I crawled out of the kennel and started searching the roof terrace for any signs of the dog’s presence. The terrace is huge. There are so many chimneys sticking up from it, it looks like a forest of dead trees, or a field of gravestones. Some of the chimneys are over fifty years old and built in the shape of a cross. My room is in the tall clock tower on the edge of the terrace. It has a small window that looks out onto the streets below. Before my girlfriend committed suicide, she often came to visit me. She complained that the terrace was like a graveyard, and the clock tower like the house of the cemetery guard. She hated all the pipes that cut across the roof, she was always tripping over them. But my dog leaped happily across the terrace for more than two years without complaining once, and he only had three legs.
The clock doesn’t strike the hour any longer. During the Cultural Revolution, a Maoist cell called ‘Army of Millions’ took control of the tower and removed some parts of the clock to make weapons for use in their battles against the rival Maoist cell, ‘The Expulsion of Enemy Factions Brigade’. In the past, policemen all over town used to time their shifts by the clock. You can see its face from any road in the city. Likewise, I can see the entire town from my terrace, including the new urban district by the sea. When I get up in the morning and step out onto the terrace, I can see my former classmates and other people I know squeezing onto buses or eating breakfast at street stalls. Some who’ve made it into the office already and are trapped in a political meeting, wink up at me through their windows. When they finish work, I shout out to them, and they all shout back to me. It’s easier than using a telephone.
My dog was born up there.
(This was obviously impossible, the writer thinks to himself. For a start, no female dog had ever set foot on the terrace. The truth is, his dog was in fact born in the suburbs, in a yard outside a private crematorium. Only there was it possible for dogs to produce puppies that were so similar to men. The yard was haunted by the spirits of the dead. The dogs took pity on some of them, and allowed them to reincarnate themselves in their offspring.)
When I saw he only had three legs, I was overwhelmed with pity and decided to take him into my care. He wasn’t steady on his feet. If he was standing up, I would sometimes prod his front leg and he’d topple to the ground. After a few months, he learned that if he splayed his legs out in a tripod position, he was less likely to fall. The next time I tried to topple him, he curled his lip and said, ‘Don’t waste your energy, my friend.’ I was so startled to hear the dog speak, I felt like running away. But before I’d had a chance to move, he sighed, ‘I’m just telling you — give it a rest.’
‘Are you really a dog?’ I asked.
‘Well, what are you?’
‘A man, of course.’
‘Well I’m a dog then. But I must have been a man in a previous life, otherwise how would I be able to speak your language?’
‘Which man do you think you were?’
‘Go and check the municipal death register, if you’re so interested. Why should I tell you? One thing I will say is that I’ve lived in this town for over a hundred years. I would never have guessed I’d come back this time as a three-legged dog, though. What a joke!’
‘Who were you in your past life?’ I repeated, my body still shaking like a leaf.
‘I’m not sure. There’s no way of knowing. All I do know is that I didn’t want to return as a human in my next life. I don’t mind being a dog, it’s just a shame I have one leg missing.’
We got on well together. As soon as I finished my work in the museum, I would run upstairs to the terrace and see him waiting for me outside his kennel. I’d jump over the maze of pipes, unlock my door and let him in. I would paint for a few hours, then we’d retire to bed to read books and discuss various matters of the day. He read nearly every book in my room, apart from the ones on the highest shelf. I forbade him to touch those because I was afraid that their contents might corrupt his mind, and besides, I couldn’t bear the thought of him overtaking me. I also insisted he made sure the door to our terrace was locked before he raised his voice or barked. Three of the museum’s staff, including the old carpenter and his son the plumber, belonged to the dog extermination brigade. If news had reached them that there was a dog on my terrace, they would have had the authority to search my tower then eat any dog they found. They always ate the dogs they killed — their leaders only required them to hand in the dog’s head.
I work as an illustrator for the municipal museum’s natural history section. My task is to make sketches of all the stuffed animals that are exhibited in the museum. The job is much better than any my old classmates were assigned, so I consider myself very fortunate. After the survivor moved in with me (that’s the name the dog gave himself), I was afraid he might jeopardise my career. So to protect myself, I began to work more assiduously, and stepped up my efforts to join the Party. But the dog died in the end, and all that survives of him now is his beautiful hide.
(The writer remembers the blank expression on the painter’s face when he recounted his story in the cafeteria. It was impossible to know whether he was telling the truth or not. Perhaps the survivor was just an extension of himself. When the writer asked him if he really believed the dog had lived on that terrace, the painter grunted impatiently and said, ‘His kennel is still up there. You saw it yourself.’)
When I returned from the conference, I found the dog had been taken from my terrace and placed in the museum workshop. I heard that he would be travelling to Beijing the following month to take part in a national exhibition. When I first paid him a visit in the carpenter’s workshop, his coat seemed softer and shinier than it was when he was alive. His sad-looking eyes had been replaced by a pair of shiny glass balls. His ears used to droop, but now that they had dried, they stood up perkily on end. The carpenter had stuffed so much cotton wool into his stomach, he looked like a pregnant bitch. Around him lay piles of dead animals waiting to be stuffed. A leopard with glass eyes leaned against the wall, its four limbs still nailed to a wooden frame; a gutted fox waiting to be put outside to dry in the sun stared sadly out of the open window. Compared to the dismembered and lacerated pheasants, bald eagles and pythons by his side, the survivor looked very animated. But however hard I tried, I could never associate the dead survivor with the dog I had known.
My roof terrace is huge. When you stand by the edge, you can see the whole town spread out below. The survivor could spy on every home in every street. In over two years, he never once left the roof: that’s to say, he lived his entire life in mid-air. He kept his distance from the rest of humanity and refused to enter their world. While three thousand dogs perished at the hands of the town’s extermination brigade, he was able to survive two years up there, thanks to me and the distance he kept from the crowds. He often saw his fellow dogs being chased and battered by the authorities, and it upset him. But I must admit that on seven occasions I was tempted to hand him over to the police, as I knew this might improve my chances of being awarded Party membership. By looking after him, I sometimes felt I was bringing disgrace upon the Party. He often spouted reactionary ideas that would later trouble my mind during the political study classes at work.
He matured a great deal during his two years with me, and learned a few elegant turns of phrase. He developed a deep insight into all things that had happened and had not yet happened. His shiny black coat and droopy ears gave him the look of a foreign lawyer. His unusual bald head and long grey whiskers added to this air of a wise elder. He secretly saw himself as a holy messenger and prophet. He was optimistic about China’s implementation of the Open Door Policy, and agreed with the authorities that exhibitions of nude paintings weren’t in tune with the social climate of our country. When the Central Committee announced that they’d given a Chinese woman their personal consent to marry a French citizen, he praised their courage. He argued that the Responsibility System could save socialism, and applauded the government’s moves to encourage foreign companies to invest in our country. I asked him whether this policy would be tantamount to allowing foreign capitalists to take over the Chinese economy, but he just laughed at me coldly. I admit I grew very fond of him. Every day I brought back delicious things for him to eat and drink. I lost hours of sleep, worrying that one day the police would find him and take him away. My attachment to him was so deep that I managed to sit through my girlfriend’s suicide performance without shedding a tear.