‘It’s all right,’ the girl said, and took hold of Queenie’s leash.
Baxter approached more cautiously now, moving behind Queenie, sniffing intently. The spaniel growled again and snapped, turning to keep her head towards Baxter. The dogs stared at each other for perhaps a minute. Then Baxter leaped forward and in one motion grasped Queenie’s throat in his mouth.
Carl started to lean over and pull the dogs apart, but then he realized that Baxter was not using his full strength. Queenie yelped and struggled briefly. When she stopped Baxter moved quickly to mount her. Queenie no longer resisted.
Veronica took Carl’s hand and held it tightly. There’s no joy in it, she thought. Queenie stared out into the darkness. Baxter’s body jerked hideously and convulsively. It was not what the girl had expected, and it did not end quickly. When it was over she immediately led Queenie away, towards the town.
Carl started after them, but stumbled and fell. His legs were shaking. He wanted to call out to Veronica; to thank her. But there was a tightness in his throat. He had never before been so happy.
Five
I should have killed the bitch. Not before the act; that would have been impossible. But after, when my humiliation was ended; when we were separated, standing foolishly before the boy and girl. The bitch was sickening to me then: her odor; her ugly coat; her passivity. Yet I could not harm her. Why?
I suppose I pitied her. And it was obvious that what happened had not been her will. It had been as unpleasant for her as it had been for me. As the girl led her away there was a moment when I felt what seemed to be a sort of affection. But it must have been pity. In any case, I showed compassion, and that was a mistake. Weakness is always a mistake.
We are passing the couple’s house. I think of how often they used to perform the act. They seemed to enjoy it, but I realize now how unpleasant it must have been for them. And I begin to pity them too.
I must be more careful. Pity is not an emotion I want to encourage in myself. It is something for humans to feel; one of the jumble of odd sentiments they burden themselves with. Their emotions are like diseases, I think; diseases that can spread among those who try to understand them.
Let their feelings be a mystery, like the dozens of other strange traits they have. They live too far from reality. They stare at the television set as if it were something real and not just a jumble of noisy shadows. I suppose even those shadows inspire emotions in them.
The ways they have to deceive themselves are endless.
2
Carl’s parents were seated at either end of the sofa, watching television. Or, rather, the television set was on. The program was a rerun of a show they had watched and been bored by months before. Jason Fine glanced at his wife. She was staring at the carpet, her expression unsettled, as though she had seen movement in a plate of food. The expression was a familiar one to Jason, and there had been a period when he had found it alarming. But now it comforted him.
The darkness of Sara’s vision had been merely exciting for him in the beginning, but it had gradually become a necessity. The women he knew before Sara had tended to treat him as they would treat a friendly dog. They appreciated his uncomplicated affection, and they sometimes returned it, but in an absent-minded way. Sara had honored him with her ruefulness.
They lived quietly, seldom touching, making few friends in the town. Jason returned gratefully to the untidy house each night as though it were a secret clubhouse. He talked and Sara listened; her silence lending an unsuspected significance to the events he described. She pleased him.
The only mistake in their marriage had been the birth of their son. Carl was an intruder neither of them understood. Jason sometimes wished he could keep the boy in his office. He could deal with him there; could smile and talk with him as he did with the others.
Jason looked at his wife again. She turned to look at him. She didn’t smile, but her features softened, and she gave him her full attention. I love her, he thought. Perhaps if I didn’t I would be closer to the boy. Perhaps I would be wondering where he is now, and would resent the amount of time he spends away from the house. But instead I am grateful for his absence.
Jason got up and switched the television set off. Instead of returning to the couch he sat in a chair facing his wife. ‘Shall I tell you a story?’ he asked.
Since Carl’s birth, their lovemaking had changed drastically. They had never returned to the more or less conventional sex life of their early marriage. Instead Jason would speak to Sara: improvizing, fantasizing. And they would touch themselves as he spoke, linked only by his words and the sight of each other. The game never failed to gratify them, and it never occurred to either of them that there was anything less than beautiful about it.
‘Carl will be home soon,’ Sara said.
‘I suppose so,’ Jason said. ‘Are you still worried about him?’
‘Not worried, exactly. Just puzzled. Although I don’t know why I should be. Carl’s a lot like I am, I suppose.’
Jason didn’t comment. He didn’t think the boy was like either of them.
Sara continued: ‘There’s one big difference, though. He has no obvious obsession . . . nothing like my music, I mean.’
‘Does everyone have to have an obsession?’
‘Certainly. It’s your choice of one that determines whether you’re sane or not.’
‘What’s my obsession?’ Jason asked.
‘I am, of course.’
‘Does that qualify me for sanity?’
‘Just barely. You picked an acceptable category, but you chose badly within it.’
Jason let the remark go. He knew Sara would not want him to deny it. ‘Then I was insane before I met you?’
‘No. You had your baseball players.’
Jason blushed. From the time he was Carl’s age until his marriage he had kept a file of index cards on which he recorded the height and weight of every active baseball player in the major leagues. He had never seen a professional game except on television, and he had only played a few softball games himself. It was all incredible to him now; the years of research and correspondence. Maybe he had been insane.
He had told Sara about the collection the first time he went out with her. She had not commented. She merely looked at him ambiguously for a moment and changed the subject. The next night he loaded the boxes of cards into his car and drove to the junk-yard. He stacked the boxes on the ground and started to light a match. But he put the matches back in his pocket, got in the car, and drove away.
Neither of them had ever mentioned the cards again, and he assumed Sara had forgotten about them.
Sara was looking at him fondly. ‘All right?’ she said. They were the words she always used instead of ‘I’m sorry’.
‘All right,’ Jason said. And he changed the subject: ‘John Grafton asked me again today how we’re getting along with Baxter. I think they must miss him.’
‘Maybe we should ask them over for dinner some time,’ Sara said. She remembered the day the Graftons delivered Baxter to the house. There was a pensiveness about them, combined with a suppressed energy, that she found attractive. They would be polite and slightly uncomfortable during dinner. And they probably would not return the invitation. They were the kind of guests Sara liked.
Jason was surprised. Sara hardly ever suggested that sort of thing. She let her husband plan their social life, usually agreeing to his suggestions, but without enthusiasm. ‘That might be nice,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you call Nancy and arrange it?’
The front door opened, and Carl and Baxter appeared. The dog went into the kitchen and began to lap noisily from his water dish. Carl greeted his parents by raising his eyebrows a few times in what he thought was a reasonable imitation of Groucho Marx. ‘Nothing on television?’ he asked.
‘Nothing exciting,’ his father said. ‘I think they’re running out of Helmut Dantine movies.’
‘The Schweins,’ Carl said.
It was obvious to Sa
ra and Jason that despite the boy’s efforts to be casual, he was in a state of excitement and confusion. He switched on the television set and sat on the floor, his back against the sofa.
Carl and his parents stared at the screen, all of them unseeing.
Baxter lay under the kitchen table. For the first time since he had been in the house he would not sleep in Carl’s room.
3
Veronica Bartnik’s father was sitting at the kitchen table. His back was straight, but his head moved erratically when he tried to look at his daughter. In front of him were a bottle of Scotch and the kind of glass that cheese spreads are sold in.
‘Where’ve you been?’ he asked.
‘Walking the dog.’
‘A long walk.’
Veronica didn’t bother to answer. There was a time when her father had kept the whisky bottle hidden. It had been better then. He should pretend he didn’t drink, just as she was pretending she had done nothing but walk the dog.
Veronica went to her bedroom. Queenie followed her and lay down in a corner.
‘I’m sorry,’ the girl said.
We should protect them, she thought. It’s not as if they were wild. They depend on us. She squatted next to the dog and began to scratch its head. ‘We won’t go back to that place,’ she said.
4
Carl sat on a discarded clothes-dryer, staring through the dusk towards the town. He was intensely aware of his body, which was exceptionally tired and clean. He had slept only an hour or two the previous night, and he had bathed carefully before dinner, chafing parts of his body with the small brush his father used to scrub his fingernails.
A candle burned in the bunker.
They should be here soon. As he lay awake the previous night Carl had imagined the arrival of the girl and the dog dozens of times. He had invented conversations and scenarios, all of which ended with him and Veronica lying together in the bunker. One of the few possibilities he had not considered was that the girl would not appear.
As the darkness increased, and the truth became apparent to him, he became conscious of his isolation. It was one of the few times—perhaps the only time—he could remember wanting not to be alone.
It’s a mistake to depend on another person, he thought; wrong to need someone. Baxter trotted up to him and sat panting. He had been running hard, probably chasing a stray mongrel away. The dog doesn’t need anyone, Carl thought. He uses us, as he used Veronica’s spaniel, but he doesn’t need us. There were stories about dogs that languished and starved at an owner’s grave. But Baxter hadn’t shown any remorse at leaving his previous owners . . . no more than he would show if he had to leave me, Carl thought. I can learn more from him than from Veronica.
Baxter was suddenly standing and growling. Barely visible ahead of them was a large, emaciated brown-and-white dog. Its long coat was stained and matted. It stood its ground calmly as Baxter growled again and moved towards it.
Most of the strays in town had been made spiritless by months or years of begging and scavenging. Baxter tolerated them in the junk-yard unless they moved too close to the bunker, then he would rim them off. There was nothing abject about the dog that faced them now. It had an obvious strength in its lean body, and its gaze was steady.
Carl had never seen Baxter challenged before.
The dogs were motionless for a few seconds, and then Baxter moved cautiously towards the mongrel, who stood at the top of a pile of rubbish. Baxter made a short charge, but stopped before any contact was made. His opponent crouched tensely but did not retreat.
Baxter, who was at a disadvantage in having to attack from low ground, began to circle the other dog, stopping occasionally to reverse his field. The mongrel pivoted carefully but did not retreat, even when Baxter began to make a series of quick feints and lunges, nipping the larger dog occasionally.
It was obvious now that the challenge to Baxter was totally serious. The stray was not inviting a simple test of nerve; its intentions were deadly. Baxter rested for a moment, considering his opponent, and then turned almost casually and began to walk away.
He’s a coward, Carl thought. The boy felt his jaw slacken. He realized he had been biting his lower lip in excitement. Now he began to think of his own safety. Perhaps the mongrel would come after him. He was about to look for something he could defend himself with when the stray charged at the retreating Baxter.
Carl wanted to call out a warning, but the action was too quick. The instant the attack began Baxter dropped to the ground, rolling on to his back and opening his jaws. The mongrel’s momentum carried him directly over Baxter’s waiting jaws, which closed viciously and surely on his throat. The muscles in Baxter’s thick chest distended, and the other dog’s growl became a whine. Then there was the snapping of bone and cartilage. Baxter was on his feet, his jaws still gripping the now grotesquely twisted neck. He stood for a moment, supporting the limp form. Then he loosened his grip and allowed the body to collapse. He circled it several times, watching cautiously at first, but eventually moving closer and sniffing intently. Then, looking up at Carl, Baxter lifted his right hind leg. Urine squirted over the lifeless form of the mongrel, rolling off its greasy coat, and darkening the earth.
Carl had forgotten Veronica. The desire that had earlier seemed of incomparable importance had vanished. And he realized that there were experiences more meaningful than sex. He went to the bunker and called to Baxter. They lay side by side in the guttering light of the candle. The boy ran his hand over the dog’s body, which seemed to be sound and unmarked.
‘You enjoyed it, didn’t you?’ Carl said. And then he reached for his box of magazine clippings. He passed over those of Eva, and picked out one of the man who had brought death to her; the man who had brought death to many.
Six
Do humans ever attack one another? If attacked, would they have the courage to do what I have done? I doubt it. I doubt whether they have a true understanding of death and violence. Death is not something they use, but something that uses them. They absorb themselves in their strange, acquisitive pursuits, smiling and muttering, never knowing the exhilaration that comes with the ultimate activity. They live too long, I think; they get too used to life.
The boy is truly mine now. He looks at me with a new esteem, and his touch has become cautious. He knows that I could do to him what I did to the animal that was foolish enough to challenge me. He knows that if we were to confront each other he would become my victim, despite his size and his skillful hands. He knows my nature.
Many people in the town know me now. They don’t understand me the way the boy and the young couple do, but I can sense their respect for me. I notice how they stare into my eyes and move aside almost imperceptibly as I pass them on the street. They do not lean over and touch me condescendingly as I see them do with others of my kind.
It is harder to gain the respect of humans than it is to gain their love, and I sometimes feel pride in having won the regard of so many. I have done it on my own terms, by establishing my natural superiority rather than by fawning on them.
Occasionally I even feel a fondness for them.
2
It’s like a morgue, Nancy Grafton thought. She was pushing a shopping cart past the meat section of the large supermarket that had recently opened at the edge of the town. She had begun to shiver as soon as she entered the market. The refrigerated air and the blue fluorescent light contrasted violently with the hot summery haze outside. The store was almost deserted.
She had never felt comfortable in supermarkets. She resented not knowing who might be on the other side of the tall, isolating displays. The situation reminded her of something that had frightened her as a child . . . had it been a story she read or a nightmare? She or another girl was in a maze with a wild animal. She walked for hours in terror, knowing the animal was near, but not knowing whether it was approaching her from behind or whether it would be waiting for her around the next corner.
She rolled her cart silen
tly through the aisles. White-coated stock clerks passed her. The symmetrical rows of merchandise and the background whine of refrigeration machinery unsettled her. When she reached the meat displays her stomach tightened, and she turned away. She went back towards the entrance, taking the few articles she had in her cart and replacing them on the shelves.
‘Nancy?’
It was Sara Fine. Nancy forced herself to smile, but her panic increased. She tried to concentrate. Sara seemed tense. Her usual air of pleasant disinterest, which Nancy admired, was missing.
She wants to talk, Nancy thought. Please don’t let her mention the dog. Not now. She stared at Sara, trying not to hear her, and answering her questions absently.
‘Yes, John’s all right.’
I want to be like you when I’m your age; heavier and plainer than I need be. Careless of myself.
‘Dinner?’
Anything. Just let me go now.
‘Next Thursday should be fine. I’ll check with John and let you know.’
If it weren’t for the dog, we could be friends.
‘I’m sorry, I have to run now.’
I’ll be safe in a minute.
As Nancy started away Sara said, ‘Baxter’s eating habits aren’t helping our food bill.’ She reached into her cart and pulled out a plastic-wrapped package of liver. Blood leaked out of the package and dribbled down Sara’s fingers.
Before Nancy reached her car she was weeping.
3
Carl moved a battered television set into place, closing the circular wall he had built around the pit. He wondered if the wall was high enough. Baxter, who had been lying in the pit, stood up as the boy climbed out.
Carl stood at the rim of the pit and called the dog. Baxter hesitated briefly and then tried to scramble up the wall. His forelegs reached the edge of the pit, but he lost his hold and fell back. He got to his feet again and moved in a circle, examining the walls of the structure. At one point two small wooden crates were stacked up unevenly, in a step-like arrangement. Baxter ran to the boxes and bounded easily out of the pit.
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