Galina Petrovna's Three-Legged Dog Story

by Andrea Bennett

  ‘Saturday, I think. Yes, Saturday.’

  ‘Well, that settles it. You have to fly. You must get back today. Tomorrow is …’

  ‘Sunday,’ Galia filled in for the old man.

  ‘Sunday, precisely. Sunday is no good to man or beast. You won’t get access to anyone on a Sunday. You must hurry; I can get you the tickets. But it must be today.’

  ‘Fly,’ murmured Zoya, ‘I love to fly.’

  ‘Do you, my dear?’

  ‘Fly! Weeee!’ Zoya leapt up from the pavement and thrust out her arms, dive-bombing Grigory Mikhailovich and scattering the poor pigeons once more.

  ‘Weee, weeee, up and down, over the clouds! Up, up and away!’ She stood still suddenly and wobbled slightly, all the meagre colour draining from her face in an instant.

  ‘Ooh, oh, actually, I don’t feel at all well.’

  ‘Oh goodness, Zoya, don’t heave up here, not in front of the university! It’s a seat of learning. Oh heavens!’

  It was too late. The rose bushes received a direct hit, and the taxi driver, just returning with his petrol can to the dead car, clucked monstrously.

  ‘You old people should know better! You’re a disgrace!’

  ‘Mind your own business!’ said Galia, as she rubbed Zoya’s back, and wondered how she was ever going to get her friend on an aeroplane that morning.

  ‘Come, Zoya, collect yourself. We must get back to the flat and get our things, the plane won’t wait for us, and Vasya and Boroda are relying on us.’

  ‘We can’t let them down,’ mumbled Zoya, before vomiting over the unfortunate flowers a second time.

  ‘No, my dear, we can’t let them down. So come on, stop that, we don’t have time.’

  ‘I would if I could, believe me, Galia. Something must have disagreed with me. This is most unusual.’

  ‘I’ll hail us a taxi,’ said Grigory Mikhailovich, and set off, with extreme slowness, for the main boulevard.

  * * *

  Contrary to all their expectations, the trio arrived at the airport while the morning was still dewy, the air still fresh, the day still early. Galia had thrown together whatever contents of the travel bag that she could remember and locate within the trembling darkness of Grigory Mikhailovich’s cave-like dwelling. Zoya had spent a long time looking for something, but she wouldn’t say what: she just scratched about in all the corners, like a cat that had been shut in for too long. The object, whatever it was, was never found, and this produced a deep crease on Zoya’s papery skin that ran from the crown of her head to the bridge of her nose. Grigory Mikhailovich sat in his armchair and ranted, occasionally, about how Lenin would have appreciated electronic music had he been alive today, and asked the ladies if they thought it would be possible to resurrect their former leader, like Frankenstein’s Monster, if the right kind of replacement parts could be found. His raves were interspersed with a silence broken only by his wheezing.

  Towards the end of the process of packing, Kolya surfaced briefly from a room at the far end of the hallway, just as they were gathering their strength to leave. He tried to squirm back into the room when he realized they were still there, smirking and congratulating Galina Petrovna on having correctly identified the Deputy Minister Glukhov.

  ‘It’s a shame you didn’t introduce me though, Galina Petrovna. I could have made a connection. Students need connections. But well done on getting home on your own, and changing out of those ridiculous costumes.’ And with that he disappeared behind the door.

  The taxi ride out to the airport was thankfully uneventful. Zoya seemed to have spent all her forces on the unfortunate rose bushes, and simply dozed, ashen-faced but with a frown still in place, as the car bumped its way through the outskirts of the city, regularly taking crazy detours across the dual-carriage way to avoid potholes that could swallow a whale. The silver birches wavered gently in the summer breeze as they crossed the city limits, passing the impressive memorial of giant iron exes that marked the limit of the Nazi’s progress during the Great Patriotic war. So close to the capital, so close to the seat of power: despite herself, Galia couldn’t help the shudder of respect that passed down her spine as she thought of Stalin pacing in the Kremlin, hands behind his back and moustaches twitching, refusing to be evacuated, refusing to be moved from Moscow even though the fascists were almost at the city gates. Thank God for the Russian weather, and the Soviet soldiers who fought on, ill equipped and barely fed, to defend their motherland.

  And therefore, perhaps, thank God for Pasha too, long half-forgotten, but not quite invisible in her past. Pasha, who had fought after a fashion, and fed the soldiers what he could find. Pasha, who had lived with her in that flat, shared a bed with her, had sat at that same kitchen table, but who left only empty shoes and grey shirts with frayed collars when he died.

  Galia eased her shoulder under Zoya’s nodding head, and observed her friend’s sleeping face. She wondered how this old friend, well known, whose hand she’d held in adversity, and whom she’d shared a laugh with at least every week for the last forty years, could still present her with mysteries. She was an enigma, this Zoya. But an amusing one, Galia had to admit. She examined the back of Grigory Mikhailovich’s head as he sat, grey and monumental, in the front seat of the taxi. She should thank him for his part in arranging Pasha’s visit to the sanatorium at Kislovodsk, long ago and unsuccessful as it was. It didn’t feel right not to mention it. He had been kind, in his own way, and now that they had achieved their mission of meeting with the Deputy Minister, or Roma as Galia referred to him in her head, she had time to feel thankful.

  They made their way through the departure terminal, squinting in the sunlight at the huge and puzzling information boards for a clue as to which direction to shuffle in and at what time. The whole airport was high and airy and full of chrome and bright electric light. It was totally alien. Zoya was suffering and could barely lift her eyes from the shiny tiled floor. Galia had to guide her as a mother leading a small, slightly straggly, purple-haired child. They drew no quizzical glances though: the airport was full to the shiny chrome gills with the odd, the unusual and the slightly bizarre. This building was no homage to internal flights only: from here, you could get to all four corners of the world, and meet any kind of person you desired to. And suddenly, Galia had had enough of the bright lights and the noise and the odd people, and dearly, dearly wanted to get back home, to normality.

  ‘Grigory Mikhailovich! It’s Rov Avia, I believe, for Rostov on Don, and the ticket booth is over there, in the far corner. You see, with the red-and-white signage?’ Galia needed to take control and get home, otherwise she could see the three of them still bumbling around this shining monstrosity for days to come.

  Grigory Mikhailovich nodded dumbly and set off across the concourse at the pace of a dead goat. Galia plonked Zoya down in a very uncomfortable-looking shiny chrome-and-plastic chair, and examined the departure board as her friend began to slide gently towards the floor. Only one hour and she would be on the way home. She crossed her fingers for luck and then crossed herself with the crossed fingers for yet more luck. Galia heard Zoya squeak as she slipped from the chair on to the floor. She scooped her friend back up and propped her more firmly into the seat by wedging the travel bag in between her and the wall.

  ‘Thank you, Galia. When do we fly?’

  ‘One hour, Zoya.’

  ‘Excellent. I shall sleep, sleep perchance to dream,’ and with that Zoya curled over the travel bag and fell into a deep and dark sleep that was immediately more impenetrable than the deepest mediaeval forest or darkest well. Galia wished her goodnight and, with a sigh, looked around for Grigory Mikhailovich.

  She eventually located him resting on a kiosk selling girly magazines, hairnets and yoghurt pots containing the cheapest vodka known to man.

  ‘Hair of the dog, so to speak, Galina Petrovna.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and dropped the two empty pots into the over-flowing waste bin, before straightening the
red-flag pin in his lapel and allowing Galia to frog march him gently to the Rov Avia desk.

  ‘Buy the tickets, please, Grigory Mikhailovich: Zoya and I have a plane to catch.’

  ‘Yes, madam. My pleasure.’

  He began the laborious process of ordering the tickets, from a lady who seemed not in the least interested in providing him with anything at all, apart from evil looks with a side-order of rasping sighs.

  ‘Grigory Mikhailovich—’ Galia began, but broke off.

  He turned to her slowly, frowning a mild enquiry at her hesitant tone. His blue eyes looked in to hers.

  ‘I’d like to thank you, Grigory Mikhailovich, for a favour you did for me a long time ago. You probably don’t remember—’

  He raised an eyebrow and waited for the question, his face otherwise as blank as an empty desk.

  ‘You organised a visit to the sanatorium at Kislovodsk, for my husband, a long time ago. It didn’t save him, in fact he came back worse than before he went, but it was still a kind thing to do. I never knew until the other day that you and Zoya were involved in organising it.’

  ‘Kislovodsk? Your late husband, good lady? I have no clue what you are talking about. I am here to buy your tickets, and that is all, I believe.’

  ‘Zoya told me, Grigory Mikhailovich. Zoya told me … well, she said it was classified information, but she said you fixed it. It was kind.’

  Still he looked at her blankly. ‘What year are we talking about, madam?’

  ‘It was 1956, Grigory Mikhailovich, forty years ago. Another lifetime ago. I hadn’t thought about it for ages, but then, she mentioned it, and it came back, like it was yesterday.’

  Grigory Mikhailovich pulled a dirty yellow handkerchief from his trouser pocket and coughed into it, but said nothing. The woman behind the desk thrust various bits of paper at him, and he signed them with much deliberation and an unsteady hand. He handed them back and turned to Galia, about to speak.

  ‘No, Elderly Citizen! You’ve signed in the wrong boxes! I’m going to have to do the whole form again.’ The woman behind the counter pounced on the pen, tearing it from Grigory Mikhailovich’s slackening grip, and started shredding the papers with a ferocity that sent strips of mangled paper high into the air. ‘You old Commies, you’re all the same: can’t cope with modern life. You need to get your lives in order! There’s no Lenin now, you know!’

  ‘Lenin? Where is he?’ He looked around wildly for a moment, his chins wobbling with the effort. ‘We must call to Comrade Sasha, if Lenin is—’

  ‘No, no, Grigory Mikhailovich, we’re only here to buy the tickets. We don’t need to call anyone,’ Galia broke in, concerned that they were about to get side-tracked by searching for Lenin.

  The old man looked her in the eye.

  ‘You are here to buy our plane tickets. Remember?’

  There was a long, long pause as he thought.

  ‘In 1956 you say?’

  Galia was startled, but nodded. ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘That was an interesting year for us, yes. We had a number of projects going on. I remember it well.’

  ‘Well, that’s wonderful, Grigory Mikhailovich. They were health projects? My Pasha had … well, he had cancer, so a holiday in the fresh air at the sanatorium was our only hope, really.’

  ‘Good lady, I don’t remember sending anyone on a “holiday” in 1956. In 1956 I was gathering volunteers for a programme of experiments.’

  ‘What kind of experiments?’

  ‘Medical experiments.’

  The woman behind the counter raised her head and tutted at the mention of medical experiments. Galia felt the blood in her veins turn thick like gravy, weighing down her limbs. She drew in a breath. ‘So my husband was a volunteer for a medical experiment, Grigory Mikhailovich?’

  ‘Well, Galina Petrovna, it depends on how you define the word “volunteer”. Our subjects were volunteered on their own behalves, by the State, if you see … they were generally people of … poor character.’

  Galia’s eyes rounded. ‘And what about my Pasha?’

  ‘Well, I don’t remember his case, obviously, but most likely he was a snitch, you know, not one of ours,’ Grigory Mikhailovich stressed the word with a deep bass note, ‘doing things that … brought him to our notice. I don’t know, I can’t recall. But it must be true.’

  He proceeded to pick a piece of old biscuit out of his coat pocket and put it in his mouth. The woman behind the counter handed him a sheaf of pieces of paper and withdrew her hand quickly. Again he signed in a series of boxes with his large, unsteady hand.

  ‘My husband was no snitch, Grigory Mikhailovich. That is one thing I know.’ Galia’s hands were shaking: in fact, her whole body was shaking, very slightly.

  The old man paused, and looked around himself, and up at the high glass and chrome ceiling, and down at the polished tiled floor, where his drooping jowls were reflected back at him. He scratched his head.

  ‘Well … good lady, I think if I sent him to Kislovodsk, it must have been for a reason. And if Zoya referred him to me—’

  ‘What did Zoya tell you?’

  ‘I have no idea, my dear. But it must have been something. A spy, perhaps? That’s how it was, I expect. Although I really don’t recall.’

  Grigory Mikhailovich made to pat Galia’s hand, and she jumped backwards, as if burnt. The tickets were placed on the counter, followed swiftly by a ‘position closed’ sign.

  ‘Here we are,’ Grigory Mikhailovich bellowed brightly. Galia began to open her mouth to speak, but her dry tongue rustled like a mouse in the summer grass. She could only stand and stare, and feel a thrill of anger rush through her to the tips of her fingers. Her hands clenched into tight fists and she thought that she might just punch Grigory Mikhailovich.

  ‘What’s the matter, Galina Petrovna? There’s no shame on you, my dear. We are all part of progress. And there is no progress without science. You’d be surprised what those boffins can brew up, Galina Petrovna, when they put their throbbing old brains to it. Did you know how many boffins they’ve got under the Kremlin keeping Lenin together? Hundreds, literally! You would be shocked at the—’

  ‘Grigory Mikhailovich! I am shocked … shocked at your experiments! What gave you the right—’

  ‘We were the Soviet Union, madam.’ He cut her off. ‘We were never wrong! We worked for the common good! Lenin knows that!’ Grigory Mikhailovich was shouting suddenly. A silver thread of saliva looped from his wide, purple mouth down on to his coat front and touched the red-flag pin.

  A shiver trickled down Galia’s back and for the first time, she felt a little afraid of Grigory Mikhailovich.

  ‘He was a sick man, Grigory Mikhailovich. He needed a holiday. Even Lenin would have recognized that.’

  ‘We needed bodies! I needed my human mice! We were building Communism! We still are! And they all served very well, our mice. If only my experiments could have continued—’

  Galia snatched the tickets and tags from the old man’s hand and fled across the concourse, desperate to get away from his booming voice and mad ideas. Weaving her way through the sun-kissed, dazzling crowds, she worked back through the maze of chairs, shrink-wrapped cases and bulk boxes of imports, back to Zoya, still slumbering on her slippery chair, unaware of the grubby fingers of history clutching at both her scraggy neck and that of her cousin. Galia shook her roughly by the shoulder.

  ‘Come on, we’re going to the gate. We have to go. I have to get home. I’ve got a dog to feed. And an old man to rescue. We don’t all have to die.’

  ‘Die?’

  ‘Well, we do all have to die, but not before our time. And it’s not our time. Come on!’

  ‘Will there be beer?’ mewed Zoya.

  ‘On the plane? Of course. And nuts.’

  ‘And little hand towels?’

  ‘Of course little hand towels. Grigory Mikhailovich has arranged it all. Come now, we must hurry, my dear. He says goodbye, by the way.’

 
And Galia shuffled Zoya towards the gate as fast as she could, allowing for the latter’s dazed state and tiny steps.

  They left Grigory Mikhailovich in the middle of the concourse, alone, and very confused. He stood on the concourse for ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour, trying to remember why he was there, and who he was with, repeating over and over again ‘My mice! Where are my mice! Where are my mice?’ muttering the words under his breath. Eventually, another vague thought crept into his head and the mantra changed. ‘Kolya!’ he rumbled, at first under his breath, and then getting louder, and more insistent, until it became a shout, and then a roar.

  ‘Kolya! Kolya! We must go … Kolya, where are you? Kolya! Kolya!’

  Navy-shirted security guards were called by an unseen hand responding to an unseen eye to deal with the old fella making a noise like the end of the world in a dustbin. A scuffle ensued, and the old man wet himself as he was bodily restrained. The two younger guards laughed as they put his hands behind his back and began to push him forward, out of his puddle, and towards the doors that led to the bowels of the building and the security guards’ office. He begged them in a mewling voice not to take him away, asking if only they wouldn’t take him, they didn’t need to worry, he wouldn’t tell a soul, and he’d never been involved with them anyway. He just wanted to return Lenin to his proper place. The youngest security guard winked, and told granddad not to worry. They would take care of him.

  As they passed through the door a loud buzzer shocked the air: the metal detector had been triggered. Zoya’s gun was to do Grigory Mikhailovich no favours today, it seemed.

  21

  Of Butterflies, Dogs and Men

  In the southern morning sunshine, the cloud of dust kicked up by the little car as it bucked along the track gave it the aura of a glittering tumble weed speeding through scrubby, empty fields. Mitya could hardly see the road ahead: partly because one of his eyes still wouldn’t fully open, but mostly because the entire windscreen was coated in a thick layer of summer meadow dust. Every so often Katya, kitted out with a pair of men’s leather driving gloves, a red-and-green checked headscarf and the biggest sunglasses Mitya had ever seen, stopped the car and wiped down the glass with an old and yellowing copy of Pravda. Mitya was not sure he approved. True, windscreen wiper blades were still a highly prized commodity in modern Russia and therefore open to theft, but he wished the girl had removed them herself to ensure they weren’t stolen. Her lack of foresight meant today’s journey was going to be unnecessarily elongated and uncomfortable. But on reflection, Mitya didn’t care. He would forgive her anything.