-3-
She came back from the sea and we moved house. We went to the city where I had been at my first puppy show. Almost every weekend we spent in trains. Dog shows, exhibitions, the days of my breed. She sewed a special chest collar for my medals. My grandfather had been imported from abroad; my father was a champion of an international exhibition. My future was unclouded – I was a promising dog. At least, the referees said so. She always listened to their comments, but did everything the way that she thought was right. She kept me in good shape. Every day there was a two-hour walk, vitamins and diets. Once a week she took me to dog fights. She liked it when I was fighting. She liked it when I was winning. She used to put something stinky and disgusting on my wounds and say with a put on indignation, “Apostle won over Robar again, imagine that!”
Her parents stayed in the town where I had grown up, and she visited them several times a month. I got used to the smell of gas. She would say that such a nomadic life could do harm even to a healthy dog, and it was scary to think what could become of me with my neurotic gastritis. A vet told her that when I was nervous, I was likely to have low-acidity gastritis. Well, I couldn’t argue with him.
People are not the only living creatures that can move around on their lower extremities, drink alcohol and use everything that their civilization has achieved. I get up in the morning, because our alarm-clock is ringing. My food is prepared on an electric cooker and is kept in a fridge. When dogs go by train, they do it only in compartment carriages, and a bus ticket for a dog costs the same as a ticket for a human being. Still, people consider themselves superior only because other animals do not talk their human language.
She was constantly giving me medicine, hoping to get rid of the gastritis I had never had.
-4-
I have a dog.
More precisely,
It’s a piece of my heart,
And not just a dog.
I love it
And sympathize with all my soul,
Because there is no dog
That my poor dog can own.
And when I am sad,
Have you any idea of
What a dog means,
When you are sad?
Well, when I am sad,
I hold my dog’s neck and say,
“My dog, let me be your dog –
shall we do it this way?”
She liked this poem very much. When she was sad, she used to hold my neck, whispering about her troubles. Then she would turn a gramophone on; she had many records that were quite rare. The records rustled quietly and low sounds of the music were filling the room. We were sitting on the floor and she was reading me poetry. She had been training her memory and learning extracts from heavy volumes. She smoked, breathing in eagerly, and then breathing the smoke out at my nose. She laughed when I turned away. ‘My dog, let me be your dog – shall we do it this way?’ Her former classmate had copied this poem for her, and she loved it. And I loved her.
-5-
She was injured in a car crash. The chief of her pack told me that everything would be okay, took two big bags that smelled of bandages and shots and left. The Zubenkos came every day, fed and walked me. It was autumn. There was lots of mud outside, and I didn’t want to walk.
They brought her back home in a month. She could walk already and soon I started to walk her out. She had walked me before, but now I helped her to go down the stairs. I carefully went beside her, holding her hand with my teeth, and she didn’t take her hand out of my huge and, as they said, horrifying jaws. We went out of the door and then slowly returned home, resting after each flight of stairs. She was still too weak.
In spring she started to walk me in the forest.
I fought almost every dog we met; she pulled me away and gladly laughed. She liked it when I was being afraid of. And I liked to protect her.
In summer we went to the river every day. She used to leave me at the bank and go swimming. Once I tore the lead and jumped into the water. The smart puppy that was traveling with us to our first puppy show, a born diver, always pulled his mistress out of the water. He was punished for that, because he didn’t let her swim. He was my friend, then he was sold and I never saw him again. My mistress had never punished me – on the contrary, she was telling everybody that I had helped her when she was drowning. She would also show the mark on her skin where I had scratched her. After that she became afraid of water and we swam together. I swam and she was holding my collar.
Also we used to go to the fields.
In autumn she said that we were moving, because it was necessary. And we moved. The Zubenkos didn’t come for a visit on holidays any more and we didn’t walk in the forest but there appeared a new person – a self-satisfied man with a moustache, who smelled of a disgustingly sweet eau-de-Cologne. He started to live with us. She said that I should get used to him and that I had got a new master.
But she was wrong. I had a new enemy.
…It happened in summer. She was cutting meat and I was waiting near the kitchen, when this man came. He said that the car was waiting, we had to go and I shouldn’t touch him with my watering mouth. Though I was very hungry, I didn’t touch the meat. I brought her the lead and she went downstairs without changing her dirty T-shirt. The engine of the car was coughing nastily, we went through the suburbs and my mistress was so sad. I knew these places well; they often held exhibitions in this suburban forest. But I had no idea where we were going. I fell asleep and woke up only when the car stopped near an old house with a shabby front door, the house near a big lake, the house I now live in. They were in a hurry and left at once. And I stayed here.
She must be missing me now. The man with a moustache never offers her his bones, even the ones that have no meat on them. And she will never breathe out smoke at his nose and laugh. Sometimes at nights she cries, but this man doesn’t know about that. Also she used to say that I was an apostle that had been sent to her in this imperfect world. My mistress talked in a strange way.
I am lying on a painted wooden floor in a strange cold house that is miles away from my mistress. I don’t know how long I have been here; I have lost count of the days. Too many of them have passed since that evening when she left me here. She will come back, she surely will. I am waiting for her.
-6-
A young woman was waiting for a doctor at the reception of a private vet clinic. She was nervously walking along the corridor, looking at the clock. To her, time was crawling painfully slow. When the woman got tired of walking, she came to an armchair and had a seat, smoothing out her smart dress mechanically. After fifteen minutes of silent waiting, she stood up abruptly and went to the office. But at that moment the door opened and the vet appeared. He looked rather young for his age, with a little bit of grey in his hair. The vet smiled patronizingly at his visitor and led her to the exit, holding her hand.
“You shouldn’t worry. It is sleeping already. The burial should be paid additionally at the cash-desk.”
The woman stiffened. The owner of the admirable grey hair opened the entrance door and, leading her to the street that was lavishly lit with the autumn sun, continued, “Try to take it easy. The gastritis would have finished him anyway.” He glanced approvingly at a luxurious car, then at his client again and helped her to get into it. After that he began talking to her companion, who had been waiting in the car all the time. The companion seemed to be more communicative. He listened attentively to all the details of the medical procedure and thanked the vet for the urgent performance of their order. The vet nodded in satisfaction and went away.