Galina Petrovna's Three-Legged Dog Story

by Andrea Bennett

  The conversation with the engineer lulled, and he excused himself to find a place to smoke where the stewardess would not find him and beat him over the head with her long, black lashes. Galia smiled warmly at him, and then turned her attention, a little less warmly, to her friend.

  ‘What are you sewing, Zinaida?’ asked Galia after a few moments.

  ‘The eyes,’ answered Zoya in a mysterious croak.

  ‘What eyes, my dear?’

  ‘The eyes of a thousand-eyed sea serpent,’ replied Zoya loudly, with a tut and a hint of exasperation, as if Galia was being obtuse. A dozen ears pricked up around the carriage.

  ‘Oh,’ said Galia, and wished she hadn’t asked.

  Three hours later, when a discussion of mythology, religion, politics and serpentry between almost the entire back half of the carriage had been brought to a relatively peaceful conclusion, and the crowd had dissipated, Galia took a boiled egg from the travel bag, smashed its shell on the edge of the table, and leant in to Zoya’s right shoulder.

  ‘I keep thinking about Pasha’s visit to Kislovodsk, Zoya, since you mentioned it yesterday. I had no idea you arranged that for him. I thought it was the doctors. He was sick, after all. Tell me more. Why were you – and your cousin – involved with my Pasha? And why didn’t you say anything?’

  ‘No-one was involved with your Pasha, Galia. You’ve got entirely the wrong end of the stick.’

  ‘So why did you need Grigory Mikhailovich to send him to Kislovodsk, then? He’s not a doctor, is he?’

  Zoya snorted, and licked her lips with a sharp, reptilian tongue. ‘No, he’s not a doctor.’

  ‘So …?’

  ‘So, Galia, I knew Pasha was sick. Anyone could see that he was … not right. It was a favour to you. I wanted to help.’

  ‘Well, yes, he wasn’t “right”. I was told it was … cancer, that it affected his mind.’ Galia’s voice became a whisper, and she looked over her shoulder as if saying the word might summon up the cancerous devil himself. ‘That’s what I was told.’

  Zoya continued to sew, keeping her eyes on the velvet and beads, and then cocked her head to one side. ‘Then that is what it was, Galia,’ she said, with a sudden, direct look.

  ‘But why was it a secret?’ Galia asked. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, all this time?’

  The young couple smooching long-distance across the top bunks looked down suddenly, frowning and hard-eyed. Both women ignored them.

  ‘Galia, this is hardly the place! Do you remember how difficult it was back then to be referred for any sort of treatment? For any kind of holiday? It was beyond my powers to get him that place at Kislovodsk: I had to ask Grigory Mikhailovich to step in and … use his influence. And that is all classified! I should never have mentioned it.’

  ‘Yes, but you have now, so it is too late to backtrack, my dear. I was – am – grateful.’

  Zoya looked Galia in the eye again, leaning back to focus her gaze, assessing her.

  ‘Pasha was at Kislovodsk for a cure,’ she rumbled, eventually. ‘But it never came.’

  ‘Yes, that I know, Zoya. But at least you tried.’

  ‘I’m not sure you—’ Zoya’s voice rustled like paper in her throat, and she broke off to cough loudly.

  ‘And I’m also a little surprised,’ Galia continued. ‘You never liked him, did you?’

  Zoya shuddered slightly at Galia’s words.

  ‘Did you like him, Galia?’ she asked.

  ‘Well of course I did!’ Galia whispered fiercely, suddenly rather cross. ‘Yes he worked very hard, and left me alone a lot, and had nasty habits. We didn’t really talk, I have to admit—’

  ‘That’s not all you didn’t do, so I heard?’ Zoya interjected, smiling slightly, but her eyes like pebbles.

  ‘That is none of your business!’ Galia huffed, plopping her hands into her lap and turning to the window for a moment, before turning straight back to her troublesome friend. ‘He was a difficult man, and annoying, but he was still my husband, Zoya. And his death … his death left me all alone.’

  Galia’s tone was harsh against the cosy backdrop of the carriage. The Chinamen looked up from their game of cards to stare at the old women, catching the sadness if not the actual meaning of their words. The other travellers had gone peculiarly silent.

  ‘But you had your friends, Galia.’ Zoya patted her hand slightly, but the action lacked conviction. Galia found it irritating.

  ‘I had my friends, Zoya. But I didn’t have … oh, you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Oh, wouldn’t I? Why are you so sure of that?’ Zoya rasped, and stood up swiftly, throwing on her kimono. She stalked off to the end of the carriage, a pack of Malboro clenched in her scrawny hand.

  Galia’s mouth dropped open, and she felt almost tearful. She hadn’t thought about Pasha’s death for years, and now a chance comment by her friend had brought all sorts of strange emotions bubbling to the surface like gasses in a stagnant pond. She didn’t like these sensations: she liked her routine, and her certainties. And she didn’t like upsetting her friend. She rested her head against the side of the carriage and closed her eyes, wishing that she had a warm furry body next to her to stroke.

  * * *

  As nightfall approached and the queue for the two toilets grew longer and more disgruntled, Galia and Zoya sat on the same bunk, an uncomfortable and rather lumpy silence stretching between them like a poorly mixed pudding. Galia resorted to studying the world atlas to try to focus her thoughts. Zoya sewed eye upon eye on to the thousand-eyed sea serpent, occasionally humming a jolly seafaring song that Galia knew was supposed to make her think that all was well. She knew she had offended her friend somehow, but didn’t understand why. Maybe they had talked enough for one day, and dredged over too much old history. The carriage was becoming restful, dark, soporific. The queues gradually melted away like the late evening shadows, and the tea urn hissed softly in the corner.

  ‘Blin!’ cawed Zoya as a handful of serpent eyes splashed over the carriage floor around her feet, rolling in every direction and making directly for the crevices and corners where no human finger would ever be able to retrieve them. ‘Sorry!’ she grinned as the young couple on the topmost bunks looked down at her with a mixture of disdain and something uncomfortably close to pity. Zoya began to scuffle about on the floor, and Galia sighed, shutting the atlas and easing herself on to her knees to help.

  ‘Serpent eyes, everywhere! That’s the influence of Jupiter on Uranus, I’d say. Oh yes, Galia, you may scoff, but it is all in the stars. I say, careful, young man!’ Zoya’s cry caught the attention of the sailor striding back from the toilets, and he turned his head towards the noise just as he put his left foot straight into a puddle of beads. He skidded as if on buttered skates and flew up in the air with a whoosh, becoming momentarily horizontal and level with the Chinamen’s heads as they looked up, startled, to see him flying by their card game before crashing to earth with a tearing sound followed by an agonised howl. Splintered shards of eye-beads were scattered across the entire carriage like pellets from a shotgun. ‘Blin!’ cawed Zoya again, softly this time. Both women bent their heads to collect up the evidence.

  The carriage stewardess was upon them in a matter of seconds, arms held wide and head swaying heavily from side to side, taking in the situation, breathing deeply, and not grinning. Her eyelashes took in the injuries sustained, and wavered in Zoya’s direction on detecting the smashed beads.

  ‘You, young man, get up and stop playing the fool. There’s no harm done. You’re a sailor, aren’t you? So stop crying like a little boy. Your mama’s not here to help you, but I am. Go into my compartment, take your trousers off and I’ll bring you some iodine. Come on!’ and she levered him upright with one arm, dusting him down with the other.

  ‘And you, Babushka, should know better than to have glass beads in a train carriage. They are a controlled substance. Read the regulations, please.’

  The young sailor groaned and held his b
ackside, his eyes watering, before being propelled down the aisle by the stewardess. Zoya pretended to cry and faint and lay back on her bunk to wait for the furore to pass. Galia and the Chinamen cleared as many bead shards as they could, fingers prickled by the broken glass and plastic.

  ‘OK, no more tea, people. It’s bedtime now,’ commanded the stewardess as she poked her golden head out from her compartment. The carriage drew a collective sigh as she turned off the tea urn and dimmed the lights, before disappearing behind her door. Zoya lay on her bed humming a sea shanty, but occasionally remembering to groan softly. She held a crystal ball in her tiny hands and squinted into it, sometimes smiling, sometimes stern. Galia decided it was definitely time to call it a night, and gingerly mounted the tiny metal ladder to her bunk on the next level, feeling a twinge of vertigo nip along her spine before her second foot had even left the floor. She eased herself into a horizontal position and nudged the crackling pillow into the crook of her neck. It was very warm on the bunk, and even the thin sheet laid over her legs felt too heavy. But the rhythm of the train worked its magic, rocking her gently from side to side, and despite the late-night card games and conversations going on around her, she felt her eyelids becoming thick and heavy, and her thoughts muddled. She said a quick prayer, to no-one, for her Boroda and that old Vasya, and nestled into the arms of sleep. It had been a very long day.

  9

  A Rescue

  Mitya usually enjoyed Wednesdays. Wednesdays were wrestling night on Channel 1. Not that Mitya was keen on the wrestling, but he savoured the quiet on the streets when the majority of Azov’s residents were hidden away behind their front doors, bellowing at their TV sets while the Murmansk Masher did unspeakable things to the Krasnoyarsk Krusher. Wednesdays meant he was able to work uninterrupted, unnoticed in the shadows, quietly serving his town, as its people dribbled kasha down their chins and bit in to the finest pickled cucumbers to be found this side of the Don.

  But on this particular Wednesday, Mitya was unusually tired. He felt flat, like a tyre on an old Zhiguli. His week had started poorly, and the whole business with the three-legged dog, the elderly citizens and his own mother had left a print on him like paws in mud. He had slept badly for two nights, and his dreams, such as they were, had been tormenting. This mental fatigue had expressed itself in his physical appearance: his preparations for this evening had been sloppy: his trousers were slightly creased, his parting off-centre, and most annoyingly, he had forgotten his plastic-leather bum-bag – the most important part of his work apparel. His Wednesday evening playing of Violator had not lifted him as it usually did: the music failed to pierce that strange bubble that had encompassed him. His mood was low, and Mitya growled at scuttling cats as he passed them on his way out. He had work to do, but somehow this evening it seemed a burden rather than a pleasure. Something was definitely wrong. He wondered whether he needed more vitamins: maybe he should buy some apples at the market, or see if his mother had any cabbages still in store.

  The full moon touched a sheen on Mitya’s hair as he crouched behind a bench in Children’s Play Park No. 4. He could hear a muffled mewling, and knew the time was almost right: the mongrel puppies would show their shivering pink noses and take his bait any minute now. He’d taken their mother on Monday – and then lost her again, along with all the other canine vermin he’d controlled that night, during the painful incident at his mother’s. Unconsciously, he passed a gloved hand across the bruises on his backside, still swollen and sore. She had never understood his choice of profession. Sometimes she just treated him to silence, and sometimes she was more demonstrative of her disapproval. The sickle was a new touch though, and one that troubled him. Maybe this was the cause of his lack of sleep. This, and the knowledge that dangerous dogs had been set free to once again terrorize local children and infect society with stray-ness and wild eyes. Maybe dispatching these puppies, combined with an apple a day, would re-invigorate him.

  The puppies must be on the verge of starvation now, Mitya calculated. They were holed up underneath the park keeper’s equipment store: a wooden panelled construction on concrete feet that Mitya did not have the keys to. The park keeper himself was nowhere to be found. Mitya suspected that he was now a resident of Drunk Tank No. 2, but had decided against making a call to find out. The drunk tanks never answered the phone anyway, and it was unlikely that the old fool would be able to find the keys even if he could remember his statutory duties concerning the park. So, Mitya couldn’t get in to the store, and he couldn’t get under it without a spade, so the puppies would have to end their cowardice and come out of their own accord, with the help of a little bacon fat.

  The pups’ mewling continued, and Mitya realized that he was clenching his jaw. He released the pressure and his teeth roots seemed to blossom slightly, making his eyes water. He shut them lightly to collect his thoughts, but in the darkness behind his lids he imagined babies crying, their pink faces all screwed up and dribbly. Unbidden, a vision of the round, pink face of a small child rose up before him and he was back in the milk queue at kindergarten, trying to keep his place in the line. Gosha was round and fat with empty blue eyes. Gosha was always pinching his arm and then pinching his milk, making him squeal and cry just like … just like a puppy. Then the teacher would slap his knees for being a coward.

  He opened his eyes and looked at his watch: he couldn’t see the time as the face was cracked, another consequence of Monday’s fiasco. He thought of his mother, spittle flying from her mouth as she charged him, curses flying like witches about his head. Had she ever been different? He had a memory, or maybe it was a dream, he couldn’t tell: a scene, just a snatch of quiet life: she was young looking, still with teeth and a smile that made him happy. In this vision, she was cooking lunch for them both, and there was someone else there, who made him very happy. A hairy someone. With white teeth and big brown eyes. A someone with a bark, lying contentedly in the sunlight that streamed in through the kitchen window.

  Mitya shook himself and pressed his short, neat nails into the palms of his hands. His teeth tore a ragged little hole in the corner of his bottom lip as he listened to the puppies crying and scrabbling under the storeroom. A trickle of warm, salty blood wrapped itself around his bottom teeth and he spat on the ground. Perhaps a gas pellet would do the trick. Not strictly regulation issue, but useful in situations like this. They would be stunned and then would die peaceful deaths overnight. He pushed himself upright and began to make for his van, eyes on the dusty path in front of him. He turned the corner from the park and walked straight into a small form. Her hands flew up to cushion the impact, her fingers brushing his nipples under the taut nylon of his shirt, as her nose pressed into his sternum. She smelt salty and familiar. He jumped backwards from the contact.

  ‘Oops!’ He could see the whites of her eyes in the moonlight. ‘Oh – we meet again!’

  ‘Katya!’

  ‘You’ll be thinking I’m following you!’ She laughed and held a hand to her neck. Mitya’s eyes touched the top of her head and then travelled up her legs from her shoes, eventually resting momentarily on the hand still resting on her collar bone. She looked delicious. He looked down at his own shoes.

  ‘Are you?’ he coughed. ‘No, I didn’t mean that. I don’t know why I said it.’ Mitya’s heart was bursting in his chest, and there was a roaring in his ears like a sewer during the spring melt, or the sea perhaps. His blood pressure must be low, he thought. He definitely needed more vitamins. ‘I won’t be thinking about you at all, Katya. I am busy.’

  ‘Oh, OK. I’m sorry.’ Her smile faded and she shrugged, turning to go.

  ‘Why are you out so late on your own?’ Mitya asked abruptly, without meaning to.

  ‘Oh, I’ve just been to class – night school. I’m studying to be a teacher. I was just thinking about children and the funny things they do. There was a boy, Vadik, who—’

  ‘I have to get on, Katya.’

  ‘Oh, right. What are you doing h
ere so late, anyway?’

  ‘There are some puppies, living in the bottom of that equipment store. I must deal with them.’

  ‘Oh, puppies? You’re going to rescue them! How sweet. You’re such a good guy.’

  ‘No, Katya, I—’

  ‘I knew there was something about you that I liked. I’m an animal lover too—’

  ‘Katya, listen—’

  ‘I don’t care what Andrei says, I knew you were OK!’

  ‘What?’ Mitya’s eyes opened wide and he stopped breathing momentarily. The girl put her head on one side and smiled.

  ‘Oh, nothing. That guy, Andrei, who lives on the corridor. He was just chatting to me, trying to get me to go round for drinks or something. I just … well, it’s nothing.’

  ‘Katya, don’t ever go into Andrei’s room.’ He stared with eyes like marbles, the intensity startling Katya so that she backed away unconsciously, one small foot hiding behind the other as she wobbled slightly on her platforms.

  ‘Yeah, it’s OK. I know he’s a bit, well, you know, dodgy, we were just talking in the corridor—’ she shrugged.