By Jay Scott Kanes

CENTRAL DISTRICT, Hong Kong -- What happens when a kind-hearted woman full of compassion for cats and other animals needs to receive some kindness too? Perhaps a tragic situation emerges, but one that sympathetic people could help to alleviate.

“I feel like I'm in jail,” laments Madelaine Kirchlechner, an elderly, long-time resident of nearby Lamma Island. She has a well-earned reputation for loving cats, routinely feeding many and protecting them from dogs or other dangers.

Lately, Madelaine, now deep into her 70s, sees few cats – and few familiar humans. She has spent the recent months in urban hospitals and care-for-the-elderly facilities due to various health complaints and frailties, mostly from old age and its related tumbles and mishaps.

Originally from the Netherlands, Madelaine now lives in a cubicle at a senior-citizens-care home amid the skyscrapers in Central. Her “room”, with office-like partitions as walls, has space only for a narrow bed and some drawers. A television hangs from a wall. When standing in the middle of this space, Madelaine nearly can touch all four walls.

Everyone else there speaks Cantonese. Madelaine doesn't. She has almost no one to talk to, lacks mental stimulation and feels lonely. A list posted at her bedside shows translations for key words, like toilet, walk, lunch and drink, that she can point to when communicating with the staff.

“I don't want to go crazy from living here,” Madelaine said. “So I'm reading books and thinking about my cats – trying to keep my mind busy. What else can I do?”

The arrival of visitors raises her spirits. “Never mind,” she said. “Maybe I have to go through this. I don't want to cry because that gets me nowhere. Fortunately, I'm a positive thinker, and I never give up.”

The seniors' home isn't a bad place. In fact, as such facilities go, it looks rather good – it's clean, has many wheelchairs and diligent staff. There's a common area (also small) where Madelaine joins morning exercise sessions and later other seniors play mahjong.

But the space allotted to each resident is miniscule. Unlike on Lamma, there are no trees or other elements of greenery. No cats share Madelaine's bed or trail at her heels.

“I miss my cats terribly,” she said, pining for her four house-pets still on Lamma, namely Rocat (Dutch for “mean cat”), Casper, Napoleon and Mai-mai. Are these her best friends? “I love them like they're my children, but now I'm powerless to care for them. Life can be hard.”

Why does she love cats so much? “Because we always had cats when I was a little girl in Europe,” she said. So the interaction of a European child with her feline friends in the 1940s, wartime and all, contributed to the well-being of Hong Kong cats many years later.

“Dogs are nice too,” Madelaine said, “but cats become my pets.” She recognizes the potential obstacles to keep both cats and dogs. “Napoleon, my big, white-haired cat, attacks dogs. He jumps on them and scratches them. He has beautiful, big, blue eyes, but when he's angry, they turn black.”

One day, Madelaine rose early, left the seniors’ home and returned to Lamma. “I didn't run away,” she insisted. “I walked.”

Desperately, she wanted to see her cats, now in the care of her only Hong Kong relative, an Indonesian daughter-in-law, and to taste some non-institutional food. After fleeting success on both counts, she returned to the seniors' home in Central.

When living on Lamma for a decade, Madelaine enjoyed the fresh air, green environment and catty-company. She became a leading volunteer with an animal-welfare charity. Often, dozens of homeless cats relied on her for food, affection and protection, all of which she generously gave.

“We had so many cats then,” Madelaine said. The memory makes her smile.

Another animal-welfare advocate remembers too: “Madelaine gave her heart and soul to the cats. She was very, very devoted.”

Madelaine's present situation also contrasts to her earlier well-to-do lifestyle as an expatriate wife in South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Hong Kong. Then she had big homes, cars and antiques.

“I have nothing here – nothing!” said Madelaine, gesturing at the cubicle walls. “But never mind, I don't care. Living in 3,000 square feet and with a television in every room was nice, but all that's in the past.”

Sometimes tragedy has battered Madelaine. Her Austrian husband, a dashing businessman, died prematurely, leaving her to raise four children in difficult circumstances. One of her sons later died too.

Amid problems, Madelaine often found comfort in the company of cats. At the seniors' home, that's impossible.

Despite having few financial resources left, Madelaine still has adult children in Australia. They believe she's too frail to live alone so she hopes to move “down under” for a more comfortable lifestyle that includes cats. “I can't live without animals,” she said. “I want to get out of here and start a new life.”

But she doesn't know when such a journey may happen. And before leaving, she wants “good new homes” for her pets.

Having joined two other people to visit Madelaine one morning, I saw how delighted she looked at the appearance of Lamma friends. “It's so nice that you came here,” she enthused.

Madelaine invites other Lamma Islanders to visit her when they're in Central. She’s always happy to see people she knows, especially if they bring along a few cat stories to swap. She's at the World Care Elderly Centre, 1/F, Central Mansion, 270-276 Queen's Road Central. That's above a Wellcome Store and within walking distance of the outlying-island ferry piers.


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