The Dogs of Babel - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Carolyn Parkhurst (TWENTY-SEVEN) #27

TWENTY-SEVEN

The letter I write to Wendell Hollis is fairly straightforward. I know from everything I’ve read about Hollis that he considers himself to be a noble figure, a martyr to science. I know that if I hope to receive an answer from him, I’ll have to play up to that image. Flatter him, I think. Show that you believe him to be a scholar, that you take his work seriously. Don’t appear to be scared off by his methods. Don’t give any hint of the revulsion you feel at the sound of his name.

Here’s what I’ve come up with.

Dear Mr. Hollis,

You don’t know me, but I am very interested in the research you have done. As a fellow scholar in the area of canine language study, I feel I have much to learn from you. I have a dog named Lorelei, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, that I’ve been working with for several months with only minimal success. Can you give me any tips? How did you become interested in this topic? Do you have any plans to continue after you get out? Any advice you might have would be appreciated.

Sincerely,

Paul Iverson

To my surprise, barely two weeks pass before I receive a response. When the letter appears in my mailbox, with Hollis’s correctional facility listed as the return address, I feel some sudden trepidation at what I’ve done, a feeling that only increases as I read what Hollis has written.

Dear Paul Iverson,

I get a lot of letters, not many positive I can tell you, so yours stood out. I’m glad to hear my legacy lives on while I waste away in here and I’m glad there are serious scholars such as yourself still working on the Dog Problem. Tell me more about what you’re doing with Lorelei. Have you started the operations yet? I’m sure a learned man like you knows she’ll have to be modified if you want to get results. I’m sending along some of the diagrams I used in my own surgeries. If you send me a picture of the dog you’re using that will help too.

Here’s how I got interested dogs were always looking at me. I wanted to know what they were thinking when they looked at me like that. There was this one little dog that lived next door to me, wouldn’t stop barking. It was like he was yelling all the time without saying anything just noise. Day and night and when I’d see that little dog in the hallway with the old lady that owned him, that little ratdog would pull on his leash just for the pleasure of jumping at me and barking. And I thought What the hell’s your problem? You got something to say to me you say it. Well, one day the old lady drops dead, and I see all these cops in the hall, and I say what’s gonna happen to her poor little puppydog? Can’t you just hear me, I put on a good show. So they say we’re taking him down to the pound and I start laying it on about how me and the dog are such good buddies and please can’t you let me take him I’ll give him a good home. It’s what she would have wanted, she always said If anything happens to me, take care of my sweet little dog. So I lay it on real thick and the cops say okay cause this little yappy mutt’s driving them all nuts anyway. So I took that dog and the first thing I do is I build him a soundproof room. Well, actually, I just made some changes to this spare bedroom I had but it worked pretty well. And I put him down in the middle of the room and I say okay let’s see what you’ve been trying to say to me all this time. Let’s find out what you been trying to tell me all this time. And the rest is history, ha ha. He was a cute little guy, I got to admit it, but I didn’t let that get in the way. I had some real serious work to do with him, and I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of my contribution to science.

So that’s my story. Now you gotta tell me yours. I gave your name and address to a friend of mine, calls himself Remo, who lives in your area. He runs a group, kind of an underground club, for people who share our interests. He will be getting in touch with you.

Write back soon. We men of science have to stick together.

Yours,

Wendell Hollis

Attached to the letter are the diagrams Hollis has promised. Horrible sketches of dogs cut open, their bodies vivisected, their faces taken apart and put back together in entirely the wrong way. There’s a drawing of a dog’s brain, the different parts labeled with names like “speech node” and “hunger center” and “home of dog aggressiveness.” There’s a long handwritten explanation of how a human jaw might be attached to a dog’s skull, “if you can lay your hands on one without getting caught.”

I put down the papers, horrified. Break down the words Wendell Hollis, and he reveals himself to be made up of lies and sin and Hell.Slew and woe. He is low. He is swine. What am I doing corresponding with this maniac? And who is this Remo who will be “getting in touch with me”? I shudder at the thought.

And yet—how can I say “and yet,” you’re wondering, with all this carnage diagrammed before me, with this madman’s ravings fresh in my mind? But this is where my mind takes me—and yet, I think, it cannot be disputed that Wendell Hollis has succeeded where I have failed. A whole courtroom full of people heard Dog J speak his piece. I look at Lorelei dozing on the couch, her body whole and untouched. No, I think, I will never resort to his methods. I will never do anything to hurt my dog. But what harm can it do to see what this Remo person has to say?