Housebroken (3 page)

The house was quiet now. The dog went into the kitchen, where the fluorescent light was on, and looked from a distance at his plate, which was lying upside down next to the balcony door. He couldn't remember what had been in it that had driven him so frantic with joy. He sniffed at it again, and went back to the bedroom. The man was lying on his stomach and the woman was lying on her side. The man's arm was wrapped around the woman's waist, and the woman's leg was lying at an angle across the man's legs. The puppy curled up on the little rug at the foot of the bed, closed his eyes, and let out a long breath that contained both bitterness and resignation. He pricked up one ear to remain on guard, to defend the man and the woman against all possible enemies, and then sank into a long, sound sleep.

6

In the morning the man woke up and went to the bathroom. He peed and yawned and for a moment was alarmed to feel a wet tongue and sharp teeth rubbing against his ankle. Then he remembered the puppy and the events of the night before and smiled, flushed the toilet, and bent down to stroke the dog's head. He went into the kitchen, picked his shirt up from the floor, collected his belt and shoes from the hallway, and returned to the bedroom, where he found his jeans waiting for him on the floor in a kneeling position with his underpants inside them. He gathered his clothes together and put them down on the bed, on his side, and began to get dressed quietly, trying not to wake the woman. But the dog barked—this time it sounded almost like a real bark—and the woman woke up.

The man apologized, but the dog was beside himself with joy. Now they were both awake, which doubled his chances of getting love. He dashed around the bed barking, and then he ran into the bathroom and peed on the floor. He went back to the bedroom, feeling a little guilty without knowing why. The man was sitting on the edge of the bed and looking around the room for his sock. The woman crawled over the bed on her elbows and knees, put her arms around his neck, and said: “Are you leaving already?”

“I'm late for work,” said the man, “and I can't find my sock.”

“Should I help you look?” asked the woman and rubbed the tip of her nose on his ear.

“No,” said the man. He looked at the dog and asked: “Well? Should I take him with me and let him go somewhere?”

The woman nodded.

“Will you come over this evening?” she asked.

The man picked the puppy up in one hand and waved him in front of her and asked her if she wanted to say good-bye to him.

“No,” said the woman.

“Not even a kiss?” asked the man.

“No. I don't want to get attached. So are you coming over this evening?”

The man sat back down on the edge of the bed, clasped the puppy to his chest, and said: “Actually he's rather cute, don't you think?”

The woman didn't answer. She saw the man murmuring sweet talk to the dog and the dog wriggling in his arms, and suddenly she felt demeaned, because this was exactly the way he had talked to her in the night, and exactly the way she had wriggled in his arms. She hoped the man would fight for the dog, take pity on him, find a corner for him in his life, but she knew he was going to get rid of him without thinking twice.

She said: “So will you come over tonight?” and put her hand on his thigh. The man threw the puppy into the air, caught him, threw him up and caught him again.

“Be careful!” she said. “Did you hear me?”

The man sat the dog in his lap, felt one of his paws with his fingers, and said: “Do you think he'll be big?”

She lay down on her stomach next to the man, stretched out her hand, and touched the dog's wet nose with her fingertips.

“I can't find my sock,” said the man.

“I'll give you a pair,” said the woman and she wanted to get up and go to the closet, but the man put his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“Are you sure?” asked the woman.

“Sure,” said the man.

“So will we keep in touch?” asked the woman.

The man stood up and said: “We'll see. I don't know.”

He pushed his bare foot into the shoe and tied the laces. “Should I let myself out?” he asked, but the woman pulled the sheet over her head and didn't answer. “I'll let myself out,” said the man, and he left the room, carrying the delighted puppy under his arm. From the door he called: “Good-bye!” The woman jumped out of bed and ran after him, clutching the sheet, her hair wild, her face swollen, and her eyes glittering with tears.

“Leave him here!” she said.

“What?”

“Leave him here,” she said.

“Are you sure?” asked the man.

“Yes,” said the woman, “I'm sure. I want him.”

The man shrugged his shoulders, handed the dog over, and kissed the woman on her cheek. He gave the dog a little pat too and went away.

7

The dog knew that yesterday he had been a stray and today he was a pet. There was a price to pay, though, and he was happy to pay it. All day long the woman chased after him and swept him up in her arms and pressed him to her breast and buried her face in his neck and wet his coat with her tears. When he whimpered in protest she would put him down on the floor, mutter something, throwing herself onto the living-room sofa to leaf through the newspaper, stare at the TV, or dial phone numbers, and the dog would gain a few precious minutes of freedom, which he used to explore.

Once, when the woman was talking on the phone, he managed to climb onto the bed. He stepped carefully, treading on the sheets and pillows, which with every step let loose a cloud of familiar smells: the smell of the woman and the smell of the man, and when he poked his nose into the gap between the two pillows and made a thorough study of the scent line down the length of the bed, he caught a sharp and unfamiliar odor—the smell of them both. He returned to the living room feeling excited, and again the woman swept him up in her arms and hugged him and smothered him. He squirmed and whined, so she put him down on the floor and dropped back onto the sofa. He sat on the carpet and looked up. He liked the woman, but he was afraid of her.

Toward evening, she calmed down. She spoke on the phone some more while the dog lay at her feet with his eyes closed, nibbling the tip of one of her rubber flip-flops.

“The bastard!” the woman shouted into the phone and resumed her crying, and the dog was afraid that it was going to start all over again, the hugging and the kissing and the sobbing and the choking. He raised his head to look at her but all he saw was agitated knees and fingers holding a burning cigarette.

“Are you listening?” said the woman. “I acted like a total idiot! An idiot! I don't know what came over me. We kissed a little and he came upstairs and that's it. It happened. It just happened.

“Yes, it was nice. It was more than nice. It was wonderful.

“In the morning.

“I tried! I've been trying for hours, but you weren't home. Where were you?

“I don't know. About ten o'clock, right after he left. He was going to leave without even saying good-bye. You get it? You see what kind of a person he is?

“Because I heard him getting dressed. He thought I wouldn't wake up.

“Maybe. But even if he'd left a note, that wouldn't make it okay.

“I woke up.

“Nothing. We didn't even have coffee. He said he had to go to work.

“I don't remember. He told me yesterday. Something to do with film production.

“I don't know. He told me, but I don't remember.

“That's it. And I asked if he wanted to keep in touch.

“Yes, I did.

“I know.

“You're right. It was a mistake. And just to prove it he said he didn't know.

“But I haven't got the strength for these games anymore. I haven't got the strength.

“Yes. He said: ‘We'll see. I don't know.'

“That's what he said: ‘We'll see.'

“Yes. I'm sure.

“I don't know what it means. Probably no.”

The woman burst into tears again; the dog stopped nibbling the flip-flop and began licking her ankle, and the woman bent down and picked him up, but this time she didn't choke him; she sat him carefully on her lap and began feeling the fur on his neck and said: “I forgot to tell you, I have a dog.

“Just a dog.

“A stray.

“I don't know. Ugly. A puppy.

“Maybe two months. Small.

“We found him last night. When he brought me home, it was under my building.

“But I couldn't just leave him outside. He was starving. That's why he came up with me in the first place, to feed the dog. That was the excuse. He said he'd take him away afterward.

“No. I wouldn't let him. I don't know why. I felt sorry for the poor little thing. Do you think he'll call to ask about the dog?

“I don't know. I can't throw him out now. Maybe I'll wait a day or two. Let's see what happens. Let's see if he gets in touch. You want a dog?”

When she hung up the woman dried her tears and went to the bathroom. The dog heard her shouting and then she came back into the living room. She shook a finger at him. He dropped the rubber flip-flop and lowered his eyes. He knew he had done something bad, but he didn't know what. The woman burst out crying again, but it wasn't the same crying as in the morning and the afternoon, it was different, flat and deflated.

“Sonofabitch!” she shouted. “What do I need this for?”

She went into the kitchen, got a stick and a rag, and went back to the bathroom. He followed and watched her mopping up the puddle on the floor and crying. She turned her head—just as she had done at night when she caught him looking at her—and for a minute he filled with joy, but then the woman threw the wet rag at him. He was alarmed and ran to hide under the sofa. The woman ran after him. She kicked the sofa and hurt her toe. Now she cried in a different way, which alarmed him more than all the other kinds he had heard before. She hopped around the room, holding her foot in her hand and crying, but all of a sudden she stopped. He saw her kneeling and stretching her hand toward him, so close it was almost touching him, and pulling out the sock, which was now full of holes and fuzzy dust. He didn't protest or try to take the sock back. Something in him wanted to make friends with the woman and something in him wanted to go back to the street, but he made no move, because he knew she was dangerous now—she was quiet, not kicking or crying, just walking around the room with the white sock crushed in her hand, whispering: “It's all because of you.”

8

In the evening the man arrived carrying a big plastic bag in his arms. The woman let him in and resumed her place on the sofa, opposite the TV, without saying a word. The dog was glad to see him, and the man was glad that someone was pleased to see him. Neither of them could see that the woman was glad as well.

The man stood in the doorway and said: “I bought some stuff for the dog.”

The woman said nothing, just turned up the sound on the television.

He came into the room and began spreading his purchases out on the table: a brown leather leash, a collar, a deep plastic bowl, a big bag of dog biscuits bearing a picture of a plump, furry yellow puppy—not at all like the wild ingrate who had wrought havoc in her house—and a rubber bone which the dog snatched from the man's hand and carried off to the bedroom. The woman looked at him and thought: He's taking over the house.

The man sat down next to her on the sofa and put his hand on her thigh. She remembered that she'd done the same thing in the morning, when she'd wanted something from him—it was apparently a universal gesture of distress. She moved away and went on staring at the screen. She thought: What gives him the right to come here? The man asked her what she was watching and she didn't answer. He asked her if it was any good and she still didn't answer. He asked her what was up and she stayed silent. He asked her whether she was angry and she shrugged her shoulders. Then she took a cigarette from the pack on the table, lying under the leash and the collar and the big plastic bowl.

“I bought things for your dog,” said the man, also staring at the screen. The woman blew smoke out of her mouth and said: “He's not my dog.”

The man was glad she was talking to him. He leaned forward and took a cigarette from her pack, lit it, and flipped the match into the ashtray with a macho kind of movement. She thought: What gives him the right to take one of my cigarettes? The man began to tell her about his day at work, tapping the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray and describing the movie director he was working with—an egotist but a genius, and the woman thought: He's an ass kisser.

Again he put his hand on her thigh, and the woman ground her cigarette out. She picked up the collar and said: “What gives you the right to come here?”

The dog was running back and forth between the bedroom and the living room with the bone in his mouth, beside himself with joy. The woman felt sorry for him because it was so easy to make him happy and even easier to take his happiness away. She felt a sudden urge to make him miserable, but she controlled herself. The man kept quiet. He knew he had done something wrong, but didn't know what it was.

“What makes you think you can just come here without letting me know?” asked the woman, opening and closing the collar buckle.

“I thought you wanted me to come,” said the man.

“Who said?” she asked.

“That's what I understood from you.”

“And what if I wasn't home?”

“But I knew you would be.”

“How?”

“I thought you're free.”

“And if I'm not?”

“But you are.”

“But what if I wasn't?”

“Then maybe I'd come back later.”

“And what about the things for the dog?”

“I'd have left them outside the door. Or brought them back later, or tomorrow. I don't know. I didn't think about it. What difference does it make anyway?”