It was the voice of Raoul. Frida peered into the darkness. He was perched on the railing of the Métro entrance. Every so often, Frida had taken refuge in the Métro, but it was dangerous and loud, and the weather had to be very very rainy for her to choose the Métro. Frida sneezed, then said, “Hello, I was wondering where you had gotten to.”
“I went to my nest, of course. A Corvus of my station has more things to attend to than one horse. But what in the world are you talking about?”
“What do you mean?” said Frida.
“Surely, you realize that you are always mumbling on about something?”
“No,” said Frida. “I didn’t realize that.”
“My heavens,” said Raoul, “I’ve been watching you since the summer. I’ve never seen such a talker. Mumble-mumble this, mumble-mumble that. I thought that that was the way Canis familiaris remembered things, by talking about them all the time.”
Frida felt her shivering intensify. No one had ever said this to her, but she knew instantly that it was true. She hardly ever barked—Jacques had taught her that her bark was excessively loud and therefore dangerous if a dog (and a man) wanted to be left alone. And Jacques had not liked whining, and yet there were so many feelings and ideas that required expression of some sort. Even so, she said, “I don’t really know what you mean,” and Raoul commenced to grumble and chat in a very doglike voice that Frida recognized perfectly as the voice of sometimes her only friend, herself. She sighed. Then she said, “That’s a good imitation.”
“Most Aves are adept at that,” said Raoul. “You know about Psittaciformes, of course. They are an invasive order, but humans like them for their color, I suppose—humans are very shallow in some ways. Corvus are just as adept at different dialects as Psittaciformes, but we get far less credit—”
“What is a Psittaciform?” said Frida.
“A parrot, in common parlance, but of course there are many species. There have to be, because so many earthly beings are reincarnated as Aves. It’s very educational for them. Or us, I might say. I feel that, in my former life, I was a government official; perhaps I was not as effective as I should have been. And look at Sid and Nancy. Terribly anxious, even for common mallards. My guess is that in a former life they were impulsive and careless….”
Frida lay down, put her head on her crossed paws, and closed her eyes. There was a silence, and then Raoul said, “I do tend to go on, I know. It is a feature of age. I have learned so many things in my life that they just force their way out of my beak.” Then he said, “I did peek in the windows at the Rue Marinoni today. The first time, it looked as though our friend was having a lovely nap, all stretched out on the floor, and the second time, she was eating from a very large bin. The boy seems to like her.”
“No good can come of this,” said Frida.
“Difficult to judge that,” said Raoul. “The boy seems to do well on his own, for a boy. My view is that the danger is not to the Equus, it is to the boy. Over the years, I have observed that adult humans are very nervous if an immature human seems to be without a protector.”
Frida’s ears flicked at that word, “protector.” With dogs, she knew, the question of who was the protected and who was the protector was always an open one. When you saw, on the streets of Paris, a human and a dog walking along, it could be either one, no matter how very small the dog was. She had seen dogs who might not even come up to her knees on the alert, not only looking this way and that, but barking, “Stay away, stay away! I will kill you if you hurt my human!” And it was true that, if there were three dogs together, it was the job of the smallest dog to keep an eye out and alert the larger dogs if danger was at hand. Had she been Jacques’s protector? If so, perhaps she had not done a very good job.
Raoul said, “Pardon me, but there you go again. Talking to yourself. Is there something that you would like to communicate?”
Frida forced herself to remain silent for a very long moment, then said, “I suppose that communicating is rather dangerous.”
Raoul said, “I hadn’t thought of that. For Aves, not communicating is very dangerous. You never know when some hawk or owl might take silence the wrong way.” And then he said, “Indeed. I will shut my trap now. Good practice.” He flew upward, and the door beside Frida eased open.
The man who opened the door was not old, and he had a scowl on his face—Frida knew he intended to chase her away, perhaps to kick her—she had seen that in her day. But she felt too sad even to stand up. Let him kick me, she thought. She turned her head and stared at him. He stared back at her, and his face softened. After a moment, he squatted down and patted her on the top of her head. He said, “I have never seen such a sad face on such a beautiful dog.” He stroked her several times, kindly and smoothly, as if he knew just how.
Inside, the man behind the counter said, “Orlande! Close the door. What a wind! I don’t know why we are even open this evening.”
Orlande stood up, backed up, and then bowed, clearly inviting Frida into the pâtisserie. Frida was undecided—the interior of the restaurant was warm and light, and smelled good. There was no one there except the two men, but, still, it was inside. And at that very moment, Raoul flew up behind her and pecked her very smartly just above her tail. She jumped, Orlande laughed, and she stepped into the restaurant. She immediately sat down in her most dignified manner and offered Orlande her paw. He took it, shook it. From behind the counter, the other man tossed something. Orlande put his hand up and caught it, then showed it to Frida. It smelled good—it was a small warm roll. Frida took it politely, dropped it on the floor, ate it in as dignified a manner as she could. After she had done so, she dipped her head. Orlande patted her again.
“Beautiful dog,” said the man behind the counter. “I’ve seen her around here before. I think she might belong to a family who has an apartment down the Avenue d’Eylau, but I thought they went to Cannes for the winter. I can’t imagine that they would leave her here.”
“Who would do such a thing?” said the first man. “André, she has a terrifically expressive face.”
André set a bowl on the top of the counter. Frida could see steam rising off it. It was very fragrant. Beside it, he set a croissant, something she had shared with Jacques several times. He blew on the bowl. In the meantime, although there wasn’t very much space, Frida did a few of her tricks—she put her paw over her eye, she lay down, curled up, and rolled over, she offered Orlande her other paw. After these, as if reading her mind, he took some bread that he had torn out of a loaf and set it on her nose. She paused a moment, then flipped her nose, tossed the bread, and caught it. Both men laughed, and the first man applauded. Then he brought the bowl to her—it was full of chicken broth—and the croissant. She ate carefully, trying not to make a mess. The croissant was delicious.
The view from inside the shop was most definitely different from the view outside—the windows were dark, and Frida herself was reflected in them; there was no surveying the landscape or seeing who might be coming. What with the talking of the two men, the banging of pots and pans, and the scraping noise when her new friend moved a table or a chair, she couldn’t hear much, either, and as for her most important and discerning sense, she felt rather as if she were being drowned in rich odors. Outside, there were plenty of smells—the damp in the air, the leaves, the trees, the birds and animals, the sharper scents of cars and trucks going by, the differing scents of humans (young boys—quite strong; women—almost nothing except occasionally the scent of a flower)—but they drifted past one or two at a time, always from a specific direction, easy to interpret, especially by a cautious dog such as herself. Being inside made her a little afraid to go back outside. It was, indeed, very very dark out there.