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

‘I once stole apples from the collective farm!’

Again a murmur went around the room, but all eyes remained on the floor. Outside the door, coming slowly along the corridor, the echo of footsteps could be heard.

‘Oh my goodness! What an adventure we’re having, and it’s not even midday! I must say, usually we aim for some sort of, you know, light-hearted kind of secrets. You know! Like, when I was young, I had a crush on Yuri Gagarin. No, I don’t mean me, obviously, that would be silly – but that kind of thing. Madam, you’re next,’ and the Kommandant turned to Galia expectantly.

‘Very well, Kommandant. My name is Galina Petrovna Orlova, and I’m from Azov too. My secret is that there is no secret: I was married to a man who was not a spy, or a homosexual, or an alcoholic. But he was annoying. That is all.’

There was a short silence.

‘Is that really a secret?’ asked Kommandant Krapivin looking around, a little crest-fallen.

‘It appears to be something that precious few knew. It appears to me that sometimes, when people don’t know, or can’t remember, they make it up. I don’t know why they make up nasty things, Kommandant,’ all of a sudden, Galia could not stop talking. The words rushed out in a torrent. ‘Why not make up good things? Like the fact that they made nice tea, or were always punctual, or didn’t take more than their fair share of the cheese?’

‘Well, Galina Petrovna, let’s move on—’

‘No, Kommandant! Really: I want to know – why don’t people make up nice things?’ Galia leapt to her feet, bucket seat still firmly attached to her backside, and stood before the Kommandant, waiting for an answer.

The Kommandant was silent.

‘It’s something peculiar to humans, Galina Petrovna. Making ourselves feel better, by being nasty about others: making up stories – giving ourselves reasons to hate.’ Mitya spoke the words in a soft voice, but did not look away from the window and the bright sunlight beyond.

Galia nodded and smiled slightly, and sat back down with a sigh.

‘Right,’ the Kommandant turned to Zoya, with an oily smile on his face. Zoya looked like a sparrow at the end of winter: fragile, ruffled, and very sorry for herself. She sighed.

‘My name is Zinaida Artyomovna Krasovskaya. And I have to tell you that I used to be an informant to the KGB.’

Everyone in the room sucked in their breath.

‘Ah!’

‘Shall I get more tea now, Kommandant?’ Julia the secretary broke the silence.

Mitya scraped his shoes on the floor and cleared his throat. ‘I haven’t had my turn yet. Do you mind? My name is Mikhail Borisovich Plovkin, I am from Azov.’ Mitya’s face turned pale and his eyebrows rose, corrugating his forehead as he hesitated. Not a particle stirred in the room as the assorted group waited for him to speak.

‘You want something that no-one else knows?’ Mitya began in a husky voice and wiped his hands on his shorts. ‘Well – until this week, I never knew who my real father was.’

There was a hollow knocking on the floor as Baba Plovkina fell off her beanbag and landed at the Kommandant’s feet. He bent down swiftly and propped her back up with deft hands, making sure her headscarf was straight and that she was breathing.

Zoya let out a low laugh. ‘Well, Baba Plovkina, some chicks have come home to roost?’

Galia prodded her pop-socked toe into Zoya’s shin as Baba Plovkina growled, the sound not a little unnerving, given the proximity of her sickle.

‘So where is he?’ squawked Baba Plovkina.

‘I’m sorry, Babushka , but I should explain a few ground-rules here—’ the Kommandant tried to break in.

‘Shut your mouth! Where is he, the old bastard?’ She propelled herself out of the clammy embrace of the beanbag with surprising speed and began to prowl the room, as if expecting her quarry to be hidden somewhere among the tea cups and bookshelves. All the while, her joints clicked slightly like knitting needles, and her jaws worked beneath her sharp cheekbones and tiny, glistening eyes.

‘Who are you after, Mother?’ Mitya too rose out of his chair.

‘Volubchik: I’m here to rescue him.’

‘No, no, no!’ Galia began. ‘What are you talking about, Baba Plovkina?’ she continued. ‘We’re here to rescue Vasya Volubchik. You have no business meddling with that. We have an official letter.’ And she squeezed herself out of her seat and raised her hand to waft the Very Important Piece of Paper in the air.

‘No, Galina Petrovna, you are mistaken,’ said Mitya, ‘I am here for your old goat Volubchik. We have to have a… very serious conversation, him and I. No harm will come to him, I can assure you.’

‘What, like the dog?’ crowed Zoya. ‘You’re not human, Mitya. We don’t trust you. Don’t trust him, Galia. A leopard can’t change its spots, and neither can a Taurus.’

‘No, Zinaida Artyomovna, I am human. But I’m only just finding out… what sort of human.’

‘Bring him to me!’ screeched Baba Plovkina, pushing Mitya to one side and reaching for her sickle.

‘Oh my!’ exclaimed Kommandant Krapivin. ‘A transformation story!’ and he propelled Baba Plovkina away from her instrument and back towards her seat with the dexterity and panache of a lion tamer.

Out in the corridor, Vasya’s ears were beginning to burn. He still wasn’t sure who it was who had requested to see him, but he was hoping against hope that it was Galia, and not the police for further questioning, or any of his former teaching colleagues: the shame would be unbearable. He sat on a wooden bench between the two guards and enjoyed his first glimpse of the sky for four whole days. He could almost taste the sunshine, and as he spied a corner of the gardens below, the scent of green peppers, garlic and apricots mingled in his nostrils. He thought he might be able to smell freedom, or maybe it was the smell of the future. Whatever it was, he liked it very much, and it filled his heart with the warm honey of hope.

In a dank kennel, a dog with a narrow face and delicate limbs tufted with wiry grey hair sat very still. A noise somewhere far off to the left of her had startled her. It had wrenched her from a welcome dream, where she had padded gently around a clean, bright apartment with sunshine streaming in golden rays through netted curtains. Her dark eyes, tilted over high cheekbones, rested on her cell door. Through the bent and torn metal bars she sensed the corridor black as pitch, which stank of fear. All was quiet on the corridor. She was the last dog on the row. Her hopes of rehoming and a new old lady now seemed misplaced. She had realized, slowly, that nothing good could happen in this place. Boroda licked her forepaw and chewed at a flea for a second, and then rested her chin on the clean patch of fur. Despite the lack of exercise, she felt tired: bone tired.

She shut her eyes again, and remembered her home, and her mistress, and the stars that speckled the southern night sky. She remembered bacon fat, and her cardboard box, and the children who made her little leaf headdresses and tickled her ears as they sat with her beneath the trees. She remembered the smell of cats, the scamper of rats, and the joy of finding a bread crust trapped between the flagstones. She remembered Galia, and her food bowl, and the pool of green light under the kitchen table as meals were being prepared. She remembered the quiet, and the clock ticking, and the sound of the front door clicking shut. She heard footsteps in the corridor, and a small whine squeezed out of her parched throat.

She stood up as best she could in the tiny cage, and hung her head towards the cage door, listening intently. The footsteps came to a halt in front of her, and she could see the outline of the decrepit black boots again, close to her nose. They were coated with disinfectant and other liquids too terrible to name. Her back legs began to shake violently as the bolt to her cage was drawn back with a sudden jerk. She backed away from the rough gloves that reached for her, pressing her tail into the bars behind her, and bearing back with all her weight. She growled slightly as she was dragged forward and her claws caught on the wire mesh beneath her, etching the air with a sharp scratching sound. The human cursed and caught her roughly by the scruff.