‘Well, all’s well that ends well, as they say!’ Vasya smiled and jerked his tea glass towards the light-fittings and moths in a toast. Galia leant away from the ice box and was about to stand to join in the toast when a sharp rap at the front door stopped her in mid-flow, hand raised, mouth open, eyes round.
‘Who’s that?’ she whispered. Boroda whined softly and stood up stiffly under the table, her claws stuttering slightly on the lino floor.
Vasya carefully propelled himself round on his stool with his long, spindly legs and peered out of the kitchen window into the warm, dark courtyard below. Once his eyes had adjusted to the depth of the gloom, he saw, lurking like a playground bully between the peeling swings and the weather-beaten chess tables, the unmistakable outline of a police car.
‘Galina Petrovna, I smell trouble,’ whispered Vasily, and pointed to the car with a nobbled finger.
There was another sharp rap at the door. This time the sound was harder, as if a baton, rather than a fist, was making contact.
‘Better let them in, my dear.’
‘I’ll let them in, in just a second. Boroda, get in the bedroom – in!’ Galia shooed the dog through the hall and into the bedroom, before gently sliding her inside the wardrobe, and behind a box of old photographs. She pushed the bedroom door to, and made her way stiffly across the hall. As she reached the threshold, the door vibrated in front of her eyes as more blows echoed through the quiet building. She took a deep breath, and slid back the bolts.
In the dim orange light of the hallway, she could make out two figures: one short and stocky, a dishevelled and obviously drunken policeman, and the other taller, younger, also dishevelled and smelling of sweat and dog crap. It was, of course, Mitya the Exterminator. His eyes were glassy, and they focused on a place somewhere behind her head. Behind the visitors, she perceived a number of grey heads popping out of other doors down the corridor, and then swiftly withdrawing at the sight of the representative of the law and his companion.
‘Citizens, I am sorry for the delay in opening the door, but it is very late. What can I do for you?’
‘Baba, Baba, don’t worry,’ cried the chubby policeman in a loud voice, wobbling slightly under the weight of his friendly words and leaning on the door jamb for support. ‘We know it’s late, but you’re welcome, very welcome … Do come in!’
Galia looked at him steadily and raised her eyebrows slowly. The policeman giggled and put a chubby fist into his mouth, realizing he had made some sort of mistake, but not quite able to work out what it was. The giggle gradually petered out, and he frowned instead, his glossy bottom lip protruding.
‘I warn you, be careful, Baba!’ he grimaced, fingering his gun holster with one clumsy hand and gesticulating towards his accomplice with the other. ‘Be careful, granny, he’s got teeth, this one. Oh, you – yes, you!’ here he pointed directly at Galia with a puffy finger, ‘need … to be careful! We all need to be careful!’ he giggled again, and leant against the wall more heavily, breathing hard. ‘Have you got any drink, Baba?’
Mitya cleared his throat, and winced, as if the action caused him pain. He should have warmed up in the car, he thought, but this drunken fool had distracted him. Now he appeared weak, nervous, mucus-ridden. The prolonged incident with his mother had, in truth, unnerved him somewhat and left him feeling slightly unwell. But the fight went on, and the canine had to be brought to justice, no matter how tired and spent he was. He could sense the damp from the basement on the East Side still sticking to his clothes, and his nostrils quivered as he caught a sour whiff of something, which he thought must be the policeman.
‘Orlova, Galina Petrovna?’ Mitya spoke, the pitch a little higher than he would have liked.
Galia nodded slowly, still looking at the greasy policeman, and wondering if she knew his mother.
‘You have in your apartment a dangerous dog, which I am here to remove.’ There was a pause, and Mitya coughed. ‘My colleague here, as you see, is somewhat tired. It has been a long day.’
‘It’s my saint’s day today, Baba!’ chipped in the policeman.
‘However, our actions have all the force of law, and he is armed. Now I call on you to stand aside so that the dangerous canine can be removed.’
‘It’s my saint’s day every day! This modern Russia is sooooo great!’
Galia ceased examining the drunken policeman and turned her gaze to Mitya the Exterminator.
‘Where are your papers, sir?’ she asked softly.
Mitya the Exterminator thrust seven sheets of paper into her face the instant the words left her mouth. All stamped, sealed, laden with official signature, her address, details, birth date, star sign even. She was about to relent and vacate the door space to allow them in, when Vasya joined her on the threshold, looking flushed, breathless, excited even: in a word, a dangerous condition for an elderly man in the middle of the night.
‘Now then young Mitya, we don’t want any trouble here,’ he began. The Exterminator’s eyes became clouded and his cheeks flushed a dull red at the words. ‘I am sure we can sort this out without any unpleasantness. What exactly is the complaint against the dog?’
There was a long pause, filled only with the sound of the policeman shifting from foot to foot and back again, a casual move that required a huge amount of concentration in his present state, and made the sweat drip off his stubby, turned-up nose. Mitya breathed deeply and evenly, his eyes still far off, his hands loose by his sides. Gradually, just as Galia was wondering whether he was still fully conscious, he drew his eyes back from the middle distance and re-focused on Vasya for a few seconds. He reached for his plastic-leather bum-bag and pulled out a notebook. He cleared his throat, peered closely at Vasya for a second time, and then started to read, ‘“That on the aforementioned date said canine did bite the official state dog warden both on the finger and on the ankle and when commanded to desist did recklessly continue to bite the official state dog warden further to said aforementioned place both on the calf and on the wrist. This being an offence under Article 27 of Presidential Decree 695 and in direct contravention of the laws of the Russian Federation, said dangerous dog is required to be exterminated forthwith before it becomes a menace to society.” And that’s the President of the Russian Federation that wants your dog dead, Citizen, not just me.’ Mitya finished with a rush and a prolonged frown.
‘But Boroda would never bite anyone, let alone an official state dog warden!’ cried Galia, offended on the dog’s behalf, and worried by the thought that the President himself could think so badly of her. ‘She is a good dog – a shy dog. She knows what it is to be a stray and has respect for all citizens. She knows an official when she sees one.’
‘A stray, you say?’ enquired Mitya.
Galia hesitated, her eyes wary, not sure what answer she should give.
‘But Galia, isn’t that the dog, exactly the dog, that you took to the river just this evening to drown?’
Galia glared at Vasya for a second as if he had pierced her heart with a knitting needle. Indeed, he thought she might at any minute attempt to strike him, as she raised her hand in horror and leant towards him. He even took a slight step back at the look in her eyes, inadvertently stepping on the drunken policeman’s bunion. This was a grave and fateful error, as he let out a howl that caused an answering howl to echo from deep within the apartment, which made the Exterminator’s left eye twitch. Galia regained her composure in an instant, as if slapped, and coughed loudly to try to drown out the sound of the howl. She nodded slightly at Vasya.
‘Yes, yes, Vasily Semyonovich, you’re right. Gosh was that your stomach – you must be hungry. We have been so busy this evening … The dog … had to go. Yes, she had turned a bit funny, and I am old, and I thought, well, I can’t cope, so … heart-breaking as it was—’
‘We dropped her in the river in a bag full of stones,’ Vasya confirmed quickly, pulling the door almost shut behind him, as he heard Boroda whining in the depths of the wardrobe.
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‘The dog is in the river?’ asked Mitya softly.
‘Yes, yes,’ Galia replied, eyes on his second button, hands twisting slightly in front of her. ‘She had to go. I didn’t really want to say … you know, people talk about rights for animals these days, and everything.’
Mitya removed a small red rubber ball from his bum-bag.
‘In the river, you say?’
‘Yes sir, in the river. About a mile down-stream from here. Where it’s deep.’
‘Stand aside, Elderly Citizens.’ He bent towards the door.
‘I say, have you got a permit to do that?’ asked Vasya gruffly.
Mitya squeezed the small red rubber ball sharply and deliberately, three times. It squeaked with a raw venom that zipped up the Elderly Citizens’ backbones and puckered their faces like limes. A small silence was followed by the inevitable clang of doom: a clatter of clever-stupid claws on the wardrobe door. ‘Here doggie, doggie, doggie!’ called Mitya in a strange, childlike voice, squeezing the ball again, and dropping a few morsels of bacon rind on the floor just inside the door.
‘Now then, young man, who gave you permission to strew—’ began Vasya.
‘Stand aside, Volubchik,’ commanded Mitya with some force, placing one finger in the centre of Vasya’s chest.
The squeak and the bacon rind had worked their sensual magic. Their long, chewy fingers of saltiness had reached out to the dog and hooked around her nose, dragging her forward almost against her will, out of the bedroom door and into the hallway, claws skittering softly on the ragged parquet despite herself, edging for the bacon rind and the door, the open door where her mistress stood talking to some familiar, but all the same slightly terrifying, guests. The dog gently scooped up the bacon rind with her tongue and chewed it with sad eyes as they watched. Then, rather apologetically, she wound herself behind Galia’s legs and whined softly.
‘She floats,’ said Mitya, ‘despite the stones: she has risen.’
‘Now please, Mitya, there’s no need to take the dog. I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement,’ and again Vasya reached for the greasy wad of notes tucked into his shirt. No man could resist the call of real Russian vodka, and fish dried right there on the riverbank, surely.
‘Put your money away. Officer, this is the second time in four hours that this man has attempted to bribe me, a state official and dog warden. But, Elderly Citizen, this time we have a state enforcer of the law on hand to witness it and I have no distractions to stand between me and bringing you to justice. You cannot get away with such undemocratic and anti-establishment behaviour a second time.’
Mitya waited for the chubby policeman to take action. All three of them, plus the dog, stood expectantly, gazing at Kulakov and waiting for the cop to take his cue. As it gradually became clear to all, including Boroda, that the chubby policeman was far too interested in the fluff inside his whistle and other contents of his breast pocket to take any individual action, Mitya pulled him to one side and hissed in his ear.
‘Officer Kulakov, arrest the old man: he is trying to bribe me! He is trying to bribe you, too! He is corrupting the State!’
‘Arrest him? What for?’
‘Look, I’ll give you two bottles: just arrest him.’
‘For what?’
‘Bribery!’
‘But all the paperwork, Citizen Exterminator, all the kerfuffle: it’s really too much. It’s more than my job’s worth. Really, let’s just go home.’
‘But a crime has been committed, Officer Kulakov.’
‘Ah, a crime, what crime? Oh, OK, OK … what was it?’
‘Bribery!’
‘Ah, yes … well, make it three bottles, and then I might consider it.’
‘Very well, three it is,’ said Mitya, releasing the policeman’s arm and wiping a clammy, warm feeling from his hand on to his trouser leg.
‘You, Citizen Old Man,’ the chubby policeman snapped in a piercing tone at odds with his padded appearance and previous demeanour, like a Poo Bear channelling Hitler at the Reichstag. ‘You are under arrest. Come with me, don’t struggle.’
The policeman lurched towards Vasya with quick, widely planted steps and deftly twisted the old man’s arm up behind his back with a cruelty that took even Mitya by surprise. Vasya yelped as the two began an unsteady march towards the stairs. Boroda, the quickest to react to this obviously unfair behaviour, launched herself across the hallway and tackled the policeman’s ankle just as he made the top of the stairs. Snarling, growling, snapping and yipping echoed from the stairwell walls as the policeman battled to free his ankle and Vasya struggled to free himself without tipping over the bannisters. Sharp white teeth sank into freckled sweating flesh and brought tears to the eyes of the policeman. Mitya could see that Kulakov was no match for this mutt and reached for his Taser, but couldn’t get a clear shot. He was tempted to shoot anyway, just to see what would happen, but was knocked to the ground face down by Galia who, after several seconds of total immobility, realized that things were looking worse for everyone, but especially her friends, and charged in to call Boroda off.
‘Boroda, quiet!’ Commanded Galia in a voice that shook the walls. The dog released the policeman and retreated towards the stairs. Mitya scrambled to his feet and, pushing the wailing chubby policeman out of the way, grabbed the dog by the scruff. She yelped as he lifted her high into the air and suspended her over the stairwell.
‘Quiet, Boroda,’ commanded Galia again as the dog twisted and turned in Mitya’s grasp, trying to get at least one fang into the sinews of his wrist. Mitya watched the dog’s efforts, and smiled, briefly.
‘Citizen Old Woman, the only thing stopping me from dropping this thing over the bannister is the mess it would make on my boots when I stepped through it on leaving the building. Uncontrolled canines are vermin, and this vermin must be controlled. I am now taking charge of this animal and it will be exterminated. You have the paperwork. It explains your rights.’
He started down the stairs.
‘What rights?’ shouted Galia after him, desperate.
‘To the body: you have none. It will be burnt, along with other vermin,’ with a half-smile, Mitya marched further down the steps with Boroda still held at arm’s length by the scruff of her neck, still twisting, still whining.
‘Please!’ wailed Galia.
‘Kulakov! Wake up and take that man to the station! Three bottles, remember?’ called Mitya from the next floor down. Vasya was, by this point, seeing to the injured Officer Kulakov, helping him back to his feet and offering him iodine and cotton wool, which he waved away with an oath.
‘My apologies, Citizen Old Man, but it seems you must accompany me to the station. Bring any medication you may need. This may take some time. I really must arrest you, you see.’ Leaning on each other, they began slowly down the concrete steps, Vasya supporting the wobbling policeman to the best of his ability. They passed Galia as she watched Mitya disappearing into the darkness with her dog.
‘Go inside, Galia, and lock the door. I’ll be OK. Don’t worry.’ Vasya shot Galia a worried look, but failed to catch her eye: she was still watching after Boroda, receding into the darkness, whimpering and afraid.
‘Don’t worry, Galina Petrovna, I’ll be OK,’ he shouted louder, ‘and I’ll free your dog! Don’t give up hope! We live in a democracy. Dogs must be free, just as people must be free!’
The words pierced Galia’s thick bubble of shock. ‘Vasya, be brave,’ she said. ‘We’ll get you out. You’ll see. We’ll get you out tomorrow. You and Boroda. I’ll make sure of that. They have no grounds for taking you!’
‘Tomorrow? We won’t even have started on the paperwork by tomorrow, Elderly Citizens,’ mumbled Officer Kulakov as he folded Vasya into the back of his Zhiguli police car and then took his position behind the wheel. ‘OK Citizen Old Man, we’re just going to have a little nap before we set off for the station, so just make yourself comfortable. There’s no point us getting there before six. No
thing ever happens there before six. We may as well sleep things off here a bit, and then go in with a clear head, don’t you think?’
Up in the apartment block, Galia stumbled back in to her flat and clicked the door shut. In the kitchen, with no company save the empty dog box under the table and Vasya’s tea glass, still half full, waiting for him to complete his toast to the bright future, she began to shake. The only sound now was the clock, ticking away the quiet, lonely night, with an occasional soft bong to mark the march towards dawn.
6
The Plan
Galina Petrovna did not sleep well. After struggling to undress, feeling like an old woman, maybe the oldest old woman in the town, or even in the whole of Russia, she eased her way into her favourite, most comforting poplin night dress and lay on her bed, exhausted but wide awake. She was barely able to unwind her lids and shut her eyes, let alone nod off. Her eyeballs stuck to her eyelids; there was no comfort in her head, and no restfulness in her body. She lay taut on top of the covers and stared at the top of the wardrobe door. After several minutes listening to herself breathe, she sighed and gingerly pushed herself vertical. This would not do.
With a solid determination to be sensible and not give in to needless and unhelpful despair, she tried all the methods in her repertoire to relax into sleep as the night wore on. She started by sitting at the kitchen table, wrapped in a blanket, making scratchy lists of jobs to do in order to empty her brain; then she walked the floor with deliberate, certain steps, no doubt annoying the light-sleepers downstairs but feeling the need for movement; she cleaned the kitchen cupboards, clanging about at three a.m. and finding four dead cockroaches, two bottles of tomatoes from 1975 and a mouse trap (empty); she forced down weak tea with so much added jam you could stand a spoon up in it; she had a bath with oil of lavender so strong it took her breath away; and eventually, giving in, she took a tablet. Galia wasn’t one for tablets: the only discernible effect of this one was to turn her water green for the whole of the following day. Still she did not sleep.
Galina Petrovna's Three-Legged Dog Story Page 6