Faithful Ruslan (3 page)

“O.K., let’s go.”

As Master held out his collar, Ruslan willingly stretched out his neck to take it; he wriggled his ears in response to the touch of his master’s hands as they fastened the buckle, tested to see that it was not too tight and secured the spring clip to the ring. Master wound some of the leash around his hand and fastened the very end of it to his belt, so that throughout their spell of duty they were joined together and could not lose one another. Then with his free hand he threw up his gun, caught it by the sling and hung it over his shoulder with the sweating barrel pointing downward. Ruslan took up his usual position beside Master’s left leg.

They walked down the gloomy corridor into which all the kennel doors opened. Behind their heavy wire mesh gleamed moist, slanting eyes; the dogs who had not yet been fed whined and butted the grilles with their bony foreheads, while at the far end, one dog, burning with envy, was giving tongue in a sobbing bark. Ruslan felt proud that today he was the first to be taken out on duty.

The moment the outer door was opened he was dazzled by a blinding white light, and recoiled with a start, blinking and growling.

“Come on!” said Master, giving the leash a jerk. “You’ve had it easy for too long, you idle brute. What’s the matter—never seen snow before?”

So that was what had been howling all night. It had settled like a thick, fluffy blanket all over the deserted parade ground, on the roofs of the barracks, storehouses and garages, forming white hats on top of all the lampposts and covering the benches grouped around a trash can. Snow had fallen many times in Ruslan’s lifetime, but it always came as a shock to him. He knew that the masters called it “snow,” but to him it was not something that had a particular name; to Ruslan it was simply whiteness. Because of it, everything changed and lost its normal meaning, the world to which his eyes and nose were accustomed became void and dull, and all tracks were hidden. The only thing visible was a clear double line made by his master’s boots, leading from the kitchen to the doorway. Next moment the whiteness struck his nostrils, and he was overcome with nervous excitement; he dipped his muzzle into it up to the eyebrows, plowed a furrow and crammed his mouth full with it. Snorting, he even gave a silly, cheerful sort of bark, which meant roughly: “You fraud, I know you!” Master was not holding him in, but had unwound the leash to its full length. With a white beard and white eyelashes, Ruslan would sometimes hang back, sometimes run ahead; keyed up, he avidly gulped the air and sniffed around in vain for scents.

This was the reason why he committed a minor blunder—he failed to look about him in the regulation manner required when on duty. Yet something alerted him; he pricked up his ears and stopped, rooted to the spot, feeling a vague sense of unease. To the right were the bare poles and the barbed wire; beyond that were the deserted fields and the dark, jagged-topped edge of the forest; to the left were the same poles and wire and another stretch of field, but dotted with huts—squat and low, almost like underground
storage-cellars, built of untrimmed logs that had turned black with age. And as always their little windows stared at him, covered now with hoarfrost and as blank as blind eyes. Everything was in place, nothing had moved, but a strange, unprecedented silence had settled on the world; his master’s footsteps were muffled as though he were walking on a layer of felt bedding. Strangely, too, there were no eyes peering out of those windows; no one was showing any curiosity to see what was going on in the world (a habit in which people were no different from dogs!). What was more, the huts themselves looked oddly flat, as though merely painted on a white background, and not a sound came out of them. It was as if the horde of noisy, smelly people who lived in them had all suddenly died in the night.

But if they had died, he would surely have sensed it, and if not he, then some of the other dogs would undoubtedly have dreamed about it and waked up the others with their barking. They’re not here, thought Ruslan. Where can they have gone? He immediately felt ashamed at being so slow-witted. They hadn’t died—they had escaped. He began to quiver with excitement, breathing hotly and noisily; he wanted to pull at the leash and drag Master after him, as had happened on those rare and unusual occasions when they had run for miles and finally caught their quarry—and never once had they failed to catch him! This had marked the start of his real life in the Service; it was the best thing that Ruslan had ever known.

Yet not everything fitted into that rare and unusual pattern either. He knew the word “escape,” and could even distinguish between “single escape” and “group escape,” but at such times there had always been a great deal of noise and nervous bustle; for some reason the masters had shouted at
each other a lot and had lashed out at the dogs for no reason at all, while the dogs themselves, confused and jittery, had always started fighting and snapping at each other and could not be calmed down until the chase began. He had never known silence like this before, and it aroused the most frightening suspicions. Not only had all the inmates of the huts broken out in a mass escape, but all the masters seemed to have gone after them, too, and in such a hurry that they had not even had time to take the dogs with them—and without the dogs, of course, what sort of a chase could there be? So now just the two of them, Ruslan and his master, had to find all the runaways and chase them back—the whole stinking, howling, maddened herd of them.

He felt a wave of fear that made the pit of his stomach turn cold, and he ran forward to look up at Master’s face. Something was wrong with his master: he was walking with a wholly unaccustomed stoop, glancing morosely from side to side, and his right hand was not holding the sling of his submachine gun, as it always did, but was thrust into the pocket of his greatcoat. It occurred to Ruslan that Master looked as if he had a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, too, which in view of the task facing them today was not surprising. He pressed against Master’s greatcoat and rubbed him with his shoulder, which meant that he understood everything and was ready for anything, even to die if need be. Ruslan had not yet had to face death himself, but he had seen men and dogs die. There was nothing more terrible, but if he was with Master, it was another matter: that he could stand. This time, however, Master did not notice Ruslan touching him, did not give him a reassuring pat on the head in return, as he always did, and this was a really bad sign.

Suddenly he saw something which made his hackles
rise and a growl start rumbling in his throat. Although not distinguished for his good eyesight—aware of this failing, he did his utmost to make up for it by diligence and a keen nose—Ruslan immediately caught sight of the main gates of the camp as Master and he passed through the small wicket gate into the outer perimeter. The gates looked so strange that Ruslan could not believe his eyes: they were wide open, creaking in the wind on their long rusty hinges, yet no one was running toward them with shouts and rifle fire to hasten to shut them. What was more, the other gates, on the outer side of the perimeter zone, were never supposed to be opened at the same time as the inner gates, and now they were open, too; the white road between the inner and outer perimeter fences simply led straight out of the camp, no longer fenced in, no longer blocked by the bars of the gate, but it simply faded away toward the forest on the dark horizon.…

And what on earth had happened to the watch-tower? It had been completely blinded: one searchlight was covered in snow and pointing straight down, the other, its broken glass looking like a jagged grin, was dangling by a wire. Gone were the white sheepskin coat and the fur hat, gone, too, the long, ribbed machine-gun barrel that was always aimed downward. The faded red banner above the gates was still there, but someone had torn it so that it was hanging down in disgraceful tatters, blown about by the wind. That strip of red cloth, with its mysterious white markings, had always had a special significance for Ruslan: etched into his mind was the memory of the scene when, on dark evenings after work, in every kind of weather—frost, snowstorm or pouring rain—flanked by masters and dogs, the column of prisoners had halted in front of the banner, when both searchlights had suddenly flared into life and their two, long, smoky beams
had joined at the banner; as it hung there, blazing across the entire width of the gateway, the prisoners would involuntarily jerk their heads up and stare, shivering, at its dazzling white markings. Ruslan was not able to interpret the full, hidden wisdom of those markings,
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but they somehow stung his eyes until tears came, and he, too, would feel a sudden tremor, a thrill of sadness mixed with an excitement that produced a delicious sinking feeling inside him.

All this damage and vandalism stupefied Ruslan. He was amazed at the impudence of the escaping prisoners, who must have been quite convinced that no one would chase them. It was as if they had known it all in advance—that snow would fall and cover all their tracks, that it was difficult for a dog to work in the cold. But worst of all was the fact that they had made no particular effort to conceal their intentions: he well remembered how the prisoners had behaved throughout those last, incomprehensible days when the dogs had languished with nothing to do and only Ruslan’s master had come—without his gun—to feed them and take them out to stretch their legs a little in the exercise yard. It had been puzzling in the extreme. The prisoners had wandered freely around the accommodation zone in herds, had played their squeaky accordions, bawled songs, and even started to tease the dogs; their extraordinary behavior had made no sense at all at the time. But how had the masters failed to notice anything, when literally all the dogs had sensed that something was amiss and had gnawed at their bedding in angry frustration?

Ruslan did not blame his master or reproach him. He was
no longer young, and he knew that masters sometimes made mistakes. But then, they were allowed to. It was not permitted, however, to dogs and prisoners, who always had to answer for their mistakes and often for the masters’ mistakes, too. If his master ever committed a blunder, Ruslan knew that he must share the responsibility with him and help him to put it right at any cost. As he thought how skillfully the runaways had fooled his master, he began working himself up into the right frame of mind for the job in hand and stimulating his bad temper to the point where he got genuinely angry. His bad temper was colored yellow. The sky and the snow took on a yellow tinge, the faces of the escaping prisoners looked yellow as they glanced around in terror on the run, and the soles of their boots flashed like yellow specks. As he vividly imagined the scene, Ruslan burst uncontrollably into furious barking, tugged at the broad rawhide leash and pulled Master after him toward the gates.

“Hey, what the hell’s the matter with you?” Master could hardly keep on his feet. He pulled Ruslan toward him and did his usual trick to calm him down: hauled him up by the collar so that his front paws dangled in the air. Unable even to growl, Ruslan could only wheeze. “Where are you going in such a hurry? Afraid you won’t be in time to get to heaven? Don’t suppose they need your kind there!” Then he let him down, unfastened the spring clip, coiled up the leash and put it into his pocket. “Off you go, now. Just keep on straight ahead; you can’t go wrong.”

He pointed along the white road and into the fields. This could only mean one thing: “Scent, Ruslan.” This was work that Ruslan could do without any orders. The trouble was that he could not pick up so much as the hint of a scent.

He gave Master a quick, anxious glance that was close
to despair, lowered his head and began plowing the snow with his nose as he made a circle in the prescribed manner. It smelled of dried-out moldering grass, mice and ashes—but not of people. Without pausing, he made a second and wider circle. Again nothing. It was so long since the prisoners had passed this way that it was stupid even to try to pick up any meaningful scent. And he never allowed himself to play false by setting off at random, pretending he had picked up a real scent, and then putting on a hysterical act as though his master had made a mistake. In any case, Master could not have made a mistake: it was as clear as could be that the prisoners had walked out through the gates, as free as air. Soon he grew exhausted, feeling as if his guts had somehow dropped out, and he sat heavily down in the snow on his behind. With his steaming tongue lolling to one side, blinking guiltily, twitching his ears, Ruslan honestly admitted that he was helpless.

Master was looking at him, his mouth twisted into an unpleasant grimace. Nor did Ruslan find any sympathy in his eyes, those two entrancing round saucers suffused with dull blue—they showed only coldness and mockery. It made him want to flatten himself on the ground and crawl on his belly, although he knew that entreaties or complaints were useless. Whatever those beloved eyes wanted to be done was always done, no matter how much Ruslan might whine or even lick his boots, smeared with pungent-smelling boot polish. There had been a time when Rush had tried licking Master’s boots, but then one day he had seen a man lick them—and it had done the man no good.

“Want to try it farther away?” Master asked. “Or would you rather be here, near the guardhouse?” He looked at the gates and slowly unslung his submachine gun. “Makes no difference; here will do just as well.”

Ruslan was seized by a fit of shivering and an uncontrollable yawn pulled his jaws wide open, but he mastered himself and stood up. He could not do otherwise. When the worst happens, an animal always takes it standing up. He realized that it had come to him now, on this white day, that it had already come a minute ago and there was no avoiding what was to follow. No one was to blame. Whose fault was it that he had ceased
to understand what was happening?

He knew well what occurred whenever a dog stopped understanding what was happening. No amount of previous good service could save him. His first recollection of it had been with Rex, a very keen and experienced dog, a favorite of the masters, whom Ruslan in his young days had fiercely envied. The day of Rex’s fall had been a very ordinary day, and none of the dogs had felt any sort of presentiment: as usual the escort detail had taken over the column of prisoners from the camp guard, as usual the prisoners had been counted and recounted, and the customary words of warning were spoken. But hardly had they marched out of the gates when one of the prisoners had suddenly uttered a wild scream as though he had been bitten, and had taken to his heels. He must have been mad, because there was nowhere for him to go, out in the open fields and in full view of everyone. He never did get anywhere, for almost before his shriek had died away there came a rattle of gunfire from three or four barrels, in which the machine gunner on the watch-tower also joined. Yes, strange as it may seem, those two-legged creatures were sometimes capable of such stupidity! The prisoner’s foolishness, however, greatly confused Rex, who was walking alongside him, and who ought to have been alert enough to have sensed what the man was going to do; even if he had committed a momentary lapse of
attention, he should then have hurled himself in pursuit and immediately brought him down. Yet Rex, bemused by the prisoner’s behavior, merely sat down with his tongue hanging out, allowing three more men to break ranks and to start waving their arms and shouting at the masters. They were instantly driven back into line with gun butts, helped by several dogs, but Rex did not even join them in this. He had completely stopped understanding what was happening. He bounded over to the man on the ground—who was not even groaning any longer—and sank his teeth into his right arm. It was such a stupid thing to do that Rex did not growl as he did it but only whined pathetically. Rex’s master dragged him off and, in front of everyone, kicked him hard in the stomach. For the rest of the day Rex was allowed to continue doing escort duty, but all the dogs knew that Rex had committed an inexcusable blunder, and Rex himself understood this better than any of them. After duty he suffered for his shame all evening; he lay as though sick, with his nose in a corner of the kennel, and refused to touch his food. That night he started giving tongue with a howl that drove all the other dogs mad with dread foreboding, and not one of them closed an eye in sleep. Next morning Rex’s master came for him, and none of his whining and bootlicking had any effect. He was led out into the fields beyond the wire; they all heard the short burst of automatic fire, and Rex did not return. He did not quite disappear altogether—for a few days longer his presence could be smelled in the camp, and at a short distance from the road the dogs could see his bloated flanks, surrounded by carrion crows, to remind them of Rex’s terrible mistake. In time, all trace of him vanished. Rex’s kennel was washed out with soap, his feeding bowl and bedding were changed, another nameplate was hung on the door and
a new arrival moved in—Amur, a young dog whose career was just beginning.