Housebroken (7 page)

The friend asked him how the blind date had gone, and the man said okay.

“Did you sleep with her?” she asked. The man gulped down the rest of his beer and nodded.

“You want another one?” asked the friend, and before he had a chance to answer she went inside and came out with a new bottle.

“So,” said the friend, “go on, tell me. How did it go?”

“It went,” said the man.

“What went?” The friend laughed. “What's happened to you? Suddenly you're shy?”

“I guess so,” said the man.

“So?” said the friend. “Can't you tell me anything?”

“What do you want to know?” asked the man and took out the pack of cigarettes he had bought on the way.

“Anything,” said his friend and dug into the bag of chips. “What does she do? She's a teacher, right?”

“She's a translator,” said the man.

“I thought she was a teacher,” said the friend, disappointed. “I thought she was some kind of schoolteacher.”

“No,” said the man. “She's a professional translator.”

The friend sensed danger. The man had been on blind dates with more impressive occupations; she herself had fixed him up with lawyers, writers, architects, actresses—so why was he defending this translator of all people? They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then the man said: “We've got a dog.”

“Both of you?” asked the friend.

“She has. We found him together. But she hasn't decided whether to keep him yet. She may get rid of him.”

“Or you.”

“Or me.”

“Or you her.”

“Maybe,” said the man. “Maybe I'll get rid of her.”

There was something reassuring about knowing that at any minute, when his old enemies came to attack—restlessness, boredom, the feeling he'd been cheated—he could get rid of the woman. Blind dates always promised something and never kept their promise. He didn't know how to define it exactly, but he knew whatever that something was, he hadn't received it. This blind date, for example, was already full of promise, but he promised himself that he wouldn't let her disappoint him; the minute that began to happen—by now he could always tell when it was happening and it was sure to happen, it was only a matter of days—he would get rid of her. Then he'd be back on this porch with a beer and his friend and a bag of potato chips that made too much noise.

Suddenly he missed the woman. He wondered whether she had found the puddle in the bathroom, whether she was angry with the dog, whether she was angry with him, whether she had taken out her anger on the dog. He imagined the woman hitting the dog and heard him crying in his head. Then he imagined the woman and the dog sitting at home, waiting for him. He emptied the second bottle of beer and threw his burning cigarette into the yard.

16

The woman consoled herself over the fact that the man hadn't bought milk with the fact that he had taken the key. She mopped up the puddle in the bathroom calmly. She had begun to get used to the new rules. She had no way of knowing whether the man had taken the dog for a walk. The leash and the collar were lying on the table in the living room where he had left them last night. She was sorry she couldn't ask the dog, that he couldn't tell her exactly what had happened in the morning. She could have trained the dog to be an excellent spy, she thought, if only he could talk.

She stood the shopping bags on the kitchen table and arranged the vegetables, fruit, and cheese in the fridge. Then she took down the little jars of spices from the shelf above the stove, emptied them into the garbage, and refilled them with fresh spices she had bought in her favorite shop. The vendor remembered her and asked where she had disappeared to. She had bought enough spices to last for a thousand meals.

I bought something for you too, she said to the dog, who began to whine in anticipation at the sound of her voice. From one of the bags she took a bone full of sinew and marrow, and put it down on the floor next to his bowl. In spite of everything, she was in a good mood. She decided to open a bottle of beer and call the man. The drink was supposed to make her forget the dangers lurking in this phone call, but the beer wasn't cold. She put a bottle in the freezer and went to take a shower.

When she came out of the shower the house was already dark. She went into the kitchen and saw the dog crouching next to the porch door in the darkness, his back to her, gnawing the bone with his eyes closed, and suddenly she was afraid of him. She saw him in a new light. A beast of prey crouched in her kitchen and there was no knowing what it might do. She remembered reading somewhere that you should never give a dog raw meat, because the smell of the blood drove them mad. She tried to imagine the puppy attacking her. The idea seemed ridiculous, but on the other hand what did she know about him? She had taken him into her house from the street, without asking any questions, without knowing anything about his past, where he had been, and with whom. She leaned against the fridge and looked at him. He was so intent on the bone that he didn't even bother to look back at her. He wasn't hers any longer, she thought; she had lost him. The bone was a mistake. But she was afraid to try to take it away from him.

She opened the freezer and touched the bottle but it wasn't cold yet. She took the piece of paper with the man's phone number out of her diary, sat down on the living-room sofa, put the telephone on her knees, and dialed. After four rings his answering machine came on. I'm not available and it's your problem, the man's voice announced. She hung up.

She went back into the kitchen, opened the freezer, and touched the bottle again. The dog looked as if he was sleeping. She whistled to him and he turned his head toward her, the huge bone between his little jaws, his eyes half closed as if drunk.

Back in the living room, she turned on the television and turned down the sound. Again she dialed the man's number, again she heard the message on the answering machine, and again she hung up before the beep. Then she tried to call her girlfriend. There too she got the answering machine, which said: Either I'm not here to take your call, or I just don't feel like it. Leave a message. Bye.

She didn't leave a message because she didn't want the friend to return the call later, when the man was there. She hoped he would just turn up and bring a present for the dog, like he did yesterday. She heard the monotonous gnawing sounds from the kitchen—if it wasn't for the bone the puppy could have kept her company, at least. The weatherman appeared on the television screen with good news. She couldn't hear his voice but she saw his pointer dancing on the synoptic map. Fall had arrived. The end of predictions and hopes and gut feelings. It's going to rain tomorrow. The woman saw the forecaster surrounded by painted clouds and lightning, against a picture of a little boy and girl splashing in a puddle of rainwater, their arms linked and a smiling umbrella over their heads.

Again she dialed the man's number and again she got the answering machine. Again she dialed her friend's number, and again she hung up before the beep. Suddenly she remembered that her friend had gone out on a blind date. She envied her. The date with the man now seemed far away: the moments when she had stood in front of the mirror trying on her black dress, the place where they had arranged to meet, the awful table they had given her, as if the waitress wanted to punish people sitting alone in the café and spoiling everybody else's fun. And, of course, his lateness. And there were the moments when she was afraid he wasn't going to show up, which seemed quite pleasant and even nostalgic compared to what she was going through now.

Suddenly she thought of a horrible scenario: the man was her friend's blind date. When she asked the friend who she was meeting, she had said she knew nothing about him. The woman knew next to nothing about the man. Again she dialed and again she heard the answering machine. This time she didn't dial her girlfriend's number.

She remembered the key, and this calmed her a little. If he had taken the key, he would have to bring it back. They would have to meet at least one more time. Then she panicked and ran to the entrance hall to check in case he had pushed the key under the door. She went down on her knees and examined the floor tiles, but the key wasn't there.

17

A few minutes before midnight the man returned home. He had a small studio apartment on the ground floor with a kitchenette and a bathroom and a Japanese screen with pictures of snowy mountains dividing his double bed from the rest of the room. He hadn't been home for over forty-eight hours and the apartment greeted him with an offended air, punishing him with dust and stuffiness and a smell of mold and dirty socks. On the floor, under the windowsill, he saw the clay pot with the miniature tree his friend had given him smashed to pieces. The strong wind that had begun to blow in the evening must have banged the window shut and knocked the tree to the floor. The tree itself was intact, with crumbs of earth clinging to its tangled roots, but the pot was shattered.

The man picked the tree up and lay it gently on the bed, and then he turned on the answering machine. There were only five messages, and he was disappointed. After all, he had been gone more than two days. The first message was from the woman friend, who asked how he was doing and how the blind date had gone and said she was dying of curiosity. The second was from one of the production assistants, a young woman of twenty-two with whom he had had a short affair last winter, letting him know that they wouldn't be shooting tomorrow either. The third was from his best friend who asked if he would have dinner with them on Friday and told him that the baby missed him, and the fourth was from the woman friend again, asking where he was. The last message was from the woman.

It was long and muddled: she apologized for calling so late, although she didn't say what the time was, and the man concluded that she had called not long before. She said something terrible had happened to the dog and it was her fault. She had bought him a bone, which he had gnawed on, suddenly beginning to choke. He was coughing and retching and she didn't know what to do or where to call. She said it was terrifying. She thought the dog was going to die. She asked him to come as soon as he heard the message. Then there was silence. He could hear her breathing, until she put down the receiver—as if she was afraid to hang up, as if the dog might die.

He wanted to call but he didn't have her number. There was no point in calling information because she lived in a sublet apartment. He wanted to know whether the dog was still alive, and if there was any point in going over to her place. It was already quarter after twelve, and she must have left the message at least half an hour ago. The dog wouldn't have survived that long with a bone stuck in his throat. Maybe the woman had managed to find a vet. Maybe she had called a cab and taken the dog to the vet. In either case, whether the dog was alive or dead, the man knew that he had to go to her. He left the apartment, locked the door, got into his car, and drove to her place.

The woman opened the door and threw her arms around him. She smiled a big smile, but the man didn't know if she was grateful to him for coming to save the dog, or to some higher power that had removed the bone from the throat of the puppy, who was sitting on the sofa wagging his tail before he leaped on the man with barks of joy. He didn't look like a dog whose life had been in danger only a few minutes ago. The man asked the woman to tell him exactly what had happened, but she said there were no words to describe it. You have no idea what went on here tonight, she said, and rested her head on his shoulder. The man was curious nevertheless. He asked where the bone was, and the woman pointed in the direction of the kitchen. The bone was broken to bits, as if smashed with a sledgehammer. The man couldn't understand how the puppy could have done such a thing with his little teeth. He would never have imagined that such a small dog possessed so much power. The floor was covered with splinters of bone. There were big splinters and small sharp splinters. He didn't know which of the splinters was the one that was stuck in the puppy's throat.

He collected the splinters in his hand, went back to the living room, sat down next to the woman, and showed them to her, but the woman covered her eyes with her hand and said: “No. I can't look.” He picked up the puppy and showed him the splinters too, but the puppy wasn't interested in them either. He wagged his tail, laid his head on the man's thigh, and closed his eyes.

“Don't give him bones again,” said the man and put the splinters down on the table, disappointed, and the woman hugged him and said: “No. I've learned my lesson. It's a good thing you came.”

There was a horror movie on cable television, an old black-and-white film, and they watched it with the sound turned down, looking at the actors' exaggerated expressions of horror, their mouths gaping in screams whenever the monster approached. But the monster wasn't really frightening. On the contrary. There was something cute and touching about it. The man felt the dog's breath on his thigh and the woman's heavy breath on his neck. He stroked her hair and asked her: “Whose side are we on?” And the woman murmured sleepily: “The monster's.”

18

The long walks on the beach. He tried to remember them now. It was his first winter and everything filled him with wonder. The giant shadow cast on the sidewalk by their entwined bodies and his own hurrying little shadow; the last, long traffic light before the promenade where the three of them waited for the light to change; running in the sand after they had all crossed the street.

Huddled on the kennel's concrete floor, a shiver ran down the dog's spine as he closed his eyes and saw before him, sharp and clear, his puppy version running in the sand. He tripped and rolled on his back and got up and shook himself and sneezed, mad with joy. When he turned his head he saw the man and woman behind him, two dark spots keeping an eye on him so that he wouldn't run away or get lost. He was filled with wonder.