Hideo Furukawa - Belka, Why Don't You Bark?

Morning came. Once again, the girl repeated the new routine. Making adjustments as she went along. Essentially, though, the content stayed the same. The essential elements remained unchanged. The girl had planned her schedule well. On the first day, the first morning, she had set it all out in her mind. Now she just had to push ahead, uncompromising, and make it happen. Night fell. Morning came. Night fell. Morning came. Days passed, some number of days passed, untallied. The girl, X years old, never counted them.

During the day, number 47 recognized the girl as his master. He obeyed her commands unfailingly. The girl could now control his moods, stirring him to excitement or bringing him to his senses. She had the words to do that. She had mastered the Russian she needed to issue her commands. Though she had made no particular effort to encourage number 47’s six siblings to respond to her orders on the grounds, they did. The puppies were now large enough to be considered adolescent and were on their way to becoming young dogs. One day, the old man stood and watched the girl for some time. He tracked her movements as she skillfully handled the dogs, number 47 and his six siblings. It was clear: she was their master.

What are you looking at? the girl asked.

You’re doing great, the old man said.

Don’t you dare take number 47 from me, the girl said.

Some little girl you are, the old man said. You’re a trainer already.

Just you try and take him, the girl said. I’ll fucking kill you.

Or maybe you’re a dog? Is that it? the old man asked.

“Anyway, you Old Fuck, it’s you’re fault—you and the Old Bag. Fucking shooting at me and shit. With a fucking pistol… scared the shit out of me. So this is fucking self-defense. You hear me, asshole? I’m gonna train number 47 to be my guard. Just you try and fuck with me again, see what happens. I’ll fucking sic him on you.”

Is that it? Are you a dog too? the old man asked again in Russian. He cocked his head. Are you, is it possible… her ?

Self-defense. The girl’s own dog, dedicated to her protection. Hovering nearby, ready to be of assistance. Night fell. Morning came. Night fell. Morning came. The young number 47 acquired a new technique—to attack a person in silence. Without barking, darting out from behind a building, for instance, in a flash—the power to kill in a second, noiselessly. Still he had learned only the very basics. He had to be faster, had to use all five senses for the purpose for which they were meant. To attack. All the while, he watched the other dogs putting their knowledge to use. He was there on the grounds, a young dog, looking on as the adults practiced what they had learned. Subversive activities. He was there, observing. Always. Night fell. Morning came. Slight adjustments were made in the routine. One day, one afternoon after the young dogs had finished their training, number 47’s siblings were taken back to their cage but number 47 was not. A person and a dog, “off duty,” as it were. It was like an outgrowth of the night. The girl took number 47 with her as she traipsed through the Dead Town, now a stage for simulated bouts of street fighting. They ran together through a white, four-story building. Climbed the stairs. Ran back down. Up. Down. They climbed to the top of a tall observation tower. A person and a dog, looking down over the Dead Town. Hey, number 47, the girl said, as she gazed out over the landscape. Sometime… someday, we’re going to kill the world. Number 47 stood perfectly still, listening to the girl’s voice. To her muttering in Japanese. These words weren’t Russian, they weren’t commands. A person and a dog went back down. On the paved road, number 47 scrambled up alone onto the roof of a burnt-out car. He hadn’t yet learned to jump a moving car. To spring toward it as it approached, to leap over it, spring onto the hood—it was too early for that. But he could imitate the others. He knew to watch the adult dogs, engaged in their subversive activities, and he could grasp the essence of what they were doing, instantly. He could copy them.

Eventually, a young dog grows up.

Eventually, number 47 would mature.

One day, while they were off duty, the girl found herself in a room. A room in one of the other buildings, not the one that served as their base, where she had her bedroom and where the kitchen and the dining room were—a different building. She had known about this place, she knew the old man and Opera were always going in and out of it. But it didn’t interest her. She assumed it was just a place for storing the paraphernalia they used to train the dogs. And in fact it was. But that wasn’t all it was. There was more than one room in there. More than one kind of room.

Number 47 was the first to become curious. He had caught some sort of scent, and it had led him to the door. The sound of singing came from inside. As the voice echoed off the concrete walls, it acquired a sort of vibrato. Opera. The melody was catchy. The girl, however, found it as eerie as ever. Loouu, loooouuuuoo! Looooouuuuuuoo! Number 47 ignored the singing. He kept sniffing the ground, the lingering traces of whatever it had been. “I thought they just kept their shit in here. Is there something else?” the girl asked. “Hey, Forty-seven, have other dogs come by here? Is that it?”

Not just people? she asked in Japanese. Dogs too?

Number 47 answered in dogspeech: ANOTHER DOG HAS BEEN HERE.

“It smells like a fucking dead Hawaii in here,” the girl muttered as she stepped through the door into the building. Of course, this was Russia—that made sense. An eternal summer killed forever. Actually, it smelled like a locker room. The smell called up a memory of the time before she turned X years old. Fucking shit… now I’ve got those fucking moneyless assholes in my head, the fucking world …. Shit. A person and a dog, off duty, striding rapidly through the dim interior. The building was laid out along the same pattern as the one they used as their base, so there was no fear of getting lost. She went into the main hall.

The room was at the end of the hall. And now here she was, inside it.

It’s like a yakuza office, one of the branches. The thought hit her immediately. And then she was putting it into words, muttering to herself. It reminded her of the wide-open office her dad’s organization rented, one whole floor of a building shared by various other companies and groups. Only this place had none of the bold, forceful calligraphy hanging on the walls, characters reading “Spirit” and “Kill One to Save Many” and that sort of shit. Instead, there was a map. A really, really old map of the world. Her dad’s office had a little Shinto shrine on one wall, up close to the ceiling, but there was nothing like that here. No Russian Orthodox icons. Instead, there was a television. The first television she had seen in the Dead Town. It wasn’t on. The screen was blank. Of course, there was no one in the room. And yet, somehow, she felt something. A strong sense of something . “I bet there’s a fucking dead body under the floor or something. Can you smell it, Forty-seven?” The dog didn’t answer. The sound of Opera singing echoed down the corridor at the other end of the main hall. As it had before. There was no leather sofa like the one in her dad’s office, but there was a table and some seats. There was a mound of money on the table. Rows and rows of bundled banknotes that seemed, at first sight, to be neatly stacked but weren’t really. No rubles as far as she could see. Look at all this cash, the girl thought, glancing it over. That’s fucking American money, isn’t it? Dollars or whatever?

Yeah, she thought. It is like Dad’s office after all.

Just then, she caught sight of a shrine. Something, at any rate, that felt like a shrine in the context of this room. There were no paper lanterns, and there was no Japanese sword resting on its stands, but it had the same aura. That was it. The source of whatever it was she was feeling. The globe.