Fifteen Dogs Read online

  Benjy, for his part, was pleased at having mastered the skills Miguel admired, and he began to allow Miguel’s scorn for Majnoun to influence his own behaviour. For instance, when Majnoun was teaching him language, Benjy would say the word Majnoun wished him to learn, repeat it and then ask to move on to the next word. He knew, now that he was spending time with Miguel, that Majnoun did not have a proper accent, that words as Majnoun said them were not easily understood by humans. In the case of the word evening, in fact, Benjy allowed himself to correct Majnoun’s pronunciation. He corrected Majnoun respectfully but he corrected him as if he, not Majnoun, were the one who knew human language best. By the time he had memorized – without understanding it – the first page of Vanity Fair, Benjy had tentatively begun to practise the geometry of dominance: putting his head (lightly) on Majnoun’s back as they lay down together, preceding Majnoun to the food dishes and sniffing at the contents in Majnoun’s bowl before eating what was in his own, walking before Majnoun whenever he could. Benjy did not realize he was doing this. He was not conscious of it, but Majnoun was.

  One afternoon, when Nira had opened the back door for them so they could get a bit of air, Majnoun attacked the smaller dog as ruthlessly as he could. They were in the middle of the yard when Majnoun bit down on the back of Benjy’s neck. He’d meant to catch the beagle’s throat in his jaws, but at the last moment Benjy had moved his head. Benjy cried out and he knew at once that he had made a mistake: Majnoun was not the dog he’d assumed he was.

  There was snow on the ground. It was wet and slippery. The snow saved Benjy’s life. Majnoun slipped as he tried to pick the smaller dog up in his jaws – in order to dash the beagle against a cement step. As Majnoun slipped, Benjy wriggled free and cried out

  – Nira!

  but Majnoun was on him immediately.

  There was a gap in the backyard fence, a gap that would (perhaps!) accommodate his body. Benjy ran for it and threw himself in. There was not quite enough space. Much of him went through, but it slowed him down enough that Majnoun managed to bite him again, drawing more blood. Majnoun could not get a proper grip, however. With every muscle in him, Benjy pulled himself through the gap and ran for his life. He did not look back. There was no need. It was clear to both of them that Majnoun wanted only to kill him.

  Reason, in so far as it had any place at all, was superfluous.

  Some ten minutes after she had opened the door for them, Nira returned to see if the dogs wanted back in. The snow in the yard was, in places, as if frothed up. There were patches of greenish dark earth where the dogs had struggled or stumbled. Not far from where Majnoun stood looking at her, there were also specks of blood on the snow.

  – Where’s Benjy? Nira asked.

  Majnoun shook his head.

  – He ran away? she asked.

  Majnoun nodded.

  – Do you want to come in?

  Without answering, Majnoun went in the back door, his wet fur brushing against Nira’s pants as he did. She would very much have liked to know that Benjy was all right, but it felt wrong to question Majnoun at that moment. That night, she told Miguel the little she knew of Benjy’s disappearance. Over the following weeks it never did feel right to ask Majnoun what had happened. And, in the end, they never spoke of the dog again.

  3

  ATTICUS’S LAST WISH

  Olympus, the city, lies atop Olympus, the mountain. Much more than that cannot be said because it is, as any city is, a correlative of the minds that made it. Travel through Olympus would be a revelation of the imagination that conceived the city. That imagination being divine, no human language can express it. In English – if one must speak English – Olympus is best encompassed by the words nothing and nowhere, though it is something and somewhere, and he whose mind Olympus best mirrors, Zeus, father of the gods, was unhappy with his sons.

  For a number of reasons, Hermes and Apollo had tried to keep their wager secret. The other gods being gods, this was not possible. For one thing,p the strangeness of the dogs was immediately obvious to all who cared about such things. The why of their strangeness was unknown, but the who was clear. Hermes spent most of his time on earth and Apollo was fascinated by earthly things. So the brothers were pestered as to their motives. After a while, they grew tired of denying they’d had anything to do with the dogs and admitted that they had wagered on the deaths of the fifteen. In so doing, they sowed a kind of frenzy among the gods, all of whom immediately made wagers of their own.

  When Zeus discovered what his sons had done, he sent for them.

  – How could you have been so cruel? he asked.

  – Why cruel? asked Apollo. Mortals suffer. What have we done to make their suffering worse?

  – He’s right, Father, said Hermes. Wipe them out if you don’t want them to suffer.

  – They suffer within their own bounds, said Zeus. These poor dogs don’t have the same capacities as humans. They weren’t made to bear doubt or to know that their deaths will come. With their senses and instincts, they’ll suffer twice as much as humans do.

  – You’re not suggesting humans are brutes, are you? asked Apollo.

  Hermes laughed.

  – The only thing certain about humans is their brutishness, he said.

  – You two are worse than humans, said Zeus.

  – There’s no need to insult us, said Apollo.

  – Be grateful I’m not going to punish you. The damage has been done. But I don’t want you interfering with these creatures anymore. You’ve done enough. Leave them whatever peace they can find.

  From that moment, all the gods knew Zeus’s will and, for the most part, abided by his edict. They did not interfere with the dogs. Interference, when it came, came from an unexpected quarter: Zeus himself. Taking pity on his favourite, Atticus, the father of the gods intervened in the life of the dogs.

  Contrary to Benjy’s impressions, Atticus was thoughtful, sensitive and, to an extent, altruistic. He was a committed leader, capable of – or prone to – instinctive decisions. More: he could put aside thought in the service of forceful action. But in quiet moments his sensitivity sometimes led him to reconsider his own behaviour. In other words, Atticus had a conscience, and it was this that led him to what some would call faith.

  Not long after the night in the veterinary clinic, Atticus came to believe that the canine was dying in him, that this was a tragedy, that the loss of the old ways would prove disastrous. This naturally led him to consider what it was that made him a dog. Was it his senses? Perhaps. But then he still had his senses. Was it something physical? Yes, it was in the way he felt as he ran, as he drank water, as he dug the ground with his claws. But his physical self, too, was unchanged. In fact, as he catalogued the things that made him a dog, Atticus changed his mind. The canine was not dying in him or in the eleven with him. Rather, it was being obscured by the new thinking, the new perspectives, the new words. These needed to be pushed aside, like curtains before a necessary vantage.

  In the early days, Atticus had had his vivid memories of the previous life to guide him. In those days, memories of the previous life were a lure to them all. Some were, naturally, more devoted to the life that had been. It had been easy to discover who was willing to fight alongside him for a return to old ways: no strange language, no twisting thoughts, the senses alive. Once the pack had rid itself of threats to this ideal – once they had killed or chased off Majnoun, Athena, Bella, Prince and Bobbie – Atticus was satisfied that they could live as dogs ought to live. In the aftermath of the cleansing, the pack followed Atticus’s precepts:

  1. No strange talk. This above all because, to his dying day, Atticus disliked what he remembered of the dog who disappeared:

  In the sunny world, with its small

  things moving too fast,

  I shy away from light

  and in the attic cuss the dark.

  2. A strong leader (that is, Atticus himself)

  3. A good den


  4. The weak in their proper place

  Of the killings, only one troubled Atticus’s conscience: the killing of the Duck Toller, Bobbie. He, the twins and Max had been so filled with fervour for the old life that they had behaved in a way that was not in keeping with the canine. They had killed the Duck Toller in a frenzy of which he was, in retrospect, ashamed. Worse: the death of the smaller dog was a signal that he – that they – had overlooked something important: the sanctity of the echelon. This became clear when the two smaller dogs fled.

  On the morning that Benjy and Dougie went missing, Atticus had a presentiment of the problems the pack would face. With a kind of symmetry, Atticus and Benjy – the top and the bottom dog – came to the same thought from different ends of the spectrum: the weak were, after all, of more than passing importance. Something was ‘off’ without the two on the lower rung. There was now an emptiness at the bottom, so to speak. They were, unexpectedly, in need of weakness. Atticus was the biggest and strongest of the dogs that remained. Frick and Frack, together, might have had a chance against him, but the brothers would suffer if they challenged him, and all of them knew it. On the other hand, it would have been unthinkable to use either Frick or Frack as low dog. The brothers were unnaturally close and neither would have accepted a diminished position. That left Rosie and Max.

  If they had truly become dogs again, Rosie would have been the obvious candidate. She was not necessarily the weakest of them, but she was female. And this was, to the males, a mark against her. But Rosie had become important to Atticus, the smell of her something he wanted for himself alone. His own feelings confused and humiliated him. Rosie was not in heat. It wasn’t that he wanted to fuck her. It was something unnameable and unfamiliar, a perversion for which the dogs had no name.

  (Though Atticus had a developed sense of transgression, he did not have a notion of ‘sin.’ If he had, he might have accepted that his feelings for Rosie were – by his own thinking – sinful. They were transgressions against the canine. And yet, how comforting. At times, he and Rosie sat together by Wendigo Pond, away from the others, and used the forbidden language. Had they been caught, Atticus would have insisted they were innocent, that his conversations with Rosie were not, as they had been with Majnoun, deeply reasoned. She was something like a confidante or a lieutenant. Nothing more. So he might have said, but in his heart Atticus knew that his feelings were not innocent. They were sexual and they were unclear.)

  So Max became low dog.

  Except that Max was not co-operative. The dog felt he deserved status, having helped the pack rid itself of undesirables. Atticus understood Max’s unhappiness, but the pack had changed and Max would have to change with it or suffer the consequences.

  Except that Max made them all suffer the consequences. He would not allow himself to be mounted. He had to be attacked, threatened, bitten. Frick and Frack would work in tandem, one holding Max by the neck while the other mounted him. Atticus had an easier time of it. He was pack leader, and Max, though resentful, accepted that it was Atticus’s right to mount him whenever he liked. The real problem was Rosie. The German shepherd was just strong enough to impose her will, but Max fought her because he could not stand to be mounted by one he was convinced he could overcome.

  Because it sometimes took too long for Rosie to mount Max, Atticus would growl and threaten, nipping at Max’s ears to get the dog to submit. This was not the way true dogs did things, though, and they all knew it. Max had every right to contest his status. Why should Atticus intervene? In the end, the disappearance of the smaller dogs was a disaster for all of them. Their mornings began warily and their evenings ended on the same wary note.

  It was during this time that Atticus began to pray.

  He already had a notion of what an ideal or pure dog might be: a creature without the flaws of thought. As time went on, he attributed to this pure being all the qualities he believed to be noble: sharp senses, absolute authority, unparalleled prowess at hunting, irresistible strength. Somewhere, thought Atticus, there must be a dog like this. Why? Because one of the qualities his ideal canine possessed was being. An ‘ideal’ dog that did not exist could not be truly ideal. Therefore, the dog of dogs, as Atticus conceived it, had to exist. It had to be. (Atticus imagined this dog existing without red; that is, without the colour the dogs had gained with their change in thinking.) More: if Atticus’s pure dog existed – as it must – why should it not feel his longing for guidance? Why should it not find him?

  Atticus followed his feelings. He humbled himself before his pure dog. He found a place away from the den. It was on the other side of Grenadier Pond, among the tall grass and trees. He cleared the ground of leaves and, every evening, he brought a portion of the things he had caught or scavenged. Every evening at the same time: mice, pieces of bread, bits of hot dog, rats, birds, whatever he had saved from his share of the pack’s food. And, speaking the forbidden language, every evening he asked for guidance from the one leader he was prepared to follow.

  The gods are compelled by rhythm – as is the universe, as are all the creatures in it. And so, Atticus’s regular prayers and repeated ritual at length caught Zeus’s attention. The father of the gods heard the dog’s wishes and was moved by its sacrifices and faith. Appearing to Atticus in a dream, Zeus took the form of a Neapolitan mastiff: his coat rumpled as the skin of an elephant, his jowls a grey cascade. And Zeus spoke to Atticus in the new language of the pack.

  – Atticus, said the god, I am the one to whom you sacrifice.

  – I knew you would come, said Atticus. Tell me how I may be a better dog.

  – You are no longer a dog, said Zeus. You are changed. But you are mine and I pity you your fate. I cannot intervene in your life. I have myself forbidden it. But I will grant you a wish at your death. Whatever you wish for at the moment before your spirit ascends, I will grant.

  – But, Great Dog, what good is a wish if I must die for it?

  – I can do no more, said Zeus.

  And at these words, the father of the gods turned to ash in ­Atticus’s dream and drifted above a bright green field where a ­thousand small, dark creatures ran.

  In the months that followed, Atticus maintained his shrine and continued to speak to Zeus, comforted that the Great Dog had heard his pleas, grateful for what he imagined to be the god’s attention. His prayers did not prevent the tragedies that beset the pack, however. First, Frick and Frack wounded Max and he (Atticus) was forced to finish the dog off. Then, Frick, Frack and he himself killed the small dog (Dougie) on his return. An accident: the bigger dogs were fired by blood lust, angry for the trouble the dog’s departure had caused. (Atticus asked Zeus’s forgiveness for this transgression, but, really, it was something of a miracle that they had not killed Benjy as well. In the grip of what felt like instinct but was only anger, they might have killed any number of dogs. The lesson, painfully acquired with Bobbie, then learned again at Dougie’s death: violence has reasons that reason itself cannot know.) Finally, there came the poisoning.

  On the pack’s first foray into the garden of death, Atticus followed Frick and Frack into the garden, convinced the ground’s bounty was a gift from the one who’d come to him in a dream. His first premonition of death came while he was eating a piece of chicken: flesh that tasted as certain dog toys smell. It was not the way anything should taste, but it also tasted of chicken and it was good. Shortly thereafter, death stepped out from behind its curtain. Atticus’s nose began to bleed. He could not drink enough water. His insides burned. He had eaten more than the others. His symptoms were the first to appear.

  It was after his second feast in the garden of death that Atticus knew for certain something was not right. Though he couldn’t tell how his pack had been done, he knew it had been. Some thing or some being had got to them. And he, their leader, had done nothing. So, while the others made their way back to the coppice to die, Atticus went to his shrine. By then, thirst was like a fire that ravaged the kindling of his bone
s and sinews. Death was on him and he knew it.

  With his last words, Atticus asked that the one responsible for his pack’s demise be punished. Then, the dog died, ever-faithful, filled with the hope that his unseen enemy would suffer at the hands of his god.

  Having escaped Majnoun’s anger, Benjy did not know where to go or what to do. He had imagined himself living with Miguel, Nira and Majnoun, staying and mastering human language. Though he knew otherwise, he convinced himself that Majnoun had overreacted, that his (that is, Benjy’s) manoeuvring – his courting of Miguel’s favour, for instance – had been innocent or, at worst, experimental. As far as Benjy was concerned, he hadn’t given Majnoun cause to bite him. Majnoun would come to his senses and allow him back. He was certain of it, but, in the meantime, where would he stay?

  It was spring, the third week in April. There was still snow on the ground, especially in tree-shaded yards and in High Park. It was not the worst time to find oneself outdoors. During the day, the streets were dry and warm. Benjy, of course, knew the area around the park well. If he stayed in Parkdale or High Park, there would be dogs to be avoided but he could usually spot those quickly, so he was not afraid. (The white dogs with black spots were the worst. It wasn’t so much their aggression; other dogs were sometimes even more aggressive. It was that they were – without question – the stupidest creatures on earth, and that was even if one included cats. It was useless to try reasoning with them, whatever language one chose. Worse, you could never tell when one of them would come at you. It was not in his nature to hate other dogs, but Benjy disliked Dalmatians the way some humans dislike men named Steve or Biff.)