Marek Hlasko - Killing the Second Dog

“That we have to feed the dog.”

The kid didn’t move. He stood in his characteristic stance: feet spread wide apart, his short cropped head lowered and ready to ram you in the belly. His freckled nose was wrinkled in anger. “I’ll tell my dad to break your jaw. He’s gonna lick you good. Your doctor is gonna make a hell of a lot of money putting you back together.

“Tell us something more about your daddy,” Robert said.

“He’s big,” Johnny said, stretching his arms to show how tall his dad was and how wide his shoulders were; the man must have been built like Sonny Liston. “My daddy is big and strong. He’s not afraid of anybody. He can kick the hell out of anyone he wants. Once three drunken sailors ganged up on him, he nearly killed them.”

“Really?” Robert asked.

“Really. My dad is strong. He doesn’t pick on people, but if someone picks on him, he just …” The kid paused and then added, “It’s a good thing all these insurance agencies are around.”

“He pulverized some sailors in Naples,” I explained to Robert. “In Naples, under a bridge.”

“No, that was another time,” Johnny said. “What I’m telling you about now happened somewhere else. I can’t remember what that goddamn town was called.”

He whistled at our dog, and the two of them scampered away. Robert went for cigarettes. I was smoking the last one. Suddenly she said, “Give me your cigarette, please.”

I gave it to her. She didn’t try to hide her tears. She sobbed helplessly, uncontrollably; people who were strolling by stopped and looked at her with stupid smiles, then walked off reluctantly. Two fat-faced creeps with drooping bellies stopped in front of us and started whispering to one another.

“Move along,” I said.

“What did you say?” one of them said with surprise.

“I said to beat it.” They left and I held my hand out to her. “Come. We’ll swim out. No need to advertise your problems.”

She got up and, holding hands, we went into the sea. Fifty yards from the shore were the remains of an old unfinished pier. We climbed onto the wet planks and sat down.

“How can I help you?” I asked.

“I’m okay now.”

“Is it something to do with the boy’s father?”

“Yes.”

“Johnny’s never met him?”

“No. At least I don’t think he can remember him. But he’ll meet him any day now.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“No, it’s not,” she said, “but that’s why we came here. Johnny’s been begging me for so long I finally gave in. Maybe it would have been best to let him just go on imagining his father the way he has up till now.”

“I think I understand. But maybe you worry too much. I had an uncle who was the worst person you can possibly imagine; he drank, he played cards, and one day he gambled away the house we lived in. At the same time he was a wonderful person. I loved him more than I loved my mom. My father died when I was five.”

“Illness?”

“No, he was killed. Did you ever hear the expression ‘a nation of thinkers and poets’?”

“No.”

“That’s the way the Germans liked to describe themselves. Modesty is a wonderful trait. Now they build a million Volkswagens a year and don’t think of the past. Oh, perhaps they feel sorry. The Germans feel sorry after every war.”

“Too bad we haven’t got any cigarettes,” she said.

“Wait for me here. I’ll swim back to shore and bring us some. I’m sure Robert has bought them by now.”

“No, please stay with me. I’m afraid those two fatsos will swim out here to have one more look at me.”

“They couldn’t manage it. They probably have hernias and weak hearts and aren’t allowed to exert themselves. Lifting a cigarette to their lips is too much for them. Is the boy’s father here?”

“Yes, but he hasn’t shown up yet. He was supposed to come yesterday. I wrote to him, but maybe something’s happened.”

“Look, I don’t want to appear nosy. Just tell me what you feel like telling.”

“His father was born here,” she said. “We met eleven years ago when I visited Israel for the first time. He went back to the States with me, but soon he realized he wasn’t able to live away from Israel. He came back here, then he began to miss America. So he returned to the States and started dreaming of Israel. And so it went, on and on. Until one day he left and didn’t show up again.”

“America must be a difficult country to live in,” I said. “Of course, it’s no fun being a stranger anywhere.”

“Yes,” she said. “Maybe it wasn’t his fault.”

I was sure it wasn’t his fault. I, too, felt homesick. I longed to go back to Poland. Nothing makes you so homesick as being short of cash.

“Do you want to swim back?” I asked after a while.

“No,” she said. “It’s nice sitting here. What was this supposed to be? Some kind of bridge?”

“A pier,” I said. “A pier with a bar, music, and other nighttime pleasures. But then the guy who started building it went bankrupt. His partner robbed him blind. His wife left him. One of his kids got bitten by a rabid dog and developed a stammer. The poor guy got drunk, climbed in his car, and hit some woman. She took him to court; her lawyer claimed that after the accident she couldn’t have sex with her husband because it caused her pain. The court awarded her a huge compensation so that her husband could afford to sleep with hookers. And the man lost his driver’s license. He tried to drown himself, but he was rescued and resuscitated, and because he had no medical insurance, he had to pay for the hospital. He next tried to gas himself, then he slashed his wrists, then he swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills, but they saved him every time. He was certified insane, so his wife easily got a divorce and married some rich bastard. Finally the poor wretch plunged a knife into his heart and died in terrible pain in a hospital for the destitute.”

“Good god, how do you know all that?”

“I don’t,” I said. “But if you close your eyes, you can improve on anybody’s life. Though if you don’t like this ending, I can make up a different one: he let a monkey jump on his back and can still be seen from time to time in the company of leprous beggars. A true Hollywood ending.”

“What does he do? I didn’t understand you.”

“He got addicted to smoking hashish.”

“I see. Have you ever been to the States?”

“No.”

“You speak with an American accent. You didn’t learn that in school, did you?”

“I didn’t learn anything in school. I misbehaved so badly they used to make me stand in a corner with my face to the wall. That was my punishment. You have to admit that under those circumstances I didn’t stand a chance of learning anything. Even the gym teacher would throw me out the door.”

She smiled.

“That’s what I wanted,” I said.

“What?”

“To see you smile.”

“Oh, I’m feeling much better now. So where did you learn English?”

“I worked in the desert for a land-surveyor. You know, one of those guys who runs around with poles measuring distances and can never get their numbers right. My boss was an American and every day for fourteen hours I listened to him curse. After a while we got used to each other.”

“You worked in the desert …” she began.

“Yes,” I said. “But please don’t say it must have been romantic. It wasn’t romantic at all. Lots of scorpions and things like that. Lots of snakes, too, so we had to wear boots all the time. And in the evening my boss would bore me with stories about his family. His mother-in-law was an angel, his wife was an angel, his father-in-law was another angel. Fortunately they all died. All he had left was me and his memories. His angel of a mother-in-law died of a heart attack, his angel of a wife died in a car crash, and his angel of a father-in-law drank himself to death. They all flew to heaven.”