Andrea Bennett: Galina Petrovna's Three-Legged Dog Story

Galia began to creep around the bins and into the courtyard to observe the van from a safe distance.

‘Galia, wait for me! Don’t attempt anything on your own!’ Vasya swung his feet to the ground and levered himself into a vertical position, but wasn’t able to walk.

‘Keep your voice down, you old fool!’ chided Galia, still unhappy at being laughed at.

‘I know his mother.’

‘What do you mean, you know his mother?’

‘I know his mother. The Exterminator’s mother. And when he started coming out this way, I guessed.’

‘What did you guess?’ Galia was becoming exasperated.

‘I guessed what Mitya the Exterminator wanted. After a busy night killing dogs, what would any good exterminator want? He’d want to go to his mother’s apartment for some washing and some kasha . It’s what any man would want, surely?’

Galia was just about to respond with some choice words when the rear doors of the van were flung open and a cacophony of howling smashed the night air to flea-bitten pieces. Vasya reached the spot where Galia stood, grimacing at the noise filling the courtyard.

‘What are we going to do now, Galia?’ asked Vasya with a hopeful half-smile.

‘We’re going to get my dog back,’ Galia retorted, and marched, as well as her still-bent and swollen knees would allow her, across the broken ground towards the back of the van. Vasya sighed, words of reply flapping uselessly on his tongue like carp on a dry river bed, and hobbled after her.

‘You have stolen my dog!’

‘Wha—?’ Mitya the Exterminator had been singing under his breath ‘yorr awn, personal dzhezuz’ while removing dog excrement from his boot and his ear with a special knife he kept for that purpose. The dogs were still in cages in the back of the van and he had been mulling over how to ensure that the perpetrator of said excrement never forgot his vengeance in what was to be left of its short life. The sudden appearance beside him of a solid-looking old woman with bent knees and laddered pop socks, shouting throatily and shaking her fists, was both unwelcome and unsettling.

‘You have stolen my dog!’

Mitya sensed that she was angry, and possibly crazy: why else would she be worried about a dog?

‘Who are you, mad woman?’ he asked, his face twisting under eyes that popped with either fear or hatred, Galia was unsure which.

‘You have stolen my dog!’ Galia tried again, finally straightening her legs, although somewhat tentatively. The noise of the dogs in the back of the van filled her head with the sounds of nightmares. Among the howling, barking and growling, she could make out the sound of Boroda, crying softly.

‘Citizen, let me explain,’ said Mitya the Exterminator softly, ‘all the dogs I take have no owner. It follows, therefore, that your dog is not with me.’ Mitya put his excrement knife back in his bum-bag and turned his back on the old woman with funny knees. He hoped she would now disappear as quickly as she had appeared. She gave him the creeps. And he had unfinished business to attend to.

‘You have stolen my dog! She’s grey and has three legs and a small, pointy beard, and she is in the back of your van! I can hear her. Boroda! Boroda! I’m here, darling! Don’t worry; we’ll get you out, lapochka !’

Mitya smiled slightly to himself. The three-legged dog had been a very easy catch, once he’d got out of the bin.

‘Citizen Old Woman, I only take stray dogs, diseased dogs. Dogs that should not be. I never take a dog with a collar. And your dog must have a collar, if it is genuinely your dog. So it cannot be in my van.’

‘No. You don’t understand—’

‘Has your dog got a collar, Elderly Citizen?’

‘No.’

There was a pause in the barking and growling, a silence filled only by the sound of Vasya panting as he made his way across the courtyard. He finally reached them and leant against the side of the van to catch his breath. Mitya the Exterminator turned to Galia and smirked.

‘No collar? Then Citizen Old Woman, you have no dog. You need to familiarise yourself with the legislation, perhaps. End of discussion.’ Mitya turned away to deal with the dogs.

‘No, she is my dog. She lives with me. Boroda! Boroda!’

‘No, Citizen, it is a stray. As set out in Presidential Decree No. 32 of 1994, Section 14, paragraph 3.2 – go home and read it.’

‘So you admit you’ve got my dog? You scoundrel!’

‘Now, now, Galia, my dear, I am sure Mitya, I mean the Exterminator, is a reasonable man. Maybe we could recompense you for the return of the lady’s dog? We’d be happy to make a donation to any charity you’d care to name, or to cover any personal costs.’ Vasya squeezed a wad of worn bank notes from his pocket and fanned them out for Mitya the Exterminator to see. Enough for some vodka and the dried fish to go with it, Vasya thought.

Mitya stared at the money for two seconds and then glanced into Vasya’s face, his nostrils flaring as if the stench of dog had finally sliced into his olfactory nerves. ‘No, Citizen… Volubchik, I don’t want your money. I enjoy my job – do you understand? Not everyone is motivated by money, even in these days of “freedom” and “democracy”.’

Vasya began to stutter a response, but the Exterminator cut across him.

‘No, Elderly Citizen! These dogs have no place in freedom and democracy. These dogs are strays, and they are unhygienic. And I will deal with them. It is my service. Now go home.’

‘No, please!’ Galia stepped purposefully between Mitya the Exterminator and the van. Mitya thought about shoving the old citizen roughly away, but the thought of having to touch her made his stomach shrivel. He decided that the non-standard issue Taser might be the best weapon for this particular job. Vasya gasped as he saw the Exterminator’s hand reach for his holster, and made a dash, on legs still coming to life, to protect Galia.

Galia saw Vasya launch himself at her at the same moment as Mitya the Exterminator fumbled with a holster. She felt afraid, but didn’t know why. Surely he wasn’t going to shoot her?

A second later a screech as if from Baba Yaga herself ripped through the night. All three protagonists froze, with fear squeezing each and every heart. Only Mitya seemed to know the likely source of the chilling wail, and his head jerked towards the entrance to the flats. In a flash, a tiny old woman with a bristling chin and a brightly coloured headscarf darted out of the stairwell with something gleaming raised above her head. It took Galia a second or two to work out what it was: a sickle.

‘Go to hell you son of a bitch!’ she screeched in a pitch so high it set all the neighbourhood dogs off as she lunged at Mitya the Exterminator with a wicked, slashing motion. Galia and Vasya ducked on instinct, but the old woman hadn’t even seen them. Her terrible eyes tracked the Exterminator alone.

‘No!’ he shouted, backing away, hands outstretched.

‘Murdering bastard, get out of here!’ Again she lunged, and the Exterminator lost his footing slightly, backing away, scrabbling like a chicken about to lose its head.

‘Mother, no! Drop the sickle! It’s me, Mitya! I’ve come for some washing!’

Vasya and Galia stared at each other, dumbfounded for a moment, unable to take in the spectacle of David and Goliath that was unfolding in front of them as the tiny woman chased Mitya the Exterminator around the courtyard, screeching like a banshee with the sickle held high over her head.

A chorus of barking from the back of the van reminded Galia that she’d come here to do more than just gawp at suburban madness. Pulling the van’s battered doors wide, she peered into the murk, her ears ringing. Inside she could make out a patchwork of small cages, each stacked on the other, each housing a miserable dog, each miserable dog just a blur of heaving fur interspersed with white teeth that flashed in the moonlight. Hardly daring to touch the nearest cage, which wobbled about as if on its own accord, she spotted Boroda near the back, small and scared. Galia began to claw out the other cages one by one, placing them on the ground as gently as she could while also withdrawing her hands from the feel of claw and drool as quickly as possible. The stench of the stray dogs caught in her throat and she coughed and gagged as the cages came out.