“She wanted to die in her Leningrad,” Amalia reminded me.
“Yes, probably so. She never did like calling it St. Petersburg.”
“It was her choice. Will you go?”
“The nurses at the rooming house can make the arrangements. Do you think I need to identify her, or sign for her in person?” Suddenly I wasn’t sure.
“I wouldn’t know, but it has to happen soon. They aren’t going to keep her around.”
“I could barely get there in time for everything to happen as it is supposed to.”
“Speak to the nurses first, then we’ll see,” Amalia said. Pulling a small package out of her purse, she continued. “Let me show you my new glass figurine. It’s a terrier; it reminded me of your dog when we were growing up.”
“Pepe?”
“I couldn’t remember his name. Doesn’t this look like him?” she said as she pushed the glass figure across the kitchen table to show me. She collects glass miniatures that she displays on the windowsill in the kitchen. A unicorn, a turtle, an elephant, and a replica of the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood from home.
“I loved that dog.”
“What happened to him?”
“My father had him put down. It was that little wretch Nadia’s fault.”
“I don’t remember the details, Stalina.”
If Amalia wanted to distract me from my sorrow, she was doing a good job. When Pepe was taken away, at first I was very sad, and then I was angry.
“Tell me about Pepe,” Amalia insisted.
I explained how after months of tears and temper tantrums, my parents allowed me to have a dog. As an only child, I longed for a companion. My friend Mina had a canary, and my parents thought a bird was a good idea for a pet. I told them the cage bothered me, and when I visited Mina, it was all I could do to keep myself from letting the poor bird go free.
Pepe came from the cages of a dog pound in Leningrad. All those dogs waiting and barking—I wanted them all. The moment he was let out of the cage, he stayed by my side. He was a full-grown terrier mix and seemed very relieved when I fastened the brand-new red leather collar around his curly brown neck. He loved to dig in our backyard and bury things in the crumbly black soil.
On a warm Sunday in August 1949, Mikhail and Andrei, the twin brothers with identical limps who lived next door, and Nadia and Lara, the two blond-haired sisters, twelve and nine years old, whose backyard faced ours, came over to play. The adults were playing cards and drinking tea in the shade. Nadia immediately began organizing and explaining the rules to the game that would alternately put one of us in the center of a circle reaching to catch a fist-sized beanbag tossed overhead. If you caught the beanbag, you got to choose someone to kiss behind the old cherry tree.
“We all stay seated,” Nadia explained. “That’s what makes it hard.”
Pepe was running around our circle wanting desperately to take part, but Nadia would not let him.
“Why don’t you tie that unruly mongrel up? He’s ruining everything,” she said, just like an adult.
“Don’t be such a big boss, Nadia. He will sit when I ask him to. Here boy, Pepe, Pepe,” I said. He was panting, looking longingly at Nadia’s left hand, which held the peach-sized beanbag with a tight, controlling fist.
“Pepe is spirited,” I told Nadia, trying to smooth over his bad behavior. He’d pull on his leash every time he’d see a pigeon on our walks, and he barked loudly at anyone in a uniform. My mother once had words with the traffic police when Pepe was in the car, and from then on, he became protective and upset whenever a uniform approached any of us. You can imagine in the Soviet Union, this made for a rather stressful existence.
In the backyard, on that afternoon, he was just having a good time, feeling like a puppy again, chasing around our circle, stretching out his front paws, ready to jump and pounce in any direction.
“Pepe, sit! Sit! Good boy,” I told him.
He could not be contained that day. When Nadia finished explaining the rules, she too sat in the circle. Pepe ran to her side, still panting over the beanbag. She twisted her body toward Pepe, confident that she had the power to control him.
“Sit, you sweet mutt,” she said. “Now lie down, lie down.”
Sitting was all Pepe could handle, but Nadia began pushing his head down toward the grass.
“Lie down.” She pushed again. “Lie—”
Her forceful hands and controlling spirit brought out something ugly in Pepe. He snapped and lunged at her. It was a motion of protection, but his sharp side teeth caught the fleshy part of her soft, pale, fourteen-year-old jaw. I watched as the blood spurted through her shaking fingers.
Amalia had heard only rumors about this story. When I finished telling her about this last part, she stopped me.
“Stalina, the story I heard was that Nadia smacked Pepe because he was misbehaving, and that you tried to bite Nadia, but Pepe got to her before you did.”
“Rumors. I wonder what they would have done to me if I did bite Nadia. She certainly deserved whatever she got.”
Amalia added, “She never wanted to play with me.”
“She was jealous that you got to wear makeup,” I assured her.
“She thought I was a horror with this mark on my face. She couldn’t stand to look at me.”
“Spoiled brat.”
“Did the bite leave a scar?”
“Plastic surgery. There was only the slightest line along her jaw.”
“What about Pepe?”
“The rest of that day was like a bad dream.” I continued the story, and Amalia made more tea.
“Nadia rolled on the ground holding her face with her hands. The blood seeping through her fingers looked like worms slithering into the ground. The grass moved beneath my feet; my voice was gone. The adults ran in all directions like a bomb had gone off. I stood in the middle of the lawn, fixated on Nadia. The twins, Mikhail and Andrei, chased after their parents as they ran next door to call an ambulance. Pepe was cowering under the pine trees at the edge of our yard. I could see he was sorry and scared for what he had done.”
“The poor dog,” Amalia said as she poured the hot water over the tea.
“My father screamed at me, ‘Stay away, he’s gone mad!’”
I told Amalia how my father rolled a newspaper and grabbed one end like a club. My grandmother held Nadia’s bawling sister in her arms and started singing to calm her down as she brought her inside. The emergency medicals came and took Nadia away. I followed my father as he walked silently toward Pepe. The dog’s eyes were deep, dark pools of fear.
“I wanted to comfort Pepe, hold him in my arms and let him know I understood it was not his fault. The rage in my father’s arched back frightened me. I watched his biceps engage as he raised the paper like a thug with a nightstick. I still could not speak, but my brain screamed at my father’s unflinching raised hand. ‘Don’t hit him. He’ll never do it again, I promise!’
“When his arm came down, the newspaper made a hard crack against Pepe’s spine. The poor dog made no sound but crawled further under the pine trees. With his back swayed, he looked up at my father’s raised arm, waiting for it to fall again. It was my father who had gone mad. Rage and pain had overtaken him.”
“Powerless,” Amalia said as she stirred her milky tea, “as children we were powerless.”
“Helpless, I felt so helpless. My mother grabbed my father’s arm, and he looked at her strangely. I thought he might hit her, but he stopped.”
I remembered how the tightly rolled pages of Pravda loosened from his hand and rolled along the ground. Pepe crawled to the coolness and shade of the apple trees. My parents stood together, their heads lowered.
“Have a sip of tea,” Amalia said, pushing the cup and saucer closer to me.