André Alexis: Fifteen Dogs

— Dog, why do you want my thoughts on these things? Do you wish to lead?

— Would you challenge me?

— No, said Majnoun.

The dogs sat together awhile, listening to the sounds of night. In the park, the world was teeming with unseen life. Above them was a vastness as new and haunting as it was ancient. Neither of them had ever paid much attention to stars and the night sky. Now they could not help wondering about it.

— I wonder if the dog who speaks strangely is right, said Atticus. Does the sky really have no end?

— The dog thinks beautifully, said Majnoun, but he knows no more than we do.

— Do you think we will ever know?

Majnoun struggled with the question and struggled with the thoughts within him. All sometimes seemed so hopelessly muddled. He wondered if Atticus wasn’t right, in the end. Perhaps it was best to be a dog as dogs had always been: not separated from others by thinking but part of the collective. Perhaps anything else was futile or, worse, an illusion to take you away from the good. But although their new way of thinking was bothersome — a torment at times — it was now an aspect of them. Why should they turn their backs on themselves?

— Someday, said Majnoun, we may know where the sky ends.

— Yes, said Atticus, someday or someday not.

+

Majnoun’s instincts were sound. He’d anticipated a tête-à-tête about leadership and, although Atticus had kept the discussion vague, it had been about power. Majnoun, however, had not caught all the nuances. Atticus was not interested in whether or not Majnoun would challenge him for leadership. Atticus was bigger than Majnoun and, besides, he had Frick, Frack, Max and Rosie on his side. What Atticus had really wanted to discover was whether Majnoun belonged with the pack, given the direction that he, Atticus, had chosen for it. Majnoun, unawares, had given Atticus all the information he needed.

The following day, when they were meant to be out scavenging, Frack, Frick, Max and Atticus met by the lake on the far side of the Humber Bay Arch Bridge, away from the others, away from dogs without leashes.

— I have spoken with all the others, said Atticus. To live as we were meant to live, there must be change. Some may stay. Some must not.

— What about the black dog? asked Frack.

— He is not one of us, answered Atticus. He will have to be exiled.

— It would be better to kill him, said Max.

— You only think so because he mounted you, said Frick.

— No, said Atticus, the dog is right. The black one will not be easy to send away. Some of the others are already faithful to him. I do not wish to kill him, but it would be difficult if he stayed.

— What about the bitch with the high vagina? asked Max.

— She favours the black dog and she is too strong, said Atticus. We will have to lose her.

— Let her take the tiny bitch with her, said Max.

— What about rules? asked Frack.

— There will be two, answered Atticus. No language but proper dog language, and no ways but dog ways. We will live like we were meant to.

— Without masters? asked Frick.

— We will have no masters, said Atticus. Dogs without masters are the only true dogs. There are three who will have to go: the big bitch, the black dog and the one who uses words in strange ways. Once they have gone, we can live as we are meant to.

— Are you going to challenge the black dog? asked Max.

— No, said Atticus. We must get rid of all three at once. We will be quick and do what has to be done, before the rest of the dogs can choose sides or make matters difficult.

— When? asked Frick.

— Tonight, said Atticus.

And although it was not doglike of them, they worked their strategy out to the least detail, the least detail being what they would do if their efforts failed.

+

Prince had spoken another poem

The light that moves is not the light.

The light that stays is not the light.

The true light rose countless sleeps ago.

It rose, even in the mouth of birds.

and Max had wanted to kill him on the spot.

After the dogs had reflected on what they’d heard, most had gone to their beddings in the den and had fallen straight to sleep, as if lulled by Prince’s words. Not Atticus, however. Atticus had invited Majnoun out into the park for another conversation. Then, when the den was quiet save for the small sounds of breathing, Frick and Frack rose from their places. Frick noiselessly padded to where Bella and Athena slept, took up Athena’s compact body in his jaws, bit down hard, and made off with her. Despite Athena’s strangled shriek, none of the other dogs woke.

After a time, Frack woke Bella, nudging her head with his snout.

— They have taken the small bitch, he said.

Bella rose slowly from sleep, but when she saw Athena was gone she was immediately alert and understood Frack’s words.

— Where have they taken her? she asked.

— I do not know. My brother has gone after them. I will take you where they went.

Where he took her — where they ran — was to a street beside the park: Bloor. The street was on a hill and, though it was night, it was rhythmically busy. That is, groups of cars came fast down the hill and then nothing and then fast cars again. Toward the middle of the incline, on the sidewalk, Frick stood in the light of a street lamp. He was looking at something on the other side of the road.

As Bella and Frack approached, he said

— There she is. Can you see her? She is under the light.

Bella could not see clearly, but there did appear to be something beneath the street lamp on the other side of the road. It was an intimidating road, but, where Athena was concerned, Bella was not cautious. She would have done anything for this, the one being on earth to whom she was devoted. In fact, she would have run across the street at once, had Frack not said

— Wait! My brother will go to the top of the hill and bark when the light has changed and it is safe to cross.

Bella waited anxiously, jumping up and down, trying desperately to see Athena on the other side of the road.

— Go now, said Frack, it is safe.

But, of course, it was not safe. Frick’s timing was impeccable. Bella was not a quarter of the way across the road before she was struck and killed by a taxi.

In a word, the murders of Bella and Athena were flawlessly done.

+

Being certain that Bella was dead, her body unmoving as the humans in the street raised their voices, Frick and Frack returned to the den where, it had been agreed, they and Max would finish Prince off before joining Atticus in killing Majnoun.

There should not have been any complications. Max was to have kept watch on Prince. And this he had done, though he could barely keep himself from biting the mangy mutt that had caused his humiliation. Max had (little by little and quietly) moved close to Prince, lying down near enough to hear Prince’s occasional snorts and whimpers. It was not possible that Prince should have gotten away from them. And yet, when Frack and Frick slunk quietly back to the den and, joined by Max, readied themselves to finish Prince off as quickly as possible, they discovered that what they’d taken to be Prince’s body was no more than a pile of human clothes. Max was beside himself with outrage. It was not possible for Prince to have escaped! He had listened for every breath, happy to know they would be among the dog’s last! The three made the rounds of the den, going to where each dog lay, sniffing for Prince’s smell, but Prince was nowhere to be found.

And yet, Prince was there among them.

+

The deaths of Bella and Athena, though straightforward as murders go, were problematic for the gods. Hermes and Apollo looked down on Athena’s lifeless body (Frick had broken her neck as easily as if it had been a rat’s) and on Bella’s body where it had landed in the middle of the street.