She recognized the puppies through the numbers they had been assigned.
This, in part, was what allowed her to focus so intently on them. This, in part, was why she sometimes looked so enchanted as she stood before their cage. Though at the same time, there was something in the unpredictability of their actions that fascinated her, kept her from getting tired of standing there looking.
So she went on visiting the cage, grumbling to the puppies.
“Look at you, tripping like that,” she said. “Can’t even walk right.”
“Little doggie-shits, fucking gnawing on each other,” she said.
“Think you’re so grown up, huh?” she said. “Fucking think again.”
“Assholes,” she said.
There was something good about this part of her schedule. She felt better.
One day, she decided to see how dumb the puppies were. She searched the kitchen and the stores of dog food. She knew what they were fed. Obviously. I watch the Old Bag preparing the shit. She had a hypothesis she wanted to test. “All people have to do is feed you and you’re theirs, right? You fucks. Yeah, I’m talking to you Forty-four. And Forty-five, Forty-six, Forty-seven, Forty-eight, One hundred thirteen, and One hundred fourteen, all of you. Fuckers. I bet you’ll let me feed you too.”
This was her hypothesis.
The result was a chorus of yelping.
Number 44: FEED ME!
Number 114: FEED ME!
Number 45, number 46, number 47, number 48, and number 113: FEED ME! FEED ME! FEED ME! FEED ME! FEED ME!
The second she pushed the food through the fence, they gathered around and began going for it, snapping at it, not even bothering to sniff it and see what it was.
No, they hadn’t yet learned to be wary—not at all. And since they had already been weaned from their mother’s milk, they had no problem eating the sort of “Russian dog food” the girl gave them. She gave them sheep hooves. Leftovers. But they chewed them all the same, licked them all over. There was a bit of meat and gelatin left, if only a little.
“Happy?” the girl asked. “You like that?”
They looked happy.
“You like stinky crap like that?”
WE’RE HAPPY, the dogs replied. WE LIKE IT.
“See, I knew it,” the girl said, the pride in her words not entirely matched by the unusual stiffness and, simultaneously, the slight relaxation of her expression. “I can make you mine as easily as they can. Look at you, wagging your fucking tails. Fucking morons. Fucking shitheads. That’s Russia for you. Eating this foul-smelling mutton crap because you’ll take any nutrition you can get.”
From that day on, she worked to prove her hypothesis. Each time she visited the puppies’ cage, she took food—stolen food. And she fed them. The seven puppies were always overjoyed to see her. They started wagging their tails the second they saw her. Woof woof, woof woof, they said. And the girl, watching them tear into the food, kept grumbling. In Japanese. Monotone. “Sometimes they feed me mutton too. Disgusting crap. Tastes so fucking strong. You seem to like it though, huh? Sure looks that way. But not me… fucking ass. It’s winter food, this crap. It makes your body feel toasty when you eat it, right? You know? That’s something I learned. Shit. I’m learning all kinds of fucking shit. Hey, c’mere,” she said, sticking her hand into the cage near the bottom of the chain-link fence.
Four or five puppies gathered around.
Licking her hand.
The girl gave one of their heads a rough pat.
“See how hot you are? Right, One hundred fourteen?”
One or two of the others rubbed their heads and bodies against her, evidently eager to be petted too. Rubbed up against her hand. Her fingers.
You’re hot, right?
YES.
Right?
FEED ME.
That was the end of the girl’s schedule. With this—for the time being at least—her job was over. Watch the tagged puppies, secretly feed them, fill their ears with Japanese. Lots of Japanese, complaining in Japanese. Monotonal Japanese. She had to accustom the puppies to the sound and rhythms of her speech.
The daily grind continued. And then one day, it ended.
Dramatically. It was unclear how many days… or weeks the new monotony of her routine had continued by then, in the Dead Town, from the beginning to the moment when it ended. She herself couldn’t have said. She wasn’t counting the days. What day was this? The question didn’t exist. I’m X years old. I don’t fucking need time.
So the day it happened was just another day.
They had finished lunch. The old lady was in the kitchen making jam. The girl observed her from behind. She was the invisible girl, monitoring the Old Bag. Reverse monitoring. You get what that means, Old Bag? Maybe, just fucking maybe, you’re my hostage. The girl hadn’t said anything. She spoke the words to herself. Silent Japanese. She snuck food from the kitchen all the time, for the puppies—she knew what went on in the kitchen was important. So she monitored the kitchen. She planted herself there in the same space as the old lady, day after day, and regarded her. Long and hard. Taking it all in. The old lady’s trunk, shaped like a barrel. Her thick glasses. Ingredients. Vegetables, herbs. Beets. Dill. Scallions. Heaped in baskets. Not the dilclass="underline" it was in a glass. A bouquet. Buckwheat seeds, flour. Oil… sunflower seed oil. The girl could tell because of the enormous yellow flower on the label. And then the kitchen supplies. Pots, of course. Some with handles on both sides. Frying pans. Bowls. Ladles. Carving knives.
The old lady didn’t use any of this when she made jam.
She had masses of gooseberries and strawberries. She dropped them into wide-mouthed jars with an equal amount of sugar. And that was it. A very simple task.
Strawberries, the girl thought.
Is it the season for strawberries?
The girl had explored large swaths of the Dead Town on her walks, but she hadn’t seen a garden anywhere. Maybe the Old Bag gathered them in the forest? Was there a market nearby? She had no idea. When the fuck do you make jam anyway? What season? Before winter? This is fucking Russia, though. It’s fucking endless winter here.
There are no seasons, asshole. I’m X years old.
She kept thinking about the strawberries.
Needless to say, she and the old lady didn’t speak. A few minutes later, the girl was outside. She had left the kitchen to wander around the Dead Town as she always did. Two blocks away from the building was a concrete wall. One of the walls that cut this place off from the outside world. One of the barriers that made it all too apparent that this place was her prison. As she walked, she happened to catch sight of WO and WT. They were wheeling a motorcycle out of a garage. This was unexpected. It looked like they were going to ride it together, sitting in its tandem seat. One of them, either WO or WT, was going to drive that thing. They were going to buy food. She knew, she could sense it. And so she started observing them, the way she always did. Except that this time she took a different approach—this time, she didn’t act as though she were invisible. Without even thinking, she concealed herself behind a building. Strawberries, she thought. Shadowing people had become part of her daily routine, but this time she wanted to go further: she wanted to see where they went. Did they pick the strawberries themselves? Or buy them? And where? The two middle-aged women, WO and WT, opened the gate to the outside world. One of the exits from the Dead Town, an iron gate that opened out to both sides. One of the exits. The girl had never considered trying to escape. If this were her prison, she might have struggled to scale the walls, tried to find some way out into the world beyond, the shaba, but she never had, not once. Because it would be a total fucking pain in the ass. What the fuck would she do once she was out? Gather fucking mushrooms in the forest, wrestle with bears? Like hell she was going to do that shit. But now she found herself wanting to see outside. WO and WT straddled the motorcycle. She was sneaking toward them. Keeping in their blind spot, creeping down the street, hugging the wall. She poked her head out from behind the wall of the building closest to them, low down. Strawberries, she thought.