The Sacred Cat Rug | Stories | Notre Dame Magazine

I wasn’t in it for the cat rug, and I wouldn’t even mention it yet, except you already know that a cat rug is involved. So either way, knowing so or not, that’s where we’re all headed.

My husband and I are driving down Old St. Augustine Rd. We’re going to see a private art collection. It was my husband’s birthday after all, and I’d heard from Instagram that that’s where all the real art is. Skip the curated museums. Where you really want to go: some dead rich guy’s house with the exact appetite for both opulence and fine art, who had guzzled all the art, artifacts, worldly bits and pieces that he liked. Count me in.

This particular collection, housed in what’s now the Villa Zorayda, is actually owed to two rich guys: the initial builder, a Boston millionaire, Franklin Smith, and its second owner, Syrian rug and antiquities merchant, Abraham S. Mussalem. He’s the one who acquired the sacred cat rug — and the accompanying foot.

A painting of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, an ornate palace of Moorish design, hangs in the lobby. Beyond it, bathed in deep reds, blues, greens and golds, the two-tiered atrium marked by slender columns and patterned arches is a clear echo of the exotic luxury of the Alhambra itself.

“It goes in sequence. Just press start to start.” The ticketer is handing us our audio guides. “Feel free to take pictures.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

“Oh, except in room 10.” I barely hear it, already pressing Number One on the Audio Guide and now entering Room One to observe an especially ornate vase on top of some intricately carved furnishings.

As one of the oldest cities in the states, everything in St. Augustine is about treasure hunting. And walking through the Villa Zorayda’s lavish doors, it’s like you hit the den’s true jackpot: a Gilded Age treasure trove, the dragon’s labyrinth. The interior, a mosaic itself, shines floor lamps to chandeliers with trinkets.

“Excess” doesn’t quite cut it for this “museum.” Collection? If it weren’t for the audioguides telling us to Notice the lamp to your left, the dresser beneath it. Notice the carving, the moor’s head. The symbol depicting the head of a blackmoor. This guy had a particular taste for the moorish. Notice. Notice. I wouldn’t have noticed.

Part of having lavish ornaments, apparently, was not only exhibiting them in your private palace but loaning them. A special gaming table and chairs inlaid with pearl and ivory were sent as a gift by the King of Egypt for the loan of his Sacred Cat Rug to exhibit at the 1933 World’s Fair. The gaming table apparently took five craftsmen over nine years to make.

“Cat rug?” My husband says after listening. He’s into it.

I nod like I get it. We’ve just seen the second-best piece.

We wander the second floor. I forget about the rug. There’s a lot of stuff.

And then we come to it: A special room on the second floor, dimly lit.

Notice the rug on the wall. On the wall hangs a large woven fabric with an abstract image of a large feline in bold, dark stripes. The background of the rug is a pale, muted shade — maybe once vivid, it’s been softened by time — Notice the cat design. Intricate geometric patterns frame the cat, a primitive style but mystical, ritualistic.

At 2,400 years old, it may just be the oldest rug in the world. The textile is woven entirely of cat hair. A cat rug made of cat. It was stolen from an Egyptian tomb wrapped around a mummified foot. Notice the foot on the table.

You’d think a foot would be hard to miss, but it’s only then that you notice. On the table, a tiny blackened human foot. It’s not wrapped up in gauze or anything like that; it’s one of those jet-black body parts as if it’s been frozen or torched and hard as a rock. You’ve seen the kind before.

In addition, the rug is said to hold a curse. It is said anyone who touches or walks on the rug will die shortly thereafter.

I look at my husband. His eyes are saying the same thing as mine: No thank you.

Surely if you steal from an Egyptian tomb, that object is going to be cursed, especially if that thing is made entirely of cat fur. But in terms of art quality, a cursed rug is undeniably better than a non-cursed one: an intriguing piece sure to attract art collectors and spectators alike even if that piece may bring misfortune, fire and death upon you.

To date, no one has died except once when the rug was being relocated and a dead cat body was found nearby, perfectly splayed.

A dead cat? On the cat rug? No thank you times two. Only, I kind of really want to touch it. A red movie rope is the only thing barring us from this cursed cat rug. It’s like standing on the edge of a mountain and getting the sudden urge to jump. Please do not touch. But I feel the urge very strongly. It’s probably the curse. Sandalwood, satinwood, rosewood, mother of pearl and ivory have nothing on a little foot and a curse.

There are no gimmicks here, if anything, carelessness.

An 8.5” x 11” picture on printer paper reads, “Please No Pictures.” Don’t take pictures in room ten. Oh, right.

You’d think there’d be better safeguards than printer paper and a rope. If not for protection from the curse, for the sake of the curse’s reputation, for the sake of the lore that contributes to the rug’s mystic standing. I can’t be sure if I’m susceptible to the reputation of a curse, the haunting feline expression, or something else. . . . But how the cat rug stirs such strong emotions — whether as a cursed object or a work of art — seems less important than the fact that it is doing whatever it is doing . . . very successfully. I need to either touch it or get out of the room. So I go. Notice more things.

Once we leave, I wish I had a picture of it. I would really like to look at it again. Turns out, this was the the place to find real art. And that’s the problem, I’m ruined now. Even the finest craftsmen can never rival the supernatural. On the way out, I sigh.

“What’s up?”

“It’s sacred or cursed art only for me now.”

He smiles. Yes, please.

Jacqueline Cassidy’s essay was one of five honorable mentions of this magazine’s 12th annual Young Alumni Essay Contest. Cassidy is an author, playwright and poet.