Faithful Ruslan (12 page)

“I’d never even get all of you into that dresser, Stiura, you’re such a bi-ig girl.…”

She snorted, pretending to be offended, but soon she was sitting on his knees and the game continued with the help of their hands.

“And what about that boss of ours, the captain? What’s he like as a man—O.K.?”

“He’s nothing special, your boss. Ordinary, same as all of them.”

“All of them, eh? Been having the whole lot? If you have, you ought to know every man’s different. It’s you women who are all the same.”

“He was no worse than you, anyway.”

“Crap. You’re lying. No worse than me—is that all? Why, he’s an outstanding personality, a man-mountain, an eagle! In other words, a tick. When a tick gets his teeth into you, either you pull him out with a piece of your flesh or he leaves his head stuck in you for a souvenir. I’ll bet he scraped you good and proper!”

“Like hell! That’s all he did, scrape.… The only stiff thing about him was the collar of his uniform.”

“But underneath it he was a noncombatant, eh? Ah, it does me good to hear you say that. That calls for another drink.”

Ruslan stood up, pushed open the door with his forehead and went out.

The daylight had only just faded, but Ruslan knew for certain that his prisoner would not be going anywhere until late next morning, and “that filthy stuff” would keep him at home more reliably than any guard. Accustomed to treasuring his limited free time, Ruslan could not get used to having it in abundance. Until the sky turned pink again and the world glowed with color, he could sleep to his heart’s content, go hunting, check on what was happening at the station and visit some of his friends. The problem was to survive till morning on a stomach so empty that the wind seemed to be blowing through it and a pool of hot water
was splashing against its sides. He knew that in the warmth the pangs of hunger grew infinitely worse, so he purposely cooled his belly with snow, stretched out on the sidewalk in front of the gate. This was his invariable post, and a very convenient one it was. From here he could not only observe the street in both directions but also see the porch through the open wicket gate, which was never shut at night. His favorite moment was when the streetlamp on its rickety pole was turned on and threw a cone of yellow light all around Ruslan’s post. This light warmed Ruslan’s heart, because it so vividly reminded him of the prison camp and his spells of guard duty with his master, when together they patrolled the No-Go zone or stood sentry outside a storehouse; cold and lonely, they were hemmed in by a malevolent, impenetrable wall of darkness, on one side of which was light, fair dealing and mutual affection, while on the other side lurked an evil world of deception, trickery and violence.

Treasure, too, would come out into the cone of light and lie down a little distance away from Ruslan, though each day he moved a little closer. He had, of course, already told his friends about Ruslan, and on the second evening they came to make his acquaintance. First to come was a skinny dog called Polkan, with a scalded flank and a look of fixed puzzlement on his face, a grizzled little goatee beard, and a habit of always nodding his head as though constantly agreeing with someone. Then came the painfully intelligent-looking Druzhok, with a permanent enigmatic frown as though he knew some great secret, but who was really extremely dim-witted and could never even remember who his parents were; elsewhere he generally answered to the name of Mutt. Another visitor was the elegant and highly strung Bouton, terribly proud of his frilly pants and his bushy, ever-stiff tail.
The introductions were entirely one-sided; Ruslan did not deign to acknowledge them by a single look or movement, towering above them with the indifference of a megalith. Treasure contrived to turn even this to his advantage: he, too, lay there in silence, adopting the same pose as Ruslan, with the same disdainful look on his face. His friends bitterly envied him and departed in baffled perplexity.

Later there came a bevy of bedraggled little bitches—all with silly names like Darling and Blackie, and one without a name at all—who spread out in a semicircle and gazed at Ruslan with adoration. Their shameless looks said quite openly, “Oh, isn’t he handsome! So big and such lovely long legs! Well, of course, he’s from the military. Other bitches would try and flirt with him, but I wouldn’t dream of it for a second.…” If they were hoping for a passionate encounter, they had come to the wrong place; it never entered their thick little heads that Ruslan was On Duty, and that where sex was concerned he was accustomed to performing as generations of his ancestors had done: an order would be given, you were led out on a leash and shown with whom to do it. When their presence bored him he simply twitched his blackish-mauve lips and bared his fangs—at which they all vanished as though blown away by the wind and Treasure immediately remembered some urgent business in the yard.

None of his fellow guard dogs came to visit Ruslan, and he avoided other acquaintances, valuing solitude above all. In the hours when he lay and watched the onset of evening, from an old habit acquired in his prison-camp days, he would run over the events of the day in his mind and prepare himself for the morrow. Anxiously he racked his brains to make sure that he still remembered everything he had been taught, that he had not forgotten any of the lessons learned
by harsh experience and for which, if they were ever to slip his memory, he might have to pay dearly.

 … HE WAS COMING AGAIN, THE STRANGER IN the gray overalls that smelled of a prison hut. He was approaching out of the sun, his long, early-morning shadow creeping insinuatingly toward your paws. Be on guard and don’t be afraid of his shadow, but beware of his hands, hidden in his thick sleeve. When the sleeve was rolled back the poison would be there, in the palm of his hand. But there was his palm, right in front of your nose—wide open and empty. He only wanted to stroke you—after all, one couldn’t suspect a trick all the time! The warm human hand was laid on your forehead; its touch was affectionate and solicitous, making a pleasant languor spread through your whole being and driving away all suspicion. You lifted your head to respond to that touch with the ultimate sign of trust: taking the hand between your teeth and holding it briefly and gently without hurting the man. Suddenly the laughing face was transformed with a sneer of malice; for a moment astonishment kept you from feeling the pain, because you could not grasp where it had come from—and the hand was snatched away, having plunged a barb into your ear.…

You had not seen it, hidden between the fingers. Learn to see it.

Once again, Master had only to go away for a moment or two and straight away you did something stupid. The shame of it! And the pain! Worst of all, you had to admit to your own stupidity, because you found that you couldn’t get rid of the thing by yourself—it wouldn’t come out if you tried to dislodge it with your paw or shake it out by twitching your ear, and whatever you did only made it worse. Your ear was
now positively burning, with a raging pain that was making the daylight fade—this day that had begun so well, that had been so cloudless and blue. But there was Master—ah, he always appeared at the right moment and understood everything. He would never punish you, even when you had undoubtedly deserved it. He would take you away, while you cried so much that you could not make out where you were going, and then he would quickly remove that horrible thing and put a damp piece of lint on the place that hurt. You gave just one final yelp, and it was all over: Master was already tickling you behind that ear and it did not hurt at all. But if you were a clever dog, you would think to yourself: next time try to see whether there was anything hidden in a stranger’s hand. Or perhaps it wasn’t even worth the trouble of looking? Wouldn’t it be better to be like Djulbars and not trust anyone—so that no one could ever fool you again?

It was not surprising that Djulbars, who had bitten his own master, always earned top marks for mistrust. It was not so much that he showed exemplary aggression toward strangers; he simply wanted to devour them whole, overalls and all. It happened several times that he went berserk and forgot the rules—and he alone was forgiven for it. Casting aside all reason, he would whip himself into a state of anger five or ten times greater than necessary, until his coat was practically steaming and the whole exercise yard reeked of dog. One lesson, at least, he had thoroughly acquired: if you tried too hard, you got away with it; if you didn’t try hard enough, you were in trouble.

“You should all learn, learn and learn again from him,” said the Instructor, embracing Djulbars around the neck, and the young dogs, seated in a semicircle, drooled with
envy. “If this dog had only two more whorls of gray matter in his head, he would be priceless!”

Djulbars himself, of course, thought he was priceless. Only one thing worried him: if he never let anyone come near him, he would never get to bite anybody! So one day he worked out a trick: pretending that he had at last been fooled, he allowed a stranger’s hand to rest on his forehead. The next moment it was in the grip of his fangs. Such a terrible shriek had never been heard on the training ground. The wretched man crashed to the ground, lashing out at the animal with his legs, while the masters dashed to his rescue; they tried both stroking Djulbars and whipping him with leashes; they threatened to kill him—but to no avail. Djulbars had clearly decided that even if it meant death, he would bite off that hand. Just then for some reason Thunder, who was tied up in a distant corner, got it into his head that the screaming man was not a prisoner but his own master; genuinely furious, Thunder barked out to Djulbars to leave his master alone. Djulbars, however, had a real case of lockjaw, and even if he had wanted to he could not have unfastened his teeth without first calming down. When his spasm eventually subsided and he let go of what had once been a hand, the victim was incapable of getting up and the masters had to carry him away.

Thunder was unfortunately never able to put his suspicion to the test: from that day onward his master disappeared from his life. Once again Djulbars not only got off scot-free but became even more famous. And rightly so, for who could better serve as a model to the younger generation? He was always paired off with the gentler, less aggressive dogs who neither understood why they should chase an escaping prisoner (he had done them no harm) nor what it
was about the pursuit that made it so enjoyable. Djulbars put an end to all their doubts; with a hoarse bark that meant “Do as I do!” he would chase and catch the runaway, bring him down and savage the victim with such relish that even the dullest dogs could see the point of the exercise.

It took Ruslan a long time to appreciate this, and so he had to be subjected to a lengthy and patient course of being teased. People twisted his tail while he was eating, trod on his paw, pulled away the feeding bowl from under his nose, and to cap it all, when he was tied up to a chain they would douse him with cold water and run away, hooting with laughter. Especially unpleasant were the exercises to train him not to be afraid of shots or blows. Though born utterly fearless, Ruslan found it hard to bear when men in gray overalls fired a huge pistol straight at his muzzle or thrashed him across the back with a bamboo cane. True, he soon learned that this stupid pistol never harmed him and he also grew to tolerate the cane, but the whole point was that he ought not to tolerate it but should dodge, lunge for the arm, chase the man and worry him—all of which he did reluctantly.

“Bold, but not aggressive. A certain emotional insensitivity,” the Instructor said regretfully, and his remarks cut Ruslan to the quick. “You’re too offhand in your approach to him. With this dog you have to do it more seriously; otherwise he doesn’t believe you’re in earnest.”

The Instructor himself took the bamboo, pulled a hideous face and swung the cane in a terrifying slash.

“Come on, bite me! Bite me properly!”

But Ruslan no more wanted to bite the Instructor’s bare wrist than he wanted to be suffocated with a quilt. He tried to seize him gently, without even scratching him. He liked the Instructor, who made the most favorable impression on
all the dogs—his mere presence lightened all the hardships of their training. They all loved his leather jacket, which smelled so deliciously of some animal that they longed to rip it into tatters and carry a piece away as a souvenir. They loved the fact that he was so slim and agile, they loved his red forelock and his sharp features, which could only be seen properly in profile—and in that profile they could discern something doglike. Active and tireless, he was always on the move all over the training ground; he could explain everything so clearly to every dog that the animal immediately understood him—better, in fact, than he understood his own master. When carried away by his work the Instructor would bark and growl, and the dogs thought he did it pretty well; in fact, if he were to practice a little more, they might actually be able to understand
what he was barking about
. Then they would have forgiven him for not having such a thick, hairy coat as they had (which was why he had to wear the bare skin of some other animal), for not having entirely given up human speech, which was so disgustingly crude and inexpressive, and for still preferring to walk on two legs when four legs were so much better.

The Instructor had, however, already made a few attempts in this direction, and with some success. One of his methods fascinated the dogs; the Instructor did not use it often, but when he did, the whole exercise became a pure delight.

“Attention!” the Instructor would order, and all the dogs nearly died with the thrill of anticipation. “I will demonstrate!” Dropping on all fours, he would show them how to dodge the stick or the pistol and how to seize the hand holding the weapon. Admittedly the Instructor sometimes got hit on the head or the teeth with the stick, but he kept up the game. He would merely lift one paw from the ground for a second
to feel whether he had been hurt, and then gave the order: “That doesn’t count. I will demonstrate it again,” after which he would give a short, sharp bark and return to the attack until he had carried out the exercise with complete success.