Fifteen Dogs Read online

  – Why? asked Majnoun.

  The question – asked with an innovation of the dogs’ common language – was stunning. Atticus had never considered that it might be right to hold himself back from rats, birds or food. He considered the ‘why?,’ distractedly licking his snout as he did. Finally, innovating in language himself, he said

  – Why not?

  Frick and Frack, delighted, immediately agreed.

  – Why not? they asked. Why not?

  – Where will we hide if a master comes? answered Majnoun.

  A more subtle question no dog could have asked. The assumptions behind it felt both right and yet strangely wrong. Majnoun, though he respected his own master, assumed the dogs would all want to hide from their masters. Freedom, thought Majnoun, came before respect. But the word master evoked in all of them feelings that did and did not call for hiding. For some, the idea of a master was comforting. Prince, who since coming to the city had been separated from Kim, his master, would have done anything to find him. Athena, all three and a half pounds of her, was used to being carried wherever she went. She was exhausted already, having kept up with the pack for such a long stretch. Faced with all the walking they would have to do, faced with the uncertainty that now seemed to be their lot, she thought she would happily submit to one who fed her and carried her about. However, as most of the other, bigger dogs seemed to dislike the idea of submission, she pretended to dislike it as well.

  Even Majnoun’s position was not without subtlety or ambivalence. He had always been proud of his ability to do what his master asked. He had earned the biscuits and treats that had come to him, but he had resented the ritual, too. He had sometimes had to suppress himself to keep from running away. In fact, he would have fled his master, had he been able to take the treats with him – not just the treats, mind you, but the whole feeling of treats, the being patted, the being spoken to in the way his master spoke when pleased. Of course, now that he was free, there was no use thinking about treats at all.

  Frick and Frack, both too immature to have fully understood or experienced the pleasures of servitude, were the only ones entirely in agreement with Majnoun’s suggestion that they would need a hiding place at the appearance of a master.

  Atticus, whose feelings were as nuanced as Majnoun’s, nevertheless said

  – Why hide? Don’t we have teeth?

  He bared his teeth and all understood the terrible suggestion.

  – I couldn’t bite my mistress, said Athena. She would not be pleased.

  – I do not know what to say, said Atticus.

  – The small bitch is not wrong, said Majnoun. If we were to bite masters, other masters would notice us and resent our freedom. I have seen many free dogs beaten. We should not bite unless we are attacked. And we should find shelter.

  – All this talking, said Atticus. It is not like dogs to talk so much. We’ll find food. Then we’ll look for shelter.

  They went hunting. That is, some went in search of what they knew as food and others went after the animals they atavistically associated with sustenance. They were tremendously successful. Their instincts led them infallibly to the small animals – four rats, five squirrels – that they killed with ingenious efficiency, corralling or ambushing the poor creatures. After two hours, as the morning sun lit the land and turned the lake bluish green, there were rats, squirrels, hot dog buns, bits of hamburger, handfuls of French fries, half-eaten apples, and sugary confections so covered in dirt it was difficult to say what they had been. The only real disappointment was that they had not managed to catch any geese. Also: most of the dogs resisted the small animals and went for the scraps of human food. They left the headless, half-chewed remains of rats and squirrels in a neat row on the hill beside the Boulevard Club.

  In the days that followed, there were a number of signs – both subtle and obvious – that their newfound thoughtfulness had led to collective change. To begin with, a new language flowered within them, changing the way they communicated. This change was especially evident in Prince. He was constantly finding words within himself, words he shared with the others. It was Prince, for instance, who came up with the word for ‘human’ (roughly: grrr-ahhi, the sound of a growl followed a sound typical of humans). This was a significant accomplishment, as the dogs could now speak of the primates without speaking of mastery. It was also Prince who devised what might be called the dogs’ first witticism: the word for ‘bone’ in the new language (roughly: rrr-eye) and the word for ‘stone’ (roughly: rrr-eeye) were very close. When Prince was asked one evening what he was eating, he replied ‘stone’ while indicating a bone. A number of the dogs found this – the first conspicuous pun in the language – both diverting and right, suggesting as it did that the bones in question were difficult to chew.

  Then, too, they became sharper hunters and more discriminating scavengers as they became intimate with their territory: Parkdale and High Park, from Bloor to the lake, from Windemere to Strachan. All quickly learned the places where they could congregate without attracting undue human – or canine – attention. Moreover: spurred by Prince’s observations of sunlight and shadow, they learned to segment the day into useful units. That is, collectively, they discovered a use for time, which discovery was salve for their awareness of its passing. (Day, from the first appearance of sun to the first moment of its descent, was broken into eight unequal units, each of which was given a name. Night, from the first quieting of the world to the first noisy birds, was broken into eleven. In this way, the dogs’ day was made up of nineteen units, rather than twenty-four.)

  It was, in part, this new relationship to time and place that influenced the creation of their den. Atticus, practical and persuasive (though he mistrusted the new language from the beginning), suggested they take over a coppice in High Park, a clearing beneath a cluster of evergreens, to which they brought tennis balls, running shoes, human clothing, blankets, squeaky toys … anything they could find or steal to make the place more hospitable. They did not intend to stay in the coppice forever. It was, Atticus said, makeshift and temporary, a place to meet at the start of night, but it soon began to feel as if it were theirs. It smelled of pine gum, dog and urine.

  Perhaps the most striking sign that ‘primate thinking’ could be useful, however, was in the relationship between Bella and Athena. The two were, of course, at opposite ends of the scale where weight and height were concerned. They were the same age – that is, three – but Athena was all of three or four pounds and her legs were short. She could not keep up with the others when the pack moved. Bella was three or four feet tall and weighed somewhere around two hundred pounds. She did not often run. Rather, though she wasn’t the most thoughtful of dogs, she moved with something like deliberation, majestically. Seeing Athena could not keep up with them and remembering how a four-year-old girl had ridden on her back, Bella offered to let Athena ride.

  This was no problem for Bella. She knelt, her front legs tucked under her, and waited for Athena to climb up. This Athena did, but in the early going she would almost immediately fall off again and it hurt to fall from Bella’s back. She learned quickly, though. By the third day, using her claws to steady herself and biting into Bella’s neck to keep in place, Athena was so well balanced it would have been difficult to dislodge her. This made for an especially curious sight when, after a few days, Bella – with her loping and rhythmically arrhythmic gait – felt confident enough to run if she wanted, her withers dipping and rising while Athena, like a furry passenger on a ship’s fo’c’sle, joyfully held on.

  Exhilarating as this was for the bitches – and the two were soon as close as litter mates – the arrangement caused trouble for the pack. Athena and Bella brought unwanted attention. One day, as the dogs were scavenging for food along the lakeshore, a group of young human males noticed the way Athena rode on Bella’s back. Amused and immediately scornful, they began to chase after the dogs. Strange in the way that humans are strange, the high spirits of the young
males were, to Bella and Athena, indistinguishable from aggression or dislike. The boys took up rocks and began to throw them at the dogs. Bella was not fast and she could not run for long distances at a stretch. After a while, she slowed and one of the rocks hit Athena, who yelped in pain and fell from Bella’s back. Athena’s misfortune and pain provoked even greater amusement in the humans. They gathered more rocks, intent now on causing the dogs as much distress as they could.

  Though Bella was by nature even-tempered and difficult to rile, as the young males approached she was at once protective and ready to kill. Using the only guile that occurred to her, counting on taking out the biggest of her attackers first, she went at them snarling and single-minded. And she was on the leader before he or any of the others could react or run away. Launching her two hundred pounds at him, she went instinctively for his throat and, had he not raised his arm at the last moment, she would have bitten through the flesh of his neck. Instead, she bit his right hand straight down to the bone. Blood spurted as he cried out beneath her. The others, though armed with stones, were petrified. They stood still, listening to their friend cry for help. Their fear worked entirely to Bella’s advantage. In an instant, she was off the first human, done with him, running directly at the next one closest to her. He ran off at once, screeching in distress, leaving his friends to their fate.

  Atticus and Majnoun, who had been scavenging nearby and had come at the sounds of an affray, snarled at the humans and ran after them, chasing them farther off, ensuring they did not turn back, though, in fact, turning back was the furthest thing from any of their minds. The rout, in other words, was thorough and swift. The six or seven boys, none of them older than fourteen, were traumatized and humiliated. But when the dogs saw that Athena was not badly hurt – she had bled and there was a clump of wet fur above her left eye – Majnoun said

  – This is not good. Humans don’t like it when you bite them. We will have to change territory.

  – I agree it is not good, said Atticus, but why should we leave? They will be looking for these two. The bitches will have to keep out of sight. The big one is the one who did damage. They will come for her, but they will not come for us.

  – I do not agree and I do not disagree, said Majnoun.

  But the dogs took precautions. Bella and Athena scavenged in High Park and stayed close to the coppice. They kept away from the lakeshore and Athena did not travel on Bella’s back until evening, when shadow obscured them. During the day, the others went about in small groups, no more than two or three together, drawing as little attention as possible.

  These precautions were taken for the sake of humans. It wasn’t that humans were inevitably dangerous, but they were unpredictable. While one might kneel to pat your back or scratch your beard, another who looked exactly like the first would kick you, throw stones, or even do you to death. It was, in general, best to avoid them. Contrary to expectations, however, in the first weeks after their change, the worst confrontations were not with humans but with other dogs. No matter how polite the pack were or how non-committal, some would attack them at once, without so much as a snarl or a baring of teeth.

  – They think we’re weak, said Atticus.

  But it wasn’t as simple as that. The dogs who attacked were aggressive, but they also seemed afraid. They weren’t frightened of the bigger dogs alone, of Bella or Atticus, Frick or Frack. They were also intimidated by Dougie, Benjy, Bobbie and Athena, none of whom should have been threatening to any reasonably sized creature. The dogs who did not immediately attack them were, at times, immediately submissive, and this was almost as strange. It was, to the smaller dogs, as if they were being mistaken for fierce and towering versions of themselves.

  The twelve dogs reacted differently to their altered status. Atticus found the situation intolerable. It was traumatic to know oneself to be a simple dog but to live in a world where other dogs treated you as something other. For Atticus, all the old pleasures – sniffing at an anus, burying one’s nose where a friend’s genitals were, mounting those with lower status – could no longer be had without crippling self-consciousness. In this, he, Majnoun, Prince and Rosie were alike. The four of them were inclined to a thoughtfulness that all save Prince – and to an extent, Majnoun – would have abandoned in order to lose themselves once more in the community of dogs. Prince was the only one who entirely embraced the change in consciousness. It was as if he’d discovered a new way of seeing, an angle that made all that he had known strange and wonderful.

  At the other end of the spectrum were Frick, Frack and the mutt, Max. They, too, were troubled by self-consciousness, but they learned to suppress thinking. They used their newfound thoughtfulness, certainly, but they did so while remaining faithful to the old way of being dogs. When challenged by unknown dogs, they defended themselves with lascivious efficiency, ganging up on their attackers, treating them the way they would sheep: biting through their tendons, leaving them to bleed and suffer. When they encountered submissive dogs, their pleasure was just as intense. The three would fuck anything that let them. In a way, then, their new (or different) intelligence was at the service of what they understood to be their essence: the canine. They were worthy of the fear ‘normal’ dogs showed them.

  In fact, the dogs that caused Frick, Frack and Max the most trouble were the others in their own pack. Yes, the other nine shared their intelligence and swiftly evolving language. And, yes, the others were the only creatures who understood them. But ‘understanding,’ reeking as it did of thought, was the last thing they wanted. ‘Understanding’ was a reminder that, despite their efforts to live as dogs, they were no longer normal. What they wanted from the others was submission or leadership and, at first, they got neither.

  Of the other dogs, Prince was, naturally, the one who annoyed Frick, Frack and Max most. Prince was a mutt of some sort, his fur russet with a white patch on his chest. He was big but his disposition nullified any physical threat. He was never less than accommodating. He could be dominated. The irritant was that Prince had strange ideas. It was he who had divided the day into portions. It was he who asked endless questions about trivial things: about humans, about the sea, about trees, about his favourite smells (bird flesh, grass, hot dogs), about the yellow disk above them in whose light one could be warm. The three had, of course, loathed Prince’s pun on ‘stone’ and ‘bone.’ Nor would Prince stop. Encouraged by the others, his play with language was a constant affront to clarity.

  It seemed to Frick and Frack as if Prince were intent on destroying their spirit.

  But Prince’s witticisms were not the worst of it. Previously, they, like all dogs, had made do with a simple vocabulary of fundamental sounds: bark, howl or snarl. These sounds were acceptable, as were useful innovations, like the word for ‘water’ or the one for ‘human.’ At Prince’s instigation, however, the pack now had words for countless things. (Did any dog really need a word for ‘dust’?) Then, one night, Prince sat up and spoke a strange group of words:

  The grass is wet on the hill.

  The sky has no end.

  For the dog who waits for his mistress,

  Madge, noon comes again.

  Hearing this grouping of growls, barks, yips and sighs, Frack and Frick had jumped up, ready to bite the face off the weary dog’s mistress. They assumed a master was among them, ready to inflict pain. But Prince’s words had not been meant as warning. Rather, he had been playing. He had been pretending. He had been speaking for speaking’s sake. Could there be a more despicable use for words? Max got up, snarling, ready to bite.

  He had not counted on the pleasure some of the others had taken in Prince’s words, however. Athena thanked Prince for his evocation of wet hills and endless skies. Bella did the same. Far from feeling that Prince had abused their tongue, a number of the dogs felt that – as with his play with words – he’d brought something unexpected and wonderful to it.

  – I was moved, said Majnoun. Please, do it again.

  Prince
performed another set of howls, barks, yips and clicks.

  Beyond the hills, a master is

  who knows our secret names.

  With bell and bones, he’ll call us home,

  winter, fall or spring.

  Most of the dogs sat in silence, no doubt trying to understand what Prince was on about. But it was too much for Max. It wasn’t just that Prince was twisting their clear, noble language, it was that Prince had gone beyond the canine. No true dog could have uttered such tripe. Prince was not worthy of being one of them. In defence of their true nature, someone had to do something. Max could sense that Frack and Frick felt as he did, but he wanted to be the first to bite Prince into submission or force him into exile. He charged at Prince without so much as a growl. Prince was at his mercy. He was about to bite the mutt’s throat when, as quietly and viciously as Max had attacked, Majnoun came to Prince’s defence. Before Frick or Frack could intervene, Majnoun had Max down, his teeth securely in Max’s throat. Max peed in submission and lay still.

  – Don’t kill him, said Frack.

  Majnoun growled in warning, bit down harder, drawing blood.

  – The dog is right, said Atticus. It is not good to kill one of our own.

  Majnoun felt – with every fibre in him – that killing Max was the right thing. It was as if he knew the time would come when he’d be obliged to kill him. So why not now? But he listened to Atticus and released Max, who slunk quickly away, his tail between his legs.

  – There was no need for violence, said Atticus. The dog was only trying to show his feelings about the words we heard.

  – His feelings were not hidden, said Majnoun.

  – You have shown him his place, said Atticus. You did right.

  Aside from Frack and Frick – who were deliberately unthoughtful – most of the dogs were bemused by what had passed between Max and Majnoun. In the old days, one would have said they had witnessed a struggle for dominance, a struggle that Majnoun had clearly won and, so, increased his status. But, here, there was the matter of Prince. Prince had offended Max. His words had offended. So, had Max and Majnoun fought over words or status? Could dogs fight to the death over words? It was strange to think so.