Einstein's Monsters - Amis Martin. Страница 21

Tom laid aside his pestle and made a two-handed gesture of shaping. "Perhaps because it shows-it shows the essential oneness of your nature."

This was a bit much for Keithette. "What oneness?" she said, and folded her arms tightly. "Go on. What oneness?"

And now Tom, too, was stumped. "I don't really know," he said. "But I'm sure that ribbon looks very nice with the dress."

Keithette may have been about to soften. We shall never know. At that moment, just as Andromeda watchfully raised the wooden spoon to her lips-they heard a distinct little bark from beyond the kitchen door… The three figures reared and stiffened. Time went on for a while with nothing happening inside it, and the moment might well have passed intact if there hadn't come a second yelp, more emboldened and demanding than the first. Andromeda's alarm was acute. She made to speak but was quickly checked by an unpierceable glare from her mother. Then came the third yelp.

"Shatterday," said Keithette.

But now she rose up, seeming to swell and take fire with the woman's need to confront the worst. Keithette strode to the passage door, Andromeda and Tom a couple of feet behind her. She turned, resolute and incensed, before she seized the handle. The door opened like a lid.

And what should they see but the little puppy, quite recovered, full of beans in fact, only briefly startled and now skipping and twisting, feinting this way and that, and wagging his tail with such violence that his entire rear end was just a furry little blur. Then he swooned onto his back with his cocked paws aloft. Andromeda burst out crying and pushed herself through to kneel at the little puppy's side.

"What's that?" said Keithette.

"Leave him alone," said Andromeda. "He's a little- 'puppy,'" she explained, with a new effort showing in her eyes. "A little puppy."

Adorably the little puppy gazed upward.

"My little puppy," said Andromeda.

"Why do I put up with her?" Keithette began. "Answer me, Tom. Please answer me. Where did it come from? Right from the start she never gave me a moment's peace. Why can't she be like any other little girl? Why? Why? That's right. I'll pack you off to live with the children. Or the Queers! Where did you find it? Now you listen to me, Andromeda. Andromeda, indeed. Her own name's not good enough for her. She has to go and call herself Andromeda! What's it doing now? Well, I'll tell you one thing, young lady. It's not staying here."

It took many hours of supplication, many Blametakes and Faultfinds, and much work for Tom on the mat, over the tub, and in the sack, great play being made with the hot towels and cold compresses, the back scratchers and skin loofahs, not to mention all the hair stroking, neck nuzzling, and breast kissing-plus the tireless and tearful pleas of tiny Andromeda-but in the end Keithette was pretty well won over to the little puppy's presence, a presence that was understood to be temporary, contingent, multiprovisoed. Naturally, the ruling could be reversed at a single snap of Keithette's brawny red fingers. Ah, but what could you do when it came to a little puppy like this one, with his ridiculous frown and his beseeching eyes? All the little puppy had going for him, really, was his adorability. And he was adorable-yes he was. After the countless promises and penances, the clauses and covenants of the long afternoon, Keithette herself seemed quite exhausted by the fray.

"All right," she said. "It can live here for a while."

"He," said Andromeda.

"Where is it anyway?"

Where was the little puppy? Snuggling at Keithette's feet, of course, and blinking up at her gratefully. By nightfall the little puppy was ensconced on Keithette's lap. It was all Andromeda could do to prize him free for a cuddle. Tom looked on from his leisurebench with hard-won relief. He monitored Keithette for signs of sudden mood swing or theme change. Everything seemed all right for now. But it had been some Shatterday.

Oiled, groomed, distinctly plump, and impeccably toilet trained, the little puppy was nowadays to be found, more often than not, on his favorite perch: the window ledge in Andromeda's little bedroom. Through the mists of the half curtain, his tail wagging uncertainly, then quickening in sudden bursts of recognition or general enthusiasm, the little puppy watched the people come and go, for hours on end. Because the people-the people were so beautiful! The women striding about with their hands on their hips, occasionally pausing to talk and nod among themselves, arms folded. The girls, regal and remote, with expensive self-awareness in oval cheeks and artful hair. All colors and sizes the people were. Yes, and the old, too, with their more careful tread (easy does it), and the way light seemed to pour from their human eyes. The little boys were stern and watchful, shut-faced, on their guard. Why weren't they playing? wondered the little puppy, in his way. Why weren't they playing-bounding and tumbling like packs of puppies?

No one played except the little puppy. But the little puppy played a lot. The jumping games, the rolling games, the hiding games. He very nearly exasperated his young mistress with these endless larks and sprees of his. One quiet Shunday she found the little puppy frenziedly prying at a round red bauble fixed (by Tom) to the foot of her bed. Encouraged by his barking she managed to free the thing from its clasp; she then rolled it into the little puppy's path. A ball, a red ball! The little puppy proceeded to chase it around the room. And he chased it around the room. And he chased it around the room again. Holding the ball in his jaws, he challenged Andromeda to shake it free and then throw it for him. Then he retrieved it and bounced around her until she threw it again. Really, the hysteria of the little puppy at such moments. Andromeda didn't understand. But the little puppy clearly needed his play, as badly as he needed his love and his food. Now, when she brought him his vegetables and fruit, the little puppy often thrust his whole head into the bowl.

Some passing people stared in once, and saw the little puppy on his perch. He yelped at them playfully, and tensed, hair-triggering himself for a romp. The people recoiled in hostile amazement. A small crowd gathered, and after a while, even though the little puppy had by now hidden himself under the bed, there came a stubborn thumping on the back door. This shuffling posse was confronted by Keithette-who settled their hash with a fearful blast. Andromeda was then called into the parlor to join Keithette and Tom in a three-hour discussion. The subject: Keithette's imagination. At this point, however, Andromeda resolved to act boldly.

With Tom's help and collusion, she fashioned a little collar for the little puppy-and a little leash. And out she walked into the village with him. Twisting and writhing and half-throttling himself at first, the little puppy soon fell into an obedient trot, only the head busy and indocile, bolting all shapes and colors as if the whole world might be food. It must be said that the experiment was not an obvious success. Many people jeered, or backed away, or burst into tears, and the little puppy himself gave a whine from some sluice in his sinuses, a whine of dismay at the unhappiness he somehow seemed to represent and personify. Andromeda walked on in full obstinacy and pride, the little puppy rather cowering now at her ankles. On their return-she could still hear the hecklers in her wake-Andromeda was greeted by Keithette who surprised everyone, including herself, by giving her daughter a smile of approval and by openly ruffling the shiny folds of the little puppy's neck. Andromeda adorned his collar with silver bells and took him out again the next day too. She had made up her mind. But the little puppy, it ought to be said, was a good deal daunted.