Dog Boy (13 page)

The bomzhi watched this domesticated Romochka warily. Those who lived out at the mountain knew he was wild and that he had more dogs than just these two pretty performers.

Romochka had never seen anything like Mamochka and Golden Bitch’s hunt. The dogs, he could tell, had also never smelled anything like it. It was a huge bird with glinting blue feathers, a long blue neck (broken and mauled), a white mask and a strange crown of blue-green. It was lying on its back with brown-feathered wings splayed. Its meaty breast rose high into the air, the very incarnation of plenty. The dogs put bellies to the ground and reached paws for a small claim, waiting for Mamochka and Golden Bitch to start. The two of them hovered proudly over the huge bird as everyone else smelled it over, snuffing deep into the feathers for the flesh beneath.

Romochka stuck his nose to it too, drawing in deep draughts of its feather musk and flesh. The death smell was new as new. It was still just warm. He stroked the fountain of feathers that formed its tail. They were as long as he was tall and thicker than a pile of clothes. He reached under Golden Bitch’s growl, leaned over the bird and pulled at the wing to roll it over. It was so heavy! A real feed. How had they got it home unhindered? Then the tail rolled into view. It was covered in more-than-counting little pictures of eyes or water puddles, each the same as the last, glittering in the dim light. It was like the green eyes of springtime winking in the street. Romochka let out a small yelp of delight. He rolled the bird back and squatted down on that swathe of feathers. He was eager now to get on with eating. These feathers were his for after.

The dogs were wriggling, tails waving, ears up. Then Black Dog, Romochka, Golden Bitch and Mamochka began pulling the feathers off it in huge mouthfuls, clearing their choked mouths with tongue and paw, then pulling more. Romochka yanked handfuls out and threw them behind him. The others gripped and tugged at legs and wings on the periphery, and in no time they all pulled the bird apart. The wonderful rich smell of flesh and viscera rose in their faces. Everyone edged in, low to the ground, ears flattened, sneaking under and around the growls of Mamochka and Black Dog.

Romochka’s hands slapped and wriggled around the grinding jaws, feeling for the bits he wanted. The bird was a male. He was a little disappointed but not surprised. Very colourful birds were usually male. He did love female birds: the flesh stocking of shell-less egg yolks arranged in a row from smallest to biggest was his favourite meal of all. He worked his hands deep into the cooling innards, feeling over and under the slippery sweetness for gizzard, heart and liver. His snarl swelled as he lunged slightly towards any whose muzzle came close to his hands. He felt the delicious taut globe of the heart and wrestled with the carcass to rip it out. It slipped through his urgent fingers three times, then the threads and sinews gave and it was his. He popped it into his mouth and couldn’t quite shut his jaws around it. He struggled to bite, chew, growl and at the same time feel for the smooth flaps of the liver. White Sister was pulling the intestines away under him. He found the tight juicy ball of the gizzard and quickly tucked it under his clothes at his neck, feeling still for the liver before anyone else snaffled it. His elbows were out and he growled savagely, then he had the slippery liver in his fingers. Arms buried in the bird, he gently worked it loose with both hands. He didn’t want it ruined with gall.

He sat back, happy. He felt the liver over until he found the gall bladder, bit it off gingerly and spat it to the floor. Then he stuffed the liver, too, down his neck against his chest, freeing his hands to help with the heart in his mouth. He pulled out the gizzard and chewed one side off, making an opening. He squeezed the grit and meal out onto the ground and settled down to chew through the rich flesh and its rubbery inner skin, spitting out small bits of grit and occasional feathers. He was humming now, rather than growling.

He watched the others as he ate. They were lying in the shape of a flower around the splayed carcass, all on their bellies with front paws claiming small parts for themselves. Now and then they inched in under the older dogs’ snarls, reaching with deferent muzzles for more. Mamochka, beside him as always, snapped savagely at anyone who bickered or reached too quickly. Mamochka still watched Romochka’s eating with a fierce dedication. Romochka’s share was secure, stashed away under his clothes. Black Dog’s too was unchallenged. No one would dare to squint at him and pin a piece of his with a hopeful, assertive paw.

Afterwards they each dragged small bits and pieces over to various corners to suck and chew and mull over. Romochka pulled the amazing tail feathers over to his play lair and began to arrange them here and there. Golden Bitch trotted over with the jewelled blue head in her mouth and settled with Romochka to chew through the beak and small bones to the soft centre of the skull, but Romochka drove her out furiously when she bumbled through the arch he was building from the feathers. Then he raced after her, threw his arms around her neck and wriggled his fingers into her mouth as she growled. He wanted the crown. He snarled in her ear as she snapped at him, but in the end he was so persistent that she let him take it. He yanked the bedraggled crown fan from its topknot and handed the head back to Golden Bitch.

Back in his little lair, he felt it over with wondering fingers. Fine black stalks all gathered in the small nub of flesh at the base, each tipped with a tiny iridescent fan at the top. He hid the crown in his special hiding place among his miscellaneous beaks, claws, bottle caps and other treasures, all hidden even though he knew none of the dogs would be interested in them.

He sat on his pile of feathers and watched the dogs lying here and there around the feather-lined lair, each gnawing or crunching at a leg, wing, ribs, spine or neck held between their paws. He began building an elaborate rib cage out of old bones and feathers. He tried to get several of the tallest to stand upright by wedging their stems and then weaving the shorter ones here and there through the flowering ribs. He made the shorter ones all face their puddles inwards. They were the outside of the ribs looking in. He was the inside of the ribs looking out. He was very pleased for a while.

Then he collected as many small bones as he could find around and put them inside the bower, making limbs and a belly for the feather animal. He grabbed Brown Brother’s skull and set it at the front. Then he took the crown from its secret spot and placed it in the belly too. He sat inside what he had made, with its full belly behind him, and the den in front. He was a giant animal, guarding.

He was diverted for days.

Summer passed into golden autumn. There were no puppies. Then, as the cold gripped the city, Romochka stayed active, hunting with the others whenever they were out. The long, denbound nights seemed a distant memory. Something was different this winter, utterly changed. He was colder sooner, struggling to warm up in the nest with the others, shivering as he trotted out to hunt. He desperately needed more clothes. He craved the occasional gifts of hot food. One night, sleeping fitfully in the nest, he reached for Mamochka and felt her smooth belly. He woke up.

It was going to be the first winter with no milk.

 

With the first big snowfall, the bomzhi by the metro disappeared. Romochka soon realised they and some of their dogs were inside the swinging doors, on the steps, or down in the underpass. He felt the hot exhalation each time the doors swung, and he longed to go down too into those warm tunnels and arcades.

He wasn’t afraid of the metro itself. He had a vague memory of holding his mother’s hand and boarding a loud train. But he was afraid of being cornered and caught by the militzia. So he hovered, feeling the warmth waft his way and vanish before it heated him at all, too wary to enter this other, closed trail of people.

Inside the warehouse fence, Romochka found two dead children with spraycans and glue but no food in their bags; and beside a dumpster, rolled in newspaper, he found a baby frozen solid. He didn’t touch these.
Mamochka doesn’t eat them, and neither do I
, he told himself. He wrapped the baby up again and left it for other dogs. The next day they all were buried under the snow.

The chill was so harsh that Romochka had to keep moving when he was outside. If he sat anywhere, Mamochka or the others chivvied and jollied him until he got up. They too knew that he had to keep moving. He wound a cloth about his face and wore two woollen hats, but still the cold bit into his nose and ears. He had quite a lot of clothes to put on, but he was only ever warm when he was asleep in the heated pile of dogs, and then only if he had a full belly. His bare hands ached and itched, and he tried to keep them inside his sleeves and in his armpits all the time. One day he was so cold that he thought he could not keep moving. White Sister and Grey Brother trotted, worried, at his stumbling heels. He headed for the metro and with his heart tumbling inside his chest, he pushed through the heavy doors, one after the other, to the warm interior.

He glared around, flanked by the two dogs, but no one paid him any attention. Bomzhi sat along one wall at the head of the stairs to the underpass, and he could see more begging or sleeping at the bottom of the stairs. House people entered and left, flowing up and down the stairs, parting to go round him. They wound their scarves up and put gloves on as they ascended, and unwound their scarves and took gloves off as they descended, but they all paid him no attention whatsoever. A uniformed official in a glass booth studiously avoided noticing him.

Romochka headed down the stairs into the warm dark belly of the underground. He unwound the cloth from his head and let the heat reach in to caress his frozen face. His scalp began to itch. He found a nice dark spot near bomzhi but not too close, and far enough from the glassed-in shops that lined one wall of the underpass.

He sat down with the two dogs, took his hats off, and then he just fell asleep, trusting the dogs to watch out for him. But White Sister and Grey Brother fell asleep too, trusting him to know what he was doing in this strange place and somehow trusting the miraculous warmth as if they were all little babies. The people flowed to and fro in front of them like an impersonal and congenial river. Then one young man stopped and took a picture of them with his mobile phone, and White Sister woke and jolted Romochka and Grey Brother with her growl. Romochka leapt up, looking about bewildered, while Grey Brother snarled and feinted a lunge at whatever it might be that had caught them unguarded. But the people just flowed by, and Romochka settled.

They were all blissfully warm, and all hungry. Romochka pulled out a grimy plastic bag to begin his begging for scraps. People weren’t eating much here, but bit by bit they got something. Local people recognised the tableau—boy, dog, plastic bag—and didn’t need him to say anything. Perhaps some were even comforted to see this familiar creature of their place. Since the scraps were for dogs, no one was shy about what they put in. Half-eaten stardogs, pirozhki, sloika. Shaurma or kartoshka skins. Anything they had been eating, and suddenly no longer wanted. It wasn’t much, but they got some small bites for everyone at home.

Romochka began to get edgy and worried about the others, and about how cold he would become on the way home. He had no idea how long he had slept, and he had no idea what the weather was doing. He felt disconnected and disoriented. He tied up their takings and stowed them under his clothes to stop them from freezing on the way, and he put on all his toasty warm clothes. He shared a stardog with Grey Brother and White Sister to give them the strength for the long trek home.