Faithful Ruslan (23 page)

Just because it all happened so easily and calmly, none of the newcomers was scared, no one shied away from the dogs that had suddenly appeared from nowhere to flank the column at regular intervals. Some even dared to reach out and stroke them, and although this did not exactly please the dogs, they tolerated it and did no more than utter a slight growl; they had either grown slacker or more easygoing during the prisoners’ absence.

“Hey, Misha!” shouted the young man in rubber-soled shoes, a thin boy with a blubbery, childish mouth. “Look—what service! Have you seen our escort?”

“They must have been provided by the town council,” answered Misha. “Or by the factory management.”

“Well, whoever sent them, it shows that somebody cares. It would make a good movie shot. Hey, maybe they’d carry our stuff for us?”

“That’s an idea!”

And the boy actually laid his pack on Ruslan’s back. Perplexed by this novel behavior, Ruslan good-naturedly carried the pack, to the marchers’ general amusement, until the boy grew bored with the trick.

“Thank you,” he said, raising his cap. “We’ll all take it in turns.”

The girl alongside him stretched out her hand to tickle Ruslan’s ruff. He sidled away, suppressing a growl, and thought how little sense these dimwits had acquired during their long absence. If they really wanted to please the dogs by doing something with their hands, then they could best hold them behind their backs in the manner prescribed by prison regulations.

The people standing on the sidewalks, leaning out of windows or over fences to watch this strange procession of people and dogs, for some reason did not smile, but looked on in gloomy silence. Gradually, too, the people in the column stopped laughing, stopped irritating the dogs by patting them and shouting at them, until finally there was quiet, in which the only sounds to be heard were the regular tramp of feet and the dogs’ loud, hot breathing. Right away this silence struck Ruslan as ominous and gave him an uncomfortable feeling that maybe the prisoners suspected something. But what could this be, since they knew all about everything in advance? Perhaps they were regretting their return, perhaps they had changed their minds about going back to the camp and might at any moment break out in an attempt to escape. He glanced around and saw Dick, with his usual sly look on a muzzle that bore the still unhealed scar of his beating; behind him, keeping the regulation interval, trotted the hefty, imperturbable Baikal; farther back, her shoulder blades twitching faintly but rhythmically, Era was jogging along in her place; all of them were busy doing the job for which they were born and trained, and none seemed troubled by any forebodings, which Ruslan found reassuring. He turned and looked ahead to where the street ended at the
edge of the town, and the open road started to curve uphill toward the camp. At last he could truly appreciate the meaning of what was happening: they had come back! They had really come back! It was the greatest moment of Ruslan’s life, the moment when his star reached its zenith. For the sake of this moment he had endured hunger and homelessness, had warmed himself on heaps of cinders and been soaked to the skin by the spring rains, had eaten mice and taken nothing from strangers; for this moment he had guarded the Shabby Man, and rejected his master when he had shown himself to be a traitor. At this moment he was happy and full of love for the people he was escorting. He was taking them to the bright abode of peace and virtue, in which an orderly regime would cure them of all ills—just as a medical orderly takes to the hospital a patient whose reason has been unbalanced by the importunate attentions of his family. And that love, compassion and pride were vividly expressed in the dazzling smile that was spread across Ruslan’s features from ear to ear.

He was still smiling when he turned around, surprised by a momentary disturbance—a muffled growl and a fearful, almost deathly human scream. The smile was still on his face when he suddenly knew he was the most miserable of all dogs, having instantly grasped the import of what he saw. The inevitable had happened. Here, along the town’s main street, were all its stores, shops, kiosks and bars—and no one had reminded the returning inmates that they were forbidden to step out of line. There had been no masters present to read out the customary simple instructions; instead of mumbling to a piece of paper about “cellulose fiber factory…,” the thin man should have announced briefly and intelligibly: “If you move out of line one pace to the right or one pace to the left … the escort will open fire without warning.…” In the
past, the regulations had been read out daily to these dimwits—in fact, every time they were mustered into columns, because by the next time they might forget.

Clearing his throat, Djulbars trotted unhurriedly past Ruslan, accompanied by Dick, leaving Ruslan to watch over the still undisturbed ranks. At the back of the column everything was in confusion: angry barking, the shrieks of people bitten or just frightened, the sound of thumps and wheezing gasps as dogs were kicked in the stomach. Numbly he watched the scuffle in the dust, the glint of bared teeth, the falling bodies, the flailing legs and fists, the suitcases with which the people tried to beat off the infuriated dogs. For a moment he felt a thrilling surge of excitement that made everything around him turn yellow, but immediately the feeling ebbed away again, leaving nothing but sickening despair at the way everything had gone so absurdly wrong. The growls that he could hear told him how it had begun: it was the hot-tempered Cartridge, who always went to extremes. She invariably lunged straight for the throat and brought the man down. Era, of course, immediately joined in; neither of them had the sense to give a warning push to bring the offender back into line with a nudge of the shoulder or forehead, nor would they be content with a simple nip on the leg.… Oh, there were any number of ways of making a man obey without going for his throat!

He watched the affray almost apathetically, concerned only that someone might break ranks. For a while no one did step out of line until suddenly the girl next to the boy in rubber-soled shoes stopped and ran back before Ruslan could prevent her. When she returned and seized her neighbor by the elbow, he seemed utterly stupefied. Ruslan rushed between them and nipped her on the knee. She leaped away
with a squeal, which surprised Ruslan; he could not have hurt her, because even in an emergency he had the knack of closing his jaws on a human limb without even breaking the skin. The young man alongside her, who had moved half a pace out of line, had no need of such a reprimand: Ruslan only had to curl back his quivering lips and the boy was already standing in his proper place, furiously offended but also frightened to an equal degree. Ruslan immediately felt he could trust him—he seemed a good boy, who had quickly grasped what he was supposed to do.

Now Ruslan saw an amazing sight: Djulbars running away from the fight. He had a bloody mouth, his piglike eyes were bloodshot, but it was still Djulbars, deserting his post when the situation was not yet under control. Near him was Lux, whimpering as he limped away—exaggerating as usual, since he had no visible injuries. Djulbars on the other hand was not only covered in wounds, but was panting with enthusiasm!

With a nod of his head he beckoned Ruslan to follow him. Together they ran to the corner of a side street, but there Ruslan stopped. And Djulbars stopped, too. It was clear that he was not panting with the thrill of the fight but with exhaustion, that his trembling legs could hardly support his body and he was longing to lie down. Now, with no masters present, he could admit this. Ruslan understood him, but even so he insisted that Djulbars return to the fray. He knew that the dogs would go on fighting as long as Djulbars was there; old, tired and lazy though he might be, provided that they could hear his commanding growl, none of them would dare to retreat. Djulbars could scarcely meet Ruslan’s accusing look, while Lux could not tolerate it: forgetting to limp, he bounded up to Ruslan and bit him savagely in the
neck. Infuriated by this, Djulbars made a move to punish Lux, but the mongrel jumped back, whining that he had suffered enough already.

Once again the two dogs stared at each other. There was a certain pity in Djulbars’s eyes, even though he had never liked Ruslan, who, in his opinion, carried devotion to the point of fanaticism. Now their mutual incomprehension was complete. As Djulbars saw it, they had all had a good scrap and it was time to go home; from now on it was none of the dogs’ business, since the masters had long since abandoned their responsibilities. Finally, exercising his right of seniority, Djulbars relieved Ruslan from his post—but in vain: the fanatic was already on his way back to the column. Djulbars watched him go and shook his head sadly. Then, growling at Lux to get lost, he trotted off up the side street and retreated into old age with his regal, leonine gait, scattering drops of his own and others’ blood, glad yet regretful that this was his last fight.

Another shock awaited Ruslan: he found the front ranks exactly as he had left them. Surprising though it may seem, a deep-rooted human habit had ensured that the lines at the head of the column remained virtually unbroken: no one had told them to disperse. He ran up and down the ranks, straightening them out and keeping the marchers in line with a warning growl.

The trouble had started outside a bar, but the brawl had already moved across to the other side of the street: there almost all the dogs were fighting as a pack, attacking, dodging and maneuvering, occasionally jumping up onto the sidewalk to catch their breath, while the tail end of the column continued to march on, treading on those who had fallen down in the scuffle. Three men leaned calmly on the railings
of the porch outside the bar, each holding a mug of yellow liquid in one hand and in the other a small skinned fish. They were local people, and of no interest to Ruslan; what was more, they politely moved aside to let him pass.

Strangely enough, he saw neither Era nor Cartridge, who should have been in the thick of it. The rule was simple—while some attacked, the others kept the rest of the flock in order. But although he could not hear the inseparable pair among the dogs in the melee, he did notice a gap in a nearby fence, through which the trail of their scent disappeared. Obviously the marchers had wrenched out several fence posts with which to beat Era and Cartridge, and this had only helped them to make their escape; it was, of course, useless to imagine that Era and Cartridge could be beaten into submission with mere fence posts—nothing less than beams or cart shafts would suffice. Yet the fact remained that the two most hotheaded dogs, who had started it all, had also been the first to run away. A little beyond the gap in the fence, Ruslan could see some of their handiwork: a man who had either crawled there, crossing the ditch unaided, or had been carried there by his friends who had then sat him down against the fence. He had been well and truly savaged. He was clutching his throat with both hands, blood was seeping through his fingers onto his torn white shirt, his eyes were glazed and a deathly pallor was creeping over his face, visible even through his suntan. Era and Cartridge had clearly been beaten off very quickly; otherwise the man would not even be sitting up.

Man and beast stared into each other’s eyes. At first the man struggled to decide whether he was delirious or whether this white-fanged monster really was no farther away from him than the width of the ditch, then his eyes filled with
despair and entreaty, and large drops of sweat began running down his face. The animal merely gave him a look of sullen reproach: have you forgotten, he was saying, that no guard dog ever attacks a man on the ground without being ordered to? He waggled his ears, as a signal of peace, and turned away. At that moment a woman flew past him, wearing a flowered dress and holding something white. She was hastening to the wounded man and did not notice Ruslan, but something that she had seen out of the comer of her eye made her look around. Ruslan’s calm and silent approach frightened her more than if he had growled and lunged at her. Slowly teetering backward, eyes wide with fear, whispering to herself, she leaned her back against the side wall of the bar, while her hands continued mechanically to twist her strip of white cloth into a tourniquet. Was she really hoping to beat Ruslan off with that piece of plaited material?

He was about to walk past her when a savage blow winded him and threw him off his feet, hurling him up against the same wall. Only because he fell against the woman’s legs was he able to stay upright. With a wild scream she started lashing him with her tourniquet; this only served to reassure him that he had nothing to fear from her.

Which of these three men, converging on him with furious looks and grasping heavy pieces of luggage, had kicked him in the stomach? Anyway, it didn’t matter. The time had clearly come for Ruslan to intervene. He weighed up the three men in a swift glance. One had been bitten in the hand and had only just staggered to his feet again after being knocked down by Baikal. Still only able to shuffle forward, he had not yet fully recovered his senses. The second man—short, stocky and tough, with a blank round face and one swollen eye—was really dangerous; men of his build were
hard to bring down, and because they thought slowly they were not usually in a hurry to retreat. The third was the boy in rubber-soled shoes, the same boy with the sulky, blubbery mouth who had made Ruslan carry his pack. Ruslan had excused him for one violation of the rules—why was he trying to make trouble again? Why were the three of them advancing on him, when only one of them was any good in a fight?

Ah, that was why! They were talking to the woman in the flowered dress to encourage her and were going to her rescue. This was ridiculous, because Ruslan had no intention of harming her; she had merely been standing between him and the ditch, which she had not dared to jump over because that would have meant turning her back on him. How stupid the whole thing was!

He advanced toward the men, teeth bared, his weight shifted slightly backward onto his hind legs. Not expecting this attack, two of them backed away. The squat man stood his ground. Ruslan had calculated on this, and crouched in preparation for a leap.