Thomas Pletzinger - Funeral for a Dog

288 meters

Svensson pushes Macumba off the dock and pulls at the motor’s cord. Now he’s wearing a white shirt and gray pants as in the picture of him that people know (the picture of him that I had). The suitcase is now lying in the water on the floor of the boat. Tuuli didn’t touch it, Kiki ran her fingers several times over the cracked leather. No one opened it. Samy’s wearing the life vest again, he’s holding his farewell gift in one hand and his fishing rod in the other as I hand him to Svensson on board (does he know about Lua in the suitcase?). The motor starts, and Svensson turns it as far as it will go, the screw whisks the green water, Macumba leans. The two women stand by the water and wave as they grow smaller (the dark green of the woods, the light green of the water). I’m sitting next to the child on the bench,

the small, pretty possibility on the shore

is the first to lower her hand, and I memorize the dark of her eyes, the green of her nightshirt and her Converse, next to her Kiki’s bright dress. The mountain grows ever mightier and larger over the women as we move farther away from the shore (the possibilities are put in a different pespective). Samy is silent in the face of the wind and spray and gesticulating, with each wave Lua’s suitcase slides closer to Svensson. The old man in the white shirt steers Macumba directly into the middle of the lake, past a few rocking sport boats in the late morning sun. I look for the heron and can’t find it, but the houses on the opposite shore can be made out better than they could four days ago: the church of Cima, below it Blaumeiser’s parents’ house (how things acquire a story). In the wooden beat of the waves under the bottom of the boat, for the first time in weeks the feeling of heading in the right direction, but just as I’m about to ask where Svensson is going to bring me, he turns off the motor at full speed. Macumba glides another few meters, then we’re standing still in the middle of the lake. The owners of the sport boats, tan and in too-skimpy bathing suits, seem to be trying to ignore us. During the ride Samy was clutching a handhold and trying to protect his picture from the lake water (he’s forgotten the dead dog). Out here the water is a deep green, under us are more than two hundred meters of darkness. Samy seems to remember this position of the boat and moves closer to me. Now we can only vaguely perceive the women on the shore. Macumba drifts sideways into the waves, and Svensson has trouble keeping his balance. He kneels in the water on the floor, takes a small key out of his pocket and unlocks the suitcase. Are you afraid too, Manteli ? asks Samy, and I answer, speaking more to myself than to him: we don’t actually have to be afraid. When Svensson opens the suitcase, wilted oleander flowers fall on the floor of the boat. Svensson turns the suitcase so that Samy can’t see Lua, and the dog’s wrapped body remains hidden from me too (I know that his head is lying on Astroland , I see Svensson’s watery eyes). We can now smell death. Can you give me the farewell gift? Svensson asks the boy, but Samy wants to explain his picture: this is the mountain, this is the lake, and this is Lua. He holds the paper out to Svensson, Svensson balances as he walks across the boat toward us and takes the picture from his hand: lots of blue, lots of green, lots of red (he doesn’t have a black crayon). When Samy asks about the dog, about his fear and his dying and where they will bury him, Svensson doesn’t answer. The lake, the mountain, repeats the boy. Lua’s happy with the picture, Svensson then says, Lua loves water (the paper a white flag in his hand). He bends down over the sodden suitcase, throws the blanket aside and presses his forehead to the dead animal’s forehead (he wants to be sure that Lua existed). Svensson puts the picture in the suitcase, and Samy suddenly seems to understand that Svensson is not going to bury Lua like a normal pet (I suspected it).

Is Lua in there?

he asks. Yes, Svensson answers, and suddenly reaches again into Blaumeiser’s well-traveled suitcase. He holds out the stack of paper Astroland to me. At one corner the paper is soaked, the water has already gotten into the suitcase. Can you hold this for a moment? he asks. Svensson is speaking with a calm voice, but his eyes are tearing. Astroland , he says, wiping his face with the back of his hand. Have you ever been to New York, Mandelkern? Yes, I say after a brief hesitation, I know the city (I could say that I know his story, that I’ve been with his characters in Seraverde, in Oulu and Coney Island). I’ve been there, I should have played Shoot the Freak, but only the can toss booth was open. Svensson laughs. I take the aborted manuscript from his hand, the words and sentences with which he has invented the past ten years of his life, I hold Svensson’s story in one hand and my notebooks in the other ( Macumba is rocking on Blaumeiser’s grave). Svensson now smiles with tears in his eyes at Samy, and I understand that we aren’t going to bring Lua to Porlezza: Svensson is not going to leave anything to the veterinarian as he promised Kiki, Lua will not be buried in a field behind Porlezza, he will not be cremated. Svensson abruptly closes the suitcase over Lua. I think of the photocopied pages in his manuscript, the stolen pages in the research folders. Svensson now stares into my face and spits into the water. I wonder for a brief moment whether I would make it to the shore swimming, but Svensson takes Astroland from my hand, again opens the suitcase a crack and shakes his head. He puts his story in with Lua, snaps the suitcase shut once and for all, and locks it. Okay, Svensson says with a smile, okay then. He grabs the heavy suitcase and heaves it first onto the bench, then onto the railing. Svensson pauses one, maybe two seconds, then he lets go. Macumba sways. The boy seems surprised as the suitcase hits the water’s surface with a thud and floats. Rocking, the black dog’s coffin slowly recedes from Svensson’s boat, leans slightly to one side and sinks so suddenly and swiftly that the dark shadow in the green water is only briefly visible. The stones pull Lua down, the oleander flowers sink with the black dog, the manuscript disappears at the deepest point in the lake. We’re alone with the mountains and the water, the swan swims around the boat at an appropriate distance and Svensson finally wipes away Samy’s tears (a few air bubbles still tell of Lua’s life).

(Ceresio, 2,092 Words)

“Imbarcadero” is written on the sign above me (I’m leaving). Svensson and the boy drop me and my plastic bag off in Osteno. We’re heading on to Porlezza now, says Svensson, to buy chickens. Right, Samy? Yes. The boy has stopped crying. We’re buying two chickens, he repeats, and then we’re going to catch fish! One fish or a hundred! I sit down on a bench on the quay and watch the two of them as they leave the port of Osteno (children’s tears don’t last long). I see the bright orange of the life vest and Svensson’s white disappear, behind me a garbage truck and the hiss of its hydraulics. I’m again sitting on a bench under lindens and adding what there is to add. The garbage is getting picked up today, the black plastic bags of the Via San Rocco. Lua is dead, Astroland is buried. I’ve saved what I wanted to (what I consider decisive). In my pocket my ring and Tuuli’s hairpin. We didn’t say another word about my article (take care, Mandelkern).

Ceresio

At 13:20 my ship leaves. The bald captain greets me, I buy a ticket (18.60 Swiss francs for the way back). Besides me there are no passengers on board. Ceresio casts off and crosses the lake with a softly humming motor, the pleasure boats are still lying at anchor, even pedal boats. I sit down at a scratched-up wooden table on the foredeck in the sun and search the lake for Macumba . Nothing. Svensson’s house is lying in shadow as we pass the steep slopes of Monte Cecchi, it’s scarcely distinguishable from the woods and the cliffs (Tuuli will be able to see the ship). I remember things, as I’ve learned from Svensson: the dock, the desk, the pigeon droppings, the pictures, the sycamore, Santuario di Nostra Signora della Caravina.