Housebroken

 

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

HOUSEBROKEN

THE HAPPINESS GAME

MATTI

About the Author

Copyright

 

For my father

HOUSEBROKEN

 

 

He was a shy dog, so the neighbors were surprised when one morning he got up from his mat, leaped on the old woman climbing the steps with her shopping bag, and ripped off her ear. He was a retiring dog, a shadow of a dog, with the build of a hyena and the gentleness of a bird. He always walked on tiptoe, his tail folded between his legs; he had short, thick brown fur, drooping ears, and long, fragile legs which might have possessed an aristocratic grace but for the fact that they trembled all the time.

He was one and a half years old, but he seemed older. The curve of his spine, the slump of his tail, the hanging pelvis with the ribs sticking out like wings gave him a deflated look, but it was mainly the way he walked—half sitting, shrinking, apologetic, as if evading imaginary kicks. The old lady was fond of him, and sometimes she would stop on her way home from the market, choose something from her basket, a chicken neck, a slice of cheese or salami, a sesame cracker, and throw it onto his mat before resuming her slow climb to the top floor. Only when the dog heard her door close and the key turn twice in the lock did he get up, sniff the offering, pick it up gingerly with his teeth, let it drop, circle it a few times, pick it up, reconsider, and then, looking from side to side, snap it up and swallow.

The neighbors had always ignored him. They were used to the sight of the dog dozing on the mat, lying outside one of the apartments, the one with a sign on the door bearing two names written in round letters—a woman's and a man's—and a childish drawing of a dog.

Now the old lady's groceries were strewn across the second-floor landing—chicken, potatoes, onions, apples, a grapefruit, a melon which had rolled into a corner, green bananas, sliced smoked turkey wrapped in white paper, a bar of dark chocolate, a head of garlic, and a bunch of parsley, lying in a little pool of blood.

That morning the old lady had planned to give the dog some smoked turkey, but before she had time to bend down and rummage in her baskets, the dog pounced and knocked her to the floor. She let out a shriek of surprise. The dog was surprised as well. He retreated and circled the old lady a few times, taking care not to step on her. She tried to get up but fell back again. The dog came closer, wagged his tail, and looked deep into her eyes. She turned onto her side, gripped the railing with both hands, and tried to pull herself up. He began to lick her face, and the old lady, who was heavy and short of breath, gave up and rolled over on her back again, let her hands fall to her sides, and sighed, and then the dog seized hold of her left ear with his teeth, and with one pull tore it off.

The old lady pressed her hand to the wound, which was spurting streams of blood, and screamed. The neighbors came out to the floor landings. A man wearing rubber flip-flops approached and removed her hand from the place where her ear had been. “He bit off her ear!” one of the neighbors shouted from her doorway, pointing with her cigarette toward the dog, who was hugging the wall and trembling, his tail between his legs and the ear dangling from his mouth. A few of the neighbors panicked, slammed their doors, and locked them. The man in the rubber flip-flops said they should get rid of the dog before he bit off the other ear, too.

But the dog sat back on his hind legs, looked at the old lady, whose screams had given way to rhythmic, desolate sobs, and then at the neighbors clustering around; he stood up, dropped the ear on the floor, and tottered back to his mat, where he waited quietly until the ambulance came and the men from the city pound. He saw how they put the old lady on a stretcher, how a hand in a plastic glove picked up the ear and dropped it into a bag. He listened to the neighbors giving the victim's particulars and watched two paramedics carrying the stretcher down the stairs.

The city dogcatchers said they would have to put the dog to sleep, but first he had to be quarantined to make sure he wasn't rabid. One of them asked the neighbors to step back, while the other went down to the street and returned holding a long iron pole with a loop at the end of it.

“No!” yelled the older dogcatcher. “Get the stun gun. You can't catch him with that. He's dangerous.”

“Yes I can,” said the younger one quietly. “Just get these people out of the way.”

“Back into your houses!” ordered the older man, clapping his hands. “Everyone inside!” The neighbors remaining on the landing went back to their apartments obediently, but they kept their doors ajar to watch the dog being trapped. The dog lay on his mat in a ball, both pleased and embarrassed by the attention, his eyes closed, his nose touching the tip of his tail, and one of his ears pricked up.

“Look at him,” said the older dogcatcher. “He's trying to pull a fast one, the bastard. Get the gun.”

“Let me do it,” said the young one. “He doesn't look dangerous to me.”

“You're so wrong,” said the older one. “I know his sort. He's bluffing. Just look at him. He's cunning. Look at his ear moving. He's only pretending to be asleep.”

“He's always like that,” whispered a neighbor dressed in a dirty pink bathrobe, peeping out from behind her door. “That's how he sleeps.”

“Lady, get back inside. Please!” The older man gave her a push, then wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hand.

The two men stood and looked at the dog. His eyes were closed, his ear twitched a little, and his ribs rose and fell with his slow breathing. He looked too peaceful to attack anyone. The young man approached him, holding the pole in both his hands like a spear, trying not to make any sudden movements, but suddenly the dog opened his eyes and the catcher, who took a step backward, saw that he was wagging his tail.

“He's wagging his tail,” he said, without taking his eyes off the dog.

“Don't trust him!” the other man whispered. “He's bluffing!”

“Are you wagging your tail?” said the young one. “Are you a friendly dog?” And the dog stood up, then sat down on his hind legs, and lowered his eyes shyly.

“What's going on?” hissed the older man. “What's he up to now?”

“Shhhhhh…,” the young one whispered. “He's not doing anything. Shhhhh … good dog!” And he aimed the loop at the dog's head.

“Watch out,” said the older man. “I'm telling you, watch out!”

The young catcher leaned forward and went down on one knee. He tightened his hands around the pole, and moved it right and left until the loop hovered over the dog's head. The dog lifted his head and looked up at it. Then he looked at the catcher kneeling next to him, holding the pole and biting his lower lip in concentration. He turned his eyes to the loop again, which looked like both a snare and a halo.

“Quick!” whispered the older man, who was sweating heavily.

The young one lowered the loop until it touched the dog's nose; the dog sat still, looking upward, and didn't move even as the loop slowly encircled his head. The catcher jerked the pole back and the loop tightened around the dog's neck. The dog then stood up, dropped his tail between his legs, sidled along the wall, and led the catcher to the stairs. He descended slowly step by step, the metal disks on his collar rattling, and when he reached the entrance the older man was already standing there, holding the door open. He pressed his back against the door and watched his young colleague leading the dog to the yellow van. The dog stood until the young catcher opened the back doors of the van, then jumped in and bowed his head for the loop to be removed. He stepped into one of the empty metal cages, which the man shut slowly behind him, even though it was unnecessary. It was clear to the young catcher, and to the older one, who sat down in the driver's seat and wiped the sweat from his forehead, and to the neighbors, who crowded into the street to watch the final stage of the capture, that the dog wanted to go.

2

The man sat on the floor in the bathroom. He watched his friend bathing his baby daughter. He looked at him intently, following every movement, admiring the way in which he supported the baby's back with one hand and held her little head above the water with the other, sailing her body to and fro and making noises like a ship: the hoots and coos and gurgles of a doting father.

The man looked at his friend and said to himself that he must remember these details. That bathing a baby was exactly the kind of thing nobody ever explained to you—you just had to know. He wanted to be sure that when he had a baby of his own he would be able to give her a perfect bath, exactly like this one. He didn't want to make any mistakes.

He rested his arm on the ledge of the bath and dipped his fingers into the water, feeling the temperature, the warm soapiness, the little waves made by the baby's kicks. He picked up the bottle of baby soap and began to read the label. He wanted to know what it was that turned ordinary soap into baby soap. His friend looked at him and smiled, and the man felt suddenly embarrassed, as if he had been caught reading something forbidden—something pure intended for babies and fathers only, which in his bachelor hands turned into pornography.

He stood up, wiped his hands on his jeans, and handed the father the baby's white terry-cloth bathrobe, which had a little hood like a monk's habit. He knew the ritual by heart. The father took the baby out of the bath and wrapped her in the robe. He hugged her to his chest and pressed his lips to her head and combed her downy yellow hair with his fingers. Then he carried her to the nursery with the man following like a faithful retainer, holding the tiny hand poking out of the robe between his two fingers. The father laid his daughter down on the chest of drawers, asked the man to keep an eye on her, and left the room. The man remained alone with the baby, flanking the chest of drawers, tense and ready to save her if she fell, but the baby lay quietly on her back, trying to catch the edge of the terry-cloth sleeve in her mouth. The father came back with a bag of disposable diapers and put it down on the floor. The man asked whether he could help and the father smiled and rubbed his nose on the baby's belly and asked her what she thought, whether they needed any help, and the baby laughed and kicked her legs in the air. The man picked up a round flat jar of ointment and again found himself reading the label. Then he put the jar down and picked up the box of talcum powder, which had pictures of elephants and giraffes on it, and sniffed the talc. He put it down and picked up a bunch of colored plastic keys and shook them in front of the baby, who turned her eyes toward them for a minute. The man was pleased, thinking to himself that he was quite a success at this, but then the baby turned her eyes back to her father's face as he bent over her and fastened the diaper around her waist, and she smiled. She put out her hand to touch his face and the father kissed her fingers. The man put the keys down on the chest of drawers, next to the talc and the ointment, left the room, stepped on a rubber dog which let out a sharp squeak and startled him, went out onto the balcony, and lit a cigarette.

3

The woman stood in her kitchen cooking spaghetti. She put a handful of spaghetti into the pot and looked at the fan of pasta half immersed in the water and half leaning on the side of the pot. She knew exactly how long it would take for the fan to collapse. It would begin with a small, barely perceptible movement of a few spaghetti sticks, which would slide into the water and drag the others down after them. In two minutes they would all sink into the pot, sliding downward with a tired, submissive movement, but there would always be two or three particularly stubborn ones that would have to be pushed in with a fork.