It is the Puppy who is here! The Puppy! The Pup-py himself, the Puppy, hi, hi! I never thought I’d be so happy to see him, but when the cage is opened, I howl like an idiot, and my whole body, from snout to tail-tip, just wants to sing and dance. I howl for peace and freedom. I howl for good old Mrs. Thorkildsen back home.
Like a dog, I immediately forget everything I don’t need in the moment, and so I leave my prison friends without saying goodbye, without giving them a second thought. I should have asked the Puppy to take them all with us, Mrs. Thorkildsen has plenty of space and food for them all: Ernie. Ruffen Rasmussen. Posie. Gunda. Pan. Ringo. Leo. Rusty. Beula. Mary Jane. Rover. Good dogs. Even the Romanian street dogs. They’re good dogs too. May their food bowls always be filled and may their walks be long.
The Puppy actually seems happy to see me, too. Really. I’d love to know how he found me, which strings he pulled to get me out. I may have underestimated him. It might be the case that Mrs. Thorkildsen underestimated him as well, I’m not sure. But I’d like to point out that I didn’t throw up in the car. The Puppy repays me by not hitting me.
Mrs. Thorkildsen is not at home. And home isn’t home, for that matter. Home has become a completely different place. It looks the same from the outside, but as soon as I bound happily through the front door, I am lost in a strange, new world. Mrs. Thorkildsen isn’t home, I can ascertain that with one simple sniff of the nostrils. The Bitch, however, is home. Very much so. The Bitch is sitting on a monstrously giant white couch between walls that have lost their nutty brown, warm sheen and have mysteriously also turned white.
‘Nooooo!’ Of course I don’t know what the woman means and continue unfettered into the living room, but she screams again, and this time she shouts:
‘Sit!’
Sit I know, and happily obey the command. The least I can do. I sit right on cue. But instead of recognizing my obedience in the form of maybe a nice pat on the head, not to mention a treat, the Bitch brutally yanks me by the collar and before I know it, I am just as brutally hauled out across the same threshold I had stepped across on my way in. All the way out to the front porch, where the Puppy finally comes walking up.
‘That dog is not going in the house, I said!’ the Bitch shouts, and thus begins a meaningless exchange of words with gradually rising levels of aggression and noise. The crazy lady is trying to deny me admission to my own home, I don’t need to listen to the arguments behind the madness, all I have to do is glance at the Puppy’s body language. Alpha gets what she wants. The Puppy might have prevailed in a larger pack of random individuals, but in his tiny little family pack, he is helpless and he knows it. Nature would have it that way.
‘But he has to go somewhere!’
The Puppy comes to my defense and grows a few inches in my regard.
‘So, give him to Jack, then!’
The suggestion makes the Puppy go quiet for a moment. The Bitch seizes the silence:
‘Your mother did say that Tassen liked him so much when she went to Copenhagen.’
‘And how would she know?’
The Puppy throws his arms open and stands still for a moment or two before angrily answering his own question:
‘That’s right, because Tassen told her! So why don’t we just ask Tassen what he thinks?’
‘I think …’ I begin, but the Puppy interrupts me:
‘And what are we supposed to tell Mom? Hi, Mom, we gave your dog away?’
‘As if it matters what you tell her. This is not up for discussion, anyway. This conversation is over.’
And it was. The Puppy retreats under a black cloud and takes off in the car with a roar. I am tied up and locked out of my own home. The Bitch goes back inside. I lie down in the freshly cut grass, trying to preserve the tiny bit of dignity I still possess. I take deep breaths through wide-open nostrils. No matter how closed the door is and how white the walls are behind it, I am home after all. I can smell my own piss on the hedges. What I can’t smell, however, is Mrs. Thorkildsen’s shadow. Her absence is a mystery, perhaps the biggest mystery ever; a mystery that fills every living moment in the universe with turmoil, like a strange smell you’ve never smelled before, but it still scares you.
It is getting dark, and the Puppy returns from wherever he had gone. He pulls up in the same car he’d used to retrieve me from prison, the same car we went hunting in so long ago, him and I. Imagine that. I jump for joy when the car turns into the driveway. Maybe I can learn to love this life, too. I mean, what else am I supposed to do if Mrs. Thorkildsen is gone? Sit down and wait for death like she did, or go on until it’s over, go on although my body is tired, my feet are sore, and I’d rather be done with it all?
The Puppy doesn’t want to play. The Puppy wants to go into the house with the white walls. He slips inside and slams the front door behind him without so much as acknowledging me with a simple ‘Good dog!’ That’s how quickly things can change. I’d forgotten that. Now I smell the trace of him, too, and there’s something new about it, something that wasn’t there when he left. It’s the smell of another woman, not the Bitch. She’s pregnant, too. God knows where the Puppy has picked up this smell.
The Puppy comes out again as quickly as he went in. He takes quick, decisive steps towards the car, rummages around in the trunk, and comes back over. Without saying a word, the Puppy lets me off the stupid rope, and suddenly I’m no longer bound and confused, but free and confused. It’s probably safest to follow the Puppy, now that he’s finally started acting like a leader. His ability to ignore me is impressive and growing. Maybe the Puppy has come of age. At last, Mrs. Thorkildsen would say, but of course she’s not here now. She’s somewhere else.
40
He stops the car outside a tallish brick building that looks like any other brick building, but the smell is unmistakable after the first whiff through the nostrils. We are back, way back then. Why? you might ask, but I don’t. I’m just glad to be here. Glad to be anywhere, really, but right now, since this is where we are, this is where I’m glad to be.
The house where the Major died. A long time ago now, half an eternity ago, maybe more, but the smell is the same bittersweet one, the kind of smell that changes the air it travels. The smell of death, I think. I never thought that before.
The Puppy puts me on the leash, and that makes me feel safer. Now it is his turn to lead. I make sure not to pull on the leash, generally put my best foot forward, and it doesn’t feel so bad. I think I could get used to walking the Puppy.
The home is as warm as last time, and the light from the ceiling is as grim and the old people are as old as ever sitting still in the same chairs as they wait their turn. Two frankly quite stinky old ladies sit there sleeping as the TV alludes to the passing of time. Old people don’t like it when time passes, but they hate it even more when it doesn’t. TV helps a lot with that.
It is a room that looks so much like the room the Major died in that I think for a moment it is him half-sitting, half-lying in the giant bed-machine under the dim light of the bedside lamp.
‘Hi, Mom,’ the Puppy says in the half-darkness. ‘Look who’s come to visit you.’
Mom?
Mom!
It really is Mrs. Thorkildsen there in the bed! I feel a little ashamed that I hadn’t recognized her at once (though she does smell differently now), but no less ecstatic. What a wonderful day! As my tail lives a life of its own back there, I get on my hind legs up against the bed, and the Puppy understands. He loosens the leash and nudges me up into Mrs. Thorkildsen’s flea box.
‘Look, Mom, Tassen came to see how you’re doing!’ he says way too loudly, as if he is still standing in the doorway.
Mrs. Thorkildsen doesn’t dignify the Puppy’s lies with as much as a sigh. I step across the comforter to give her a big warm kiss, a good old-fashioned tongue bath, while trying my best not to place my paws wrong, not to step on her little body that is now smaller than ever.
I lick her face, but Mrs. Thorkildsen seem
s not to notice that I am there, though her eyes flicker and her eyelids flutter. She glances around the room, but sees nothing. I go from ecstasy to frustration in a moment, so who could object to me letting out a little bark?
The Puppy could.
‘No! For fuck’s sake, Tassen!’ he says.
I lie down on the comforter and stare at Mrs. Thorkildsen as hard as I can. I feel her breathing and I can sense the smells that come with the air she exhales. I can hear her loyal little heart beating. But, beyond that, nothing.
‘Stay!’ the Puppy yells as he slips out the door. He doesn’t have to worry. I certainly am not planning on going anywhere, now that I am reunited with Mrs. Thorkildsen at last. We are finally alone. I bury my snout in her elbow-crease, as close to a safe haven as you can find in this world.
‘Tell me one thing,’ I say, ‘you’re not planning to die, too, are you?’
Mrs. Thorkildsen clears her throat, and says:
‘I’m already dead, Tassen. Finished. History. Deceased. An ex-Mrs. Thorkildsen. Call it what you want, Tassen. Call it Bingo, if you want.’
She says it without pathos or melodrama, with the same quiet assurance she used to declare that it was time to go for a walk or time for food. And when Mrs. Thorkildsen says she’s dead, I have no reason to doubt her honesty. I take her at her word most seriously. Dead seriously.
‘But what happens to me,’ I have to ask, ‘if you’re dead?’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Mrs. Thorkildsen says. ‘You’ll get to live with the young ones. I’ve made sure of it. They’ll take good care of you.’
Given the situation, I have no choice but to swallow all my objections to white pillows and white walls and the Bitch’s black rage. Mrs. Thorkildsen knows best, anyway.
‘So,’ I say, mostly to break the silence, ‘what’s it like being dead?’
Mrs. Thorkildsen laughs, and it makes my tail wag.
‘You’re the same as always,’ I say to encourage her. ‘With a sense of humor over the River Styx.’
All in all, it doesn’t sound very encouraging at all. But who knows what use encouragement is to dead people. Like giving a hungry dog a gummy bone.
‘It’s just this body I don’t need anymore,’ Mrs. Thorkildsen says. ‘You can see what’s going on. I don’t see how it’s possible.’
‘So, can’t you get rid of it somehow?’
‘That has proven quite difficult.’
‘Can’t you just get someone to shoot it?’
‘Like the Chief’s dogs?’
‘Something like that. But I’d rather not have to eat you afterwards.’
‘I don’t think there’s much meat left on me, Tassen. And what’s left is probably pretty tough. You might be able to make a good stock if you’re patient and let it simmer for a few days. But remember to drain it carefully, Tassen. Promise me that, and let it rest in the fridge overnight. Rest in a cold place.’
‘We’ve been there.’
‘Yes, we have.’
‘Thank you for telling me that story. It was … thought-provoking.’
‘Really? What kinds of thoughts did it provoke?’
‘Well, what can I say? What can I compare it to? I must admit I have a hard time seeing the point of it all.’
‘You’re not the only one,’ Mrs. Thorkildsen smiles.
‘No one really had to die, neither the dogs nor the men. But the equation is there, with how many dead dogs?’
‘I know math isn’t your strong suit, Tassen, but almost two hundred dogs fell victim on the journey.’
‘That’s a lot! I know that for sure. Almost.’
‘That’s twice as many as the first pack of paper wolves we made. Do you remember them?’
She says ‘we.’
‘Of course I remember them. And even if I don’t understand numbers, I understand twice as many. Two hundred per cent. That’s easy.’
‘The point is it’s way too many.’
‘Would it really make a difference if just one single dog had been slaughtered? Far more dogs die a far uglier death after a far worse life, every day. Don’t you think about that,’ I add.
‘I know, but I think about it anyway, even though I’m dead. I can’t separate it from what happened afterwards, when they came home and claimed the flag was planted on the last place on earth, and now there were no more places that could be declared mine!’
‘And then there was War?’
‘I can promise you that.’
‘The War that the Major was in?’
‘I don’t know if there’s any point in separating one War from the other. It’s all the same mess. Men fighting over status and power. And honor. Honor! Ugh, I hate that word! Has it ever been about anything other than honor?’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘maybe it was about food?’
‘You know me well enough to know that I’m no vegetarian, Tassen. No good cooks are vegetarians. Humans eat animals and that’s just the way it is, but it should be done with intention and dignity. You don’t throw a puppy overboard because it doesn’t fit into the pack in front of the sled you could have pulled on your own.’
Mrs. Thorkildsen is true to herself even in death, but I’ll admit that her new condition lends a certain gravitas to her words.
‘It’s mostly the precision of the dog killings that make me so sad. Maybe because I know what’s to come in the years that follow, that millions of people will be murdered in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible. Bitches, male dogs, puppies are reduced to factors in an equation where X = death, and the solution is honor.’
‘Equation?’ I say, but Mrs. Thorkildsen lets that one go. Instead, she says:
‘There are a couple more things I need to tell you about “The big journey to the middle of nowhere.” When the Chief returned from the South Pole, he was welcomed everywhere. Even where he wasn’t welcome. You can understand that the Englishmen were a little mad at the South Pole’s celebrated conqueror, and that was before they found the stiff-frozen remnants of Scott’s expedition. In the spirit of English sportsmanship the Chief, half-heartedly, was invited to a victor’s banquet in London. Lord Curzon was president of the Royal Geographical Society, and it was his duty to propose a toast to the guest of honor. In his speech, Lord Curzon unsurprisingly emphasized the Norwegians’ use of dogs.’
‘Naturally,’ I pipe in.
‘“So I will let myself suggest a triple hurrah—to the dogs!” Lord Curzon exclaims.’
‘Hah! Did he really say that?’
‘He did. And the dogs got their hurrahs. The Chief didn’t.’
‘Was he mad?’
‘It bothered him for the rest of his life. A few years before he died, the Chief published an autobiography that was so mean and bitter, it robbed him of all his dignity and the few friends he had left. In the book, he tells the story of the insulting speech in London with a pen dripping with resentment. He never forgot it.’
‘Serves him right. It should sting a little. You can’t just stand at the back of the sled. Nothing is that simple.’
‘That wasn’t the only sting the Chief ever felt. The whole time they were in Antarctica, he had pains in his anal opening.’
‘Oof! It’s impossible to reach back there, no matter how hard you try. He wouldn’t have been able to lick himself.’
‘I don’t think so, no.’
‘So all the way to the South Pole and back, his butt hurt?’
‘He had some creams to put on, but I don’t know how much they helped. The difference between a little pain in your butt and a lot of pain in your butt may not be so big, after all.’
‘Maybe that’s what drove him onward? The fact that his rear end hurt so badly?’
‘Now you’re making Roald Amundsen sound like a cat running for the hills after somebody’s smeared mustard under its tail.’
‘Might not be a bad comparison.’
‘The journey to the South Pole as a symptom of anal irritation?’
‘
Mental anal irritation. And from is the key word, anyway, not to. The Chief was the first one to come from the South Pole.’
‘Your bum is behind you whichever way you aim.’
‘True.’
Captain Scott stands at the South Pole, exhausted and defeated. An honorable expedition diminished to a humiliated retreat in a moment, and he’s still only halfway. Life doesn’t seem so big anymore. But death? Death is huge.
Captain Scott wants to die, and he gets his wish. The four men on his team have to die for his wish to be granted, one more miserably than the next. They die the way free animals die, the way vegetarians think animals should die, of terrible diseases that torment the body to its last breath.
So, there’s the equation, you who can do math:
The Chief, with his decisions, takes the lives of an unknown number of local animals of prey and a giant pack of dogs, while Captain Scott, beyond the animals of prey, takes the lives of a dozen horses, his teammates, and not least himself.
So, who’s worse?
Either way, the solution to the equation is a story. Or, strictly speaking, two stories, about going to the same non-place, only to turn around and crawl back home. One is written in human blood, the other in dog blood.
Imagine if the participants, including the Chief, had been sworn to secrecy. You’re more than welcome to be first to the southernmost point in the world, you just can’t tell anyone about it afterwards. All scientific data will be published, of course, and the Norwegian flag on the South Pole will still be the basis of territorial claims no one will ever recognize. The only difference is that you don’t get to tell the story. Everyone will know someone was there, but no one will know it was you. Who wants to be first? Anyone?
When it comes down to it, that’s what all the fuss was about, wasn’t it? Placing yet another story on the Library’s shelves. I personally think Mrs. Thorkildsen is undervaluing this particular reward of The Big Journey. When I suggest it to her, she dismisses me:
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