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

The new blue sky still sported a smudge of rose at the horizon, and the air itself felt alive with dew and promises. In nearby streets, Galia could hear the approach of teams of cleaners, washing down the pavements and the previous night’s spillages, and bagging up the waste and dust and grime. Making the city clean and bright, ready for the new day.

‘Look at that Zoya!’ said Galia, smiling. ‘It just makes you feel like everything will be all right with the world. Such beauty!’

Zoya said nothing. Galia wondered if she had gone back to sleep in a standing position, and wriggled her shoulder a little beneath her friend’s head.

‘Hey, Zoya, look at the view. It’s magical!’

‘Stuff the view,’ said Zoya in a thick rumble, before gently lowering herself to the pavement.

‘But look!’

Zoya refused to look and laid down on the pavement with her hands folded under her head. She was just about to nod off, when with a sudden snort, a regiment of fountains laid out before the University shot plumes of silver water into the dawn air, covering all three revellers with a cold, wet dew. Galia clapped her hands and laughed. Zoya’s response did not bear reporting.

‘Muph stuffun.’

‘What was that, Grigory Mikhailovich?’ laughed Galia.

The old man, now wearing an orange boob-tube borrowed from a large young lady the previous night, was trying to get some words out, muttering and gesticulating towards the east with a puffy but insistent finger.

‘Muph stuffun!’

He coughed loud and long, and struggled for breath, but still pointed.

‘I don’t get it, Grigory Mikhailovich. Can you mime it?’

Grigory Mikhailovich regarded her blankly for a moment or two, and then, very slowly, held his hands out in front of him, parallel, palms facing each other, and rotated them, in a single motion forward, round and round. He began slowly, but gradually picked up speed. As he did so, he began to shuffle his feet.

‘Is that some kind of burlesque he’s doing?’ asked Zoya, opening one eye.

‘Really, my dear!’ said Galia.

‘Woo woo!’ said Grigory Mikhailovich in a deep baritone.

‘It is a burlesque!’ and Zoya began to giggle uncontrollably. ‘Is there no end to his talents? He’s almost as good as that young lad last night!’

‘What young lad?’

‘The one you offered to take home!’

‘You’re hysterical,’ Galia snapped and sucked in her lips, turning her back on Zoya.

‘I think he’s miming a train: is it a train, Grigory Mikhailovich?’

He didn’t hear, so busy was he with his woo-wooing.

‘Grigory Mikhailovich, is it a train?’ Galia bellowed as loudly as she could, standing in his path and scaring a cloud of pigeons into the air.

Grigory Mikhailovich stopped, thought for a moment, nodded, and then winced. In the middle distance, Galia could just make out the grand silhouette of the Southern Station.

‘We need to get a train? Well, of course, of course – Zoya, get up! We need to get a train! What was I thinking, standing here, looking at the view…’

Galia broke off, and with a yelp, shoved her hand deep in to her jodhpur pocket. Her fingers scrabbled about in the rough material as her heart stood still. It wasn’t there! She tried again, fingers digging as deep into the pocket as they could reach. And then, right at the bottom, folded several times and crumpled under her loose change, her fingers closed around it: the VIPP – Very Important Piece of Paper, signed by Glukhov, Roman Sergeevich, and sealed with his official seal. As far as she could recall, it set out, in official terms, that the dog, Boroda, and the man, Vasily Semyonovich Volubchik, should be freed immediately as they were friends and comrades of the Deputy Minister, Southern Section, and the State in general. Galia curled her fingers around the paper, and lifted her chin.

‘Come, Zoya, rouse yourself. We must go. We have to get to the station. We must get back!’

‘Muph…’ wheezed Grigory Mikhailovich, before erupting into a coughing fit that blew a great blob of bloody phlegm into the morning air, where it briefly shone like a ruby star on the top of the Kremlin roof, before disappearing over the parapet and into the shady greenery below.

‘That’s better!’ Grigory Mikhailovich wiped his face on the back of his hand and leant on the parapet for support. ‘I find… sometimes, the airways… are a little… stiff in the morning.’

‘The station, Grigory Mikhailovich?’ asked Galia.

‘Galina Petrovna, time is too short.’

‘But we must try!’

‘No, too short for trains! My advice is to fly. Time is of the essence, especially for the dog, and… what day is it?’

Galia thought for a moment.

‘Saturday, I think. Yes, Saturday.’

‘Well, that settles it. You have to fly. You must get back today. Tomorrow is…’

‘Sunday,’ Galia filled in for the old man.

‘Sunday, precisely. Sunday is no good to man or beast. You won’t get access to anyone on a Sunday. You must hurry; I can get you the tickets. But it must be today.’

‘Fly,’ murmured Zoya, ‘I love to fly.’

‘Do you, my dear?’

‘Fly! Weeee!’ Zoya leapt up from the pavement and thrust out her arms, dive-bombing Grigory Mikhailovich and scattering the poor pigeons once more.

‘Weee, weeee, up and down, over the clouds! Up, up and away!’ She stood still suddenly and wobbled slightly, all the meagre colour draining from her face in an instant.

‘Ooh, oh, actually, I don’t feel at all well.’

‘Oh goodness, Zoya, don’t heave up here, not in front of the university! It’s a seat of learning. Oh heavens!’

It was too late. The rose bushes received a direct hit, and the taxi driver, just returning with his petrol can to the dead car, clucked monstrously.

‘You old people should know better! You’re a disgrace!’

‘Mind your own business!’ said Galia, as she rubbed Zoya’s back, and wondered how she was ever going to get her friend on an aeroplane that morning.

‘Come, Zoya, collect yourself. We must get back to the flat and get our things, the plane won’t wait for us, and Vasya and Boroda are relying on us.’

‘We can’t let them down,’ mumbled Zoya, before vomiting over the unfortunate flowers a second time.

‘No, my dear, we can’t let them down. So come on, stop that, we don’t have time.’

‘I would if I could, believe me, Galia. Something must have disagreed with me. This is most unusual.’

‘I’ll hail us a taxi,’ said Grigory Mikhailovich, and set off, with extreme slowness, for the main boulevard.

Contrary to all their expectations, the trio arrived at the airport while the morning was still dewy, the air still fresh, the day still early. Galia had thrown together whatever contents of the travel bag that she could remember and locate within the trembling darkness of Grigory Mikhailovich’s cave-like dwelling. Zoya had spent a long time looking for something, but she wouldn’t say what: she just scratched about in all the corners, like a cat that had been shut in for too long. The object, whatever it was, was never found, and this produced a deep crease on Zoya’s papery skin that ran from the crown of her head to the bridge of her nose. Grigory Mikhailovich sat in his armchair and ranted, occasionally, about how Lenin would have appreciated electronic music had he been alive today, and asked the ladies if they thought it would be possible to resurrect their former leader, like Frankenstein’s Monster, if the right kind of replacement parts could be found. His raves were interspersed with a silence broken only by his wheezing.

Towards the end of the process of packing, Kolya surfaced briefly from a room at the far end of the hallway, just as they were gathering their strength to leave. He tried to squirm back into the room when he realized they were still there, smirking and congratulating Galina Petrovna on having correctly identified the Deputy Minister Glukhov.