The Kukotsky Enigma: A Novel

11

THE NEWLING WANDERED THROUGH A MULTISTORIED building complex with long corridors and flowerbeds along the walls. An enormous number of doors led off from the corridor, each with a marker that was at once neither a number nor a letter but, as often occurs in dreams, very distinct. The Newling, skilled as she was in dreams, immediately guessed that these markers belonged to the category of things that exist only in dreams and never squeeze their way through to anywhere else when the dream is over. There existed a certain simple formula according to which some things, events, and impressions transformed themselves into another state just as they were, while others changed in strange ways in the process, and still others simply disintegrated. The Newling did not even attempt to impress the door markers in her memory: they were of the category that simply disintegrated. She walked past each of the doors and realized at first glance: the wrong one. The one she needed was connected to some elderly woman.

She had already rushed through miles of corridors and had a feeling that the marker she needed would appear at any moment. And, indeed, it did, and she opened the door. The room was bright, modest, and resembled a cheap room in some hotel off the beaten path somewhere in Vologda or Arkhangelsk. There was a sink in the corner, and an electric samovar stood on a table covered with a red-and-white checkered oilcloth. The bed was voluptuous, like the kind you find at home, with an abundance of pillows. There were flowers on the windowsills. Next to the door, on a bentwood chair, sat a chubby old woman, the bridge of her nose notched by her glasses and with a dog-eared book in her hands. On another chair slept a calico cat that was so fat it barely fit on the seat. It was around midmorning in the room. The old woman was waiting for her: they were either very good friends or distant relatives.

“Should we have our tea?” the old woman asked.

“With jam?” The Newling smiled.

“How else? I’ve made gooseberry, and strawberry, and forest berry.” The old woman immediately opened the cupboard, where quart-size canning jars sparkled under paper lids.

“And wild strawberry?”

“How else? I gathered them myself . . . In the fields nearby . . .” From the bottom shelf she pulled a jar already opened, removed the paper lid, and lumped a large spoonful of thick, aromatic jam into the jam dish.

The Newling looked at the jam. “You didn’t overcook it, did you, Marya Vasilievna? It’s terribly thick.”

The old woman waved her hand with annoyance: “I did overcook it just a bit. But it’s better to overcook it than undercook it. It gels better.”

“That’s true,” the Newling agreed.

The old woman plugged in the samovar and reached for teacups.

“It boils fast: I like it . . .”

The old woman set two cups on the table; the Newling asked for a third.

“Why three?” the old woman asked in surprise.

“For your Nadya,” the Newling explained.

“Oh,” the old woman seemed anxious. “I thought we were going there, but it turns out she’s coming here?”

“What difference does it make? The main thing is that we get to see each other.”

“That’s true. She’s having a very rough time these days,” the old woman nodded.

“You should tell her that Misha gave instructions to say hello and to let her know that everything is all right.”

The old woman continued to nod, while the Newling continued.

“And how are you doing, Marya Vasilievna?”

“Me? I’m good . . . I’m reading this book. There I was illiterate, but here I’ve learned to read.”

“What are you reading?”

“This.” The old woman slid the dog-eared book to the Newling. “The Young Guard by Fadeev. Nadya said a lot of good things about it . . . It’s a good book. But it’s so sad what happens to those kids. Only, is it all really true or did he make it up?”

“Something like that really happened.” The Newling opened the volume. “To our dear Tanechka on the day of her acceptance into the Young Pioneers. Valya and Misha Remen. May 1, 1951.”

The memory stabbed at her heart, and she woke up. The campfire barely burned. Everything was as usual. The wind had calmed down. People were relaxing. She herself sat a bit off in the distance, two dogs alongside her: a light-colored mutt with a tail that curled upward, and a large shepherd.

The mutt was the most ordinary, while the shepherd raised doubts: something about its canine essence was not right. There was something unusual about its faithful attentiveness toward both its human companion—you could hardly say master—as well as all the others. What was more, it did what no other dog could: it nodded and shook its head in response to questions: yes, no . . .

Dog Whisperer was a likeable man about thirty-five years old, with the posture of a professional soldier and a nondescript face. A reddish scar—like the trace of a hat band worn many years—crossed his forehead. He came up behind the Newling, and both the dogs turned toward him.

“You should go sit on the lee side . . . The wind is picking up,” he advised the Newling.

“What?” she asked.

“So that it doesn’t blow in your face . . .” He offered her his hand, and the dogs stood up, precisely as if making way for her to pass.

“How good it is that you and the dogs are here.” The Newling petted the shepherd’s dense fur. The shepherd smiled. “When I was a little girl I had dogs when we lived in the country . . . But in town I have only cats.”

The man was pleased. “That makes a lot of sense. I also have only cats at home. I’m a professional dog handler, you know. Twenty years with dogs. Trained hundreds of them. I’m convinced: dogs should not be kept in apartments.” His lips quivered and let drop sadly: “And in general . . .”

“What ‘in general’?” the Newling wondered.

Dog Whisperer spoke heatedly and quickly. It was obvious that the idea had been brewing in him unspoken for a long time.

“You see, there’s a lot of deep meaning in the expression ‘they fight like cats and dogs.’ Cats and dogs are two entirely opposite types in terms of their relationships with humans. A cat generally has no need for humans. What does it need? Warmth, food. That’s true. But it has absolutely no need for humans. I would even say that cats despise humans. They’re smarter than humans. Humans think that they’re keeping cats, while in fact, cats keep humans. Cats can’t be forced to do anything. They don’t even like to be asked . . . I’m a trainer, I know: they don’t want to submit for anything. They have their dignity. They need humans to serve them. And you know, I, for one, like their independence. Cats never grovel. For example, a cat may rub up against your leg and you might think that it’s expressing tenderness . . . No, it’s stretching its muscles and scratching itself against your legs. It’s giving pleasure to itself, not its owner. You, you serve the cat and not vice versa. With dogs everything is different.” He placed his hand with two disfigured fingers on one dog’s head. “Happy will confirm that.”

The dog looked expectantly at Dog Whisperer: confirm what?

“A dog in an apartment is like a handicapped child. It needs your constant attention. Your help, your attention, your caring . . . Dogs, excuse my mentioning it, dogs even need to be taken out for walks because a trained dog will sooner die than do its business inside.” He looked at Happy, who sadly nodded its head. “Who besides a human being will go to its death for the sake of an idea? Only a dog!”

The Newling was amazed: that had never occurred to her.

“Yes, yes . . . Search dogs, for example, will search for land mines . . . During the last war dogs attacked tanks! That is, I don’t mean to say that they went wittingly to their deaths ‘for the Motherland! for Stalin!’ The dogs died for their own idea: in service to their masters . . .” Dog Whisperer turned polemically to Happy: “Tell me that’s not so!”

The dog sighed a human sigh and nodded. Suddenly Dog Whisperer’s vigor subsided, as he fell into silent thought for a bit, then, without raising his eyes from the ground, continued.

“That’s my job nowadays: I work as a guide for dogs. They’re all mine, my little dogs. I raised them in a kennel in Murom, trained them, and then they get sent wherever: some go abroad, to Afghanistan. Happy’s an Afghan vet . . . I’m about to guide my twenty-fourth . . .”

“Where are you guiding it?” the Newling asked quietly.

“Where, where . . . Abroad . . . To the other shore . . .”

“Ah-ha,” thought the Newling. “That means that some people here know where we’re going . . . To the other shore.”