Funeral for a Dog: A Novel

by Thomas Pletzinger

  garbage bags and oleander

  We put away the remaining dishes in the cabinets, we mop the floor, we help Samy with his farewell gift, we wait for Svensson. Kiki has told me everything. We move on to simple subjects, foreign languages and boats and baby food. Around noon Tuuli’s singing from upstairs, her cigarette-lighting in the kitchen and her forehead-kissing (smoking, she kisses first the boy, then me on the forehead!). On the lake a pleasure steamer is chugging, Samy explains his picture: Lua in his spot on the boat, his flowers, a can of his favorite beer (I drew the oleander). Suddenly Svensson is standing in a sweaty basketball jersey in the doorway to the kitchen: could someone help him with the dog? Sit down first, says Kiki, Tuuli nods in her green nightshirt (the sun at her bare feet). Svensson sits down at the table, he drinks the glass of milk that Kiki hands to him, he buries his face briefly in his hands. Then he looks up and gazes at the boy and his picture. He looks tired. For the first time I understand that Svensson strikes me as much older than he is (the years cling to him). I sit on my chair and observe these people, how they’re still sitting barefoot around a table and drinking coffee, in the smoke of the past years, with sleep-creased faces and unbrushed teeth. On the fridge hangs Felix Blaumeiser’s smile, on the picture on the wall the red wine has dried, down by the water waits the suitcase with the dead dog, and Svensson in the kitchen pours Tuuli coffee, because he knows how she likes it: with milk and no sugar. She takes the cup without a word. Kiki sets plates on the table in front of us, Svensson gets knives from the drawer, Tuuli wipes pap off Bella’s chin. Life goes on, between pictures and children, between plates and cups and animals, between chairs and oleander, between the dead and ghosts and stories. I want to go back to mine. I take the pack of cigarettes out of the plastic bag and put it on the table in front of Tuuli.

  I have to go!

  I say into the kitchen and point first to my dirty shirt, then to the plastic bag: I’m four days late. The people look up from their life. Svensson doesn’t contradict me, and Kiki puts the milk in the fridge. Manteli? Tuuli asks with her mouth full, pointing to the cigarettes. I don’t actually smoke, I say. She takes a crayon and pulls the newspaper out of my bag, she writes two phone numbers on the front page. “Air in Sunken Mini-Submarine Running Out,” I read, and wonder whether the air will have lasted long enough for the eight Russian crew members, I’ll be able to find out. I read “Caesarean Risk,” before my eyes the sticky Renault under the trees of Bismarckstrasse, Elisabeth, the linden blood on the windows, the green of the chestnut trees. Tuuli folds the newspaper and pushes it back into the bag, from up close I smell sleep and smoke and milk. Call me if you’re in Berlin, she says, the first number is my cell phone, the second the office number in the Charité. She takes Samy from my knee, I stand up and reach for the bag. It would be my pleasure! Thank you, I say, and then Tuuli stretches herself toward me and kisses me a bit too clearly on the mouth, as if the others weren’t there. Kiki’s voice interrupts us: are you taking Lua to the vet? she asks, and Svensson answers, yes, and says I could accompany him, half an hour won’t make a difference at this point. Right, Mandelkern?

  288 meters

  Svensson pushes Macumba off the dock and pulls at the motor’s cord. Now he’s wearing a white shirt and gray pants as in the picture of him that people know (the picture of him that I had). The suitcase is now lying in the water on the floor of the boat. Tuuli didn’t touch it, Kiki ran her fingers several times over the cracked leather. No one opened it. Samy’s wearing the life vest again, he’s holding his farewell gift in one hand and his fishing rod in the other as I hand him to Svensson on board (does he know about Lua in the suitcase?). The motor starts, and Svensson turns it as far as it will go, the screw whisks the green water, Macumba leans. The two women stand by the water and wave as they grow smaller (the dark green of the woods, the light green of the water). I’m sitting next to the child on the bench,

  the small, pretty possibility on the shore

  is the first to lower her hand, and I memorize the dark of her eyes, the green of her nightshirt and her Converse, next to her Kiki’s bright dress. The mountain grows ever mightier and larger over the women as we move farther away from the shore (the possibilities are put in a different pespective). Samy is silent in the face of the wind and spray and gesticulating, with each wave Lua’s suitcase slides closer to Svensson. The old man in the white shirt steers Macumba directly into the middle of the lake, past a few rocking sport boats in the late morning sun. I look for the heron and can’t find it, but the houses on the opposite shore can be made out better than they could four days ago: the church of Cima, below it Blaumeiser’s parents’ house (how things acquire a story). In the wooden beat of the waves under the bottom of the boat, for the first time in weeks the feeling of heading in the right direction, but just as I’m about to ask where Svensson is going to bring me, he turns off the motor at full speed. Macumba glides another few meters, then we’re standing still in the middle of the lake. The owners of the sport boats, tan and in too-skimpy bathing suits, seem to be trying to ignore us. During the ride Samy was clutching a handhold and trying to protect his picture from the lake water (he’s forgotten the dead dog). Out here the water is a deep green, under us are more than two hundred meters of darkness. Samy seems to remember this position of the boat and moves closer to me. Now we can only vaguely perceive the women on the shore. Macumba drifts sideways into the waves, and Svensson has trouble keeping his balance. He kneels in the water on the floor, takes a small key out of his pocket and unlocks the suitcase. Are you afraid too, Manteli? asks Samy, and I answer, speaking more to myself than to him: we don’t actually have to be afraid. When Svensson opens the suitcase, wilted oleander flowers fall on the floor of the boat. Svensson turns the suitcase so that Samy can’t see Lua, and the dog’s wrapped body remains hidden from me too (I know that his head is lying on Astroland, I see Svensson’s watery eyes). We can now smell death. Can you give me the farewell gift? Svensson asks the boy, but Samy wants to explain his picture: this is the mountain, this is the lake, and this is Lua. He holds the paper out to Svensson, Svensson balances as he walks across the boat toward us and takes the picture from his hand: lots of blue, lots of green, lots of red (he doesn’t have a black crayon). When Samy asks about the dog, about his fear and his dying and where they will bury him, Svensson doesn’t answer. The lake, the mountain, repeats the boy. Lua’s happy with the picture, Svensson then says, Lua loves water (the paper a white flag in his hand). He bends down over the sodden suitcase, throws the blanket aside and presses his forehead to the dead animal’s forehead (he wants to be sure that Lua existed). Svensson puts the picture in the suitcase, and Samy suddenly seems to understand that Svensson is not going to bury Lua like a normal pet (I suspected it).

  Is Lua in there?

  he asks. Yes, Svensson answers, and suddenly reaches again into Blaumeiser’s well-traveled suitcase. He holds out the stack of paper Astroland to me. At one corner the paper is soaked, the water has already gotten into the suitcase. Can you hold this for a moment? he asks. Svensson is speaking with a calm voice, but his eyes are tearing. Astroland, he says, wiping his face with the back of his hand. Have you ever been to New York, Mandelkern? Yes, I say after a brief hesitation, I know the city (I could say that I know his story, that I’ve been with his characters in Seraverde, in Oulu and Coney Island). I’ve been there, I should have played Shoot the Freak, but only the can toss booth was open. Svensson laughs. I take the aborted manuscript from his hand, the words and sentences with which he has invented the past ten years of his life, I hold Svensson’s story in one hand and my notebooks in the other (Macumba is rocking on Blaumeiser’s grave). Svensson now smiles with tears in his eyes at Samy, and I understand that we aren’t going to bring Lua to Porlezza: Svensson is not going to leave anything to the veterinarian as he promised Kiki, Lua will not be buried in a field behind Porlezza, he will not be cremated. Svensson abruptly closes the suitcase over Lua. I think of the phot
ocopied pages in his manuscript, the stolen pages in the research folders. Svensson now stares into my face and spits into the water. I wonder for a brief moment whether I would make it to the shore swimming, but Svensson takes Astroland from my hand, again opens the suitcase a crack and shakes his head. He puts his story in with Lua, snaps the suitcase shut once and for all, and locks it. Okay, Svensson says with a smile, okay then. He grabs the heavy suitcase and heaves it first onto the bench, then onto the railing. Svensson pauses one, maybe two seconds, then he lets go. Macumba sways. The boy seems surprised as the suitcase hits the water’s surface with a thud and floats. Rocking, the black dog’s coffin slowly recedes from Svensson’s boat, leans slightly to one side and sinks so suddenly and swiftly that the dark shadow in the green water is only briefly visible. The stones pull Lua down, the oleander flowers sink with the black dog, the manuscript disappears at the deepest point in the lake. We’re alone with the mountains and the water, the swan swims around the boat at an appropriate distance and Svensson finally wipes away Samy’s tears (a few air bubbles still tell of Lua’s life).

  August 10, 2005

  (Ceresio, 2,092 Words)

  “Imbarcadero” is written on the sign above me (I’m leaving). Svensson and the boy drop me and my plastic bag off in Osteno. We’re heading on to Porlezza now, says Svensson, to buy chickens. Right, Samy? Yes. The boy has stopped crying. We’re buying two chickens, he repeats, and then we’re going to catch fish! One fish or a hundred! I sit down on a bench on the quay and watch the two of them as they leave the port of Osteno (children’s tears don’t last long). I see the bright orange of the life vest and Svensson’s white disappear, behind me a garbage truck and the hiss of its hydraulics. I’m again sitting on a bench under lindens and adding what there is to add. The garbage is getting picked up today, the black plastic bags of the Via San Rocco. Lua is dead, Astroland is buried. I’ve saved what I wanted to (what I consider decisive). In my pocket my ring and Tuuli’s hairpin. We didn’t say another word about my article (take care, Mandelkern).

  Ceresio

  At 13:20 my ship leaves. The bald captain greets me, I buy a ticket (18.60 Swiss francs for the way back). Besides me there are no passengers on board. Ceresio casts off and crosses the lake with a softly humming motor, the pleasure boats are still lying at anchor, even pedal boats. I sit down at a scratched-up wooden table on the foredeck in the sun and search the lake for Macumba. Nothing. Svensson’s house is lying in shadow as we pass the steep slopes of Monte Cecchi, it’s scarcely distinguishable from the woods and the cliffs (Tuuli will be able to see the ship). I remember things, as I’ve learned from Svensson: the dock, the desk, the pigeon droppings, the pictures, the sycamore, Santuario di Nostra Signora della Caravina.

  San Mamete 13:28

  In the middle of the lake the hoarse horn. We’re approaching San Mamete, the old plastic seats are shining in the sun and blinding me (life preservers and turned-off strings of lights). The captain throttles the motor and announces the old village, then he steers the ferry to the pier in back of Hotel Stella D’Italia (the bill in my bag). No one disembarks. The hotel guests on the terrace raise wine glasses to us, a few tourists board, two Americans, a senior hiking group, thermal shirts and blouses, the pale colors and empty mineral water cases in back of the houses (the inhabited side of the world is waiting for me). I turn back and can no longer make out Svensson’s house. Ceresio passes the point where we just laid Lua to rest, as if nothing happened (on larger ships you don’t feel the waves). Svensson sank his past, Kiki knows his secrets, Felix was scattered here (Samy is wearing a bright orange life vest). I wonder what death does to those who remain. Some want to forget, others inhabit the ruins. I think of Elisabeth’s scar and her bloody-bitten lips as she told me about the child’s death, about his gravestone and her husband (the fine cut on my lip has healed). Elisabeth and Tuuli are not similar, not their appearance, not their pragmatism, not their breasts, not their lips (golden pins for Tuuli’s hair, Elisabeth’s red, maybe copper). Elisabeth doesn’t want to forget, she doesn’t want to conceal anything, she doesn’t want to consist of only memory. The hotel guests take photos of the few tourists, the few tourists take photos of the hotel guests. I’ve started the return journey into my life. I wonder what Elisabeth will say about all this.

  Oria 13:35

  In Oria the same ritual: the foghorn and its echo off the backs of the houses, this time a church directly on the water, a cemetery with urn compartments, in the church garden a fisherman. Old men in undershirts on plastic chairs, their feet in the water, cigarettes in their fingers (I don’t smoke). As we dock on the pier, I notice a poster in the window of a dilapidated house:

  Vendesi!

  031 869 767

  Telefono e Fax

  and wonder whether I could pay the price for a life on the lake. But I admonish myself: I’m on the way back into the existence of an abortive ethnologist (real estate in Oria is not what I should be thinking about). Elisabeth’s intern wanted to know whether ethnology was getting in my way. On the foredeck of Ceresio I wonder what I’ve actually been doing during the four days at Svensson’s house on the lake. I didn’t maintain distance, I should have answered the intern, I got closer to the ethnos. From my dissertation: “Ultimately the ethnologist always remains himself and thus a stranger, every ethnography remains subjective and more or less empathic, every image is selected and every word invented. It is always his own experience that the ethnologist brings with him: he himself is the object of every investigation, he is at once ethnographer of himself and recorder.” And so on. I’ve stolen and kissed, I remember Geertz: “There are enormous difficulties in such an enterprise, methodological pitfalls to make a Freudian quake and some moral perplexities as well.” In Oria more tourists board the ferry than at all the previous stations, the plastic seats around me fill up, a French couple wearing Breitling caps sits down in front of me and takes pictures with a digital camera. I’ve observed and participated, now I’m departing (the ethnologist is leaving the group under investigation). When Ceresio casts off again, the children on the pier wave, they jump into the water behind us (they’re swimming in unknown memory).

  Gandria Confine 13:40

  We cross the Swiss border, the flags flutter, the stern of the boat full of seniors and families, hiking backpacks and ice cream cones, laughter and cameras. On the slope above us snakes the road Tuuli must have driven down too fast a few years ago. The border: a few hundred meters of underbrush and debris on a steep slope, mossy concrete buildings and moored boats of the Guardia di Finanza (no security check). In the enclosed part of the boat a Swiss woman is selling drinks, I buy a can of Diet Coke. On the red fake leather seats there are still a few empty spots, with the notebook on my knees I record: Writing by itself can’t give meaning to one’s experience. Writing is not true the way a can of Coke is true (my belch covered by my hand). When one compares one’s life with what has been written, there remains a mere residue of similarity, not much. Dirk Svensson files things away, Daniel Mandelkern considers his possibilities, our words don’t halt time (secretaries of disappearing).

  Gandria 13:45

  In Gandria boxes of empty bottles and shabby paper garlands over a wilted pergola (Ristorante Milago, Ristorante Antico, Ristorante Roccabella). Lugano is only a few stations away, Monte San Salvatore is directly in front of us (postcard stands, balloons, street musicians). This morning Ceresio dropped off the tourists on the way here. They’ve looked around and now want to be taken away again (in this they’re no different than I). The midday sun vertical over the water, even in the shade it’s very hot. Tuuli and Kiki will be sitting under the oleander and waiting for Svensson, Samy, and his freshly caught fish. (Tuuli will be smoking my cigarettes.) Svensson and I addressed each other by our last names, Lua has reached the bottom of the lake (take care, Mandelkern!). I will disembark in Lugano. On the pier of Gandria a boy, maybe three years old, is holding two balloons on red ribbons in his hands. When his mo
ther tries to tie the red balloon to his wrist, the child is distracted for a brief moment: the other, green balloon slips out of his fingers and blows away over the tiled roofs of the village (barrel organ music). Ceresio takes leave of the village with a coughing horn and heads for Lugano. On the battered fake leather seats, between Americans and French people and Germans, I decide to switch to “you”:

  I’m not going to work for you anymore, Elisabeth.

  I’m tired of newspaper pages, Elisabeth! Our life is not a brief article; it’s a spiral, not a line. I’ve been taking notes for four days. I’m an ethnologist, Elisabeth, I’m not a journalist (I’ve observed and participated). I’m tired of editorial meetings, Elisabeth, I want a wife without word limits!

  Castagnola 13:58

  On the dock the cameras click for the young stoners and cliff divers. In front of the expensive villas on the slope cypresses stand in a row, behind them loiter oleanders, magnolias, and ginkgos, flights of steps and piano rooms. Here almost no one gets on or off, we’re approaching the city (the Frenchwoman in front of me points her finger: c’est Castagnola, il y a beaucoup de riches). The teenagers plunge off the cliffs into the air, the passengers applaud. What I’ve learned: that I don’t have to make such a big deal out of everything. That I misjudged Svensson. That I don’t smoke. That time passes and doesn’t come back. That I’ve found words for myself that I can’t muster when I’m sitting opposite you (your green eyes). That it’s not about 3,000 words. That I want to be understood by you. That I’m a back and forth, an either/or, a perhaps. That I will finally get to the bottom of myself. That I want to stay with you, Elisabeth. That I’m not afraid of children, Elisabeth. That I can decide when I have to (I can commit myself to things). That I miss your body, Elisabeth, that my body misses you.