Ursula didn't like the dog. She was disdainful, nearly contemptuous of his affection for it, and reluctant to place the children in its presence. She'd asked Bauer to get rid of it. Orph accepted Bauer's sons when they visited, but his spirits always brightened as soon as they left and he had his home, his cave, to himself again.
Bauer had consulted the vet when Orph, seven months old, had first showed his teeth at someone. She said, "Well, he has a home now. It's his territory and he's getting possessive about it. The other thing is his hormones. They begin changing at six months and they don't stabilize until eighteen months, which is when he reaches maturity. In males this means, among other things, increasing aggression. He'll get progressively tougher until his metabolism levels, and then that's where he'll stay. You can control it with training, of course, but you can't diminish it."
Orph was nineteen months now, and Bauer was relieved. He figured he could control the dog at this level.
The seminar ended well. A few students lingered over coffee or wine.
Kathy Lippman was the last to leave. She held a cardigan sweater hung over her shoulder by one finger.
"Thanks a lot," she said, "it was terrific. I hate to stick you with this mess, though."
"That's okay, it won't take long."
"You want a hand?"
Bauer smiled and shook his head.
"Oh, let me give you one anyway." She tossed her sweater on a chair.
"It's a drag cleaning up after other people."
"Thanks, but it's really not necessary, Kathy."
"I know," she said, beginning to round up ashtrays, "but I don't mind, and it'd make me feel guilty to walk out and leave it all for you. And you don't want me to feel that way, do you? Guilt is very destructive."
"Okay, okay." He turned his palms toward her. "You win."
"That's nice, I like doing that."
They collected the plates and glasses and cups into the kitchen.
Kathy turned on the water. "Sit down and have a brandy or something while I wash these."
"Come on, I just put 'em in to soak and whip through them in the morning."
"Sit down and be quiet or I'll clean your stove too:"
Bauer poured himself a brandy.
"How long have you been living here?" Kathy asked as she soaped the dishes.
"A little more than a year."
"And you were a reporter before you became a professor."
"No. I worked in public relations a while in between, not long."
"Yecch."
"That's what I decided too."
"Why did you get out of the newspapers, because of that testimony thing?"
"More or less," Bauer said quietly.
"That must have been rough, I looked it up in the library last week."
Suddenly Bauer felt at bay. He tried to sound casual. "Why?"
She shrugged, her back to him. "I was curious. The guy was an ape.
It's a good thing he's in jail."
Bauer didn't say anything.
"Why Wintergreen instead of someplace else?"
Bauer was unused to being asked such direct questions, and Kathy's ingenuousness made him uneasy.
"It was Covington I wanted, Wintergreen was the means."
"Personal reasons?"
"Uh-huh."
"A woman?" Kathy looked over her shoulder. "Am I getting too personal?"
"My wife."
"Oh. Ex or still?"
"Estranged. Leaning toward ex, I guess."
"I'm sorry."
"It happens."
"It does. There you go." She put the last cup in the rack and dried her hands. "Can I have one of whatever you're sipping? For the road?"
She sat with him.
"That's nice, what is it?"
"Metaxa, it's Greek."
"I like it." She hooked her hair with her thumbs and flipped it back over her shoulders, a poignant, thoroughly female gesture. "Did you smoke that joint I gave you?"
"Not yet."
"It's really good stuff. Would you like to do it now?"
Bauer hesitated, then said, "I'll take a raincheck, okay?" "Sure." If Kathy was disappointed, Bauer didn't see.
She went on as brightly as before, but he noticed that she shifted to neutral subjects. She finished her brandy. "Time to split," she said.
At the door, he said, "Thanks for the help, Kathy."
"No sweat. What's your wife's name?"
"Ursula," he said, taken back.
"Bet you five-to-one you're going to see her in the next couple of days."
"Tomorrow night."
"Guilt," she said. "It's destructive." She took his hand and pressed it to her cheek. She released it and grinned. "Night, Professor Bauer."
Bauer waited until she turned her headlights on. Then he closed the door and let Orph out of the bedroom. The dog brushed past him. It went through the house sniffing, looked reproachfully at him.
"Yeah. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I'm probably an asshole."
Pointedly, Orph went to the other side of the room and lay down with his back to Bauer.
Bauer stretched out on the couch and put his hands behind his head. But he didn't want to think about Kathy Lippman and he got up after a couple of minutes. He worked to draw Orph out of his sulk. This wasn't easily done.
When the dog got mad, it stayed mad. But the animal relented in a while and they went for a walk. The air was brisk, it cleared Bauer's head.
He went to bed. Orph pressed up to get his head patted, then left.
Orph slept in the living room, near the door. He slept lightly, in short naps, and awakened frequently to prowl the house. He wandered into Bauer's room two or three times a night to check on him.
Bauer had bought one of the training books the vet had recommended and he'd done a little work with Orph — some heeling, the down and the sit-but he had neither the taste nor the personality to become involved with training, and he'd let it go before long. He was guilty about this. Orph was more or less civilized around human beings, but he was a hard dog. He needed controls and constructive outlets.
Bauer enjoyed his company. While he'd never anthropomorphized the animal, he did look upon it as a friend. Part of the value of that friendship was the dog's alien ness It pleasured him to look over the chasm into the animal's serious brown eyes, to feel the sea of their difference, the small islands that were the overlapping of their beings and the grounds of their understanding. He loved Orph, and learned from him. Orph was content with his singularity, complete within himself. Bauer on the other hand felt himself an amorphous creature ill-equipped to live alone. Though he still fell into sloughs of despondency, was blanketed by anomie, taking the dog as a kind of model he'd rallied his will (despite thinking it an exercise in delusion) to emulate the dog's wholeness and make it his own. He hadn't metamorphosed, but at least he felt moments of solidity, and the attempt lent him a sense of positive occupation.
When Orph was nine or ten months he had returned from an afternoon forage with a rabbit in his jaws and displayed it proudly. Bauer had little knowledge of such things, but he thought healthy rabbits too quick to be caught by any but coursing dogs. He took the carcass away to examine it.
Orph waited with a wagging tail. The rabbit appeared normal, but Bauer was afraid to chance disease. So he took it outside and put it in the garbage can, snapped the lid down. Orph looked from the can to Bauer, back to the can, and whined.
"Sorry," Bauer said, "but we can't risk it. Inside. Let's go…
Orph jumped and knocked the garbage can over. The lid popped, the rabbit spilled out and Orph picked it up. "No!" Bauer righted the can, dropped the carcass in again and put the cover on. Orph wouldn't leave, so Bauer gripped his collar and marched him into the house. The dog sat by the door and whined. Later, when Bauer went for a book he'd left in the car, Orph lunged past as he opened the door, ran to the garbage can and tipped it over. Bauer locked the rabbit in the trunk of the car. The dog stationed itself at the rear bumper and wouldn't move. It barked at Bauer.