“He told me that they’re not letting put on the play. That they’re insulting him. He has no one to talk to,” said Marysenka. “He says that I understand him”.
Valies became part of our conversations over tea, and also without tea.
“How’s Konstantin Lvovich doing?” I would often ask.
Marysenka smiled thoughtfully, and did not let me make jokes about the old man. I didn’t even want to.
I had someone to make jokes about and someone to adore. Brovkin grew into a broad-chested guy with a fine voice. We played well together — on the rare occasions when I came home drunk, he brought me a stick, and we played tug-of-war. He always won.
He was the first to be taken away — the neighbors said that they needed a smart and strong guard in their garage. Brovkin was very suitable for them, I knew. The neighbors also took Yaponka for their friends — she was considerably larger than the small Belyak, and so they took the girl. And Belyak was taken away at the end of summer by a guy in a truck. He stuck his head out the window in a half-unbuttoned shirt, sunburnt, smiling, with lots of white teeth — a perfect character out of an optimistic canvas from the socialist realist era.
“Are those your puppies?” he asked, pointing to the suddenly alert Belyak, who was leaping about.
Not far away, Grenlan was timidly wagging her tail.
“Yes, they’re ours,” I replied with a smile.
He took fifty rubles out of his pocket:
“Will you sell me the boy? Is it a boy?”
“Yes, it’s a boy. I’ll give him to you for free.”
“No-no, it’s yours… I’ll take him to the country. Some jerks in the village shot all the dogs.”
“I don’t want it.”
I scooped up Belyak and put him on the man’s lap, and at this moment the man managed to shove a fifty-ruble coin into the hand that was holding Belyak under his stomach, and pressed my palm so hard with his rough hand, as if he wanted to say: “I’m having a good day, buddy, take the money, I tell you.” After this gesture, it was awkward to give it back. So I took it.
“Marysenka, we have money to buy ice-cream,” I said, running into the house.
“Valies is dead,” said Marysenka.
“So, princess, you’re left all alone?” I patted Grenlan.
She had finally got used to people patting her. Although she looked at me with alarm, she didn’t roll on her back or piddle anymore. Her whole expression was full of uncommon gratitude. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I went to Marysenka. She was lying down, because she felt sorry for Valies.
I went up the staircase slowly, like an old man. I said quietly: “Today’s… a nasty… day…” There was a step for each word. “Grasshoppers’… choir… sleeps”: another three steps. And the same lines for the next six steps. I didn’t remember the rest, and for a change I tried to read the poem backwards: “sleeps… choir… grasshoppers”, but discovered that you could only read it like that if you were going downstairs.
I slowed down in front of the door: I couldn’t work out how I should react to Valies’ death. I’d only seen him once in my life. It was easiest not to react at all. I slowed down some more, taking the keys out of my pocket and examining each key on the key-ring, touching the jagged edge with the tip of the index finger of my left hand.
In the entranceway the door suddenly slammed, and someone downstairs shouted hoarsely;
“Hey! Someone’s killing your dog!”
I tore downstairs. The lines that I had just been repeating scattered in different directions. I ran outside and in front of me stood a man who looked like an alcoholic — he seemed familiar to me.
“Where?” I shouted at him.
“There’s a woman there…” He was breathing heavily. “Over there…” — he pointed. “A boxer…”
I could already hear a dog’s squeal, and tearing toward this squeal through the bushes, I immediately saw everything. My Grenlan was being mauled by a boxer — a stocky, broad-chested, tailless beast. With a collar. The boxer evidently had first siezed her silly, pathetic snout and torn the poor dog’s lip. Her torn lip was bleeding. A savage yelp issued forth from our little dog’s open mouth, and stayed on the same note for an unnaturally long time, momentarily falling silent and then renewing again on an even higher note.
I don’t know how she tore her snout out of the boxer’s mouth, but now, constantly yelping, Grenlan was trying to crawl away on her front paws. The boxer had sunk his teeth into her back leg. Her leg was unnaturally twisted to the side, as if it had already been bitten through. “If I hit the boxer in the snout now, he’ll bite the leg off!” I thought miserably.
I looked from side to side, trying to find a stick, something that I could use to unclench his jaws, and noticed a fat, well-dressed woman standing some distance away. She had a leash in her hand, and was playing with it. Hey, that’s her dog!
“What are you doing, bitch?” I screamed, and distinctly realized that I was going to kill both the woman and her dog.
The woman smiled, looking at the dogs, and even whispered something. She was distracted by my shout.
“What do you want?” she said disdainfully. “Breeding all kinds of carrion here.”
“You’re carrion yourself, bitch!” I shouted, grabbed a hefty piece of white brick off the ground, and stepped towards the woman, who maintained a calm and disdainful expression on her face, but then I remembered my little dog who was being attacked.
Without letting go the piece of brick, I leaped over to the dogs, and with all my strength, without even thinking about what I was doing, I whacked the boxer in the snout. With a yelp, the boxer opened his jaws, and jumping back, he stood to the side. It seemed to me that he was licking his lips.
“Don’t touch him! I’ll set him on you, scum!” I heard the woman’s voice.
Ignoring her shout, I threw the brick and hit the dog in the side.
“Yes!” I gave a hoarse, happy shout.
The dog yelped — it spat blood and ran into the bushes.
I hope I’ve ruptured his liver…
I didn’t see where Grenlan went, all I remember is that as soon as the boxer released her, she limped off somewhere on three paws, hurrying away in deathly terror, looking back and rolling her enormous eyes. Although her fourth leg did not fall off, it was twisted so terribly that it did not even touch the ground.
The woman shouted at me with a well-modulated voice. I didn’t understand what she was shouting, I didn’t care. I found the piece of brick I’d thrown and turned to her, raising the trembling hand that was holding the shard.
“I’m going to knock your block off,” I said clearly and quietly. My heart was thumping.
“They’ll put you in jail, you bastard!” she screamed, looking at me wildly, but still disdainfully.
“And they’ll lay you!… Take that!” I shouted at her and threw the stone at her feet. It bounced and hit her under the knee.
Blood from the wound immediately flowed down her torn stocking. The blow made her take two steps back and she stood motionless, looking through me, as if looking at me was beneath her dignity. I jumped over and picked up the brick again, although I could have hit her with my fist, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to pound her with the brick. But my initial malice had ebbed, and I realized, I sensed that no — I couldn’t do it anymore.