Tartufo

by Kira Jane Buxton

Her husband had assured Giuseppina the kitten was a pedigreed purebred (though which breed, he never said). He said the cat would grow to be a magnificent tom. Under these false pretenses, cinephile Giuseppina named the kitten Al Pacino. But the odd cluster of fur grew less into a tomcat than a female cat who identified as a dog. Her name stuck despite an evidential number of feline pregnancies. Disburdening a little misplaced maternal instinct, Giuseppina overindulged the cat, who became accustomed to being spoiled and one might say was ultimately spoiled. And who could blame the little cat who had no firm hand to guide her while she held her own among all the village hunting dogs? Who took her guard duties so seriously she developed both stress-induced alopecia and dermatitis. Al Pacino does the best she can under the circumstances, valiantly tackling the terrorism of tourists while generously spreading her spawn over all of Tuscany in an army of cats often mistaken for weasels.