The canine bandits’ purchasing power was of course negligible. Unless you call a bone for a kick, a lump of suet for a rock in the head, commerce. They traveled in the market’s lowest circle, a whole pack of them.
Pepek teetered over from his post at the Spinach Bar and tried to give Černá a slap on the ass, fuck off, she told him, irritated. The pimp turned his attention to the dogs instead. Pussycat doesn’t want any, so I’ll give the pooch a pet, he said, but he didn’t. The mutts froze, baring their fangs. Pepek went on a while giving us his spiel, which we now knew by heart, and then staggered off toward a carload of German tourists. He was a professional, the instant he caught wind of prey his swaying frame would tighten up, a look of “reluctant and perhaps somewhat humble pride” appearing in his eyes and spread across his boozy face like a map of freshly conquered territory. No doubt he had already zeroed in on the Germans climbing out of their car as he donned the mask of the “well-meaning lush” for us, hand outstretched toward Černá’s body. He didn’t really want to touch her, he knew by now.
The dogs, who had meanwhile retreated to a safe distance, slowly began creeping back, scanning the area cautiously, and when neither of us made a move they drank. The smaller one, with a speckled muzzle, had a rope around his neck with tiny red sores underneath. Probly considered it pointless to belong to anyone. His big brother had one dead eye. After drinking their fill, they slunk off on their bellies to about a meter away from us, hoisted themselves with dignity, and trotted off. I didn’t see them again till a few minutes later. Černá stormed off, splashing water at me. She was mad. Today I make a move with our fate, I promised myself. She’s scraped enough potatoes. And as for me … aright then, bye, I bid farewell to that dusty place, to the mountains of junk, I know what’s cookin here, I know what it’s all about. I can tell. I’ve got every stand, every one a those ugly mugs inside me, an that’s not it. But actually I donno too much else. What’m I gonna do? The Austrians brew their coffee without grounds, I tossed back the whole cup, gargling a little for fun. The waiter, who’d been staring at Černá the whole time, turned away from the glass in disgust. Closin time, I said to myself, letting the water stream over my face, it sloshed into the mud in the drain, pump creaking, like a requiem, I thought.
Just then they came tearing over, accompanied by screams and curses in Hungarian. The puny dog dashed out in front, the big one lagged a little behind, tripped over a huge carrot jutting out of his mouth.
The dogs took cover under a bus, a battered Czech coach. From their insistent, soft, menacing growls it was plain they had no intention of giving up the carrot. The bus belonged to a crew of Gypsies who’d just pulled in. They communicated with Vandas in Russian until the basket seller, a shady character, stepped in to translate. It looked like Vandas wanted to be done with the dogs once and for all. His tent, full of heat and smells, full of food, must’ve been a big draw for them. The Gypsies were apparently arguing that no one was gonna mess with their bus while the dogs were underneath it. Hard to say if they were hoping for some doggy delight, or if they just didn’t want to fall afoul of whoever owned the little thieves, but they most definitely weren’t eager to have anyone poking around that bus of theirs with who knew what inside … all those oddballs, lured out of inactivity and away from their byznysses by Vandas’s furious uproar, cause there’s only so long you can go on peddling T-shirts of Batman, who flies wherever he wants, while your average guy’s gotta stick it out in the heat, picking his nose, waiting for a miracle … and the most he’s got to look forward to’s a bottle of rotgut. Or Vlasta.
You can’t argue, haggle, steal, and wheel and deal all day long either, and Vandas’s efforts, assuming he could penetrate the dogs’ defense, promised to be an exciting spectacle for the growing crowd. Tiring of his debate with the Gypsies, who were gently but emphatically trying, with several willing interpreters’ help, to persuade him to forget the dogs, the boss got down on the ground. His paunch brushed the soil, leaving it armored the rest of the day in a sticky plating of dirt, goulash grease, and sweat. From his back pocket he fished out a piece of metal, which with a click like a quiet “yes” turned into a lengthy dagger, and plunged under the bus, poking and stabbing. He wheezed with the effort, it wasn’t about the carrot now, for him or the dogs. The people from the market accompanied him with advice and jeers in several languages, while the Gypsies, who’d stiffened a bit on first seeing the dagger, exchanged haughty grins. They looked like they would’ve preferred to settle things fair and square with the mutts, after all they had sought asylum with them. I wanted to get up and walk away. But I didn’t budge. Screaming, Vandas yanked out his now empty hand, gushing blood, from under the bus, raised it skyward and collapsed on his back, it was shredded up to the elbow. Now the dogs had the carrot and the dagger. The crowd howled with laughter. One of the dogs barked and charged out into the legs. The crowd rippled to the sound of sparse applause, legs dodging as the dog snapped at them wildly, rising, falling, stirring up clouds of dust, until eventually one well-aimed kick drove the dog back under the bus. Growling, he crawled off into the back where he couldn’t be seen, it was the one with the bad eye, the big one, the carrot thief. The little one didn’t show himself. Vandas was back on his feet now, holding his hand while some woman tried, unsuccessfully, he wouldn’t keep still, to wrap it in a wet rag. He fed bills to the Gypsies. Urged them to run over the dogs, I gathered, they just shrugged their shoulders, telling him, Nyema benzina, nein gazka, neni petrol, sir, looked like they were squeezing enough out of him for a good couple kilometers instead of the short stretch it’d take for a dog’s backbone.
Pepek appeared behind Vandas holding a long pole, the kind used in proper households to prop up the clothesline, nails set in one end to hold the line in place.
I was waiting for a swarm of good spirits to appear, a gracious princess, say, for Rambo to suddenly step down off the T-shirts, for I myself to be gifted with the power of a bull that I might scoff at death, O Lord, if I were to save a single canine beast, though he may return the favor by chewing off my finger, surely my karma would bump up a notch at least. But I didn’t get up.
Pepek took the pole and began flailing furiously and methodically into the space where the sparse heat-scorched grass gave way to the dusty earth of the road, flailing, where did that alkie find the strength, flailing, and surely the prospect of bolstering his gainful friendship with the merchant boosted his strength, flailing, and the growling changed to wailing, dog moans, an unbroken litany, an animal prayer of agony, the crowd stood quietly around the bus, occasionally someone shook his head, spat with a hiss, shouted out a curse or word of advice, then Pepek scraped out a quivering dog, belly punched open, head bashed in, and finished him off with the pole. It was One Eye. The smaller one I guess got the dagger. Caving in to public opinion, the Gypsies backed the bus up and ran the mutt over, hard to say if he was gone by then or whether he still felt the wheels. The onlookers briefly commented on the two carcasses, next to them lay the gnawed carrot, as long as the little one’s trunk, mocking the life-or-death struggle of the animal kingdom. Vandas bent down to pick up the dagger, it vanished into his pocket with a click of relief. The wise guys all of a sudden remembered their stands full of junk, peppers and T-shirts and socks and bottles of vodka, and disappeared. The two carcasses were left on the road, I sat gaping at the blowflies’ first reconnaissance flights, the thin ribbon of shiny ant bodies intently setting out on their promising expedition for nourishment, for the morsel that had dropped onto their plate from on high, from the heavens. The first ones went for the eyes.