They took a taxi home. Now and then Rolf turned around to him, but Piet was lying at the back of the cab and was still pretty knocked out, although back when Rolf had still had a car and they would go for a drive together he was uneasy all the way, moaning and yelping.
‘It’s nothing serious, is it?’ said the driver.
‘No, just a routine check-up.’ Rolf hadn’t taken a taxi for years. He couldn’t really afford it either, the examination and the tablets had used up almost all his money. He could have asked his brother to pick them up from the vet’s, but he didn’t want to talk to his brother right now; he’d have to talk to him later about the operation, but he was scared. His brother didn’t much like Piet, and Piet didn’t much like his brother either. He growled at him and sometimes started barking when his brother came by. But his brother didn’t come by too often. ‘Nice dog you’ve got there,’ said the driver.
‘Yes, he is.’ He turned around to Piet again, who was licking at his hips with his long pink tongue now, at the place where the vet had injected the contrast agent. ‘A Rottweiler, isn’t he?’
‘Rottweiler-Doberman.’
‘Really nice animal,’ said the driver and nodded and looked at Piet in the rear-view mirror. And Rolf looked in the mirror too and saw his dog’s big head and felt very proud.
Rolf had been playing the lottery for years but he had only won once. Over four hundred deutschmarks with a special system using ten numbers in different combinations. He had had three lots of four numbers come up and five lots of three with his system, and they had brought him over four hundred deutschmarks in winnings. If five of his numbers had come up (which he always dreamed of; he never actually expected six), maybe even two fives would have turned up in his system, and that would have brought him big bucks, but still, the four hundred marks had been a lot of money for him at the time, even though he was still in work back then.
He didn’t play the system any more because it had cost him twenty marks every week, and after they switched to the euro and he lost his job, forty euros a month was just too much for him.
Now he handed in just one set of six crossed-off numbers every Saturday afternoon, always number four because of the four letters in their names, Piet and Rolf, and five other numbers he had picked for no special reason. But he never won anything, and he didn’t know anyone who had won big money on the lottery.
And big money was what he needed. Three thousand euros was big money to Rolf.
‘If it wasn’t for Piet,’ his brother had said, ‘maybe. But just so you can patch up that dilapidated old dog …’
‘Piet isn’t dilapidated.’
‘Three thousand euros, Jesus, d’you think I’m made of money?’
‘You’ve got more than me at any rate. Don’t you get it, it’s the latest surgery, he can live a long …’
‘Listen, Rolf, I can’t help it that you lost your job. And you know that back when Martha went, I …’
‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s nothing to do with her, it’s about Piet.’
‘Jesus, if he’s so sick why don’t you have him …’
He had left without another word. He had walked the streets and thought about who else he could ask, who he even knew who had that kind of money. Then he’d gone back home, laid down next to Piet on the rug. He only went on short walks with him now, and Piet had started to limp again despite the tablets. Rolf lay next to him, one hand on his back, feeling him breathing, and they lay together until it got dark and he got up and turned on the light.
He took a short walk with Piet, and once the dog had disappeared into the bushes and taken a crap he took him home again. There was lots of dog shit on the pavements in his area, and he was proud that not a single turd was from Piet. He had taught him when he was very small only to shit in bushes and on the grass.
‘I’ll be back soon, boy, look after the place, be good.’
Piet lay in his corner and looked at him; whenever Rolf left the house he looked at him with his dark eyes. He didn’t like being alone, like all dogs. Whenever Rolf had to go out for a while longer he told the old lady next door; she liked Piet and was happy to keep an eye on him. She was on her own too and Piet liked her. She was over seventy and Rolf was scared she’d die one day; there was no one else to look after Piet when he had to go away. But now he just wanted to walk and think and maybe have a drink; he had enough money for that. He threw Piet a big dog biscuit and could still hear him crunching as he locked the door.
He walked the streets, not knowing where he wanted to go, walked past the bars and kebab shops, wanted to think, about the money, about the operation, but he was tired and he walked very slowly, and he knew there was nobody who would help him. He drank two small bottles of beer at a snack bar that stayed open until late at night. He was the only customer; the owner leaned on the counter, drinking coffee and watching the people going by his little place. Rolf drank a shot and paid his bill, then he too went on his way.
On a corner was a new place that he didn’t know yet. A large neon sign with red letters: ‘Sports Bets’, and there were pictures in the window of football players, boxers, and a big horse galloping along with a jockey wearing a cap, bent low over the horse’s back and seeming to fuse with the horse. A couple of men came out of the door, talking loudly and waving little slips of paper; not money, he could tell. They walked along the road bellowing and laughing, then disappeared around the corner. Rolf stayed where he was and looked at the pictures and the sign, then he turned around and went home.
Standing in the bookmakers the next day, he was surprised at how large it was and how many people were standing around him, looking at all the monitors on the walls. It was Saturday, after three in the afternoon, and most of the screens were showing football, but on some of them there were horses galloping, and a couple of men were standing there, holding slips and newspapers and staring at the horses. They didn’t talk and didn’t seem to care about the noise all around them. ‘Kick the damn thing,’ shouted a man next to him, punching the air, ‘What’s the matter with you, even I could’ve scored …’
‘Yeah!’ growled a man in front of another monitor, ‘That’s it, I’ve got it,’ and Rolf walked slowly over to the silent men and the horses. But they weren’t as quiet any more now, the race seemed to be entering the final phase, and they twitched their nervous shoulders, stepping from one leg to the other and whispering things like, ‘Go on, come on,’ ‘Five, what do I care about number five,’ ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ ‘He’s losing it, he’s gonna eat dust,’ and then they got slightly louder, and then the race was over. Rolf was standing right behind them; some of them took their slips to the long counter, where there were already lots of people fiddling with slips and money, giving them to the men behind the counter; there were a couple of women too, taking the bets and the money, but otherwise he couldn’t see any women in the room; actually, no, over there were two old ladies huddled together, studying a newspaper spread out in front of them.
Rolf went closer to the monitor, where numbers and the names of the horses now appeared. Star King, he read, and then a man making notes on his paper pushed in front of him. ‘How much d’you think the triple was worth?’
‘Star King had over fifteen to win, the places weren’t bad either, not everyone saw that coming. It’ll be a nice little earner.’
‘Real nice,’ said another man, ‘six or seven hundred for the trifecta, I reckon, at least.’
‘I had Prairie Louise down,’ said a short man with a grey beard, who was filling out a betting slip against the wall next to the monitor, ‘she had good odds and all.’