Ay, there’s the wonder of the thing! Macavity’s not there!
And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty’s gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair—
But it’s useless to investigate—Macavity’s not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
It must have been Macavity!’—but he’s a mile away.
You’ll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumb;
Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare:
At whatever time the deed took place—MACAVITY WASN’T THERE !
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!
We romanticize outlaws until we see the bloody corpses of their victims. And for too many young Muslims, sometimes even that doesn’t end their love affair.
Update: As you’ve probably heard, Abaaoud was killed in a shootout yesterday. Macavity, in other words, wasn’t invincible. Unfortunately, it will take more than this death to dim the romance of ISIS.
