Carmen Dog (19 page)

Behind Pooch come those other Rosemarys. Quickly she slips completely out of her hopelessly entangled policeman pants. Thank goodness the policeman's jacket comes down almost to her knees. With the baby in her teeth again, she runs off down an alley as fast as she can. One of the Rosemarys leaves the others and follows her. It seems to Pooch that the Rosemarys could have easily caught up with her when she fell, but apparently following her is more important than arresting her. Perhaps that was why it was so easy to leave the police station. Perhaps they were let go on purpose.

It happens that in this particular alley a kazoo, tom-tom, and tambourine band has been gathering, getting ready to march up Fifth Avenue. There are several Rosemarys as well as several policemen in the band. Also many females in various states of change, the most impressive being a large, kazooing condor-woman. What's left of her orange hair (it is clear she will soon be completely bald) blends in with her orange head. Her arms are covered already with black feathers, a strip of white ones on each side. Pooch thinks how nice that such endangered species can now augment their ranks with changing females.

The kazoo band is about to move out. As Pooch and the Rosemary near them, the kazoo players accept them into their ranks and hand them (the baby, too) kazoos and invite them to line up. There is really little else to do, since the alley has turned out to be a dead end.

The baby is delighted and so is Pooch, because here is a way for her to sing again, however harsh the sound. And so Pooch and the baby, side by side with the Rosemary who has been following them, march out with the others toward, Pooch hopes, whatever it is that Rosemary said they should hurry up for.

Then, right in the middle of all this new-found pleasure, she catches sight of Isabel, crouching behind a pile of plastic trash bags. How not stop and greet her, even though Pooch would rather go on marching with the kazoo group? Clearly Isabel had not gone to the master as Pooch had advised, though that is probably just as well. Now no way to ask her, nor has Isabel the means to reply.

The Rosemary has stopped also, but stands at a discreet distance as Pooch approaches and squats down, holding out her hand, palm up. Isabel moves forward cautiously and touches the tip of her nose to the tips of Pooch's fingers. She is looking at Pooch's collar as though once again her salvation lies in that. To her it must mean freedom, as it did back at the pound.

To Pooch the collar has come to mean a sort of slavery. Disgusting thing! Why had she not taken it off at the first opportunity? Now, in her eagerness to do so, she lets go of the squirming baby and it toddles off as fast as it can after the kazoo band, calling out, “Mine, mine.” Falls down. Gets up. Falls....

Pooch hands the collar to Isabel, who takes it tentatively, making little grunts of pleasure. Then Isabel turns back to the nearest doorway and begins to chew on it. Pooch thinks that now the collar is being used as it deserves to be.

Pooch turns to find the Rosemary making off with the baby, and she rushes after them. But no need to hurry, for the baby, it seems, has learned, in just this half day, to defend itself. The Rosemary yells and drops it and the baby crawls off as fast as it can, still after the kazoo group, having for the moment given up on walking.

Pooch grabs the baby with one hand and then turns to see where the Rosemary was bitten. It is quite a bad bite on the hand. Pooch looks closely at the baby, trying to see any changes toward the animal in the set of its jaw or its teeth, but they seem the normal chubby chin and sharp little teeth of any human baby. “Mine,” it says again, reaching after the kazoo band and waving its fingers. It is quite flushed, and Pooch thinks perhaps she should look for some water for it, but there is the bite to deal with first. There is a handkerchief in the top part of her policeman's uniform that could be used as a bandage. She holds back her instinct to lick the wound (though she once read that that is a good thing to do) and carefully wipes away the blood with the cleanest part of the handkerchief.

"
That
is Isabel,” the Rosemary says in a gravelly, bass voice. A nice voice, actually. Pooch is drawn to it. The Rosemary is nodding toward Isabel, who is still chewing away noisily.

"I'm the detective who was called to the Plaza. I expect that is the real Isabel. That's the one that killed the cook, not you."

Pooch can see the detective's eyes behind his Rosemary mask. They are blue and have little wrinkles at the sides, and she can even see dark circles underneath them. They are performing the wound-binding like a ritual; he is helping her with his left hand since she must hold the baby, and she is as gentle as she can be. Each using just one hand, they tie the knot at the end.

Perhaps the kazooing has loosened something in Pooch's throat. Or perhaps it was the giving away of the collar, as if: There goes home and all it stands for. No turning back. Rely, now, only on yourself. (She wonders, does she have the courage?)

"I have not spoken for several days, though I have felt the need,” Pooch says as their fingers touch. She had not thought that she was about to speak. Her voice takes her by surprise. It is soft and pure and full of humanity, and there is no trace of a stutter. One could say it's better than ever.

"You know you shouldn't have confessed to all those crimes back at the police station. You shouldn't have signed that statement."

"My voice was taken from me by a mad scientist who, though he conceived of himself as kindly and no doubt still thinks so, used me viciously, trying to wrest from me secrets I never possessed."

"No doubt,” the detective says, “he was concerned about the future of motherhood. We all are, you know."

"I have always hoped to be a mother one day.” The baby, suddenly worn out, is leaning against Pooch's shoulder, breathing quietly into its kazoo. As though to illustrate her feelings, Pooch gives it a little lick on the cheek.

"Mothering well, as you seem to be doing, is all well and good,” the detective says, “but the state of motherhood in general involves the entire planet."

"I know I must not think that ‘
una voce poco fa
,'” says Pooch.

"But come, let's get you some decent clothes. You look disgraceful in that policeman's jacket and almost nothing else. You'll give the force a bad name."

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Change is nature's delight.

—Marcus Aurelius

The entire planet wavers in its orbit. Mysterious star-forces bombard it. For a few minutes the sky looks as if it's full of northern lights, even though it's daytime. There's lightning now and then, but no clouds. Everyone on the street is dizzy from looking up. People bump into each other. The light is so particularly strong right over the Academy of Motherhood that everyone is wondering who has been born there this morning. What would they think if they knew it was three piglets and a colt? Probably they would wonder if the colt would one day win the Preakness.

The city seems free of pollution. Con Ed has shut down, perhaps because there's so much electricity in the air already. (One should not worry about the safety of the three important men confined to the Responsive Early-Life Play Pens. The pens have self-contained, fail-safe electrical units, advertised as safe for as long as two months after an atomic blast. Of course they're so expensive that only upper-class children could afford to be saved.) Most of the cars and trucks are stuck at the edges of the city because the wildebeests have been kind enough to turn back from their migration and help their sisters by keeping traffic in a snarl outside the city limits. Anyone who wants to come in must walk or ride on some creature, if they can find one willing to accept them. The air smells fresh, enigmatic, earthy, slightly sour—almost like the very stuff of females—outlandish and uncanny.

George (for the detective has now introduced himself), Pooch, and the baby have reached Lincoln Center. Pooch recognizes it at once, with a little frisson of excitement. She gestures towards the New York City Opera. She whispers. She is still not sure her voice will be there when she wants it and what she is about to say, she hardly dares venture. “Perhaps it is here,” she says, “I might find some decent clothes.” Of course she is thinking of clothes that would be much more than decent. She is thinking of something Carmen would be wearing at Lellas Pastia's tavern.

Since George is a detective with badge, it isn't hard for him to get access to places. “Why not?” the doorman says leading them in. “Half the costumes are gone already. All of
La Traviata
, gone. And Gilda, Aïda, Susanna, Santuzza, Mimi.... The divas themselves took lots of them. I didn't dare stop them.” He is a chickadeelike man, soft and plump. One does not wonder that he was afraid, considering all those brand-new claws, hooves, incisors, and beaks he probably had to deal with.

The costume room has been well picked over. Pooch looks first for third-act
Carmen
costumes, but all the gypsy clothes are gone. Then something feathery catches her eye. At the end of a far rack ... a complete bird suit! Papagena! No one would ever recognize her in that. There's a feathered cap of iridescent green and purple, which changes color at every tiny move. It fits low over her ears and forehead. Also a matching bodice and a short, feathered skirt that turns up into a tail behind. All the feathers in it are curled and downy and mostly reds and oranges. Then there are yellow leggings that show off her nice new long legs. Everything fits as though it had been made especially for her. She has never felt so gaily dressed.

She is so elated that a haiku pops into her head practically in finished form:

What if every creature were part bird?

Could fly, glitter, whistle?

Topknot on head! Red!

Of course she doesn't really want to be a bird. She knows that it is the human being who can pretend to be anything, and she will never, now, give up being human. What other creature could have invented opera and haiku? Of course they also invented war and pollution, but perhaps it all goes together, the best and the worst. Maybe it's animalness that will make the world right again: the wisdom of elephants, the enthusiasm of canines, the grace of snakes, the mildness of anteaters. Perhaps being human needs some diluting. At any rate, how nice to be well dressed and among friends and in a state where poems pop out by themselves.

George and the doorman both break into spontaneous applause at the sight of her, but the baby is terrified and will not be comforted, until a satin Cherubino jacket is pinned around it and it is given a large feather to hold along with its kazoo.

All four of them, the doorman included, now head for Fifty-seventh Street.

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And I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

The forces of motherhood have had to set up pro tem headquarters in an inferior building across the street from the Academy now that the Academy has been taken over by the mothers-to-be. Even though three vice presidents of motherhood and several important scientists and officials of motherhood have been captured, there are plenty of members of the Academy still at large. It is these who are now gathered across the street to consider their alternatives. They are wondering if they should, perhaps, abandon motherhood altogether ... at least the sort of motherhood that has anything to do with females. How unfortunate that they have, until now, been dependent on women for filling their
own
ranks. But science must triumph. They are saying, if a hill is in our way as we build a road, nowadays we have only to remove it. Mountains even. If great valleys need to be crossed, we build equally great bridges. Why not simply sidestep the female? We've already been doing this, to a lesser extent, for generations. And it worked—as far as it went. We've made invisible those who were less like us than they might be. We will build a higher bridge. To ignore them will be their greatest defeat. It always has been.

But one of the members says they should, on the contrary, confront the females. How would they know they were brave if they didn't face the women head on? Another of the members wonders if the females—especially those who are leaders and winners—shouldn't be allowed to become honorary men, with all the rights and privileges that that entails.

One has secretly gone down into the basement to make pipe bombs.

Now the city seems one big parade, with everyone converging on Fifty-seventh Street. There is music of all sorts: whistling, beeping, and tootling. Even the night creatures have come up into the day to see what's going on and to contribute their chirps, hoots, and loon-laughter. They wear dark glasses and their hats are pulled low over their eyes, but still they walk proudly with the others.

Suddenly, high above it all, a coloratura cadenza can be heard, clearly a trained voice, and only a little higher than a normal human voice could go. The “Bell Song” from
Lakmé
, and here comes a group of opera singers on a float pulled by two huge Clydesdale mares. Each mare wears a wide-brimmed blue floppy hat and a flowered shawl. Their tails are neatly braided, as are their manes. They pull willingly. One can see they are happy to be able to make this contribution to females, to the opera, and to the circus. It is now, just at the end of the aria, that Pooch hears “Pa.” Tentative. Questioning. “Pa?” She does not dare answer. “Pa?” Where is this “pa” coming from? As yet Pooch can see nothing of the float and its occupants. Besides, can she still sing? Does she dare to try?

"Pa!” This time it is prolonged, insistent, demanding. “Paaaaa!"

Then she sees the float, and the feathered crest looping up above the others, and she feels a tingle of anticipation. Silly, she thinks, one chicken attracted to another. She promises herself she will not be again misled as she was by the Escamillo, falling in love with an imaginary person ... with a role. No, not again in love with a costume.