David Bezmozgis - Natasha and Other Stories

Because of my devotion to the dog and their lack of an alternative, Misha and Rita added their house key to the shoelace hanging around my neck. Every day, during our lunch break and again after school, Jana and I were charged with caring for Tapka. Our task was simple: put Tapka on her leash, walk her to the ravine, release her to chase Clonchik, and then bring her home.

Every day, sitting in my classroom, understanding little, effectively friendless, I counted down the minutes to lunchtime. When the bell rang I met Jana on the playground and we sprinted across the grass toward our building. In the hall, our approaching footsteps elicited panting and scratching. When I inserted the key into the lock I felt emanations of love through the door. And once the door was open, Tapka hurled herself at us, her entire body consumed with an ecstasy of wagging. Jana and I took turns embracing her, petting her, covertly vying for her favor. Free of Rita’s scrutiny, we also satisfied certain anatomical curiosities. We examined Tapka’s ears, her paws, her teeth, the roots of her fur, and her doggy genitals. We poked and prodded her, we threw her up in the air, rolled her over and over, and swung her by her front legs. I felt such overwhelming love for Tapka that sometimes when hugging her, I had to restrain myself from squeezing too hard and crushing her little bones.

It was April when we began to care for Tapka. Snow melted in the ravine; sometimes it rained. April became May. Grass absorbed the thaw, turned green; dandelions and wildflowers sprouted yellow and blue; birds and insects flew, crawled, and made their characteristic noises. Faithfully and reliably, Jana and I attended to Tapka. We walked her across the parking lot and down into the ravine. We threw Clonchik and said “Tapka get Clonchik.” Tapka always got Clonchik. Everyone was proud of us. My mother and my aunt wiped tears from their eyes while talking about how responsible we were. Rita and Misha rewarded us with praise and chocolates. Jana was seven and I was six; much had been asked of us, but we had risen to the challenge.

Inspired by everyone’s confidence, we grew confident. Whereas at first we made sure to walk thirty paces into the ravine before releasing Tapka, we gradually reduced that requirement to ten paces, then five paces, until finally we released her at the grassy border between the parking lot and ravine. We did this not out of laziness or recklessness but because we wanted proof of Tapka’s love. That she came when we called was evidence of her love, that she didn’t piss in the elevator was evidence of her love, that she offered up her belly for scratching was evidence of her love, all of this was evidence, but it wasn’t proof. Proof could come only in one form. We had intuited an elemental truth: love needs no leash.

That first spring, even though most of what was said around me remained a mystery, a thin rivulet of meaning trickled into my cerebral catch basin and collected into a little pool of knowledge. By the end of May I could sing the ABC song. Television taught me to say “What’s up, Doc?” and “superduper.” The playground introduced me to “shithead,” “mental case,” and “gaylord,” and I sought every opportunity to apply my new knowledge.

One afternoon, after spending nearly an hour in the ravine throwing Clonchik in a thousand different directions, Jana and I lolled in the sunlit pollen. I called her “shithead,” “mental case,” and “gaylord,” and she responded by calling me “gaylord,” “shithead,” and “mental case.”

— Shithead.

— Gaylord.

— Mental case.

— Tapka, get Clonchik.

— Shithead.

— Gaylord.

— Come, Tapka-lapka.

— Mental case.

We went on like this, over and over, until Jana threw the clown and said, “Shithead, get Clonchik.” Initially, I couldn’t tell if she had said this on purpose or if it had merely been a blip in her rhythm. But when I looked at Jana, her smile was triumphant.

— Mental case, get Clonchik.

For the first time, as I watched Tapka bounding happily after Clonchik, the profanity sounded profane.

— Don’t say that to the dog.

— Why not?

— It’s not right.

— But she doesn’t understand.

— You shouldn’t say it.

— Don’t be a baby. Come, shithead, come, my dear one. Her tail wagging with accomplishment, Tapka dropped Clonchik at my feet.

— You see, she likes it.

I held Clonchik as Tapka pawed frantically at my shins.

— Call her shithead. Throw the clown.

— I’m not calling her shithead.

— What are you afraid of, shithead?

I aimed the clown at Jana’s head and missed.

— Shithead, get Clonchik.

As the clown left my hand, Tapka, a white shining blur, oblivious to insult, was already cutting through the grass. I wanted to believe that I had intended the “shithead” exclusively for Jana, but I knew it wasn’t true.

— I told you, gaylord, she doesn’t care.

I couldn’t help thinking, “Poor Tapka,” and looked around for some sign of recrimination. The day, however, persisted in unimpeachable brilliance: sparrows winged overhead; bumblebees levitated above flowers; beside a lilac shrub, Tapka clamped down on Clonchik. I was amazed at the absence of consequences.

Jana said, “I’m going home.”

As she started for home I saw that she was still holding Tapka’s leash. It swung insouciantly from her hand. I called after her just as, once again, Tapka deposited Clonchik at my feet.

— I need the leash.

— Why?

— Don’t be stupid. I need the leash.

— No you don’t. She comes when we call her. Even shithead. She won’t run away.

Jana turned her back on me and proceeded toward our building. I called her again but she refused to turn around. Her receding back was a blatant provocation. Guided more by anger than by logic, I decided that if Tapka was closer to Jana, then the onus of responsibility would become hers. I picked up the doll and threw it as far as I could into the parking lot.

— Tapka, get Clonchik.

Clonchik tumbled through the air. I had put everything in my six-year-old arm behind the throw, which still meant that the doll wasn’t going very far. Its trajectory promised a drop no more than twenty feet from the edge of the ravine. Running, her head arched to the sky, Tapka tracked the flying clown. As the doll reached its apex it crossed paths with a sparrow. The bird veered off toward Finch Avenue and the clown plummeted to the asphalt. When the doll hit the ground, Tapka raced past it after the bird.

A thousand times we had thrown Clonchik and a thousand times Tapka had retrieved him. But who knows what passes for a thought in the mind of a dog? One moment a Clonchik is a Clonchik and the next moment a sparrow is a Clonchik.

I shouted at Jana to catch Tapka and then watched as the dog, her attention fixed on the sparrow, skirted past Jana and into traffic. From the slope of the ravine I couldn’t see what had happened. I saw only that Jana had broken into a sprint and I heard the caterwauling of tires followed by a shrill fractured yip.

By the time I reached the street a line of cars was already stretched a block beyond Goldfinch. At the front of the line were a brown station wagon and a pale blue sedan blistered with rust. As I neared, I noted the chrome letters on the back of the sedan: D-U-S-T-E-R. In front of the sedan Jana kneeled in a tight semicircle with a pimply young man and an older woman wearing very large sunglasses. Tapka lay panting on her side at the center of their circle. She stared at me, at Jana. Except for a hind leg twitching at the sky at an impossible angle, she looked much as she did when she rested on the rug at the Nahumovskys’ apartment after a romp in the ravine.