Short Fiction Collected, page 15
“Funeral?” squeaks Alice. “You mean we have to wait for your Aunt Enema to die?”
“Aunt Emma, dearest.”
“Well, I won’t! I’ll marry someone else.”
“She’ll marry someone else!” Tom bleats brokenly. He staggers into Aunt Emma’s drawing room, one arm flung across his eyes. “I have come home to Boston to Beacon Hill to die.”
“To die is but a small step for a man,” says an unfamiliar voice. “Upward or downward on the great stepladder of To Be.”
Tom yanks his arm from his eyes and stares at a small, bald, grease-brown man enveloped in a voluminous fur coat that hangs clear to his grease-brown shoes, worn without socks. He looks like a wienie walking around in its bun.
“Ah, Thomas,” says Aunt Emma. “This is Sir Sri Jawaharlal Ghosh.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sir Sri.”
“A pleasure. Yiss.”
“Not Sir Sri, Thomas,” his aunt corrects him. “The more respectful address is Swami Ghosh.”
“A swami? Great Scott!”
“No, dear. Swamis come from India.”
“Yiss.”
“All very interesting, auntie, indeed it is. But listen, I must tell you this. I love Alice Aforethought and she loves me. We want to get married and settle down.”
“Settle down?” his aunt says absently.
“Our own little rose-covered yacht. The patter of little deck shoes and all that. We simply can’t do it on my pittance.”
“Not another pittv,” says Aunt Emma. “I mean penny. Now, swami, you were saying?”
“I was speaking, Mrs. Madam, of your estimable cat, Pisspiss.”
“Puffpuss.”
“Yiss, yiss. With application of the mystic influences, as was teached to your humble servant by an ancient hermit lama in Tibet, this cat’s future is limitless. Om mani padme hum.”
“Swami Ghosh, you have opened my eyes!” exults Aunt Emma. She turns and speaks to a floor lamp nearby. “Thomas, would you believe it? Puffpuss might someday be President of the United States.”
“The cat?” says Shelby at Gstaad.
“Or a worm,” says Tom. “If it lives an upstanding worm life it becomes, perhaps, a newt in its next incarnation. Then the newt, living and dying unsmirched, comes back as, oh, a wombat. And so on up the great stepladder of To Be until it culminates gloriously in, say, Spiro Agnew.”
“And Puffpuss is destined for similar eminence.”
“All that’s necessary is for Aunt Emma to endow the Ghosh Almighty Pagoda. The whole congregation will then sit around chanting—Oh, Manny! or however it goes—to help Puffpuss lead a more meaningful cat life and forge on to bigger things.”
“I warned you. A swindling swami.”
“Yiss. I mean yes. He’s utterly repulsive.”
“Resembles a wienie, I believe you said.”
“Walking around in its bun. He wears this nasty, fuzzy coat flayed from some Himalayan creature. An abdominal something.”
“Abominable.”
“You said it. And if I don’t work fast, he’ll be fleecing me as well. I must act before auntie is mulcted. But how?”
“Have you thought of giving Aunt Emma a leg up on that great stepladder of To Be?”
“Hm. Well, I’ve nothing actually against murder, of course. Don’t knock it, I always say, until you try it. But before I do anything drastic, I’ll have one last talk with her.”
“Do that. Maybe she’ll say something to put you in a killing cage.”
“Aunt Emma, why is the music room swarming with stout old ladies in floral hats?”
“The girls from my club, young Thomas. They’ve come to hear the swami lecture on the Ghosh Almighty philosophy. Ah, so good to see you, Contessa Francesca.”
“That’s your begonia centerpiece, auntie.”
“Hush, Thomas. The swami is about to speak.”
“Om, dearly beloveds, mani padme hum. We shall begin the service with the ritual singing of our hymn, the Monsoon Moon Song . . .”
Moodily, Tom retreats to the drawing room, where he sits watching Puffpuss perform an elaborate toilet, until finally the service is over and Aunt Emma returns on the arm of Swami Ghosh.
“I’m glad you’re still here, young Thomas. I have something to say that concerns both you and the swami.”
“Yes, Aunt Emma?” says Tom apprehensively.
“Yiss, Mrs. Madam?” says the swami expectantly.
“Swami, the girls have just joined me in subscribing handsomely to the endowment of the Ghosh Almighty Pagoda. Thomas, your already ample allowance will continue as long as you live. The remainder of my estate—all six billion dollars—I have decided to bequeath to Puffpuss.”
“Auntie!”
“Madam!”
“He will need campaign funds. Puffpuss-for-President posters and such. Pins.”
“But Mrs. Madam, that may be ages hence!”
“Precisely. Long after you and my nephew have ceased to need or want the money, it will still be intact for Puffpuss.”
“But—but—in the meantimes, Mrs. Madam, the Almighty Pagoda would be a fitting repository for it. Yiss, and a fitting home for the future President, too, through all his interim incarnations. I bespeech you, dear Mrs. Madam, not to be hasty!”
“My mind is made up, dear swami. And not another word from you either, Thomas. Thomas? Where is that boy?”
He is in the study across the hall, at the telephone, frantically dictating cablegrams to both Shelby and Alice: come at once. When he departs, by way of the foyer, he finds Jennings helping a few remaining clubwomen into their several minks and sables, and Tom’s eye falls on one fur as yet unclaimed.
“Jennings,” says Aunt Emma some time later, “what is all that hysterical shouting in the foyer?”
“It’s Sir Sri, m’lady. It seems one of the guests must have walked off by mistake with his bun. I mean his coat.”
In a hotel room not far away, Tom is busy with glue pot, shears and fur, crooning while he works, “Swa-mee . . . how-I-love-ya, how-I-love-ya . . . my-y-y dear old swami . . .”
Alice, arriving breathless at the hotel, pounds on Tom’s door, finds it unlocked and bursts in.
“I came as fast as I—eek!”
“Meow.”
“Tommy! What on earth has happened?”
“Call me Puffpuss, dear.”
“Tommy, was it burglars? You’re bound hand and foot.”
“Just got tangled in this yarn while I was playing with it. Untie me, sweetest. And do call me Puffpuss.”
“Yes, P—uh, dear. What are you up to?”
“Practicing. Make a lap, darling.” He bounds into it, curls up and says, “Tell me honestly now, how does this sound for purring? Futterfutterfutterfutter . . .”
“You sound awful. You look awful! You’re shedding all over me!” She leaps distractedly from the chair, spilling Tom off her lap.
“Notice that, Alice? Landed on my four feet.”
“Oh, this is terrible. This is tragic.”
“Well, it’s not easy. Takes a lot of close observation, assiduous practice to be a cat. I think I’ve got pretty good at it.”
“I don’t like it when you lick under your leg like that.”
“Don’t knock it till—ah, hello, Shelby. Meow.”
“Shelby! Thank God you’ve come! Tommy thinks he’s a cat!”
“You must be mistaken, old boy.”
“I’m a cat okay. Look at me.”
“I am. You must be mistaken, old boy.”
“And I’m not just any cat. I am a cat named Puffpuss, to whom my dotty Aunt Emma is about to bequeath six billion dollars.”
“Six bil—Damned if it isn’t Puffpuss. Remember him well. Seen him many a time at dotty Aunt Emma’s. Alice, you’ve never met Puffpuss. This is Puffpuss.”
“Of course. Puffpuss. Pwetty kitty, come to Awice. Awice pet you. Itchy kitchy kitchy.”
“Futterfutterfutterfutter . . .”
“He’s pleased,” says Shelby. “He’s purring. Exactly the way I remember Puffpuss purring. That’s Puffpuss, all right.”
“Now!” says Tom, “I’m not,” as he stands up and shucks off the disguise.
“Right. Now you’re Tom. Explain things, Tom.”
“Dotty Aunt Emma’s having her lawyer in tomorrow. Before he gets there, I do. I simply drop the real cat out the window—to you, Alice; give him a good home, dear—and I take his place. Auntie will accept me unquestioningly.”
“But there’ll be other people,” says Alice. “The lawyer and all.”
“Nobody contradicts Aunt Emma. Besides, I’ll have substantiation. Shelby, you’ll be the vet.”
“Check. I’ll go now and start practicing my catside manner.”
“Do. And you, Alice, practice catching cats.”
“Thomas,” says Aunt Emma, entering her drawing room just as Tom wheels around from the window. Outside there is a faint noise of “plump” and “oof!” in a girl’s voice. “What are you doing up before noon?”
“Couldn’t sleep, auntie. I was worried that someone ought to be watching over our future President.”
“How touching. Where is he, then?”
“Saw him in the study a moment ago. I’ll send him in.”
Tom steps into the hall, steps into his disguise, calls out, “Here he comes now, auntie,” and saunters back into the drawing room on all fours.
“Yes, there’s my puzzums.”
Tom fawns against the old lady’s legs while she reaches down to scratch his back. Then he stretches out beside her rocking chair, futterfuttering contentedly.
“Jennings, I heard the front bell. Is that Lawyer Kalbfuss?”
“No, m’lady. It’s Sir Sri.”
“Yiss.” The swami oozes in, now wearing only a rather dirty dhoti. “I came to bespeech you again—” His eyes widen. “Dear Mrs. Madam, what is that?”
Tom lays back his ears and whiskers.
“Do you mean Puffpuss?”
“The cat? That is the cat? The same cat you had yesterday?”
“Of course. Do you suppose I change cats at whim?”
Tom bristles his fur and hisses.
“Puffpuss seems to have taken a slight dislike to you, Swami Ghosh,” says Aunt Emma. She adds suspiciously, “You’re not by any chance a Democrat?”
“Madam,” says the swami, standing smally tall in his sockless shoes. “I am of the highest Indian caste. A Brahman.”
“In Boston it’s Brahmin.”
“Something about this cat,” says the swami, staring at Tom’s fluffed-up fur, “is familiar. Yiss.”
“If you came here just to addle me,” says Aunt Emma, “my mind is made up.”
“Surely so,” says the swami hastily. “Only, dear Mrs. Madam, have we assured ourselfs that this cat has the qualities for the Presidentdom?”
“You assured me.”
“With the proper guidings in the Ghosh Almighty principles. However, not yet having had that guidings, the cat appears phlegmatic. Has he ever, for instance, catched a mice? One would expect one’s President—”
“Puffpuss is six years old. In human terms, that would be forty-two. You can hardly expect him to gambol like a kitten.”
“Perhaps not, Mrs. Madam. But regard him. You have been rocking on his tail for five minutes, and he has not so much as—
“Er—yeowr!” yelps Tom, coming suddenly alert and bounding away from the chair.
“He does sound a bit hoarse,” says Aunt Emma worriedly.
Pausing only to glare tigerishly at the swami, Tom begins to gambol like a kitten. He pounces at the fringe of the rug, then bats at the tassels of a drapery.
“And now he seems quite frenetic. I wonder if he could be coming down with something. Thomas!”
Tom gambols out the door, stands up and sticks just his head back in. The swami jumps. “Yes, auntie?”
“Telephone Dr. Udderweiss to come and have a look at Puffpuss.”
“Yes, auntie.”
In the study, he dials Shelby and says, “Dr. Udderweiss, come at once. Oh, and meantime tell Alice to get me some mice.”
“Aren’t they feeding you, old boy?”
Tom gambols into the drawing room again, as Jennings and another gentleman arrive.
“Counselor Kalbfuss is here, m’lady.”
The lawyer edges into the room, looking apprehensively at Tom gamboling behind him.
“Good morning, Kalbfuss. That’s Puffpuss.”
“That is the—er—heir? I thought, Emma, you said it was to be a cat.”
“What does that look like? A canary?”
“Well, no.”
“Meow.”
“Bless my soul, it is a cat.”
“Kalbfuss, it was you who gave me Puffpuss. To console me when my husband passed away.”
“It was just a kitten then. I had no idea . . .”
Tom bounds into Aunt Emma’s lap and begins playfully to undo her knitting.
“Puffpuss has been a great consolation to me. Now, in gratitude, I intend to provide for his future. Prepare the necessary papers, Kalbfuss. Jennings, you will witness my signature. Thomas see who that is at the door. Get off my lap, Puffpuss, you’re shedding. Thomas!”
“Just going, auntie,” Tom calls back, as soon as he has gamboled out of the drawing room.
“From Miss Alice Aforethought,” says a palsied, ancient messenger boy at the door. He hands Tom a gorgeously giftwrapped Tiffany box.
“Why is this box squeaking?”
“Tiffany’s finest first-water, flawless, blue-white mice, sir.”
“Confound it, I wanted plain old gray house mice.”
Haughty sniff. “Try Cartier’s, sir.”
Tom is fussing with various household fluids in the butler’s pantry when the doorbell rings again.
“Emil Udderweiss, D.V.M.,” says Shelby, wearing a monocle, a Van Dyke and a small round mirror perched on his forehead. “Why are you dyeing those mice?”
“Give me a minute to get upstairs, Shelby, and then you come.”
Tom is again gamboling about the drawing room when Shelby sweeps grandly in and demands, “Is there a patient in the house?”
“Ah, Udderweiss,” says Aunt Emma. “I called you to give a checkup—”
“How right you were. My superb medical intuition perceives that instantly. The poor dumb creature. Lost all its pelt, I see.” Shelby strides to Swami Ghosh and lifts one of his eyelids. “Moribund. Terminal. Tragic.” He picks up a telephone, dials swiftly and barks, “The wagon!”
“No, no, no,” says Aunt Emma, as the swami backs terrified into a corner. “It was Puffpuss I wanted you to look at.”
“To admire, you mean. Never saw a finer specimen of Felis felis. Just see how he gambols. Living all nine lives to the hilt.”
“Do you really think so, doctor?”
“All cat, that cat. Observe, he’s caught a mouse.”
Tom drops it in the middle of the rug and looks proud.
“Odd,” says the swami, still somewhat shaken but still unbowed. “This mice is wet. Something seems fishy here. Yiss.”
“Fishy indeed!” scoffs Shelby. “Mus domesticus. All mouse, that mouse.”
“Thank you, Udderweiss,” says Aunt Emma. “I’m so relieved about Puffpuss. Kalbfuss, let’s get on with the paperwork.”
“A moment, doctor,” says the swami spitefully, peering into Shelby’s little black bag. “I see no shots record for this cat. Are all his immunities up to date?”
“Hm. You have a point. One can always do with a shot.”
“Yiss.”
“Fitzrowr!”
“Hold his head, please, counselor.” Shelby strides to the sideboard and dollops brandy into a snifter. “Force his jaws, Jennings.”
“Fitzr—ulp.”
“Not those kind of shot!” rages the swami.
“Good for man or beast,” says Shelbv, taking one himself.
“Merciful heavens,” says Lawyer Kalbfuss.
A siren sounds suddenly outside, and four burly men in white elbow into the room. “Isolation ward,” says Shelby with a jerk of his head, and the four men bear the swami away kicking and screaming.
“Merciful heavens,” says Aunt Emma.
“A shock, no doubt, madam. But thank Hippocrates you called me in time. A Himalayan form of hydrophobia, the abominable snowmania. You saw how he was foaming at the cat.”
“Merciful heavens.”
“Futterfutterfutterfutter . . . hie.”
“You think it went well, then?” says Shelby some days later, at a secret meeting in the butler’s pantry.
“Perfectly,” says Tom. “The will is all signed, sealed and I am irrefutably recognized as Puffpuss. Kalbfuss had me put my pawprints on some of the papers.”
“That’s just what they made Swami Ghosh do.”
“Who did?”
“The Bide-a-Wee Home & Clinic. He’s up for adoption.”
“We can’t go on meeting like this, Tommy,” says Alice, still later. “This fence hurts my—hurts me.”
“I’ve told you, dear, auntie is a light sleeper. Whenever she wakes up she likes to look out and see me here serenading the moon. There she is at the window now. Meowrrrooo, moon.”
“It’s been months now, and we’re no better off than before. It still looks like that old lady will outlive us all. We’ll soon be too old to have kittens. I mean kids.”
“We’ll adopt Sir Sri.”
“Be serious, Tommy!”
“Okay, we’ll buy us a whole orphanage. We’ll be rich, Alice!”
“When? I don’t intend to spend the best years of my life straddling a back fence.”
“There’s auntie again. Meowrrrooo, moon.”
Another window rattles up somewhere. “Shut up, you infernal feline!”
Whiz.
Thunk.
“Ow!”
“Sorry, Alice, I think that shoe was meant for me.”
“This is too much! I can’t endure any more!”
“Alice!”
“Farewell forever, you—you—infernal feline!”
“Hell hath no fury,” sighs Shelby, still later, at Tom’s fence, “like a woman.”
“You don’t mean—?”
“Yes. Alice has blown your cover. She’s in there now, returning Puffpuss to the bosom of your aunt. You can’t go home again.”
