Rafael Chirbes - On the Edge

I couldn’t believe it when I saw him lying there gasping for air, his little paws quivering, and the blood spreading out around him as he grew still, I called to him, as if calling could bring him back, but no, after a few more spasms, he lay there, mouth open, and you could see his teeth, which looked suddenly rather threatening. A creature with no feelings, unfamiliar and cruel. As if death had revealed his true nature. Suddenly, I didn’t know him, didn’t love him. I didn’t want to stroke him or even look at him. Those glassy eyes, sharp canine teeth, the stiffness that overtook him almost instantaneously. A carnivorous animal causing me only pain and filling me with fear and disgust. He just wasn’t him any more. I looked away. I don’t know why people insist on gazing at the corpses of their loved ones, because they’re not them any more, they don’t even look like them. Then you’re stuck with that final image forever, it comes back to you when you least expect it and sullies the memory of what went before, of the time when you loved that creature; when you thought it beautiful to see him running about and you felt like stroking him and even weeping with emotion when he looked tenderly up at you. The driver of the car hadn’t even stopped. People said he probably didn’t realize he’d run him over, he was so small. Perhaps that’s true, although personally I think the driver was some heartless man, who simply drove off. I couldn’t believe it, my neighbors had to take me to the hospital because I became hysterical. There they gave me an injection. I couldn’t stop crying, my little dog so full of life was now as stiff and lifeless as a toy.

I’m so alone now, my children live far away, and the truth is they don’t seem to care about me that much, they don’t come and see me very often, and as for my marriage, well, I hardly speak to my husband, not even now that he spends most of his time at home after losing his job at the workshop. He sits down in front of the computer, gets onto the Internet, and snaps at me whenever I speak to him — I’ll ask him to go with me to Lidl or Mercadona: Why don’t you come too, Álvaro, it’ll help clear your head? No, you go, I’m not in the mood. And what mood does he think I’ve been in since I had to give up my job and was put on permanent disability leave? What kind of life is this? The visits to the hospital, which at least provide some distraction. The waiting room where you sit until the door to the doctor’s consulting room opens, or the door to the little room where they do the tests or that other room where there’s a small bed against the wall that no one uses and where I wait to have my warfarin levels checked, having first asked who’s at the end of the line. Yes, it is a distraction, although it seems wrong to say that: I don’t go there for fun, I go there for them to test my blood (if you’re the last in line, then I’ll go behind you), but I like seeing the same faces every month, people who are going there for the same reason as me, and where there’s always a new face to be seen. Some faces disappear too, and I prefer not to ask about them, people do disappear in hospitals, that’s why it’s so lovely to see someone again when you haven’t seen them for a few months, people you see periodically, not the people you’ve seen every day for the last forty years, but people you’re pleased to see because they’re new in your life, do you know what I mean? Even though you’ve probably been going to the same hospital for a couple of years, it’s not the kind of daily event that becomes boring after a while, it’s just a matter of a smile and a few words of greeting; after you’ve met a few times, some will ask how you are or make some other casual remark, that it’s hotter than usual for the time of year, and we all know how badly the heat affects those of us with heart problems… that’s why, because these meetings only last as long as the waiting time at the hospital, that’s why you begin to think that the person might be holding something back and that one day they’ll surprise you with a story or might themselves feel pleasantly surprised by a story of yours, they might see in you something that none of the people who’ve lived with you all these years have ever seen before. You have no idea how crowded hospitals are until you start going there, the noise and bustle in the outpatients’ clinics, the hours spent waiting on benches in corridors, the clip-clop of the nurses’ clogs as they walk past, chatting and laughing and leaving behind them a trail of perfume, not the smell of alcohol, not a medicinal smell, but a healthy smell; and how grateful you feel when, among all those people, you find some old acquaintance you haven’t seen for ages. At first, Álvaro used to come with me, taking time off from the workshop, time that he would make up afterward by working late. Now I go on my own. I’m so glad I got my driver’s license, I only learned to drive so as to be able to go shopping and to the doctor’s, because I never needed it for getting to work. Álvaro’s so unsociable— I was fed up with having to depend on him — he would get annoyed if I started chatting to someone, he thinks small talk is a waste of time. He used to get bored waiting, he’d get up from his chair, scratch the back of his neck, and whenever a nurse passed by, he’d say in a loud voice, Hmm — it looks like we’re here for the day, as if their appointment system was her fault. I was always worried, ever since I had the blood clot, about what would happen to the dog when I wasn’t there, because my husband wouldn’t bother to buy his food or keep his litter tray clean, so who would look after him, poor little thing. He’s — no, he was —as old and infirm as his mistress, and it made me sad to think of leaving him all alone without me there, and then he went and died before I did, taking with him all his joy and a large part of mine too. I’m the one who’s been left alone.

I wrapped him up in newspaper, trying not to look at the threatening teeth death had given him, and then I put him in a plastic bag until I got back to the house, where I placed him inside a wooden toolbox Álvaro had made ages ago, but never used. I thought he’d tell me off when he saw this, that he’d be offended because I’d given a box he didn’t even care about to the dead dog, that he would immediately see that box as a work of art, something he’d taken great pains over and which I clearly despised. I could already hear him saying: You treat everything I do as if it was trash. But that isn’t what happened. He didn’t say anything about the box, although he did make fun of me for putting the dog’s toys in with the body, his ball, his plastic bone, and the blanket he used to sleep on, as well as the little coat he wore when I took him out for walks in winter. I thought they would keep him company. I put the box with the dog and his things in the living room and then, much later that night, we buried him under the magnolia tree in the small square near the house. I made Álvaro go with me in the early hours, despite his protests (it gives me the creeps, with the dog inside the box) and we dug a grave, taking great care that the civil guards wouldn’t find us and that none of the neighbors would see. You’re crazy, he said, and the trouble is that if they catch me here, they’ll say I’m crazy too, he grumbled, but in a low voice, without shouting or getting angry, because he knew I wouldn’t stand for it. Not that night. I was too upset and sad and irritable. I didn’t care what he said — the important thing is to have my dog close to me.

I talk to him. Alone, at night, in the bedroom, because I keep his photo on the bedside table next to the photos of my children, but I often talk to him as well when I sit on the bench near the magnolia tree. And in spring, when I see those big flowers open, like raw silk, I’ll think of him lying there underneath, taking joy in his presence even after his death. I think: the memory of you makes me happy, it’s as if you’re immortal, because you’ll be there to keep me company for as long as I live — I’m still alive, and you’ll only die when I do, not a moment before: then we’ll both die at the same time. My husband says I’m completely mad, but I don’t know why we’re so sure that only humans have a soul, I mean, why make that stark division? His eyes, the way he used to look at me, a creature like that must have some kind of soul, I’m sure of it, a small, fragile soul. He was always so overjoyed when I came home laden down with the shopping, and he’d return my kisses too, putting out his little pink tongue and licking my face, he was a far more joyful and affectionate child than most of those I see in Olba with their jeans half falling down, showing their underpants, with their iPods stuck in their ears, or racing through the park on those noisy skateboards, not caring that there are older people sitting on the benches. A creature like that must have some kind of soul, the joy in his eyes, the sadness, the fear, aren’t those all qualities of the soul? And even if he didn’t have a soul, if he’s now nowhere to be found, he still consoles me, for me he’s still here, at least I have someone I can speak to. I’m ashamed to say so, but that’s how it is, especially now that Álvaro no longer goes to work and spends all day lying on the sofa, drinking beer, because he’s taken to drinking beer now, when he only used to drink a glass of wine before lunch and another before supper, but now he drinks can after can of beer, filling the whole house with its sour smell, tapping away on the computer or watching TV. I can understand him feeling disoriented, depressed. It must be hard to get used to his new situation because carpentry has been his whole life, but wasn’t he saying that he wanted to give it up anyway, didn’t he say that, when he retired, we’d go off traveling in an RV, moving from place to place, a life on the road? With what we have left, we could still do it, sell the apartment, buy an RV, put any remaining money in a money maker account and head off, me with my EU health card in my handbag. Now, though, I pray to my dog to free us from the misfortune that might befall us if Álvaro carries on like this.