A Dog’s Luck Read online

I didn’t even notice she had left.

  She stands in the doorway.

  Looking hither and thither.

  And slouching on the floor.

  I leave the panels of the French window gaping wide.

  Approach the library.

  Pull out Sue’s album.

  Place it on the desk.

  And sit back down on my executive chair.

  The screen flickers.

  The computer whispers.

  Seduces.

  I hug the album.

  Stand up.

  Sit on the edge of the bed.

  Take off my slippers.

  Stretch my legs.

  Turn my back on the sorcerous computer. Rest the album in my lap.

  It’s a bit chilly.

  Especially at my feet.

  I cover them with the blanket.

  And also my back.

  I lean the pillow against the built-in linen chest at the head of the bed.

  I burrow under the blanket.

  Only the top of the nose peeks out.

  As if Sue has made up her mind:

  She rises with trembling feet.

  And slowly staggers toward me.

  Rests her head on the bed.

  Absentmindedly my fingers glide across her, stroking and tapping her fur, which is to this day the silkiest.

  Sue succumbs to the pleasure.

  Glances at me.

  And half collapses, half detaches.

  I open the album and start skimming Madam Lauren’s letter, then the genealogy records, the notarized copies of her father’s championship certificates and the document confirming no blood relations between her parents. With my baton I point at Shlomo Zehavi, Dad’s best friend from the army: “We served together in the paratroopers brigade,” the tone of his voice plays within me, “we were in the same tent. Adjacent beds.” I study Mom’s countenance… and Dad’s expression… I look at the basket-bag and find it difficult to believe that Sue was once so tiny, she disappeared inside it.

  And of their own accord the photos take me back to the days in which, in order to prevent fits of jealousy, we let them stay together under Mom or Dad’s watchful eye. And to the first nights during which Sue whimpered on the other side of the wall, in my parents’ bedroom. And to Champion, who entered my room to sleep beside me with an eagerness that grew with every passing night, as if preserving a piece of paradise that was no longer his alone.

  It was the perfect arrangement for me as well. Not only did it allow me to devote more attention to him, but it also had a more prosaic benefit: it spared me the unpleasantness of waking up to a puddle.

  In my mind’s eye I continue to follow Sue, who grew from one day to the next and became a spirited teddy bear, vibrant and full of joie de vivre. And from one day to the next we became acquainted with her temperament, which turned out to be wonderfully adaptive: even when her toy was snatched, she raced to retrieve it on nimble legs and with a light heart.

  And subsequently, she soon realized that all he wanted was to play with her.

  In fact, she found everything an amusement.

  And it wasn’t long before Champion, who remained terribly suspicious until his last day, also found joy in his new toy.

  At first, when we let them out, she would rush behind him with tiny steps. And within a mere few days she turned into his shadow: wherever he went, she quickly followed.

  When he deterred her with a sharp bark, she halted.

  Looked hither and thither.

  Regained her composure.

  And resumed the chase.

  And he realized he had someone to control.

  And he liked it.

  Within a short period such harmony existed between them that Mom returned to her regular work hours in the office.

  He would provoke her.

  And she was in constant pursuit, without standing a chance of catching up, as fast as her steps were.

  When she lagged behind, he slowed down. Lurking.

  And once she caught up with him, her red tongue sticking out and vibrating from shortness of breath, he would pin her down.

  Toss her onto her back.

  And play with her as if she were his toy.

  And she cooperated: allowed him to roll her from side to side, and from stomach to back. Every now and then a sudden sob, just like a baby’s, escaped her parted lips, which still hold traces of their old smile.

  In fact, it was the only way he learned to gauge his strength.

  To our responses—he was immune.

  More than once I suspected that apart from expressing happiness from jumping on us, he enjoyed stirring up a reaction that was rarely delayed. And the facts speak for themselves: as long as he was physically up to it, he jumped on anyone on any occasion, except for two:

  Sue—whom he treated with extreme caution in her puppyhood.

  And Grandpa—whom he followed devotedly in his old age.

  While they were still scouting their way around the first steps of sharing, when we called them in, he would immediately obey:

  First he.

  And she in his footsteps.

  When she reached adulthood, they lingered about until they finished their business. And invariably, up until he passed away, when the duo was kind enough to finally come inside, he maintained his right of way. And if, heaven forbid, she preceded him, he would give her a good shake:

  “Don’t you dare forget who’s in charge here.”

  He—who until his last day did not realize that his place was forever preserved, whose aggression was unacceptable, unnecessary and infuriating—as if clarified to her in a language that could not be defied.

  In accordance with the pattern instilled in her as a puppy, when “our gallant lady,” as Grandpa called her, arrived ahead of time, she would wait. And in the twilight of his life, when he was a fumbling old timer, she would lead Champion to the door and let him enter first.

  The more she clung to him, the more he lost interest in the company of my friends, and the less he cooperated during our training sessions, which even Doctor Yehoram, the vet, deemed vital:

  When I called him, he would turn his tail to me.

  And if he complied, it was as if he was doing me a favor.

  In contrast, Sue perked up at the sight of a ball.

  And once I threw him the ball, she would commence chasing his tail.

  Why did she do that?

  God knows.

  To settle a score?

  Unlikely.

  To gain control of the ball?

  She never took interest in it on any other occasion.

  To put an end to the game, as he did at the time with his lookalikes?

  By her very nature, or perhaps as a result of the way she was raised, she was less competitive than he was, and far more lenient.

  I tend to believe that she simply viewed this tailing as a new game. But even if she had wanted them to, her tailings never granted her the opportunity to touch it:

  The ball was his.

  And his alone.

  And he defended his rights with uncompromising zeal.

  After he passed away, the structure of their relationship had become part of her. The young pup Josh took his place and put up with her tailings, which she transferred to him as long as her body was sound and able.

  And I—who am convinced that one of the most undervalued traits is attentiveness; and who so yearn for a true friend, someone who will be attentive to me in every sense, and who will stir within me the desire to be attentive to him; and who often feel lonely and detached during the process of writing my doctoral dissertation, and “without anyone that I could really talk to,” like the Little Prince, who, when his plane crashed in the Sahara, was “more isolated than a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in the middle of the ocean”—am now sensitive to every nuance of a relationship. And it is not impossible that it is my acute sensitivity that grants further prominence to other strident variations: always, and without excep
tion, he would stick his nose in her plate, when his brimming plate was waiting just for him.

  He adopted this practice upon her very first breakfast:

  As a fully grown dog he ate one meal a day.

  Once he saw the puppy food, he left not a single crumb.

  And Sue stood.

  And watched.

  While she was still a puppy, he did this every day.

  Three times a day:

  Morning.

  Noon.

  And evening.

  And not even once did his gluttony, provocations, or god knows what, disrupt her peace or rush the pace of her refined licks, the way she still eats to this day.

  When we put him outside, he would scratch the door in a frenzy.

  And the moment we let him back in, he would pummel her:

  Knock her down like a sack of potatoes.

  And teach her what’s what.

  Finally letting her rise, he would climb on top of her high-handedly. Grip her lower body with his legs. Pin her down. And half-riding-half-prostrating, as if saying:

  “A bite is a bite.

  But I’m the boss.”

  When she grew up and we switched her to two meals a day, we divided his as well.

  In vain.

  An entire lifetime the duo lived together:

  Slept with me in my room.

  Played.

  In time, mated.

  Bore pups.

  Ate once a day.

  The same food.

  At the same time.

  From identical plates.

  He always devoured, or at least sampled, hers first.

  And Sue, in her submissiveness, her survival instinct or her fear of the authority he imposed on her, acted as if it was not about her.

  To this day it happens that she approaches.

  Waits.

  As if remembering.

  And complies.

  And there was another variation on the same theme, which became firmly set over time: every morning I give a grown dog a beef bone.

  “It’s his toothbrush,” Mom taught me when I was little.

  He made a fuss over this as well.

  And she, as if internalizing: when I called her she would clear the path for him, since for her, in each and every matter, he was always unequivocally first.

  For his part, he treated her like an available playmate, who surrenders to his whims and accepts his authority on his home court.

  And although he never treated her as “bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh,” when she grew up and went into heat, he demanded “to become one flesh.” It was a singular episode. It had bearings on the vegetable patch, and especially on the herb garden, which, shortly before giving birth, she used to dig up, but not on their relationship, which was already established.

  Since history is not a zipper that can be run back and forth, I can’t hazard an educated guess as to the kind of relationship she would have instituted, if at all, had she had the opportunity to shape it to her own needs. Always, and without exception, she treated him like a privileged and omnipotent leader.

  The facts speak for themselves: she never tried to run away. Was almost always happy to see him. And in his old age she guarded his privileges, large or small, and preserved his status, which he did not give up fighting for until his last day.

  Another variation, and no less dissonant, was that he, for his part, never took in stride any of her achievements, and this stemmed from jealousy: from the very first moment, he reacted to any manifestation of affection toward her as if it came at his expense. And rushed to nudge her away and take her place.

  This variation also took different shapes and forms, all of them sharing one theme: he couldn’t bear the fact that she succeeded in doing something he was incapable of. For him it was the end of the world. And it was instantly translated into aggression.

  She was exposed to the harshest manifestations of his feelings when she grew up, and had something to show off.

  And it happened when the renovation was completed.

  * * *

  Like the rest of the houses in the village, ours was small and comprised of one floor, without a spare room for guests, who in any case almost never spent the night.

  I never knew Mom’s mom: “What happened, happened…” and she passed away before I was born. Apart from that Mom told me nothing about Grandma Michaela, nor did I ask.

  Grandma Gertrude and Grandpa Gustav, Dad’s parents, spoke only German. When Dad was in the army they sold the foreign language bookshop they owned in Tel Aviv, paid back debts and returned to Berlin. Upon visits, which became even rarer and briefer over time, only Mom and I would meet them at the hotel in the city of Netanya where they were staying, not far from our village.

  When Adi slept over, we would open my bed.

  On the rare occasions when Grandpa Danny was willing to forgo his own bed, in his own house, we would offer him a bed in the enclave between my parents’ and my bedrooms and the bathroom.

  Sue was a little over a year old when Grandpa started to drag his feet and occasionally talk nonsense, and I never knew whether to laugh or cry. Apart from Fridays, when he “spent time with the housekeeper,” every day, before and after work, Mom would stop by his house. She didn’t even trust Dad. On Saturdays she would leave Champion to protest alone at home, because he didn’t know how to behave and she worried that, god forbid, he might jump on Grandpa or break something.

  At the threshold of his apartment we were greeted by the weekend newspapers, noticeably untouched.

  “I did not yet have the opportunity to dispose of them,” he would make an excuse.

  The radio no longer played, either.

  “After all, I am no stripling,” he would reply in his flowery language and a low voice, when we inquired about his well-being.

  Grandpa preferred “the city a thousand times over the country,” and lived in an apartment on the third floor of a building on Tel Hai Street in Tel Aviv, not far from the main square named after Zina Dizengoff.

  It happened that he left.

  And didn’t return.

  Fortunately, one of the neighbors noticed his absence.

  Called Mom.

  Who alerted Dad.

  And the housekeeper.

  Called the police.

  The doctors.

  Every hospital in the city.

  And in all the metropolitan area.

  Eventually he came back on his own, and did not understand what all the commotion was about.

  But he also had no idea where he had been or what he was doing…

  Since then Mom became restless.

  And the constant running around exhausted her.

  One evening, when she returned home as pale as can be, Dad suggested that she invite Grandpa to spend the weekend at our house.

  “Out of the question,” she quoted Grandpa the next day:

  “He has his own home. Acquaintances with whom he dines from time to time and exchanges opinions over a cup of tea. The rural surroundings are foreign to him. Detached from the pulse of life. And the silence is deafening. And besides, he isn’t comfortable at our place…”

  At night I eavesdropped on the conversation on the other side of the wall, as I did every now and then. I often wonder if they ever eavesdropped on me as well. And I blush at the thought of how they would have reacted, had they known…

  Mom spoke about Grandpa; no one knew better than Dad that he had been both a father and a mother to her. She spoke about the music he no longer listened to. About the phone which no longer rang. And about the feeling that kept her awake at nights, that apart from his housekeeper he did not exchange a word with a single living soul. Certainly not with the doctors… Dad shared her concern about his condition.

  Even without knowing what “prognosis,” “dementia” or “C.T.” meant, it was clear to me: no good could come out of it.

  I listened attentively, but before bedtime she preferred not to discuss it furthe
r. With a velvety voice she wondered whether Dad did not think it was time to realize their old dream and build a second floor.

  More than the possibility of having a bedroom with three sided ventilation, Dad liked the idea of a walk-in closet, in which the clothes would not wrinkle, sparing him the need to press a white shirt each morning for his appearances in court. As for a study, “which would also serve as a family room,” she hastened to add, he hesitated whether it would be wise to bring work home. Discussing my room, he agreed that I was already starting to outgrow it, and that if they were to renovate it, they might as well furnish it for an adolescent.

  The pleasant harmony satisfied my curiosity.

  I folded the pillow and plumped it as I always do.

  And from one moment to the next my eyelids grew heavy.

  Before sleep subdued me I still managed to hear her casually asking his opinion about designating their current bedroom for Grandpa.

  His answer—I no longer heard.

  “I haven’t heard you say a single word about Dad!” a heated tone severed the threads of my sleep.

  “I told you a thousand times! But even without my saying,” he added, the impatience evident in his voice, “you know very well that your father’s health worries me too.”

  “I learned firsthand long ago: when you talk about my father…—it never bodes well,” she said angrily.

  Thus I was exposed for the first time to the sounds that take place behind closed doors. The routine to which I woke up left no room for doubt:

  It is a brief interlude melody.

  An intermezzo and nothing more.

  The next day I pressed my ear against the wall again: she spoke at length about Grandpa, who, in his condition, was more than anything in need of regular meals, nutritious food and sound sleep, without the soot and clamor of buses. Dad made me laugh when talking about the “castles in the sky” she was building, that would only add to her distress.