Grandpa's Cat

My grandpa Atanas doesn’t like cats.

“I’m just not a fan! I am not a cat-lover!” He would say on better days. Better days, meaning the days when there are no cats around, when he doesn’t come across them and they don’t come up his way. Better for both him and them.

Living in the countryside, however, meant that he would unwittingly have to dwell in a cat-infested parish and it soon became clear that the aforementioned better days would be fewer than the worse days. When it comes to cats, that is.

His house is an old, wooden one with a tall and spacious open terrace.

I have always thought that the staircase coming down from the terrace to the lawn somehow seemed like an open invitation for all four-legged whiskered Toms and Mollys to the sudzhuk and lukanka heaven upstairs. I could not have been more right because I regularly receive news that they have, in fact, ascended said heaven, by the screams and profanities coming from my grandfather. I admit that I find it hysterical when an 80-year-old man emits such outrage as if he had just gotten out of the military and is cussing out his mean commander but I also feel all warm and fuzzy about the fact that his good-hearted nature would never let physical harm come their way. Well, this doesn’t really mean he wouldn’t throw aluminium plates and cups the other way- to not risk hitting them while also scaring them away. Of course, this whole exercise would result in his enraged feet- and cane-stomping, combined with triple the amount of swearing while he is gathering up the plates he himself threw through the terrace…

For the elderly people in this remote Bulgarian village, there is a program from the municipality, in which they can enroll and have warm meals delivered to them every day for a symbolic price. It was exactly these warm meals that would solidify his “love” for cats…

One day, he was late to receive the meal and the delivery man hung the food package up on a tree branch, as they had previously agreed to do, should my grandpa ever run late. Why up a tree branch, you ask? To prevent any cats from reaching it, of course. If you are wondering how that would be a challenge for cats, of all animals, well, I, myself, was perplexed as well. Indeed, you and I are right- in the end, my grandfather found a whole clowder of cats having a feast with his food on the ground, or more accurately, actually, with whatever was left of that food. Only the beans were spared from the whole meal of beans and sausages.

“No, I will never become a cat fan! How do people even have these creatures as pets,” my grandpa concluded after this event.

Never say never…

Last year, after yet another tiring day on the field, grandpa Atanas was climbing uphill to get to his home with some heartache in mind: at the end of August, the corn had still not ripened, the first tomatoes and cucumbers were ready to be harvested and just as he was about to harvest some, an unattended, free-roaming herd of cows came through the fence at night and destroyed his field. Culpable negligence had wrecked the old man’s year-round of hard work. Deep in his thoughts while sitting in the shade of a walnut tree, he noticed there was a cat approaching him.

“You’re the last thing I needed to see today, you rascal!” He exclaimed, while reaching to stomp his cane to scare the cat away. The animal was barely walking, however, it had curled up one of its paws and was balancing on its three other legs. “That’s what you get for always fighting among yourselves and dealing with your cat business,” he said.

The cat was not strong enough to object or even to run from my grandfather’s admonishment. The Sun was menacing and the heat was at 37°C and the little creature was just looking for some shade. Its ribs were showing on its scrawny body and its fur, once white and shiny, was full of thorns. The poor thing lay down at my grandfather’s feet and deeply drew in a human-like breath of relief from the terrible heat.

“As if! What should I do with you now, look at yourself, you’re filthy… you can’t stay with those thorns on, let me remove them,” and he picked them out one by one. “ You’re probably thirsty; with your cat brain- here, drink some,” he took his water bottle, poured some out in his cupped palm and directed it towards the cat muzzle. The parched animal eagerly lapped up the water. My grandpa noticed it was a male cat and he had not seen or cussed at it before. It soon became time to go home, he got up and the cat started following him. He didn’t feel like making the effort to chase it away and maybe his consciеnce didn’t let him either. When he got to his house, grandpa Atanas remembered all the antics cats had pulled on him, he exclaimed, “You rascal! You’re weakened but spoiled, you lot always want meat only. Let’s see if you’ll eat bread,” and threw him a little of the leftover white bread he had. Surprisingly, the cat ate up everything and even waited for some more.

“Huh, what is this devil of a cat,” the grandpa thought. And he was right. The animal turned out to be devilishly persistent. It didn’t budge at any of the attempts at chasing it away. The next morning he found it sitting on the outside sill of his bedroom window. He let out an exasperated curse and closed the blinds. Going into the other room to get some tea, he once again saw the cat on the window sill there.

“Meow, meow, meow!”

Grandpa gave it a piece of bread to silence it. And then he gave it some salami- this time, not to silence it but… just like that. In the end, he washed and cleaned the cat’s wounded paw. “This is it. It’s clear that I won’t be able to get rid of you. I am not a fan of you, just so you know!,” he said and the cat started to purr for the first time. It is odd but it’s a fact that animals can sense how people are and when exactly to purr. The cat quickly gained a name- Puhi- the Bulgarian word for “fluffy”, after his fluffy, now thorn-free fur.

A few weeks passed and Puhi’s paw fully healed. Wherever my grandfather went, Puhi was there with him. Whenever my grandpa was splitting logs in the backyard, Puhi would jump on the chopping block. As the old saying goes, the wolf may lose his teeth but never his nature. My grandfather would curse at him, chase him away so that he wouldn’t hurt him accidentally but Puhi would always hop back.

He bought a petrol chainsaw to cut the bigger logs. In the beginning, Puhi was scared but soon enough, that fear dissipated and unbothered, he continued to follow his old companion everywhere, all the time.

The people in the village even joked that it was a cat, and not a person, who was plowing the field, and not a human. When one day my grandfather bent down on the field to disprove those lowly accusations, his back met four paws and a plumped up cat body. Overwhelmed with fondness towards his new owner, Puhi had decided to throw himself on his back. The profanities that followed, rest assured, were heard even in neighbouring Greece. However, this did not stop Puhi from taking his leap of affection whenever he saw him bent down.

“Where did you come from, you nut!” My grandfather would wonder all the time. Puhi’s origins were a mystery indeed. The villagers thought he was an abandoned domestic tomcat. I do not know what the truth of the matter is but I recently learned that my grandfather even gave up on buying himself rakija, bringing home a double portion of granules for Puhi instead. “The glutton is ravenous and I had enough money to buy only one of the two,” grandpa elaborated, just in case I thought he had become a cat-lover and had stopped liking rakija, as he feared I would stop bringing him any whenever I came to visit. Can you just imagine that! A Balkan man choosing to buy food for a cat over rakija! To clarify, rakija here is just as indispensable as the Superbowl is for Americans.

Puhi, though, turned out to be more important than both rakija and the Superbowl.

In the coming months, he received a makeshift wooden house, daily food and… a loving, but sometimes swearing owner. I know he thinks the whole house is entirely his territory and chases away the other cats who used to steal the salami before. Whenever he sees grandpa Atanas however, Puhi melts, purrs, rolls on his back and snuggles at his feet- as grandpa says, “like a harlot”. I will keep the questions on how he is so well-acquainted with harlots’ behaviour to myself…

One thing I am sure of, is that I cannot wait to see them this summer and ask my grandfather,

“Hey, I thought you weren't a cat fan?”

I will be bringing him rakija, however. Double the quantity. He definitely deserves it.