A Dog’s Luck

by Liora Barash Morgenstern

  I heard or imagined I heard (to me it is one and the same) her rubbing her hands together and asking him to tell her “with complete honesty” what good it did Shlomo, who was still unable to develop a relationship with a woman:

  “Big deal! Big goddamn deal!”

  And she recommended that next time he spare her such dubious examples, which accomplish the exact opposite.

  “This is about you. You owe it first and foremost to yourself. It can’t go on this way… I, at least, won’t…”

  I sat down.

  The cool floor burned under me.

  I took off my backpack.

  Put it down quietly.

  And my breath caught in my chest when he began talking about the family history and the tests she had undergone:

  “C.T…”

  M.R.I…”

  And the results…

  All

  Confirm:

  “Everything

  …is in order.”

  I could barely stifle my sigh of relief.

  Apart from that, I didn’t care about anything: not whether Mom believed I would accept that this year my birthday was “especially worth celebrating…” and not about the fact that she did not open her heart to him only to have him “play on her guilt with the virtuosity of a master.”

  Mom was silent.

  And so was Dad.

  I also wasn’t bothered by the time that passed, until I heard her mumbling with a somewhat reconciled voice:

  “I am a strange combination of a mixer and a cemented cistern which does not lose a drop, as Rabbi Eliezer ben Horkenus’s retentive mind was described: everything gets mixed inside me and nothing is ever lost. And you’re an incorrigible fixer: you want to fix a problem and move on, as if it never existed…”

  From my current metaphorical outlook, as I am in the midst of writing my doctoral dissertation, I cannot help but take notice of Mom’s methodical way of using this linguistic means: as with every metaphor, Mom creates a paradoxical collision. Since it is outright self-evident that Mom is neither “a mixer” nor a “plastered cistern,” just as Dad is not an “incorrigible fixer,” these paradoxical collisions allow her to create metaphorical spacing. And in turn, the metaphorical spacing provides her with optimal distance that enables her to clarify in which sense is she talking about “a mixer and a plastered cistern” and an “incorrigible fixer,” rather than about her and Dad. Thus, this means of linguistic usage allows her to express, with utmost precision, what she intends to say, without provoking any unnecessary objection.

  Only that all this was light years away from me when I stood up.

  Massaged my frozen buttocks.

  “I can only conclude from this that you’ve given up on my anxieties,” her voice became wistful: “Otherwise, you, who look down on psychology, wouldn’t wash your hands of this and refer me to therapy.”

  Dad asked her not to put words in his mouth and not use every word he uttered against him, because nothing good would come out of it…

  “Ido, let’s not open up a new front: Ellienka will be late. And you also have to get to the office,” she said, redirecting the morning back to its course.

  And with a low voice added that she longs for the day when he will listen and simply say:

  “I heard.

  I understand.

  Without giving advice.

  Not every talk calls for action.”

  Slowly slowly the storm blew over.

  I reslung my backpack on my shoulder.

  Retraced my steps on my tiptoes.

  And decisively advanced toward the door.

  Champion and Grandpa walked in after me. The lucidness of his gaze and the color of his cheeks attested to an improvement in his condition. Mom, whose stomach, like most thin people, becomes blocked when she’s stressed, also nibbled on something. And just in case, remained home with Grandpa for another day.

  The following day she returned to work, and Sue greeted me at the gate. At the entrance she turned her tail on me and vanished into thin air, as if compensating for the period in which she was bound to the pups. Champion, who raced to get there first, went back to lying at my feet during mealtimes, eagerly awaiting his treats.

  The dinner table conversations once again revolved around current affairs in Israel and around the globe, mainly for the sake of Grandpa, who had weaned himself from the different media outlets “which are competing with each other to incite their readers.”

  “Let’s not kid ourselves,” I often heard him say:

  “Style is message par excellence.

  And I will not be a party to it.”

  I took pleasure in the loftiness of the conversation, from Dad who spoke about the “euphoria” that took hold of us following our swift triumph in the Six Day War, to Mom who concurred with Dad, a victory of the likes we had not experienced since David defeated Goliath.

  “Enlightened occupation is a contradiction in terms,” she recited to me.

  In one voice they spoke about the occupation, that “if they don’t find a way to end it, it will turn into the First Intifada.” “But not the last…” Dad cautioned. With visual language Mom illustrated “the West—smugly sitting by the ‘fleshpots’ while neglecting vital interests. And the leaders of Islamic fundamentalism—who, with Oriental patience, are lurking for an opportunity.” Dad once again warned that “if the West doesn’t act quickly to unite the moderate forces that exist in the Arab world as well, terrorism will spread like wildfire. No country will be immune.” And at that point in time, he still pinned his hopes on the conversations that were to take place between the leaders of the two “superpowers.” Like him, Mom also believed in the emerging prospects of ending the “Cold War,” and even back then predicted that it would bear implications for the chances to settle the conflict in our region.

  Among other topics, the issue of the anticipated wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union was also raised at the table. And Dad predicted that it would “reshuffle—though not for long!—the demographic deck held by the Palestinians.” Apart from “injecting new blood of educated immigrants,” they were both wishing for an enlightened leadership that would know how to take advantage of the narrow window of opportunity about to open in order to increase the efforts to reach direct channels of communication:

  “Zealousness, especially religious,” they agreed, “undermines moderate foundations everywhere…”

  When she deliberated, as she still does, over how to enable the new immigrants to become acquainted with the reality of life here before they drop their ballot into the box, he raised the possibility (which he still doesn’t rule out): of introducing a third amendment to the Law of Return and to enact a naturalization process (like they do in the States, for example), “so that they will vote for what’s best for them here, rather than against what they left behind,” as he explained to Grandpa, who nodded.

  The moment he touched upon the increase in suicides among soldiers—Mom pierced him with a look that took the wind out of the sails of the conversation.

  “The change in the menu is to the pups’ liking,” Grandpa broke the silence. “And despite this, they will not stop harassing her:

  Sue runs for her life.

  And they don’t give up.

  If they are mature enough to chase the nipple, they are mature enough to settle for solid food,” he said, sounding more determined than ever.

  By the way, Mom suggested that before we allow them to enter the kitchen, we let them eat solid food in the garage.

  Grandpa was pleased.

  So was Dad.

  In this pleasant atmosphere Dad raised a new subject: We all love the magnificent seven. But after all, we already have two dogs. And the pups will soon be weaned. And we should start thinking about finding them proper homes:

  “We’re not talking about...” he stressed and paused, “tomorrow morning…” he looked up at Mom.

  And not about the day after tomorrow…


  But we have to start preparing ourselves to part from them.

  Mom lowered her head.

  And twiddled a ball of Sue’s fur between her fingers.

  “Apropos of Sue,” Grandpa carried on the conversation, saying that during the days he spent in bed regaining his strength, he had time to think: in the history of philosophy it was not the famous duo, Socrates, who strove to prove to his interlocutors that they did not know what they thought they knew, and Plato, his disciple, who put “his teacher’s provocations into writing. But, rather, it was Aristotle—who had the audacity and integrity to praise idleness and its vital role in reaching intellectual breakthroughs.” A dubious smile spread across his face.

  From a distance of place and time, I am amazed at how nimbly he skipped across thousands of years, and returned to our conversation and to my “good reasoning,” when I drew his attention to the injustice he had done him:

  “If I spoke canine, I would apologize to you, Champion.”

  At the mention of his name, he rushed to Grandpa and placed his head on his thigh.

  Mussing his shiny fur, Grandpa noted that while soul-searching, he had realized that not only had Champion stopped harassing Sue since the whelping, but throughout his current visit… toward him, too—he demonstrates hyper-consideration:

  “You might have noticed, my Champion, that I am no longer as steady as I used to be.”

  And now, being exempt from competing with Sue, who has followed him devotedly from her early days, he is bestowing upon him special attention.

  “And had we not talked,” he addressed me.

  “And had it not been for the blessed idleness,” he continued, and stared at his daughter:

  “I would have taken no notice of this, either.”

  And “avowedly” apologized for the mistreating of Champion when supporting his expulsion from the mother of his offspring and his pups.

  Dad was silent.

  Mom, too, didn’t utter a word.

  “I feel just like you,” he addressed me once again: “I, too, am unable to tell whether the position I held has affected his fatherhood, but that does not mean I had the right, and certainly not the justification, to treat him as I did.” And even now Champion held no grudge against him, and hadn’t changed his attitude toward him in the least, on the contrary.

  “Please, Ido.”

  With the wave of his hand he hushed Dad, lest he forgets;

  At the time he justified this with the saying—

  “Once bitten, twice shy…”

  As if withdrawing into himself:

  “I was speaking about my own scar.

  Or to be precise, mine and your mother’s.”

  He cleared his throat, and his voice remained muffled.

  “When what happened, happened…” he took a deep breath:

  “Your mother was indeed exactly your age, Ellienka…”

  And the moisture returned to his voice when he spoke about my birthday… which for him, too, holds a special meaning: how fortunate and how blessed he is to have me as a granddaughter.

  “And as for the scar…”

  Once again the vitality drained:

  “The scar cannot be erased.

  And every now and then, it still itches…”

  He spoke to me, and looked sideways at his daughter.

  “However, neither a bite nor a scar can justify casting aspersions on a dog who cannot defend himself. Thus, I cannot but hope that next time I will be wise enough not to act heartlessly…”

  I didn’t need more than that.

  If I still had an ember left inside me, it too had extinguished.

  Dad brought the video camera. Mom commemorated him squinting as he took his imaginary hat off to Grandpa:

  “Soon we will celebrate the bar mitzvah of our acquaintance.

  And it’s the first time I’ve heard such words from you.”

  He wore the imaginary hat again. And took it off to me, too. And concluded with an awkward bow accompanied by a twirling hand gesture:

  “The peewee owes her life to the two of you.

  And who knows better than you, Dad, what they say about he who saves one soul in Israel.”

  Chapter 3

  Now, as I stand at the front of the stage, hearing the tempos and the dynamics, and as I navigate more freely between the scales, the passion is stronger than ever.

  The baton is alert.

  And I long to be carried forward.

  Onward.

  To trace the voices and the silences, until there remains not a shred of a single cell that isn’t an integral part of texture.

  And once the last chord dies out…

  The door opens again.

  It’s Josh, the youngest pup to whom Sue gave birth on a surreal patriotic Scud missile night in the midst of the first Gulf War in a shallow pit she dug in the patio. And I recall that until I realized that it was Sue there, warming a pup, and not the black rock in the patio—even Mom did not suspect. Partly because when she became pregnant with seven, she swelled accordingly. And mostly, due to the fact that from the day we gave away the last of the puppies, upon the first sign of Sue going into heat, Mom rushed to remove Champion to the kennel. Seeing that the pup was conceived by the Holy Spirit, right then and there he was given the name: Joshua. And being a single pup to his parents, without further ado it was clear: Josh is staying.

  Today, he too has grown old.

  And he no longer pushes the door with force as he used to.

  Sue sluggishly rises.

  And slowly stumbles away.

  Josh, who tyrannizes her as his father once did, as evident even now by the dreadlocks she always has on her nape, bares his teeth.

  I warn him.

  He does not react.

  I call her.

  Sue staggers.

  Josh precedes her.

  And lifts his head.

  I pull my arm away.

  Reprimand him.

  And he ignores me.

  Sue collapses by his side.

  Sticks out her tongue.

  And passionately licks his ear.

  I close my eyes.

  And with an odd sadness I am carried away toward Grandpa, who wasn’t in the garage upon my return from school. I called out to him. And he didn’t answer. Eventually I went into his room.

  And I found him slouched in the rocking chair, with ‘The Little Prince’ resting on his knees, opened to a random page.

  When his staring gaze stumbled upon me, his face lit up.

  “Why are you not with the pups?”

  I asked.

  “Why are you not in the garage?”

  I wouldn’t let go.

  “Can we not ever pick a different subject to talk about?!”

  He finally wondered with a bleary voice.

  That evening, Dad announced that the ad would be published in two local papers over the weekend. And he tasked me with rounding up the inquiries and screening the callers.

  Mom sat in the armchair in the TV nook in the kitchen, and made use of the time to return phone calls she hadn’t gotten around to in the office.

  Champion and Sue accompanied Dad and me.

  Dad barely managed to stop him from charging at the food, which the pups had devoured entirely in the blink of an eye, leaving not a single crumb.

  When we let them in:

  He burst forth, obviously, first.

  Sue behind him.

  And the trail of scurrying teddy bears was led by peewee, who rapped against the floor and hovered above it like a wind-up toy.

  Sue fled as fast as her legs could carry her and took cover underneath the armchair.

  Mom bent over and buried her head in her fur.

  Champion noticed and rushed to nudge her and take her place.

  Mom scolded him and continued to smoothen her fur, rolling the never-ending balls she had shed.

  “He’s bullying her.

  Call him,” she requested.

 
; When he didn’t react, she instructed me to call her, “And you’ll soon see an abracadabra,” she promised.

  “Suki, come to…”

  Before I could complete the sentence, he presented himself beside me.

  It’s an “elementary trick in reverse psychology,” she explained:

  With him—there are no two ways about it.

  With her, it never has any effect.

  Just as she avoids confrontations with the “father of her offspring,” she also doesn’t compete with him for attention.

  Grandpa suggested a different hypothesis:

  Being mature and wise, she… knows how to calculate her conduct.

  She… is not preoccupied with nonsense.

  And she avoids instigating futile confrontations.

  No matter how hard we try, the other… —there is no way of changing.

  I was enraged by her self-effacement and submissiveness before Champion.

  “She… is acting as she acts…” Grandpa said in her defense.

  “Everyone acts as they act—so does Champion!”

  As if it had not been extinguished, at once the lava in the volcano inside me reignited and blazed:

  “That’s always true! That isn’t saying anything!” I confronted him.

  “Slow down there, my granddaughter,” he requested. “It is indeed a truism that is by definition self-evident. But that does not mean it is easy to internalize it, let alone come to terms with it. Instead of nurturing futile expectations and suffering bitter disappointments and disillusionments, Sue… labors to constitute a solid and supportive family. And does so with unmatched success.