Galina Petrovna’s Three-Legged Dog Story. Andrea Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ shaking fingers and pointed to a turning to the right. Galia tutted, and muttered to herself, but followed his instruction.

      ‘You old idiot, why would they have gone in there? That’s just …’ She trailed off, and pulled the bike up behind a stack of street bins. The van had pulled in to a courtyard between tower blocks that seemed to have become derelict without ever having been finished. She could see vague movements in the mottled darkness.

      ‘Vasya, how did you know they had come in here, do you have special powers?’ Galia hissed. She wasn’t any more superstitious than most Russian women, but the old man’s insight had intrigued her.

      ‘Ha, you women, you’re all the same. If a man knows something you don’t, he must be psychic.’

      Galia snorted quietly and attempted to dismount the bike with something like dignity, but found it a lot harder than jumping on had been. Vasya disengaged his legs from under his chin and felt the blood returning painfully to his feet. He couldn’t attempt to get out just yet; he knew he’d fall flat on his nose if he did.

      Galia began to creep around the bins and into the courtyard to observe the van from a safe distance.

      ‘Galia, wait for me! Don’t attempt anything on your own!’ Vasya swung his feet to the ground and levered himself into a vertical position, but wasn’t able to walk.

      ‘Keep your voice down, you old fool!’ chided Galia, still unhappy at being laughed at.

      ‘I know his mother.’

      ‘What do you mean, you know his mother?’

      ‘I know his mother. The Exterminator’s mother. And when he started coming out this way, I guessed.’

      ‘What did you guess?’ Galia was becoming exasperated.

      ‘I guessed what Mitya the Exterminator wanted. After a busy night killing dogs, what would any good exterminator want? He’d want to go to his mother’s apartment for some washing and some kasha. It’s what any man would want, surely?’

      Galia was just about to respond with some choice words when the rear doors of the van were flung open and a cacophony of howling smashed the night air to flea-bitten pieces. Vasya reached the spot where Galia stood, grimacing at the noise filling the courtyard.

      ‘What are we going to do now, Galia?’ asked Vasya with a hopeful half-smile.

      ‘We’re going to get my dog back,’ Galia retorted, and marched, as well as her still-bent and swollen knees would allow her, across the broken ground towards the back of the van. Vasya sighed, words of reply flapping uselessly on his tongue like carp on a dry river bed, and hobbled after her.

      ‘You have stolen my dog!’

      ‘Wha—?’ Mitya the Exterminator had been singing under his breath ‘yorr awn, personal dzhezuz’ while removing dog excrement from his boot and his ear with a special knife he kept for that purpose. The dogs were still in cages in the back of the van and he had been mulling over how to ensure that the perpetrator of said excrement never forgot his vengeance in what was to be left of its short life. The sudden appearance beside him of a solid-looking old woman with bent knees and laddered pop socks, shouting throatily and shaking her fists, was both unwelcome and unsettling.

      ‘You have stolen my dog!’

      Mitya sensed that she was angry, and possibly crazy: why else would she be worried about a dog?

      ‘Who are you, mad woman?’ he asked, his face twisting under eyes that popped with either fear or hatred, Galia was unsure which.

      ‘You have stolen my dog!’ Galia tried again, finally straightening her legs, although somewhat tentatively. The noise of the dogs in the back of the van filled her head with the sounds of nightmares. Among the howling, barking and growling, she could make out the sound of Boroda, crying softly.

      ‘Citizen, let me explain,’ said Mitya the Exterminator softly, ‘all the dogs I take have no owner. It follows, therefore, that your dog is not with me.’ Mitya put his excrement knife back in his bum-bag and turned his back on the old woman with funny knees. He hoped she would now disappear as quickly as she had appeared. She gave him the creeps. And he had unfinished business to attend to.

      ‘You have stolen my dog! She’s grey and has three legs and a small, pointy beard, and she is in the back of your van! I can hear her. Boroda! Boroda! I’m here, darling! Don’t worry; we’ll get you out, lapochka!’

      Mitya smiled slightly to himself. The three-legged dog had been a very easy catch, once he’d got out of the bin.

      ‘Citizen Old Woman, I only take stray dogs, diseased dogs. Dogs that should not be. I never take a dog with a collar. And your dog must have a collar, if it is genuinely your dog. So it cannot be in my van.’

      ‘No. You don’t understand—’

      ‘Has your dog got a collar, Elderly Citizen?’

      ‘No.’

      There was a pause in the barking and growling, a silence filled only by the sound of Vasya panting as he made his way across the courtyard. He finally reached them and leant against the side of the van to catch his breath. Mitya the Exterminator turned to Galia and smirked.

      ‘No collar? Then Citizen Old Woman, you have no dog. You need to familiarise yourself with the legislation, perhaps. End of discussion.’ Mitya turned away to deal with the dogs.

      ‘No, she is my dog. She lives with me. Boroda! Boroda!’

      ‘No, Citizen, it is a stray. As set out in Presidential Decree No. 32 of 1994, Section 14, paragraph 3.2 – go home and read it.’

      ‘So you admit you’ve got my dog? You scoundrel!’

      ‘Now, now, Galia, my dear, I am sure Mitya, I mean the Exterminator, is a reasonable man. Maybe we could recompense you for the return of the lady’s dog? We’d be happy to make a donation to any charity you’d care to name, or to cover any personal costs.’ Vasya squeezed a wad of worn bank notes from his pocket and fanned them out for Mitya the Exterminator to see. Enough for some vodka and the dried fish to go with it, Vasya thought.

      Mitya stared at the money for two seconds and then glanced into Vasya’s face, his nostrils flaring as if the stench of dog had finally sliced into his olfactory nerves. ‘No, Citizen … Volubchik, I don’t want your money. I enjoy my job – do you understand? Not everyone is motivated by money, even in these days of “freedom” and “democracy”.’

      Vasya began to stutter a response, but the Exterminator cut across him.

      ‘No, Elderly Citizen! These dogs have no place in freedom and democracy. These dogs are strays, and they are unhygienic. And I will deal with them. It is my service. Now go home.’

      ‘No, please!’ Galia stepped purposefully between Mitya the Exterminator and the van. Mitya thought about shoving the old citizen roughly away, but the thought of having to touch her made his stomach shrivel. He decided that the non-standard issue Taser might be the best weapon for this particular job. Vasya gasped as he saw the Exterminator’s hand reach for his holster, and made a dash, on legs still coming to life, to protect Galia.

      Galia СКАЧАТЬ