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

‘Baba Galia, are you ill? You must get up and run after the van!’ one of the children cried as they tugged at her shoulder.

Galia could not speak. In the deep black night enveloping the building, they heard the faint imprint of a howl as a rattling engine passed by a couple of streets away.

Vasya Volubchik let the old man’s head drop with a soft thunk when he saw Galia, out on the landing, drop to her knees. This was not good. The old man would have to be left to the women. Vasya hobbled over to the door and stood hovering gently, unsure where to begin.

‘Galia my dear, what’s the matter? Are you ill?’

‘No, Dedya Vasya, Boroda has been taken away by the exterminator van! They are going to gas her! She will be eaten by the wild dogs and then gassed!’ Masha, the tallest and boldest, started to cry.

‘My goodness, is this true?’

The children nodded vigorously, all of them now sniffling and dripping like leaky buckets.

‘Galia, there is no time to waste, why are you on your knees? Get up, get up, woman!’ Vasya gripped Galia’s shoulders and looked into her face. He always thought this moment would be full of joy, to touch her and gaze into her eyes. But alas, it stopped him short and made his heart thump in a most unpleasant way. Because for a moment, his Galia was lost: the dependable, stolid woman had disappeared and been replaced by a frightened child dressed up as a haggard old lady with death in her eyes and her mouth wide open.

‘Galia, listen to me: don’t despair. Even if the Exterminator has got Boroda – and we don’t know that for certain – it’s not without hope. We can go after him! And, and even if that fails, I know where he lives, that Mitya the Exterminator. We can find him! Now is no time to sit on the floor. Look – the old ladies are looking at you; they think you’ve lost your reason!’

And indeed, the coven had, as one, ceased to minister to the old man with the broken hip, and were gathered, goggle eyed, at the doorway, watching Galia minutely, while the old man took up groaning again and pleading for a nip of vodka, or a swift death.

‘But it’s too late, Vasya, she’s gone. She’s in the van already.’

‘We can chase him down! Listen. My bike is just outside. I’ve been tuning it all day. It’s running like a dream and ready for anything. We can do it, Galia!’

And with the help of the children gathered around him, together they levered Galia upright, dusted her down and jostled her down the steps, through the clattering metal doors and out into the darkened street. At the kerb, Vasya’s ancient but gleaming Ural motorbike and sidecar waited, a vision of polished chrome and blood-red paintwork.

‘Get in, woman, get in!’

Galia held the ends of her headscarf close to her chin and eyed the gleaming motorbike and its deep, narrow sidecar. She knew she would never fit. Her brows drew together, and then she spoke.

‘You get in, Vasya.’

She caught Vasya’s eye, and held it. ‘I’ll drive. It’s the only way.’ Vasya looked from bike to woman to sidecar and back to woman, and then at his shoes. She was right.

‘OK, but follow my instructions.’

‘But of course, Vasily Semyonovich.’

‘Listen!’ cried Masha. They froze, Vasya with one foot the size of a tennis racket in the sidecar, Galia with skirt hitched above her knee, the rosy flesh oozing delicately over the top of her pop sock. The wind carried vague hints of sound, a scrap of a rasping engine, a hint of muffled furry fury which could have been the noise of a dozen wild dogs, maybe in a van, maybe in a tin can buried underground. Maybe in hell.

‘That way!’ shrieked Masha, flinging her right arm wildly into the air. ‘Go! Save the dogs!’

Vasya folded his stiff legs in front of him in the sidecar as Galia hitched up her floral skirt still higher and, with an ease that Vasya couldn’t help noticing, straddled the bike. A sandaled foot kick-started the faithful engine and then, headscarf and frizzy hair streaming in the wind, she increased the revs and took off after Mitya the Exterminator’s van.

Across the bridge and the blackened oily river, past the factory, out to the flats on the new side of town they sped. Galia hadn’t ridden a motorbike for at least thirty years, but after the first couple of minutes and a rather hair-raising bend or two, she discovered that it was, indeed, just like riding a bike. Vasya kept a beady eye on both her gear changing and her speed, while also trying to make out the lights of Mitya the Exterminator’s van in front of them, and the exact texture of the pink flesh that was oozing at him oh-so-beautifully from the top of Galia’s pop sock.

Vasya was aware at this moment that he was a truly modern man, in every sense: not only had he allowed the woman to drive, but he could multi-task, even in a dangerous and unusual situation like this. He congratulated himself, briefly, before the discomfort of being thrown violently forward and his nose coming into close contact with his knees concentrated his mind on other matters, such as the blood spots on his trousers.

Every so often they pulled over to ask teenagers snogging on benches or sniffing glue to tell them which way the Exterminator had gone. Everyone knew his van. When they reached the newest new flats, they glimpsed the van’s red lights for the first time, meandering through the suburbs, looking for dogs to make disappear. Their eyes met for a moment, and then they surged onward. Hearing nothing over the roar of the engine and seeing nothing apart from those twin red lights, they gradually reeled them in, getting closer, starting to make out the back of the van through the thickening dark.

‘Look out!’ Vasya shrieked and Galia squeezed the brakes as hard as she could, as a shoddy-looking ambulance careering in the opposite direction zig-zagged towards them across the middle of the road, siren blaring. The bike skidded crazily and came to a stop just short of the ambulance, side on. Galia panted as the grim faces of the paramedics, sucking on roll-ups on the front seat, grazed past her nose. They were near enough to touch: no, near enough to kiss, and she could smell the interior of the vehicle. Formaldehyde and aspic. ‘Kiss of death,’ muttered Galia with a shudder as she re-started the engine, nodded to Vasya whose face was now the colour and texture of lumpy sour milk, and roared away.

There was no sign of the van. Galia revved the engine and sped along the nameless, characterless streets, past huge blocks of flats with dark windows like empty eye sockets. She had no idea where they were. A cold sweat replaced the hot sweat and she felt the blood drain from her face: there was no sign of them. The long, straight road was thoroughly empty. Seconds ticked by and she felt tears begin to sting the backs of her eyelids. She’d lost them.

She was about to pull over when Vasya grabbed her arm with shaking fingers and pointed to a turning to the right. Galia tutted, and muttered to herself, but followed his instruction.

‘You old idiot, why would they have gone in there? That’s just…’ She trailed off, and pulled the bike up behind a stack of street bins. The van had pulled in to a courtyard between tower blocks that seemed to have become derelict without ever having been finished. She could see vague movements in the mottled darkness.

‘Vasya, how did you know they had come in here, do you have special powers?’ Galia hissed. She wasn’t any more superstitious than most Russian women, but the old man’s insight had intrigued her.

‘Ha, you women, you’re all the same. If a man knows something you don’t, he must be psychic.’

Galia snorted quietly and attempted to dismount the bike with something like dignity, but found it a lot harder than jumping on had been. Vasya disengaged his legs from under his chin and felt the blood returning painfully to his feet. He couldn’t attempt to get out just yet; he knew he’d fall flat on his nose if he did.