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

‘Well, now, Mitya, firstly: mind your language. I’m a patient man, and your friend. But I am also a member of the organs of state. And you, as a dog exterminator, are not. I could have you arrested for telling me to fuck off. So just, you know, be nice. You don’t tell me to fuck off, my little dog-killing friend!’ Kulakov ran a chubby finger down the side of Mitya’s face and pinched his chin, playfully.

‘What is it you want to tell me, Kulakov?’ anger and frustration gripped Mitya’s throat and his question came out in a soft, strangled croak.

‘I want to tell you,’ Kulakov leant in to Mitya’s face, smiling like an old nanny, eyes focused on the wall behind him, ‘that we’ve got your daddy – that is, your real daddy – in the SIZO. He’s a common criminal! Now, what do you think of that?’

Mitya’s reply was to punch Petya Kulakov right between the eyes with all the force he had and then to keep punching the soft bag of plumpness as it slumped against the bar, blood spurting from eyebrow and nose. He was dully aware of the piercing screams let out by the coven of bored-looking waitresses, but it was just a noise. Kulakov and Mitya fell to the floor with a crack and slap of skin, bone and fat on tile and glass, just as Big Vova came lurching out of the toilet with his zipper open and his fists ready. Smile Bar! patrons scattered like cockroaches as Mitya knocked Kulakov’s head against the green and mauve studs of the bar, while the latter gurgled and tried to gouge Mitya’s eyes out with his stubby, fat fingers

Big Vova moved quickly: he pulled Mitya off his friend and floored him with a punch that caused trinkets to tinkle against each other in his mother’s apartment on the other side of town. Then Vova kicked him in the stomach like he was scoring a goal against those Spartak Moscow bastards, briefly stopping to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd in his head before hoisting Mitya back to his feet to punch his face a few more times. All the while Kulakov was crawling about on the floor, whining for him to hit harder and lower while he scrabbled about searching for his two front tooth caps. He found the shiny metallic teeth under a stool and shoved them back on to the blackened stumps in the front of his mouth.

‘Let’s kill him.’ Kulakov clapped his hands together as Big Vova threw Mitya back on to the tiles. The barmaids watched in silence, as what remained of the customers trickled away into the night. The stereo continued to play, and Mitya, curled up into the fetal position as boots thudded around him, was vaguely aware of Depeche Mode in the background: ‘Master and Servant’ had always been a shitty song. Both policemen spent a happy few minutes kicking the stricken exterminator until they were too tired and breathless to go on.

When the two policemen were spent, Big Vova ejected Mitya through the fluorescent plastic jungle and out into the Azov night, where he lay on the pavement, face down, while the mosquitoes and moths colonised his capillaries and his green cardigan respectively. He had not felt his flight through the air, and only barely recognized the thump of his face against the walkway. He was dreaming, barely there: seeing dogs floating in a darkness that was deep and all around him: old dogs with scarred, grizzled faces and open sores; top breed dogs with clicking, wobbly hips and hideous holes in their skulls; mother bitches with dozens of swollen teats and tired faces; hungry puppies with their ribs sticking through scant fur and infections eating up their eyes. And somewhere behind them all, an old dog, whose name was Sharik, wagging his tail and holding a red rubber ball in his mouth, looking at him with love.

‘Sharik, Sharik, come here, boy!’ Mitya called in a high-pitched voice. The dog seemed unable to come to him. He called again, but the dog began to whimper and shake. It tucked its tail between its legs and started limping around, the red ball still in its mouth, but the dog lost and frightened.

‘Sharik, Sharik, come here, boy! Good boy!’ Come on then!’ But the dog was going the wrong way, heading for somewhere very, very dark, and never-ending. ‘Sharik, come back!’ Mitya tried to call again, but his mouth wouldn’t move. ‘Come back!’

He felt something cool on his cheek and the doggy blackness wobbled and became studded with fuzzy orange lights. He could taste blood in his mouth and he gradually felt, with his fingers and nose and shins and hips and belly, that he was lying in a pool of vomit.

‘Hey, are you OK?’ a soft voice hovered above his head. He couldn’t open his eyes, but he recognized that scent, despite the blood and the sick and the street. It was his angel.

‘What happened to you, puppy? You’re not having a good night.’

‘I found my daddy,’ he whispered through throbbing split lips, before slipping back under, into the dark.

Wednesday or Thursday, I think, but maybe not

My Dearest Galina Petrovna,

I thought I’d drop you a line to let you know that I am well and that things are going all right here, although I can’t speak for Boroda, as we are being held in separate establishments, as far as I understand it.

Life here in the SIZO is most interesting so far. I was transferred from the police station to the SIZO after roughly twenty-four hours in the police cells, and I’ve been here two days – I think, although there aren’t many windows, and I don’t have my watch, so it is somewhat difficult to tell. It is all rather confusing, as I am sure you can imagine. As you may know, SIZO stands for Sledsvenny Izolyator (Remand Prison) so the idea is that I will be held here while the organs of state control investigate my crime and decide to bring formal charges, or not. Judging by Officer Kulakov’s performance on the night of my arrest, the investigation could take many, many months and involve many, many reports, not to mention a large number of counter-signatories and bottles of vodka. I don’t hold out much hope of being out before New Year, I fear. In which case, I think I will have to hand over stewardship of the Elderly Club to another willing pair of hands (yours maybe?), and of course provision will have to be made for Vasik. I had a dream about him last night, Galia. It was just like I was at home. He had his little fluffy face in his bowl and he was scrunching up sardine spines with great relish. He really is a precious little fellow. I do miss him so.

Anyway, let me tell you a little about life here. The corridors are somewhat long and dark, and there is a bad odour about the place, as you may imagine. The cells are even darker than the corridors, and very poorly ventilated. We are not held in small cells, this is not the case at all: the cells here are large, like classrooms, and hold fifty people at a time. However, there is only room for half that number to lie on a bunk at any time. The rest await their turn by leaning on the walls, or shuffling about from one side of the room to the other, although this appears to cause great annoyance to some of the inmates, and resulted in a fight and bloodshed last night. My fellow inmates have been very welcoming so far, and shown a healthy interest in my case which is, in general terms, a bit different from most of theirs. It appears that I share this cell with a large number of burglars, hooligans, rapists, fraudsters and poisoners. I feel that dogs were unlikely to have been involved in many of their cases, and cats even less so.

In the cell walls there are a number of windows, but there are metal shutters closed over the windows permanently – I believe to stop prisoners from passing messages between the cells or to the outside world. As a result, it is very stuffy in here. There is one toilet: it is in the corner of the room, and shielded from view by a rather ragged brown curtain. Next to it there is a small sink. This is all we have for a cell of 50 men. There are no other washing facilities, as far as I can make out. Needless to say, some of my fellow prisoners could do with a good scrub and a shave. I try not to make a point of this though, much as it pains me. I know it is not technically their fault that they are unwashed. I have not mentioned it to them. I think that is best, don’t you?