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

‘A beer – lager.’

‘Small? Big?’ the effort of speaking seemed to pain her, and she rolled her eyes seeking divine assistance.

‘Big.’ Mitya felt he really should add a quietly muttered ‘bitch’ to his order, but knew if he did he would never receive the beer tonight or any other night, so kept quiet.

‘Hey, Mitya, hey-hey-hey! How you doing, brother?’ Petya Kulakov lurched into Mitya’s personal space and slapped him on the back with a tepid, damp hand.

‘Good, thanks, Kulakov. Just taking a break from business, you know.’ He cleared his throat and made a lunge for his beer, wishing Kulakov would stand further away from him. He had to make a kind of limbo move to drink his beer while avoiding a collision with Kulakov’s baby-soft jowls, and he could feel the spirit fumes vaporising from the policeman, making his eyes water. He would never understand how people could drink vodka. At the back of his mind he wondered if Kulakov might just spontaneously combust when he lit the bent fag stuck to the corner of his lip.

‘Business, business: we are all businessmen now! How’s your business, brother? How are those doggies doing? Howling, I should think?’ Kulakov giggled for no reason.

‘Yes, the dogs are doing good business. Well, they’re not, but I am, if you see what I mean,’ said Mitya, without a trace of a smile.

‘Ha, you’re great, Mitya! I love you, brother.’ Kulakov giggled even more uproariously. ‘But seriously, business is business. I’m glad you walked in: I have something – a little thing, just little – I need to discuss with you.’ Kulakov winked.

‘Business?’ squeaked Mitya, and cleared his throat, inwardly berating himself for not doing a warm up and gargle back home. It was the angel’s fault, in actual fact: she had driven his usual preparation far from his mind. But he couldn’t be angry with her. ‘What kind of business?’ This time it came out as a cold, harsh question, just the way he had intended.

‘We share a secret, you know, you and I?’

‘A secret?’

‘Yeah, yeah, it’s our secret.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Aw, Mitya you know! It’s your… family secret.’ Kulakov winked again, and nudged Mitya in the ribs.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Mitya repeated, louder, attempting a dismissive tone, and nearly succeeding. He turned away from the drunken policeman and surveyed the bar, squinting in the light.

‘Don’t try to push me out, little brother. Mishka, Mitya, I know your secret.’ Mitya turned and Kulakov looked straight into his left eye, and as he did so, Mitya had the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that there was, in fact, some sort of secret. But he didn’t have the faintest idea what it was.

‘You’re drunk! And you’re talking shit!’

‘No, now come on, you know I’m not talking shit. Kulakov never talks shit, brother. That’s rude. Come on: finish your beer, I’ll buy you another. And don’t worry; it can probably stay our secret, if you want it to. And I’d assume you want it to. It doesn’t have to go anywhere, brother. You know, just… make me happy, keep me sweet. We can negotiate.’

Mitya took a swig of beer and desperately searched the forgotten corners of his memory ready to drag out and shoot anything he had done or anywhere he had been that wouldn’t stand up to Kulakov’s scrutiny. But he was satisfied: since adulthood, there was nothing in his past that could be useful to Kulakov. He lived a blameless life, devoted to his calling. He generally avoided girls, he was never drunk, he didn’t take drugs or bribes or talk to local government officials. He didn’t even cross the street if the lights told him to stay put.

‘Kulakov, I have no secrets, and I don’t need your stupid, made-up, alcoholic’s lies. It’s the vodka in your brain that’s telling you secrets. You should dry out a little. I know a good place where your sort can go, you know.’ Mitya was pleased with his response, delivered in a deep, firm tone, eyes straight ahead. He took another swig of beer and was about to change the subject when Kulakov’s face erupted with a strange, high-pitched howl and he drummed the bar with both palms, like one of those wind-up monkey drummers, and woke a slumbering waitress.

‘Ha ha! You’re so funny! Your mama would be proud. Of that, at least, she would be proud. Mad as a fucking Siberian Snow Goose she may be, but she’d love that firm tone of yours. It’s a shame you can’t use it on her, keep her under control a bit. I hear she’s completely unmanageable. We might have to bring her in to the station some time for a bit of treatment, you know? But actually, you’re completely wrong. This one, this secret, is very interesting, and it actually concerns your mother too, God rest her soul.’

‘She’s not dead, Kulakov.’

‘No, but she will be when this one gets out! She’ll die of fucking heart failure!’ Kulakov’s voice dropped to an oily whisper, ‘I think you will be very interested in having this one kept to ourselves, you know. Especially if you want promotion, or actually, to hang on to your job, or your flat, or anything, really. And if you want your momma to be… calm.’

Mitya narrowed his eyes, despite himself. What kind of secret could Kulakov be talking about?

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kulakov. I’m just an ordinary guy.’

‘An ordinary guy? Oh Mitya, you’re so modest. You’re the town’s best dog exterminator! The only exterminator, it’s true, but the best, oh yes! No, but anyway, it’s not you, it’s a family member that I’ve heard about. Take a guess?’

‘No.’ Mitya leant over his beer and tried to move his elbow away from Kulakov’s soft, damp caress. There was a slyness in the policeman’s eyes that was threatening to swallow him up. He concentrated on the small purple bowl of dry roast nuts in front of him and selected one that was evenly brown and rounded. He wished Kulakov would go away.

‘Hey,’ Kulakov sighed in Mitya’s face, so close that he could taste the policeman’s vodka breath mingling with the nut crumbs in his mouth, ‘don’t you want to get that promotion? You’re not such a young man any more: you want to go up the ladder a bit? You need to impress your bosses.’

‘I don’t care about promotion, Kulakov,’ said Mitya, ‘I enjoy my job.’

‘You want to impress the girls a bit, maybe, with that promotion? I hear you’re not much with the ladies. The guys were saying they thought you were one of those queers, you know, a gay boy, but I said no, not our Mitya. He’s straight as the day is long, it’s just,’ Kulakov sniffed at Mitya’s thick green cardigan. ‘It’s just, you smell of dog shit. Did you know that? You always smell of dog shit. Do you really want to spend your whole life smelling of dog shit and being bitten on the ankle by those mutts? Sooner or later, you’ll find one with rabies, or she’ll find you. You know that, don’t you?’

Mitya glared into his beer and stuck another dry nut between his teeth.

‘You really need a promotion, brother, so that you can get a desk job and dream up strategies for dog extermination rather than having to involve yourself. It’s the way of the world, brother. And for a promotion, you need to impress. And to impress, you need good family.’

‘OK, OK, what is it? What is it about my family that you so want to tell me, Kulakov? Just say it, and then fuck off.’ Mitya couldn’t help it. The jibes about smelling of dogs and getting the desk job had got to him. He did his best every night to extinguish the pungent scent of dog crap on his body and clothes, but it was difficult, with no light in the shower cubicle and only one ancient washing tub between the ten of them in the communal flat. He did his best, but the Omo wasn’t great and he couldn’t afford the Ariel. Yes, he did his best, but in the end, he was a man fending for himself, he had no time to write extermination strategies being out on the road so much, and sometimes, just sometimes, he missed that female touch. She would take care of the shit smell, if he had an angel… she would iron his shirts while he made up plans. She would be proud of him.