Carmen Dog (10 page)

If only she were religious, she might pray for guidance and have someone to ask forgiveness from besides her master and the psychologist. Or if only they were here. And how sad to be so far from home. But she must not forget the operas, the wonderful operas, the big one that first night and the little one today ... yesterday, that is. Those memories will remain forever a comfort to her. Had she not suffered the trials of these last weeks, she certainly would not have had those joys, nor the joy of meeting so many new friends, nor would she have had the opportunity of easing poor Basenji's pain in whatever way she could. And the baby! Perhaps it is alive today because of her, for the mistress might have done much more harm to it later on and Pooch might not have been able to defend it. But then again, she herself is fiercer than she ever thought she was. Perhaps that's just as well. She turns and covers the baby's face with kisses as though to prove that she indeed still has a soft heart.

Just then a bright light goes on right over her head. It turns out that this is not the door to a basement, but to a basement apartment, and someone is looking out the heavily barred window at her. She can see big, suspicious black eyes and a big, black, Escamillo sort of mustache, though the face it is attached to seems a bit too pudgy. No, the mustache is larger than any Escamillo would have and curls up at the sides. The eyes are Italian, the mouth that of a voluptuary. Surely, Pooch thinks, this is the face of an opera lover like herself. Surely she has been lucky in her choice of basement doorways.

Behind the bars, Pooch sees that the window is open. She gestures toward the baby and then gives what she hopes is a graceful little bow not unlike what she saw at the end of the acts at the New York City Opera. She wants to say, “Kind Sir. Kind, kind, kind Sir,” or words to that effect. This is the first time since she lost her voice that she has actually tried to say, calmly, a few words, but all that comes out is a sort of yearning whine.

"Cut the bullshit.” The voice is high for one so wide as he looks to be. “I heard you and I saw what you did. Now get out of my doorway. And you better not have peed down here."

Pooch hangs her head, nodding at the same time because, actually, she had, in the far corner (where else was there to go?) and she never, never lies, except about such things as complimenting other people's hats.

"Get out of here ... bitch."

Blushing with shame even though, technically, she
is
a bitch, Pooch turns to gather up the baby and the rolled-up scarves she had been using for a pillow. She knows that one must remain philosophical about such harsh words. They are bound to come even to those with the best intentions and sometimes when one tries one's hardest to please, though of course this was not the case here since she didn't even know of the man's existence. Naturally, had she known this was his front door, she would have been more careful. If only she could speak and apologize, and perhaps if she could tell him what she's been through and what led to her spending the night in his doorway, he would be moved by her story and understand that she had had few choices. He might even take her in and serve her a good breakfast. (Pooch has not eaten for almost twenty-four hours, so this is on her mind.) But the way he said “bitch,” and took such slow pleasure in making the word sound ugly ... disgusting.... Naturally it's not the first time she has been called that, and she knows she shouldn't be insulted by the word since it's true, but they always mean to be insulting. She's heard them use the word
girl
the same way, telling some poor little boy that he's just like a girl, which, regardless of what he may think of girls, always makes him feel dreadful. If she could speak, perhaps this is the question to which she should address herself, not her own individual problems but this larger one, telling him that, while she
is
a bitch, she does not want the word used in a way that is demeaning to herself and to other bitches like her and that the same goes for the word
girl.

Anyway I will leave here like an opera star, she thinks. She has become quite angry about little boys being called girls as an insult. The poor little fellows suffer so from it. One should not allow it. (Pooch is always quick to anger at injustice to others, though seldom rouses herself when it is she who is put upon.) In her most regal manner, then, she starts up the stairs.

"Wait a minute."

The fat man has opened his door and is looking out at her. His voice sounds quite different. All the shrillness has gone out of it. Now it is low (more befitting his size) and seductive. It is clear that he considers himself quite charming when he wants to be and that, at least for the moment, he wants to be.

"You're no ordinary bitch, are you?” Now
bitch
means something entirely different, though again he dwells on the word.

And suddenly Pooch realizes the power of a pose. He has taken her for what she has pretended to be these last few moments as she started to climb the stairs. She turns, still in the role of prima donna, and does not deign to answer even with a gesture. They stand, looking at each other, Pooch forcing herself not to look away. As she stares into his eyes, as soft and brown as her own, the idea that she has killed a man comes to her, or rather that she has
probably
killed one, and also that she has escaped a fortress. Even though the doctor was probably a murderer himself, she feels terrible about her crimes, and yet, if the circumstances warranted, she knows she would do such a thing again. And so she does not look away. He, it is clear, is also bold. They cannot stare each other down.

"Won't you come in,” he says softly.

She is tempted to walk proudly away. Certainly she would never consider going in except for the thought of food, especially for the baby, and though he has not mentioned inviting her to breakfast, she feels a tiny drop of drool at the corner of her mouth. In order to keep up her dignified pose, she doesn't dare lick it away. She hopes he hasn't noticed. She comes back down the basement stairway as though entering a grand ballroom, though she is inwardly laughing at herself and her notions of her own grandeur. And yet it seems to be working. She wonders how long she can keep up the pose.

Yes, it certainly is the apartment of a sybarite. Pooch, horrified, quickly covers the baby's eyes with her hand, but the baby protests to such a degree that there is nothing for it but that she take her hand away. The baby looks at everything with obvious delight. Clearly it has seen nothing that pleased it so much as these, the statues, the paintings, the paraphernalia (the uses of which Pooch has no idea), the doodads, large and small: pornographic candles, pornographic magnets, pornographic pillows on the sofa, pornographic lamp with pornographic shade, pornographic ash tray.... The baby crows out its whole repertoire, “No, ouch, bop, bop, littlely dittlely, later!” and proceeds to play an enthusiastic pattycake. Perhaps the baby in its turn will one day become a voluptuary.

The fat man, clearly delighted with the baby's delight, points out to Pooch the old-fashioned shepherd-shepherdess wallpaper with its little pornographic dramas going on from scene to scene, from bush to bush. “The original paintings from which these were copied,” he tells her, “were made for Louis xvi. You must come and look at them more closely.” He is all solicitude, his arm around her shoulders. “But, my dear, I imagine you're hungry. Why not study my wallpaper while I go and fix you a nice little steak?"

Perhaps he did see that bit of drool dripping down her chin. And now she can't help drooling even more than before, but she has not forgotten her vows. She shakes her head a vigorous
no
and then, keeping her dignity as best she can and also as gracefully as she can manage it, she pantomimes vegetables and nuts, first herself as carrot, then broccoli, then cashew nut, and finally she ends with herself as rain, the sun, shining down with a bright smile. Will he get the point? She gives a final little curtsy. He answers with a mocking bow. (Somehow he makes her feel operatic. No one has ever done that before except sometimes when she was singing.) “Then a salad it shall be,” he says.

After he has moved out into the kitchen at the back, Pooch puts the baby on the floor and, keeping an eye on it, tries to find something to look at that's not pornographic. In a few minutes she finds a magazine that she has heard about but never seen before, the
Opera News.
It is on the little writing desk next to a pornographic eraser (worn down just “there"), and a pornographic pencil (two crocodiles entwined, each one's head to the other's tail). Pornography or not, Pooch thinks, how can he not but be a worthy person if he has this magazine, and she is immediately engrossed in it. She does not get far, however, before she sees a small ad:

—

Will the creature who sang out from the balcony on the night of May 14th please contact the impresario Valdoviccini at 555-6656 as soon as possible.

—

Pooch of course is instantly in tears. This, more than anything so far, brings home to her the disaster of the loss of her voice, but there is no time for self-pity. Luckily that name and telephone number are etched forever in her mind, for now she is interrupted by a shriek from the baby. Pooch lets out an unpremeditated little yelp which she stifles with her hand. At first she can't find the baby, but then she sees it crawling out from under the bed with four bloody scratches on its cheek. In the dark beyond it, under that huge, king-sized bed, she sees two luminous blue eyes.

"Pussy!"

The fat man has heard the commotion and is immediately down on his knees trying to poke the creature out with a large wooden spoon. “Pussy, you ungrateful wretch. Didn't I rescue you from several fates worse than death, as well as from death itself!"

"Out of the frying pan...."

"Come out and behave yourself."

"Not until she and that other thing go."

"Don't be jealous. You were, yourself, not so long ago, in the very same situation as this young thing. Come out. We'll have a nice
ménage à trois.
"

"It came after me."

"Don't be ridiculous. It's just a baby."

The spoon is evidently not long enough.

Pooch, watching it all and hardly realizing what she is doing, licks the blood from the baby's face. She stops herself in a moment and sees that there is really not much damage done, though there is always the risk of cat-scratch fever.

The fat man is flailing out quite violently now. By the wall at the far side of the bed appears a slinky, light tan (almost white, in fact) and almost black ... a seal point, the blue eyes startling in that dark face. And no doubt about it, of royal birth and at least as pedigreed as Pooch herself, or even more so.

"You look ridiculous down there,” the Siamese says.

The fat man is still on his knees reaching under the bed from the other side, but now he leans back and sits on his heels. “Well, well, Chloe, may I introduce.... This is.... Well, who are you?"

Pooch goes to the writing desk and takes a piece of note paper and, having dared so much already, dares again, twice. First she dares to pick up the pornographic crocodile pen, and second, she dares to write
Pucci
, for after all, she once could sing and, evidently, rather well. That is clear from the ad.

"Pucci! And a very charming and accomplished lady, I must say. And now, my dear, if you would like to eat, you must promise me ahead of time that you'll reveal charms and accomplishments of an entirely different sort from those you have already shown me. I am sure you will comply. You would not want the baby to go hungry, would you? And it is obvious that you, also, would enjoy a bit of breakfast."

With that he goes back into the kitchen and returns with two trays of food, each more inviting than the other, with marinated vegetables, green salad, dark bread, two kinds of cheese, and a little bowl of nuts on the larger tray for Pooch.

"I will consider your eating my food as acquiescence to my plans, but now you must excuse me for a moment,” he says, putting the trays on the Louis xiv coffee table, “while I go and take my aphrodisiac."

The baby immediately begins to eat and Pooch, of course, cannot bring herself to try to stop it. Since this is the case, she thinks that she might as well eat a mouthful or two herself, though there is no guarantee that, if she eats only a little, she will only have to comply with his sybaritic desires by an amount commensurate with what she has eaten. No, she might as well gobble it all up. Perhaps there is another way out than starving herself.

Chloe now sits opposite them on the floor and, with regal disapproval, watches them eat. It's disconcerting, but even so Pooch doesn't stop the baby from making a mess of it. She does try to counteract that image by eating with all the elegance and grace she can manage, even though this does detract somewhat from her enjoyment.

"Can't you speak?"

Pooch is not absolutely sure, but shakes her head no. She would not want to try again and have barking come out.

"Are you interested in serious questions?"

Pooch gives a little I-don't-know shrug.

"I have heard there are efforts being made. For us, I mean."

Pooch hopes Chloe is not referring to such things as the doctor was doing. She is hoping that, if efforts are being made, they are on an entirely different level than the experiments to which she has been subjected. She makes the I-don't-know shrug again.

"Up or down?"

Pooch points up.

"I also."

Pooch makes a gesture to show that that is obvious. It seems to please Chloe, and her manner softens a bit.

"I'm sorry I scratched your baby,” she says.

Pooch gives a forgiving wave of her hand.

"He wears the key around his neck. On a gold chain, no less. A short one. I tried once, but one can't get it over his nose without waking him up."

Just then the fat man returns. He has changed out of his purple silk pajamas and now he wears an embroidered headband and a loose black satin robe with gold braid about the collar. He is carrying three little paper cups with an inch of liquid in the bottom of each one. “I made this outfit myself,” he says, “including the embroidery on the headband. I know it doesn't match, but I can't resist wearing it every chance I get, and I wanted you to see the workmanship. Now Pucci.... “(In spite of herself, Pooch visualizes it as Poochie.) “Pucci, see to it that the baby drinks this. It's very mild. It'll just make it sleep for an hour or two. It should like it. It's cherry, if you'll pardon the expression. And here are
your
aphrodisiacs. I'll be watching, so don't try to throw them in the dieffenbachia."