Faithful Ruslan (22 page)

Gentlemen! We, the lords of creation, can feel satisfied that our efforts had not been in vain. A strong, mature, pureblooded animal, running at night through the deserted forest, felt upon himself the cruel, ugly though invisible harness that we have made for him and counted it a joy that this harness was nowhere too tight, nowhere chafed or scratched him. If anyone were to undertake to fill out Ruslan’s official questionnaire concerning his political reliability—and there was a time when dogs actually had such questionnaires, though they have since disappeared along with all the other records into the cellars where archives are kept “in perpetuity”—it would be a gleaming, unspotted piece of paper, with nothing on it but deletions, no entries but that favorite word of ours: “Not.” He was not. Did not have. Did not belong to. Had not taken part in. Had not been interested in. Had not been subject to. Had not wavered. If there is justice in heaven, then the great Service should have taken that into account and should have summoned him, the first of the first, as he sped on toward his duty, fearing to be late.

And the Service did summon Ruslan one more time.

HE HAD WAITED—AND WAS REWARDED. ANYONE who waits with such single-minded devotion is always rewarded in the end. Nor was the good news brought to him by someone else who by a lucky chance happened to be there: that morning Ruslan himself was on the platform when the red light began to glow and a dirty, wheezy little switching engine, tender first, pushed the train of gray-green passenger cars into the siding.

The wheels were still clicking over the rail joints, a hissing sound could still be heard beneath the cars when an astonishing, incredible horde of people started pouring and tumbling out of the doors with a great deal of shouting, hubbub and laughter, with much clattering of boots, shuffling of shoes, banging of suitcases, trunks and backpacks. Ruslan was almost stunned, blinded and overwhelmed by a wave of stupefying smells; he jumped up and ran, barking furiously, to the other end of the train—something that he had never done before, but then never before had he been called upon to meet such a huge party nor one that was so strange, noisy and slovenly, half of it, for some reason, made up of women.

The Service had come back, though—and Ruslan was ready for it. In a moment he was transformed: flexible, alert,
his yellow eyes sharp and keen; the hairs on his ruff stood on end like a collar, while ears, stomach and the tip of his extended tail quivered with a low metallic growl. If he allowed himself to misbehave slightly, it was out of joyous excitement: he grabbed and tugged at a backpack, whose owner, roaring with laughter, pulled it away from him by the straps, and although he almost yanked Ruslan’s teeth out with it, this did not annoy him. He jumped up with his forepaws on the men’s chests and licked their salty faces until someone stuffed the corner of a prickly army blanket into his mouth—and this did not upset him either, although it took him a long time to spit the wool out of his mouth. They had all come back! And what’s more, they had come back voluntarily! They had realized after all that there was no better life beyond the forests, far away from the camp—which, of course, the masters and the dogs had known all the time—and they were obviously delighted at their discovery.

Ruslan, however, did not forget his duties, which were to check that everyone except the uniformed conductors had left the cars, and to make sure that the passengers lined up two paces back from the edge of the platform, where they must wait until the masters arrived.

The masters were disgracefully late, especially since in the old days they had always been standing there long before the train pulled in, each one with his dog, opposite the door assigned to him. There, on the concrete platform, the train escort had handed over the incoming batch of prisoners to the camp escort; the new arrivals were then made to sit down in line, hands clasped behind their necks, while the masters walked up and down between the rows calling the roll, counting and recounting them, and examining their luggage. Anything that could not be carried was removed
and loaded onto a truck, and if any of them objected to this, the dogs would intervene without orders.

On this occasion, however, nothing seemed to be done according to the rules: they did not sit down or pile their baggage alongside them, but simply picked up their belongings and surged off in a disorderly crowd. This upset Ruslan very much, but he was reassured when he saw that they obviously had no intention of trying to escape, that they were not jumping down from the platform, but were taking the familiar route—down the steps and into the square. His only concern was to see that the party did not get too strung out, for which purpose he had to prod a few people with his paws or his muzzle. Who had been the first to think of this method of urging on the stragglers? No doubt it was Ingus. Who else could have dreamed up anything so stupid? The men he prodded did not like it at all; he was, after all, urging them on so that they would get into the warmth all the sooner, but they shied away and shrieked in terror—as if the dogs’ only pleasure was to bite, whereas they were in just as much of a hurry to get back indoors. Later, Djulbars had adopted this method, and of course the swine had ruined everything as he always did—but then he was Djulbars!

Out on the square, around the railing of the little central plot of grass, they all gathered into a crowd again, put down their luggage and turned to face the station. There on the steps stood two short men wearing identical gray suits, with something red at their throats; one was fat, the other, thin. The fat one only smiled, his hands clasped behind his back, but the thin one put a pair of spectacles on his nose, unfolded a piece of paper and talked to it for a very long time, occasionally flinging his hand into the air as though throwing a stick to be retrieved. Two or three times, after a
pause, he repeated the words: “And so you, young builders of the cellulose fiber factory …” As soon as he had finished and was folding up his piece of paper, the fat man unclasped his hands from behind his back and started to smack his palms together. Everybody else started to slap their own hands, too, and to shout “Hurrah!” while some at the very back shouted “Boo!” and seemed very pleased with themselves for this. Then one of the newcomers mounted the steps, put his suitcase at his feet and also took out a piece of paper. He did not talk to his paper for quite so long, and repeated a slightly different phrase: “And so we, young builders of the cellulose fiber factory …” All these strange words tickled Ruslan’s ears—rather like the words that the Shabby Man liked to shout after he had been at his bottle for a while: “sandalwood,” “palisander,” “White Finns …” By the way, thought Ruslan, he might like to be here. Shall I go and fetch him?

There was, however, no time for him to go—the people had finished talking, waving their arms and smoking; they picked up their luggage from the ground—luggage that no one had examined!—and began to form up into a column. This was a surprise—and a pleasant one: they were forming a column on their own initiative! Although they had so far broken almost every rule, they had at least remembered the most important one of all—not to move in a disorderly crowd but in a proper column. Feeling very satisfied and immeasurably proud that he alone was escorting such a large party and knew where to lead it, Ruslan took up his position on the right-hand side near the head of the column, and set out on the road—a road whose end he was not to see.

The column headed out onto the main street. Moving at a leisurely pace, it flowed over the permanent ruts in the street, while its thousand boot-soles trampled the wayside
plantains and raised a cloud of pale, clay-colored dust that settled on the sparse poplar trees and sharp-pointed tops of fences. Somewhere amid the ranks a guitar tinkled and accordions began to wheeze, at which a girl wearing men’s pants and with short-cropped hair like a boy eagerly ran out ahead, turned to face the front rank and started to dance backward, neatly and deftly, singing in a raucous, cracked voice:

This was an unheard-of breach of regulations, but since it was being committed by a woman, Ruslan was not sure what to do. In the columns he had escorted in the past, women had been an exceptional rarity. They had never given any trouble, except that they were more prone to lag behind and had to be made to catch up; on the other hand they never tried to escape, so on balance he felt indifferent toward them. He decided to leave this girl alone, especially as her performance was not causing the others to break ranks. The accordions were bellowing away at full blast, the girl twirled around on her own axis so that she ended up again facing the front rank and dancing backward, smiling all over her high-cheekboned, sunburned face. She was still singing but now quite inaudibly, because the men’s voices were roaring out their own nonsensical song:

Farther down the column they were singing about the soldier and his girl who had to part because:

While from the back came the strains of a song about the old tomcat who “… sat on the mat, eating bread and mutton fat …”

Windows were opened along the street and people looked out—some as though stunned, others with a mirthless grin of amazement. In some front yards, women with their long skirts hitched up for gardening straightened their backs and stared, shading their eyes from the sun. A white-haired old man wearing a patched army tunic walked over to his low fence and watched silently and impassively with his faded blue eyes. His hands, grasping the handle of a spade, were covered in large veins as dark in color as the spade handle, as dark as his lined, weather-beaten face, while his elbows and open neck were thin and white, the skin underlain by a network of little blue veins. The old man moved his lips for a long time before stroking the top of his head and asking:

“Where are you boys from? You from Moscow? Or from someplace else, maybe?”

“We’re from all over, granddad,” they replied. “Moscow, Bryansk, Smolensk. Guess you never saw people from so many places before.”

“Sure, I’ve seen ’em,” said the old man. “All sorts used to
go down this street. Some from Bryansk, some from Smolensk, too. Only they didn’t sing.”

He gave a gap-toothed smile and hobbled back to his flower beds.

And so the column marched on, yelling, laughing, exchanging shouts with the bystanders—which made Ruslan less than happy. He did not like these new rules, which upset the grave solemnity of the Service. He knew, however, that he must be patient; the newcomers’ loud, nervous and silly behavior would very soon cease, just as they would soon stop looking so cheerful and fat-faced. Before long they would all be looking subdued, foreheads and eyes appearing disproportionately large in thin, pale faces that would seem to glow with an inner light. He only regretted that he could not tell them the good news: they clearly did not know what a spacious camp had been prepared for their benefit, what big, wonderful, new huts awaited them, huts in which they could all fit easily—well, maybe a few would have to be packed in a bit tightly—and that there was no barbed wire yet, although this did not matter because they themselves would soon be put to work stringing it between the posts. Once the wire was in position they would never again dare to cross it, nor even to approach it, but it would be their very own wire, because it was always the prisoners’ job to put it up.

Suddenly he noticed that the other dogs had all started to converge on the column from every direction. They came running out of alleyways and yards, jumping over fences, all similar in looks—with smooth, black backs and fluffy yellow fur on their stomachs, and all with identical grins of joyous anticipation; even their tongues, it seemed, were all hanging out on the same side. All were his erstwhile comrades: Djulbars, Yenisei, Baikal, the inseparable Era and Cartridge,
Trigger and Breechblock, Dick and Caesar, Whitey, Daring, Graycoat, Alma and her boyfriend with the white-ringed eyes—hey, what was that civilian doing here? He was not the only civilian to turn up; with him came a whole horde of mongrels—all those nondescript Treasures, Spots, Patches, Busters and Fidos, along with several who had no names at all. Last to appear was Lux (whose masters never called him anything but Luxy)—a creature Ruslan found repellent, who looked like a bitch and was rotten to the core. In fights, Lux immediately rolled over onto his back or whined to Djulbars, who treated him as his protégé. He had earned this status by pretending to bite Djulbars’s fleas for him, of which he had none, but Lux put on such a convincing act that everyone thought they could really see them. That was how he had kept his place in the pack—by playing the toady and the fool. Just now he had been rolling in the dust, then jumping up and snapping his teeth as though catching a flea in midair. This performance was the cause of his being late, yet because of it the other dogs greeted him with smiles and wagging tails, whereas they seemed not to notice Ruslan at all. He was not the first to encounter this perverse instinct of the mob: it adores a clown yet spurns a hero.

As he ran forward to take up his leading position as the senior dog, Djulbars gave Ruslan a friendly nip on the shoulder. Ruslan turned away with a growl; he had not forgotten the woodpile and Djulbars’s revolting display of servility to that puny little man with the motorcycle. He was not envious by nature, but now he bitterly envied Djulbars—the swine always took first place in the column and Ruslan only second place, and now once again he was obliged to drop back. He ended up trotting alongside a young man wearing new shoes
with thick rubber soles—how that rubber stank! Yet he could not help feeling a warm wetness in his eyes, could not help admitting that for all their backsliding his comrades had come at once as soon as they heard the call of the Service. Even the blind Asa came trotting along and unerringly took up her correct position—fourth on the left. Everything was done in the proper manner, silently and without fuss. None but the mongrels barked, and they only at a distance; once on the main street they, too, fell silent, for although they had almost forgotten it, they had seen this sight often enough in the past and knew the procedure.