Barefoot Dogs

by Antonio Ruiz-Camacho

  In one clumsy, acrobatic movement, Catalina scoops him up and switches position. The baby’s now on the other side of the bed and hooked up to the other breast. She’s a bear with her cub.

  The squeaking resumes. The walls in the room are naked, like the rest of the apartment. We wanted to bring our furniture from Mexico City with us, but we didn’t have time. We wanted to find a new home for our palm plants, but we couldn’t. The day we left, Catalina and I dragged them out to the backyard, hoping that they would catch the summer rain and make it. On our first days in Madrid, when we started looking for a place to live, we were offered furnished flats in fancier districts, but we turned them all down. The idea of using someone else’s furniture was humiliating and depressing. We settled for this empty apartment on Guzmán el Bueno Street in the Argüelles neighborhood, on the second floor of a gray building from the mid-Franco era.

  Someone at the Mexican embassy suggested Ikea. On our first visit we bought the bed, the crib, some chairs, a table, a couch, cutlery, blankets. It was fun and cozy. It seemed like a newfound home, orderly and safe. Everything was so inexpensive we could have afforded half the store, so on our second trip we went crazy buying candle holders, framed photographs of skylines, pillows, cactuses, handwoven baskets, stuffed snakes. In our apartment, the things that we bought felt cheap and used, like hand-me-downs. We went back the next day and returned almost everything. We have a TV that we got at El Corte Inglés. When the baby’s asleep and we want to stop talking about Mexico or thinking about my father, we turn it on. We laugh at the way people speak here on TV; everybody sounds pompous or impertinent. Late-night shows feature people who get naked in front of the cameras or insult each other with phrases like Me cago en tus muertos or Hostia puta, that no one would dare utter back home. We watch TV a lot, but we don’t watch news.

  Belisario finishes breakfast. Catalina’s nipple hangs in the air, glossy purple and blistered, until she pulls down the T-shirt and cuddles back in bed. I place the baby back in the crib. His eyes chase mine, but I look at his knees, his toes. I turn on the mobile that hovers above his head, and a herd of stuffed horses chase each other in circles.

  I need coffee. I head for the kitchen.

  In the living room I find Zurbarán stooped over a pool of something visceral, throwing up. His belly lets air in and out heavily, like a squeaky toy. The puddle is almost his size, green and revolting; little dark red lumps float on the surface like islands of blood adrift in a sea of bile.

  He notices me and squints; his little nugget starts to rattle. It’s around the time I normally take him out for the first walk. We stroll around the neighborhood at least three times a day, but some days even four, five, especially if Catalina tries to get me alone with the baby. Zurbarán is my out.

  He’s a mutt, but he doesn’t look like it, except for the tail and the crooked ears. When he was a puppy, the kids in the gated community back home used to mistake him for a German shepherd—it was hilarious to see their scandalized faces when I explained that he wasn’t pedigree, that he was just a stray dog from the streets.

  Catalina found him one evening when she was coming home from work, on the corner of Reforma and Prado Sur. He was just a pup, full of worms, his body the size of a human heart. Someone had macheted off his tail, but the abuser saved one caudal bone, a bright white tip collared by a rim of ruby flesh that eventually grew skin and hair, and that he now shakes like a single maraca whenever he’s anxious or merry. But mostly anxious.

  He throws up again. There’s more blood. Last night he was fine. When we got his passport and immunization records back in Mexico, the vet said he looked healthy as a gem. He barfs silently. I don’t know if it’s the stench of baby shit or what, but the vomit doesn’t have a particularly unpleasant smell. His front legs tremble each time he lurches forward.

  I don’t want this to be real. I need to wake up. I walk to the kitchen.

  The size of the apartment isn’t bad, but the kitchen, fuck. Our walk-in closet back home was larger than this. In Mexico, houses have separate laundry rooms. Washing machines would never be installed in the kitchen. The real estate agent said it was a regular kitchen by middle-class European standards. She said it as if it were a highlight.

  Yesterday’s coffee is in the carafe. I pour a cup and heat it in the microwave. It tastes trashy and metallic.

  In Mexico, we’d never have to brew coffee ourselves.

  I pour a second cup and go back to the living room, waiting to see Zurbarán ready for a walk, jumping high in the air like every morning. The puddle gone.

  I reach the living room. The mess is still there.

  Zurbarán’s lying next to it, belly and hind legs and paws soaked in vomit, eyes closed. I squat down next to him, and he opens his eyes. I breathe in, and the only smell that reaches me is the aroma of microwaved coffee.

  In our room Catalina and the baby are now awake, lying in bed. The air is stifling. Down on the street, motorcycles dash by one after another, and two women are fighting over someone whose attention they’re both after. The argument is getting heated, but neither Catalina nor the baby seems to care. He’s playing with the tips of her frizzy brown hair. She’s humming a tune I don’t recognize. “Hey there,” she says sweetly, giving me a lazy smile. “Come on, join us.”

  “Something’s wrong with Zurbarán,” I say. “Looks like he’s been puking all night.”

  “What?” she asks, stroking the baby’s back. The smile vanishes.

  “There’s a pool of vomit in the living room. There’s blood in it.”

  “Oh my God.” She covers her mouth. “Is he gonna die?”

  “Don’t know. I know nothing about sick dogs.”

  “What are we gonna do if he dies?” she whispers, as if she didn’t want the baby to hear. Her face turns white, like the blanket.

  “I don’t know.” My eyes fill with tears. Catalina, and the baby, and the room grow blurry in front of me.

  The first box arrived six weeks after my father disappeared. We hadn’t had any news of him yet. The kidnapping expert recommended that we all move to my father’s house. One Saturday in early July, around noon, the doorbell rang. Ermelinda, one of the maids, answered the door. She came back to the living room saying a FedEx guy was asking for my brother. Victoriano went outside and came back with a box. It wasn’t a FedEx box; it was a regular box, one you could get for free at a grocery store, badly sealed. He said it was heavy and cold. The living room grew silent. Victoriano placed it on the table, and we all circled around it. The label said it had been sent by Alice, no last name. Everybody in the house sensed it had something to do with my father, so the maids and the gardener came out of the kitchen and joined us in the living room, but my brother asked them to leave. The label showed the box had been shipped from Wonderland, Texas. The kidnapping expert, Ramiro Alcázar was his name, opened his laptop and googled it, but he couldn’t find the place. Catalina felt dizzy. I asked if she was okay. She said she was, but her face had turned pale. My sisters coaxed her to go upstairs. She was due in a matter of days. The women in our families would look at her swollen belly and say it was pointy. They’d say we were expecting a boy for sure. We had decided not to find out. I wanted it to be a girl, but I never told anyone. I couldn’t bear the idea of having a boy.

  The label read: “This is the first gift.” Alcázar lifted the box, sensing its weight. He suggested it would be better if he opened it alone, but Victoriano and I refused to leave. He said we needed to be ready for whatever might be in that box, but my brother cut him off and yelled, “Open the fucking box already!” Alcázar slit the box top open with a cutter and took out a ziplock bag filled with ice. He slid open the bag and found another ziplock bag inside. He slid open the second bag and found my father’s right foot.

  • • •

  It’s around ten, and we’re on our way to the vet. Zurbarán hasn’t thrown up agai
n since we left the apartment. He walks more slowly than usual and limps every now and then, but he seems as happy to be out in the sun as ever. I don’t know how he pulls it off, this enthusiasm, blinding and absurd.

  Buildings around us grow taller as we walk. Madrid is a maze of bricks and aluminum, dull facades, and dry, suffocating air. A desert of urban debris. Three a.m. back home. The city is more alive when it’s dark than when the sunlight struggles to push through smog. Dew and quiet are blanketing Mexico City, and I’m here, at the other end of the planet. Stoplights blinking out of order, decorations of the Mexican coat of arms glowing on every corner, incandescent and meaningless. And someone’s probably being pulped to death somewhere in the rough edges of the city, in the core of the city. The city, somewhere. Brutal and impossible to let go of.

  The vet is located on Vallehermoso, a few blocks away from the apartment. Zurbarán and I pass in front of it from time to time, whenever I decide to walk him east instead of south. It’s called Anubis Clínica Veterinaria, bookended between a futon boutique called Cha Chi Nap and Tintorería La Rosa de los Prodigios, a dry cleaner’s.

  Catalina is pushing the stroller forward with the baby inside. He’s chewing on the sombrero of the stuffed Emiliano Zapata that my older sister Laura gave him as a farewell gift. She didn’t lose her sense of humor after my father disappeared. She said Madrileños would look at Belisario with that toy and think we were a family of Zapatistas, exiles of a different kind. No one laughed.

  I glance at the baby. He is determined to tear the outrageous toy apart. I suddenly wish I had the courage to hold him. Sing him to sleep. Comfort him in my arms. Make him feel safe.

  We’re about to enter the clinic when Catalina stops and says we need to talk first.

  “Are the three of us going in there with him?” she asks.

  I frown. I don’t get where she’s going.

  “I don’t think a veterinary clinic is the healthiest place for a young baby.”

  “Well,” I say, peeking through the window, “looks like a pretty hygienic place to me. This is Europe. I bet those European cats and dogs are healthier than the three of us put together.”

  “Remember that nice playground I took Belisario to a couple days ago?” she asks. “It’s just around the corner. Why don’t you and him wait for me and Zurby there?”

  I hate when she calls him Zurby. This is a mutt with a severed tail, not a goddamn poodle.

  “Don’t know. I think it’s better if I take care of the dog. What if Belisario gets hungry and you’re not there?”

  “He just ate before we came,” she says. “He’ll be fine. I can take care of Zurby. You always take him out for walks. Let me give you a hand with him for once.” And she adds, “Also, it would be great if you guys could spend some time on your own, mommy-free.”

  I glare at her.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  She sighs and scratches the tip of her nose. The baby keeps gurgling; he’s now shaking Zapata like he wants to break it.

  “Let’s not talk about this here, okay?”

  “You brought it up, not me.”

  “I brought what up?”

  “You know what. Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

  We look at each other. I fear I might have a panic attack right here. My eyes get moist. Hers too.

  • • •

  After the second box arrived, Alcázar advised us to move abroad; he said no one in Mexico could guarantee our safety anymore. Victoriano ordered everybody in the family to leave as soon as possible. We moved to Madrid because Catalina and the baby could get Spanish passports quickly. During the Civil War, her grandparents fled Toledo and ended up in Mexico City. When Franco died and the dictatorship ended, it was too late to go back.

  When we landed in Barajas, no one was waiting for us.

  Laura and her family moved to Austin; Carolina and her family to Palo Alto; Daniela and hers to Stamford. Victoriano is the only one who remains in Mexico, taking care of everything we left behind until he can leave too.

  We don’t know anybody here.

  “You know I love you,” Catalina mumbles. Her face is red, eyes swollen. The dog’s taking a nap by the stroller’s wheels. Beads of sweat break out on my sides, my chest, my temples. “But you can’t keep doing this,” she adds. “You have to be with him. He needs you.”

  It’s getting hotter by the minute. The air is sandy and narcotic, and the sidewalk feels chewy under my feet. The honeyed scent of the sycamore trees that green Madrid’s arid streets, and which I’ve never smelled before, gets stuffy in my nose.

  “I take care of Zurbarán,” is all I say. She doesn’t challenge me. She looks at Belisario, who has thrust the toy aside and is now exploring his fingers with his mouth. I look at the dog, his ruby tongue dangling from his mouth.

  “We’ll be at the playground,” she says quietly. “Meet us there when you finish.”

  I want to tell her I love her. Tell her I’m sorry we’re going through this shit because of my family. Grab her and Belisario and Zurbarán, and take a cab to Barajas and get us flight tickets back to Mexico City and fuck the rest, but I just nod.

  I pull Zurbarán gently by the leash, and the two of us walk into the vet.

  The smell.

  It reeks of dog food and birdseed and disinfectant. The AC must be broken; it’s almost as hot in here as it is out in the street. High-pitched barks and running water and the muffled chatter of female voices come from the back of the clinic. The ceiling is too low; the neon lights, bright blue and sickening.

  A young nurse with piercings and bright green hair checks us in. She’s tiny like a hummingbird. It’s hard to believe she could save any living thing’s life, but she moves resolutely around the dog. She squats down next to him and pets him.

  “You’re such a handsome guy,” she says. Zurbarán wags his whole body. Whenever he gets excited, he looks like he’s dancing salsa. The nurse cracks up and pets him again, playing with his crooked ears. “What’s wrong with his paws?” she asks.

  “Oh, nothing,” I say, surprised by the question. “I brought him in because he’s been throwing up all night.”

  “I see,” she says, the cheerful tone slipping. “But there’s also something wrong with his paws, isn’t there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She holds one of the dog’s front paws and carefully folds it up so I can see. Zurbarán lets out a short cry. The nurse stares at me. No longer charming or sweet. I avert my gaze to the tiled white, stained floor, and blink. Blink.

  “See this paw?” she asks with severity. “Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed.”

  The paw’s pad is blistered and bleeding, a yellowish fluid mixed with blood. She comforts Zurbarán with little coos while she checks the other pads. All of them look the same. I don’t know what to say. She rises and takes Zurbarán’s leash away from me.

  “What’s his name?” she asks. I say it. She doesn’t react. Doesn’t say, “What an original name” or, “Cool!” the things I used to get when I introduced him to people back home. She tells me to take a seat, and coaxes Zurbarán to come along with her.

  I watch the nurse and my dog walk away through a corridor decorated with posters of animals and one that shows Victoria Abril as she dressed in the movie Kika, petting a macaw, along with the caption “Tropical Birds Belong in the Wild!”

  I’m alone in the waiting area. The silence swells achy in my ears.

  • • •

  We were not with my family when the second box arrived. After the baby was born, Alcázar suggested that we go to the family’s weekend house in San Miguel de Allende. We’d feel more relaxed there, he said. Victoriano called one evening
a few weeks later. Eva, our maid, picked up the phone and said we were busy giving Belisario a bath. Catalina was. I was in the bedroom, installing a play yard we’d received as a gift days before. While I inspected the instructions, I heard my wife in the bathroom say, “Who’s my little marmot?” The smell of baby shampoo reached my nose, and I imagined Belisario covered in bubbles. I imagined us far away, in a place where the baby had just been born and nothing else had changed. I could almost bring myself to join Catalina in the bathroom to bathe our son together. It was a balmy moment of light, a lapse of happiness.

  Eva knocked on the door. I said we were busy, and she replied that it was my brother. That it was an emergency.

  “This is it, Martín,” Victoriano said.

  “What happened?”

  “You guys need to come back right now. I think this is fucking it.”

  “Calm down.” I heard my own voice shudder. “Tell me what happened.”

  He breathed heavily into the phone, as if he hadn’t heard my question. I’d never heard Victoriano in such a state. He’s the oldest son. Dad’s golden boy. Everything Victoriano did was always so fucking wondrous in his eyes. Always so impossible to beat. But that evening he’d become frail and antsy, a damselfly.

  He couldn’t go on at first. He broke down on the phone. My heart started to pound. I was filled with anticipation and horror.

  “Another box arrived,” he mumbled after a while.

  “What was in it?” I asked, my mind going blank, limbs numb.

  “I can’t say it on the phone. Come back as soon as possible; we’ll talk here.”

  “Tell me what was in that box,” I insisted.

  In the bathroom, Catalina praised the little marmot for being such a sport. It was raining outside. I wondered if it was raining in Mexico City as well. I wondered about the size of this new box.

  “Was it an ear?” I heard myself asking out loud.

  Victoriano kept weeping, unable to reply. Something had changed between us. I felt so calm I was startled. Drunk with a feeling that was new to me.