Fluffy, the cat, left the apartment in a huff. She was being put out again because Tina’s father, Bhim, was coming over for dinner. Every time Bhim came over, Tina put Fluffy out. Fluffy hated it. She hated leaving her cosy white bed, which sat in a pool of sunshine on the white rug in the middle of Tina’s sunny bedroom. “Oooh, Fluffy,” cooed Tina, cradling her and lifting her up off her bed. “I’m so sorry I have to put you out again. You know I daren’t tell Papa about you.” Tina stroked Fluffy’s shiny black head and rubbed the white diamond that lay in the middle of her forehead so Fluffy began to purr in pleasure even though she was already preparing her huff. “You know,” continued Tina, “Papa hates cats so much, he would really be mad to know about you.” Tina bent down and kissed Fluffy, and Fluffy felt a little bit better, though not well enough to forget her huff.
There were two stages to Fluffy’s huff: the first all inside her and the second all outside. As soon as Tina told Fluffy that she was being put out, the first stage began to shape itself. Fluffy’s mind knotted up. Even as Tina held her and stroked her, Fluffy couldn’t enjoy the soothing feeling on her white diamond because it didn’t come through to loosen her mind. Even Tina’s kisses didn’t let Fluffy forget that she was well into the first stage of her huff.
Fluffy entered the second stage as Tina walked her out of her own apartment into her neighbour Seema’s. While Tina fetched Fluffy’s round white bed and her round white litter box, Fluffy put the finishing touches on her huff. She lifted up her back by bending her front legs and keeping her back legs straight. By the time Tina came back into Seema’s apartment, Fluffy looked like a sloping cat. Her back was high in the air, her front legs lay low, and her head hung between her legs, so her eyes could look more disdainful as they occasionally glanced up at Tina. Fluffy’s back spoke her feelings best: standing up in the air, it looked strong and pointed and shone with a glistening black outrage.
As Tina was about to leave, Fluffy stood by the door with her low front against it and her high, shiny back towards Tina. Apologetically, Tina bent down to kiss Fluffy. Fluffy refused to move. She didn’t deign to hiss or scratch. Tina was left holding a stiff, black slope in her arms. And then, Fluffy said, “My cigar?” in an icy voice.
Annoyed at herself for forgetting Fluffy’s cigar again, as she always did, Tina dropped the stiff cat and ran into her own apartment. It was just minutes before Bhim was due to arrive and Tina with a cigar might have upset Bhim more than Tina with a cat. Tina rushed to her bed under which she hid her cigars along with her journals, her romance novels, and Fluffy’s cat litter. She grabbed one delicious Cuban, ran into the kitchen for the matches, and rushed out of her flat back into Seema’s apartment. There she found Fluffy standing on the window-seat of the large bay window. Fluffy knew she looked magnificent: glossy black against the coming darkness in the windows.
Tina lit the cigar and approached Fluffy humbly. “I’m sorry, Fluffy, I’m so sorry. Please say you understand.” She held out the smoking cigar to Fluffy, who knew she was upsetting Tina by being stiff and straight and not curvy and cat-like. Fluffy inclined her head as Tina placed the cigar between Fluffy’s slightly open but very scornful lips. Her back and legs didn’t even twitch during this exchange. “Oh, don’t be in such a huff,” said Tina and tried again to hug Fluffy. But cigar smoke stung Tina’s eyes and the clock in Seema’s kitchen chimed 7 pm. Tina remembered her father would be outside her apartment any minute and that her chicken tikkas were burning in the oven.
Before Tina rushed off, she stopped at the front door to look back at Fluffy. This was the moment Fluffy liked best. She stood in her slope on the window ledge, holding her head high in the air with her smouldering cigar hovering between her lips. Fluffy’s huff by now only had its outside dimension. Inside, she was feeling very well, but there was no need to let Tina know that.
Seema came home late from her work at the mall, so Fluffy usually had the apartment to herself for a long time. For some moments after Tina left, Fluffy enjoyed gazing at the evening and sucking on her cigar. Seema’s apartment was on the sixth floor and people walking around in the complex often glanced up to marvel at the strange but striking sight of a cat smoking a cigar silhouetted against a window. Fluffy loved these moments. Dogs just gazed out of windows, letting their tongues loll out of their mouths, but cats knew how to display themselves to advantage. Cats understood silhouettes.
Excerpted with permission from I Do So I Do, Padmini Mongia, illustrated by Priya Kuriyan, Red River Press.
