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

‘But she belongs to Galina Petrovna!’

‘No, little girl: it belongs to me.’

Boroda, who had been dozing with the scent of wild olive all around her, woke with a start and peered up at the stranger moving slowly towards her. She felt an odd sort of twinge: she sensed pork fat, mixed with a riot of other scents that made her hair stand on end. But the pork fat was the strongest, in fact somewhat overpowering. The hand that reached out to her was relatively clean and calm and sure, the finger-nails short. She hesitated, and heard a strange chorus of barking from somewhere nearby but closed off. She couldn’t make it out: her hearing wasn’t as good as it had been as a pup. The hair on her back was still raised, her spine tingling, but she felt safe here in the courtyard, with the old ladies and the children. She inspected the stranger more closely as best she could in the dusk. She sensed no vodka or big sticks, and he certainly didn’t appear drunk. And people with pork fat were generally good, weren’t they?

The shrieking at the House of Culture peaked to a crescendo that threatened to crack the windows and then died down slowly, somewhat like a fire ripping through several shops and an old people’s home, consuming everything in its path but now reducing to glowing embers, every so often expelling a mouthful of acrid yellow sparks and fizzes of burning fat. Vasya had corralled the oldest old woman and her gang to one side of the hall with the promise of tea and cards and the strategic positioning of some folding chairs, while the second oldest old woman and her hangers-on were hemmed in on the opposite side, being plied with biscuits and soothed with spider plants. In the middle, there was a floating ridge of ladies who had no interest in politics, history or rain, and they presided over an uneasy peace. Vasya congratulated himself on having restored some sort of order and felt the chances of successfully bringing off the Lotto draw were now not worse than evens.

As calm was restored within the hall and relative quiet ensued, a row of barking dogs broke out like sniper fire, far off on a distant river bank, giving the breeze a sharp and threatening edge as it drifted over the town. Galia, dishing out biscuits and helpful tuts and sighs to the ladies who hated Communism, hesitated mid-flow on hearing the noise. It was a good thing that Boroda was at home under the table, out of the way of those packs of stray dogs. She recalled the mutts she had seen that day outside the railway station: wild and toothy with matted fur and dripping backsides. She collected herself, and asked if anyone had any further questions about the cabbage root fly.

As she sat down after batting away a vague concern over the use of pesticides – all methods of defence must be considered – a chill ran through her as she remembered that Boroda was not locked inside the flat, but was out in the courtyard. The noise of the dogs was continuing, getting louder and then dipping away again, making no sense, like troublesome conversations in a bad dream. During a lull in the barking, the sleeping man, utterly peaceful up until that point and marooned in the middle of the room, suddenly awoke with a cry and slipped from his chair on to the floor with an ominous, muffled crack. A furore of clucking broke out as twelve old ladies around him sprang from their perches to circle him like flapping chickens, or perhaps well-meaning vultures. The old man groaned as he was put in the recovery position by an old lady who had been a grocer, and then turned around and put in a different recovery position by an old lady who had been a nurse. An old lady who had been a construction worker was just about to have a go herself when Galia joined the fray, offering to straighten the old man’s leg if he bit on a metal spoon. His other leg was raised, and lowered, and raised again by the construction worker, as an old lady who had been a teacher tried to get everyone else to sit down and listen to her instructions. No-one listened to Galia’s offer to straighten the leg apart from Vasya, who begged her to be patient for a few moments while the construction worker attempted to find out which bit of the old man, if any, needed straightening. Galia stood by the Chairman’s desk and, with nothing else she could helpfully do at that moment, selected a red boiled sweet from the bowl in front of her and popped it into her mouth. The concentrated sweetness made her gold teeth ache, but still, it was sweet.

‘Turn him over!’ bellowed the construction worker.

‘Nooo!’ groaned the old man, who Galia now recognized as Petya, who used to be around six foot six and had been an engineer: quite high up, and once very athletic. A broad, tall, dependable man, who now lay on the floor being re-arranged by a gaggle of hens.

‘Citizens, perhaps we should wait for the skoraya ? Has anyone called them? I say, has anyone called an ambulance?’ Galia shouted over the melee, but there was no discernible response. She made her way out of the room, down the grand marble staircase and over to the reception desk, where a lady in a bobble hat sat knitting a blanket. ‘Please call for an ambulance, Alicia Nikolaevna, there has been an accident.’

‘An accident? Another one? What do you old birds do up there? That’s the third time this summer!’

‘Please just call the ambulance, Alicia Nikolaevna. There is a man in pain, and he needs help.’

‘And it’s always the men, isn’t it? Why is it always the men? What do you do to them up there? Poor old Afanasy Albertovich last month, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, that was most unfortunate, but please – just get on the phone, Alicia Nikolaevna.’

‘I’ve not seen him since, you know! No-one has!’

Galia gave the door keeper a stern look, for several seconds. ‘Alicia Nikolaevna, the phone—’

‘Yes, yes, I’m doing it! I’ve just got to finish this line.’

Galia thumped her hand on the desk with a gravity that surprised both of them. The other woman slowed her knitting, completed a stitch and put it down with an exasperated sigh.

‘Some old people should know their places!’ Alicia Nikolaevna shrilled as she reached for the phone.

Galia strode back up the grand marble staircase with purposeful steps. Just as she reached the top, the big metal doors at the front of the building clattered open and a stampede of small feet slapped their way across the grand hallway in an awful hurry and made straight for the staircase.

‘Stop, no children allowed in here! Get out!’ cried Alicia Nikolaevna, jumping up from her chair and dropping the knitting and the phone to the floor.

The children slowed and glanced at her briefly, but on spying Galia at the top of the stairs surged forward again en masse.

‘Baba Galia, Baba Galia! It’s terrible! Come quick! Something terrible has happened!’

Galia’s jaw sagged slightly, and she wished she hadn’t wished for more excitement at the Elderly Club.

‘What, children?’

‘He’s taken Boroda!’

‘Who? What are you talking about?’

‘The dog van! The Exterminator! He’s taken Boroda!’

‘We told him she wasn’t wild, but he took her with the others anyway, and put her in the van.’

‘He said she hadn’t got a collar on, so she must be wild. He said it’s the law!’

‘She left her headdress behind, Baba Galia! I found it in the street! Look!’

‘Shut up you idiot, what does that matter? They’re going to gas her!’

‘No, they’re going to shoot her. That’s what he said.’

‘No, he said they would exterminate her by all means necessary.’

Galia looked at the broken leafy headdress, her mouth open. She felt her knees buckle and dropped the metal spoon she’d been clasping for the last five minutes down the concrete steps, the sound reverberating off the marble like a mad church bell. Her kneecaps cracked on the floor where they hit, the goodly layer of flesh not enough to cushion them, and even Alicia Nikolaevna looked up from her desk with a flash of sharp interest on her face.