Funeral for a Dog: A Novel

by Thomas Pletzinger

  I and you

  in the white of our bed like a single body, we’d been reading to each other (Das Dekameron). When I eventually fell asleep in the sun and woke up again, Boccaccio was lying open between us. You were sitting next to me with open mouth and open legs (your eyes fixed on my face, your right hand between your legs). It won’t take much longer, you said, you were almost there (you had to concentrate on those words). My cock had already anticipated you in sleep. Then you actually came, before I could help your fingers, there was enough time only for our open mouths. It was of no consequence who came how and when (we talked about our orgasms).

  I just wanna fuck you right here

  And now this mattress (another awakening). With my cock in my left hand the realization that I’m not going to write a 3,000-word profile of Svensson in this room. I would tell about Tuuli, her somewhat too-tired eyes and her blonde hair, how she was suddenly standing in the room yesterday, in a purple T-shirt, a bowl of chicken soup in her hand, her note from the day before still on the floor: Tuuli wants to show me things that are worth it. I jerk off the way I write (I mingle past and present, Tuuli Elisabeth, Elisabeth Tuuli, etc.). I mix Elisabeth’s image with Tuuli’s smell on the sheets around me, I help my thoughts to Elisabeth’s heavy breasts and Tuuli’s small ones, also briefly to the first and the second Carolina, to their open mouths, to Svensson’s stories (“I just wanna fuck you right here”). Suddenly the shouting of the boy penetrates through the window to me from the water (under the chestnuts in Hamburg: bicycle bells and children’s noise). And then the suitcase comes into my view, and the situation. I’m still on the mattress, unwashed and alone, the research folders on the desk (the blood still on me).

  I break off,

  because the boy’s voice suddenly seems to enter the house downstairs, and in this house, too, doors are opened suddenly and without knocking. I won’t get myself caught. I remember Elisabeth and me, purely professional and businesslike: in the spring of 2002 in the Renault on the way back from the Côte d’Azur. I drove and Elisabeth read me articles from the culture pages of Die Zeit (her still-husband had just gone into retirement). Then she switched to the road map. The Renault had already been sputtering for a few days and burning more gas than usual. After an eight-hour drive on coastal roads and toll highways we reached the Lyon city highway around midnight (we were looking for the Hotel Imperial, which her writer friends had recommended to us). Through a tunnel, said Elisabeth, then down and two lefts (her freckled feet next to the dashboard gearshift). The engine conked out. Because there was no shoulder, I steered the Renault on its last legs onto an emergency strip in front of the entrance to the tunnel. While honking French people passed on the right and left, we let the engine cool down and drank warm mineral water (we spoke about marriage as a possibility). The telephone interrupted us, and Elisabeth’s husband mentioned a position he’d heard about on the culture staff of the weekly newspaper (they had meanwhile become friends). Starting when? asked Elisabeth, and he answered, starting now.

  Lyon Garage

  In my head this image remains: Elisabeth and I on a whitewashed boundary stone in front of a Renault-authorized garage on the outskirts of Lyon, she was sitting on my thigh. In the garage two burly Frenchmen were working with gum in their mouths and disparaging looks in their eyes, they were repairing the engine. Elisabeth had briefly negotiated the prompt repair and an appropriate payment, now she was taking pictures of us (the euphoria of her imminent promotion). She photographed us in the windows of the office (in the garage yard, white pebbles and a tall linden). The first photos of us as a couple, in the background three new cars and an agricultural utility vehicle. Would it be okay with her if I remained a penniless academic, I asked, and Elisabeth took my head in her hands. Not for long, Daniel, she said, and photographed our kissing tongues, you could write for me! The mechanics didn’t take their eyes off us (they’d never seen anyone like Elisabeth before).

  Barbaresco

  Elisabeth speaks fluent French and Italian, a smattering of Polish. Nothing’s going to get in our way, she’d decided, and I’d agreed (the feeling of knowing the other). A few days after my first day of work in her editorial department we traveled to Berlin for some British writer’s book launch, Elisabeth was supposed to moderate and lead the discussion to follow. The Literaturhaus in Wilmersdorf was sold out, it was Elisabeth’s first appearance of this sort and magnitude, she nonetheless seemed not the least bit nervous. Not even when she was told that the simultaneous interpreter was stuck at Tegel Airport. She stepped onto the stage before the author, I was sitting in the second row and drinking Barbaresco (at Elisabeth’s recommendation). I was sure that I knew my wife and her history, but when she opened the event and invited the author onto the stage, I choked on the wine. I was flabbergasted by her perfect British accent. I’d never heard her speak English before.

  things that are worth it

  It’s my indecisiveness that I become aware of as I lie on Svensson’s mattress and listen to the footsteps on the stairs. I hesitate because a decision makes every other path impossible (we’ve never had to make final decisions). I came here to write an article about Svensson, instead I’m thinking about other things: Tuuli is a mystery, Elisabeth is my wife, Svensson has committed himself to things. I, too, should exchange my thoughts for something concrete: find out the recipe for the chicken soup, touch the dog, gather the wilting oleander flowers, renovate a ruin. I should pull myself together, I should be more precise. I should reflect on my work approach (my pitiful methods).

  —What exactly are Borromean rings?

  —Is another life a better life?

  his shirts

  Is anyone here? On the top landing the oil-covered gull in the pictures is first dead, then awakens laggingly and gradually to life as I descend the stairs. Next to those are pictures of the heavy, black dog: Lua with bandaged stump on a Brazilian beach, a cliff with a hole through its base in the background, Lua wearing a hood on a hotel bed, Lua on cracked concrete slabs, in the background Manhattan and the column of smoke (we’d discussed the Thomas Hoepker image and its supposed actuality in the editorial department). Finally the framed pictures of garbage: blue and black sacks, burst-open plastic bags, overturned cans, knocked-over dumpsters, shattered bottles, soaked-through paper bags, beer cans and plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, a naked doll without arms, lamps, armchairs, solitary shoes. But then there’s the kitchen, cleaned up, sun on the tiles, flowers on the table. From the fridge Tuuli and Blaumeiser are smiling at me (death is everywhere).

  Svensson? Is anyone here?

  Another look at Svensson’s white room: in the small mirror on the wardrobe my shirt and I look equally rumpled. I’ll jump in the lake and iron myself out, I think, and take a white shirt from the wardrobe. Svensson will notice (I don’t care). I take a towel from a wooden shelf, it smells like laundry detergent, on it is a disintegrating piece of embroidery, white on a white background (Hotel Turisti).

  the animals and us

  Lua doesn’t move. I take off the creased shirt and imitate Svensson, I have only enough strength for seven push-ups and seventeen sit-ups. Then I lie on the dock breathing heavily (no trace of the animals’ blood). It must be eleven o’clock, the sun is burning on my shoulders and my head (lizards on the stones). A thin water snake between the stones, a school of tiny fish (a mosaic of escape). I kneel down next to Lua in the oleander flowers. What I couldn’t make out through the binoculars: his fur is dull with scattered gray, the longer hairs on his chest are matted and pale. Lua is lying on his side, his eyes half closed. His mouth is hanging open, his jowls are blotchy and dry (Lua smells putrid). From up close the dog is much thinner than expected. In the shallow rhythm of his breaths his ribs stick out, the fur on his belly hangs down in tangles (an old and ill-fitting suit). His strangely thin neck seems no longer capable of holding his head. I examine Lua’s stump. The leg wasn’t amputated with clean cuts and cleanly sutured flaps of skin, but rather severe
d close to the body. What remains is a rough and crudely healed web of scars (Svensson wrote of a bolt cutter, and Tuuli speaks of her first amputation). Lua’s left ear is flopping open, here too lighter skin, scabby and mottled (a small white spider slowly crawls inside).

  I need your help, Mandelkern.

  Suddenly Svensson is kneeling next to me and putting his hand under Lua’s bony head. His eyes are bluer than usual, almost watery. Lua hasn’t eaten anything for days, he says, I have to bring him to the vet in the village (the soft clucking of the widowed hen). When I look around, Tuuli and the boy are also standing behind me, though I didn’t hear them coming. This morning Tuuli is wearing a bright green short-sleeved dress that I haven’t seen on her yet. In it she doesn’t have the laxness of our first encounter, she looks more deliberate and older (as I look up: the heron far out over the lake). Tuuli spreads a wool blanket on the ground. The boy is waiting for the departure with the yellow fishing rod in his hands, he’s wearing a children’s life vest and Svensson’s Lakers cap. By the time I’m nodding at his request, Svensson has already jumped in the water and is swimming to the boat moored to buoy 1477. He hoists himself over Macumba’s railing and starts the motor. Svensson overlooked his freshly ironed shirt and his towel in my hand. You should help him with the dog, Manteli, says Tuuli, and as Svensson maneuvers the boat with a quiet motor to the dock, I catch the rope as I did on the Lugano pier. Tuuli kisses the boy on his forehead, älä pelkää, Samy. Minä en pelkää, Äiti, whispers the boy, he’s not afraid. Then he climbs into Svensson’s outstretched arms. Tuuli and I roll Lua onto the wool blanket, and the three of us lift him onto the bow, the swan hisses. Once the disconcertingly light dog is finally lying in his spot and the boy with his fishing rod is sitting next to him, Svensson nods to us, Tuuli should take a seat in the stern with him, I in the bow (the sluggish movement of the remaining legs). But Tuuli shakes her head:

  Manteli and I are staying here!

  He should make the best decision for Lua on his own. Svensson hesitates and looks first at Tuuli, then at me. Svensson nods, he seems to have more important things on his mind, his eyes tear. He turns the gas lever, the screw stirs the water. He steers Macumba in the same wide curve as yesterday around the rock shelf (he knows his lake). The swan takes a running start and soars into the air after ten, maybe twenty slapping steps on the water’s surface. The bird’s squawks and the noise of the motor can still be heard when the boat itself has long been out of sight. What remains are: the cicadas, the pigeon droppings, Tuuli and I.

  buoy 1477

  The water splashes up over me. I open my eyes and see green. I plunge and count the breaths, 27, 28, below me the dark green, above me the light. At 29 my air is running out. I manage another six or seven increasingly rapid strokes, then comes the dizziness, then I have to surface. When I turn toward the shore, the ruined house is reflected in the smooth water. The midday sun flings itself over the green of the sycamores and palms, over the rampant vines on the walls (the oleander is shining). Tuuli is nowhere to be seen, she must have gone inside after Svensson’s departure, and the cypresses are blocking my view of the door. I want to swim to the white buoy, I want to catch my breath. But as I’m about to reach for the metal ring, the water between buoy 1477 and me breaks apart, a watery spraying and slapping, a bright thrashing, I paddle backward and kick around me, I don’t hit anything. Then it’s over. Only a few bubbles on the surface and several seconds of complete silence. I hold on to the mossy buoy, I rub the water out of my eyes (around buoy 1477 dance mosquitoes). The fish down there are white and insanely beautiful, Svensson said, and I think I see a bright shadow plunging away below me. The passing thought of calling for help, but no one would hear me (I’m alone with the monster of Lago Ceresio, I think). But then there’s a soft splash, and behind me Tuuli says,

  You almost got me, Manteli!

  Her hand grasps my shoulder before I can even turn my head. Tuuli holds on to me and buoy 1477, I paddle with my legs. We’re alone, she says, Karvasmanteli. I’m sorry, I say, I didn’t mean to hit you (her skin underwater, the fabric of her green bikini is missing). That’s fate, says Tuuli, you hit what you’re supposed to hit.

  Interview (1477)

  MANDELKERN: I thought you were Moby Dick.

  TUULI: That’s a strange mix-up.

  M: I thought a fish was attacking me.

  T: You were almost about to kill me.

  M: I would have caught you and then thrown you back. You’re far below the permissible catch weight.

  T: Is this a fishing lesson, Manteli?

  M: We’re clinging to the buoy here side by side, I would only have to turn around.

  T: So turn around.

  M: The water is much warmer than I expected.

  T: Only on the surface. What’s your wife’s name, Manteli?

  M: Elisabeth.

  T: Why don’t you wear a ring?

  M: The ring is upstairs on the desk. We’re swimming around here. I could lose it.

  T: It’s a ring, Manteli. You’re getting almost as dramatic as Svensson.

  M: It’s a lake. And apparently it’s deep.

  T: Shall we swim back, Manteli?

  Oscar and Corner Store Oscar

  Tuuli and I still side by side holding on to buoy 1477, we don’t swim back. The wind is getting stronger. When I try to change the subject and ask about the vet, about Lua, his leg and his faithfulness, Tuuli answers that she once knew someone, his name was Corner Store Oscar, in the last days of the Vietnam War he had to be retrained as a medic. The guy from Svensson’s manuscript? I ask, and Tuuli laughs at me and my curiosity. Yes, from Lorimer Street, she says, Corner Store Oscar really liked Lua (our Lua, she says). Instead of a theoretical training each of the candidates had to go out one afternoon and shoot a dog in the street. The soldiers waited next to a garbage dump on the outskirts of Hanoi for the hungry street mutts. The animals weren’t allowed to die, each soldier had only one shot. The medics were supposed to aim for the extremities or the underside, typical wounds comparable to those of people. After the shot the shooter had to rush immediately to do first aid on the most severely wounded animal. The others could take this opportunity to perform a simulation of covering fire. Each animal was given the name of its shooter, each shooter ministered to and took care of his victim from that point on. The surviving dogs quickly befriended the medics. Shortly before the dogs recovered, the medics had to tear open their wounds again, rub salt, shards and latrine contents in the leg and stomach wounds so they got infected. Then these infections were themselves treated for training purposes, in further training steps came fevers, gangrene and emergency amputations. But meanwhile the animals’ faithfulness grew, they no longer left their medics’ sides, they followed their torturers wherever they went. Dogs stay with the people who hurt them the most. That’s why the camp was full of medics and dogs of the same name with compresses, casts and splinted legs, Fred Smith and Freddy, Jack White and Jack Black, Corner Store Oscar and Oscar, says Tuuli, and we laugh, our heads half underwater, half above the surface. In the end there was often a tacit euthanasia, that is, the stepping up of the symptoms until death. There were also soldiers, Tuuli recounts, who simply opened their animals’ veins, even though that was punishable by several days’ arrest. Corner Store Oscar ultimately killed Oscar out of pity with a shot in the head, declared his training finished, and the next day was immediately sent back to the front, where his lower jaw was accidentally shot off on the second morning by a soldier of his own unit (friendly fire, says Tuuli). But that dog follows Corner Store Oscar to this day, you see, Oscar the dog remains faithful to Oscar the man beyond the grave. Lua, she says, is exactly the same way. I ask whether those were really tears in Svensson’s eyes before, as we were lifting the dog onto the boat. No, says Tuuli, rubbing the water out of her eyes, no, no, she says, no. Then she lets go of the buoy and plunges under me toward the shore, I swim after her (I can’t do the crawl).

  William Wordsw
orth & Robby Naish (2005–2005)

  In front of Tuuli lies the plucked and gutted rooster. This is Wordsworth, she says, taking the biggest knife from the knife block and the whetstone from the hook, Naish has been in the soup since yesterday. Did you hear the screams, Manteli? Yes, I did. We came directly into the kitchen, Tuuli’s standing in her puddle of lake water, I in mine (both wrapped in towels). It was loud enough, I say, and the soup was good, it was just what I needed in my condition. Tuuli sharpens the knife, which is almost as long and wide as her delicate forearm. Svensson didn’t hit Naish’s neck precisely, she explains, that happens to him often, that he doesn’t hit things precisely and thus causes pain, instead of—for example, when slaughtering the white rooster Robby Naish—dealing with things as quickly and as painlessly as possible for all concerned parties. Tuuli checks the blade, then she continues to sharpen it and looks me directly in the eyes (her fingertip on the bare metal). Once the knife is sharp enough, she pulls open Wordsworth’s wings and lays bare the rooster’s belly and breast. Hold tight, she commands, and because I’ve already marveled at her nimble fingers when she was filleting the fish, I press the cold wings down on the tabletop. Tuuli holds the knife between her teeth and takes a water glass out of the cabinet. Svensson must have gotten the bottle of vodka at the supermarket yesterday, and since the fuse has been reset, there are ice cubes again. Tuuli puts the glass between me and the rooster. She asks whether I’ve read all of Astroland, whether I believe such stories? Not all of it, I say, but the part with the vodka. At that Tuuli taps lightly on the glass with the blade.