Galina Petrovna’s Three-Legged Dog Story. Andrea Bennett
‘It’s always the sewers, and the bins. Look, I’ve never been to the cinema, but I can tell you that it is that way.’ Mitya indicated the boulevard to their left with a slightly shaking finger. ‘Your map is clearly out of date. Or maybe you’ve got it upside down – I hear women often do that. Now, I have important work to do, so, please be on your way.’
Katya looked him up and down slowly, her eyes seeming to reach into every nook and crevice of his body, through his clothes. Mitya shuddered slightly and again felt his skin flush.
‘OK, thank you. But you should go to the cinema some time. They have some good films these days. You could learn a lot! Oh, and,’ she stepped towards him slightly, leaning in conspiratorially, ‘your flies are undone, soldier!’ With a tinkling laugh and a wink she turned and ambled off up the boulevard, her hands swinging slightly, everything about her looking light and fresh and clean and happy.
Mitya yanked up his flies with his sticky hand and for a few seconds watched her progress up the street, wishing he had his binoculars: the binoculars that were languishing in the bottom of the rancid bin. He turned to examine the square: the dangerous tri-ped was still sitting there and the children were still in danger. He turned for one final glance at Katya’s receding backside, and then stared at the patch of earth disturbed by her tiny, perfect foot a minute ago. There was nothing else for it: he was going to have to retrieve his equipment.
‘Hey, you, Citizen Child!’ he called out to a small boy playing under a bench on the edge of the square. ‘I’ve got a task for you. I’ll give you five roubles if you’ll get my binoculars out of this bin.’ He pointed to the bin.
‘Get them yourself, stinky!’ replied the small boy, before running off to find his babushka.
Mitya sighed, and cautiously set about climbing into the bin.
* * *
Ten minutes later, like a cabbage-encrusted stay-pressed sheriff from the old Wild West, Mitya loped into the courtyard towards the dog, his pole over one shoulder and a few streaks of pork fat in the opposite hand. He had egg stains on his trousers and something unmentionable sticking to the sole of his left shoe, but he didn’t care: the binoculars were again his, and now he was fully primed to bag this three-legged son-of-a-bitch.
‘Here doggie doggie doggie!’ he called in a strange, soft, high-pitched voice.
The children on the swings looked up at Mitya’s approach. Old ladies buried their stories mid-grumble and sucked in their gums, while the little ones at their feet moved back, their snot-sticky fingers forgotten half-way between nose and mouth. Masha, the tallest and the leader of the gang, stopped stirring her dirt pie and dropped the stirring stick back on to the dusty ground, hands hanging by her sides, watching. The Exterminator’s steps were unhurried, taking him gently over the ground that separated him and the dog in his sights.
‘That dog isn’t stray,’ said Masha, bravely.
‘Hush, Citizen Child. This dog has no collar.’ Mitya stepped forward, and extended his hand towards the canine.
‘Yes, but she’s not a stray,’ she persisted, doubt and fear making her voice wobble slightly, and she frowned.
‘Yes, she’s right – this dog is no stray!’ Baba Krychkova broke in.
‘It has no collar. It is illegal. And it is dangerous.’ Mitya approached ever nearer, moving carefully, his feet barely making a sound.
‘But she belongs to Galina Petrovna!’
‘No, little girl: it belongs to me.’
Boroda, who had been dozing with the scent of wild olive all around her, woke with a start and peered up at the stranger moving slowly towards her. She felt an odd sort of twinge: she sensed pork fat, mixed with a riot of other scents that made her hair stand on end. But the pork fat was the strongest, in fact somewhat overpowering. The hand that reached out to her was relatively clean and calm and sure, the finger-nails short. She hesitated, and heard a strange chorus of barking from somewhere nearby but closed off. She couldn’t make it out: her hearing wasn’t as good as it had been as a pup. The hair on her back was still raised, her spine tingling, but she felt safe here in the courtyard, with the old ladies and the children. She inspected the stranger more closely as best she could in the dusk. She sensed no vodka or big sticks, and he certainly didn’t appear drunk. And people with pork fat were generally good, weren’t they?
The shrieking at the House of Culture peaked to a crescendo that threatened to crack the windows and then died down slowly, somewhat like a fire ripping through several shops and an old people’s home, consuming everything in its path but now reducing to glowing embers, every so often expelling a mouthful of acrid yellow sparks and fizzes of burning fat. Vasya had corralled the oldest old woman and her gang to one side of the hall with the promise of tea and cards and the strategic positioning of some folding chairs, while the second oldest old woman and her hangers-on were hemmed in on the opposite side, being plied with biscuits and soothed with spider plants. In the middle, there was a floating ridge of ladies who had no interest in politics, history or rain, and they presided over an uneasy peace. Vasya congratulated himself on having restored some sort of order and felt the chances of successfully bringing off the Lotto draw were now not worse than evens.
As calm was restored within the hall and relative quiet ensued, a row of barking dogs broke out like sniper fire, far off on a distant river bank, giving the breeze a sharp and threatening edge as it drifted over the town. Galia, dishing out biscuits and helpful tuts and sighs to the ladies who hated Communism, hesitated mid-flow on hearing the noise. It was a good thing that Boroda was at home under the table, out of the way of those packs of stray dogs. She recalled the mutts she had seen that day outside the railway station: wild and toothy with matted fur and dripping backsides. She collected herself, and asked if anyone had any further questions about the cabbage root fly.
As she sat down after batting away a vague concern over the use of pesticides – all methods of defence must be considered – a chill ran through her as she remembered that Boroda was not locked inside the flat, but was out in the courtyard. The noise of the dogs was continuing, getting louder and then dipping away again, making no sense, like troublesome conversations in a bad dream. During a lull in the barking, the sleeping man, utterly peaceful until that point and marooned in the middle of the room, suddenly awoke with a cry and slipped from his chair on to the floor with an ominous, muffled crack. A furore of clucking broke out as twelve old ladies around him sprang from their perches to circle him like flapping chickens, or perhaps well-meaning vultures. The old man groaned as he was put in the recovery position by an old lady who had been a grocer, and then turned around and put in a different recovery position by an old lady who had been a nurse. An old lady who had been a construction worker was just about to have a go herself when Galia joined the fray, offering to straighten the old man’s leg if he bit on a metal spoon. His other leg was raised, and lowered, and raised again by the construction worker, as an old lady who had been a teacher tried to get everyone else to sit down and listen to her instructions. No-one listened to Galia’s offer to straighten the leg apart from Vasya, who begged her to be patient for a few moments while the construction worker attempted to find out which bit of the old man, if any, needed straightening. Galia stood by the Chairman’s desk and, with nothing else she could helpfully do at that moment, selected a red boiled sweet from the bowl in front of her and popped it into her mouth. The concentrated sweetness made her gold teeth ache, but still, it was sweet.
‘Turn him over!’ bellowed the construction worker.
‘Nooo!’ groaned the old man, who Galia now recognized as Petya, who used to be around six foot six and had been an engineer: quite high up, and once very athletic. A broad, tall, dependable man, who now lay on the floor being re-arranged by a gaggle of hens.
‘Citizens,