The dog looked expectantly at Dog Whisperer: confirm what?
“A dog in an apartment is like a handicapped child. It needs your constant attention. Your help, your attention, your caring . . . Dogs, excuse my mentioning it, dogs even need to be taken out for walks because a trained dog will sooner die than do its business inside.” He looked at Happy, who sadly nodded its head. “Who besides a human being will go to its death for the sake of an idea? Only a dog!”
The Newling was amazed: that had never occurred to her.
“Yes, yes . . . Search dogs, for example, will search for land mines . . . During the last war dogs attacked tanks! That is, I don’t mean to say that they went wittingly to their deaths ‘for the Motherland! for Stalin!’ The dogs died for their own idea: in service to their masters . . .” Dog Whisperer turned polemically to Happy: “Tell me that’s not so!”
The dog sighed a human sigh and nodded. Suddenly Dog Whisperer’s vigor subsided, as he fell into silent thought for a bit, then, without raising his eyes from the ground, continued.
“That’s my job nowadays: I work as a guide for dogs. They’re all mine, my little dogs. I raised them in a kennel in Murom, trained them, and then they get sent wherever: some go abroad, to Afghanistan. Happy’s an Afghan vet . . . I’m about to guide my twenty-fourth . . .”
“Where are you guiding it?” the Newling asked quietly.
“Where, where . . . Abroad . . . To the other shore . . .”
“Ah-ha,” thought the Newling. “That means that some people here know where we’re going . . . To the other shore.”
12
THEY WALKED ON AND ON THROUGH THE MONOTONOUS, sad, and undulating desert space until they arrived. The sandy desert ended. They stopped at the edge of a gigantic fault filled with a gray fog. Somewhere off in the distance loomed the other shore, but it could also have been an optical illusion, so tenuous and imprecise was the jagged strip that could be either heavy clouds pressed to the ground or distant mountains or a forest closer in . . .
“We need to take a rest,” Skinhead said, extending his fire-bearing hand over the dry branches. As always, the warmth and the light of the tiny children’s campfire far surpassed the capabilities of the pathetic fuel.
Warrior—who had assigned himself the task of bringing several dry skeletons of former plants—looked into the fire and asked Skinhead: “Why does it require fuel? That fire of yours burns just fine on its own.”
“Yes, I noticed that myself not long ago.” Skinhead nodded, and then stretched his arm over an empty spot. Another campfire ignited. On its own, without any fuel . . . “You see how we’ve all grown a bit wiser of late . . .”
“Even too wise,” the Warrior quipped morosely.
Skinhead pulled out of his pocket several dry square cookies with dotted symbols, just like ancient hieroglyphs, and gave each of them one. “Eat. You need to get your strength up.”
The Newling long ago had ceased to be surprised. The taste of the cookies was indistinct, herbal, and reminded her of the flat cakes her mother had baked in lean years from dried goutweed seeds mixed with a handful of flour. They were pleasant to eat.
“We’ll rest here for a bit, and then we’ll make our way over in that direction.”
They sat, absorbing the heat with their fatigued bodies.
Skinhead called Longhair over; the latter followed him unwillingly. Together they began digging at the top of a nearby hill. A while later they brought a bunch of whitish-yellow rags that seemed as if just removed from the linen sterilizer. They tossed them on the ground, and a multitude of tie-straps flew out in all different directions.
“Put on gloves and booties,” Skinhead commanded.
Reluctantly they began to sort out the strange garments: the sleeves had long straps on the wrists, and the canvas leggings tied just beneath the knees. The garments were as cumbersome as they were uncomfortable, and it was particularly difficult to knot the strap on the right arm. The Newling helped Longhair cope with the dangling ties . . .
The Professor, who had begun digging through the pile trying to find a pair that matched, suddenly flung the rags aside and barked: “This is a mockery! You’ll answer for this! You’ll answer for this mockery! I’m not going anywhere! I’ve had enough . . .”
Skinhead walked right up to him.
“Quit your hysterics. There are children, women, and animals here, after all . . . If you don’t want to come, you can stay here . . .”
The Professor regained his self-control and modulated his tone of voice.
“Listen! Would you just tell me why I’m here? What is going on here? What kind of a place is this?”
“The answer to that question lies on the other shore,” Skinhead answered curtly. “But if you insist, you can stay here.”
The Professor turned away, slumped over, and moved away from the campfire . . . He easily transitioned from overbearing bossiness to humble subordination.
Skinhead tied his own two booties and helped Longhair secure his case to his back.
Both campfires had burned down. Cold flowed from the fault, and it was incomprehensible how Skinhead intended to transport them all to the other side. He approached the edge of the fault. The others crowded like a herd of sheep behind him.
“We’ll take the bridge. Come stand at the edge.”
Cautiously, they approached the precipice. They craned their necks: there was no bridge.
“Look down, down there.” People made out a metal construction looming in the unfathomable depths of the gray fog of the fault.
Skinhead jumped, and the entire monstrous construction swayed like a rowboat. His face, turned upward toward them, barely shone from below. He waved. Each of them standing up above shuddered, feeling trapped between necessity and impossibility.
“Manikin!” Skinhead called, and the latter obediently approached the edge. Its feet in their canvas bags sweated and felt heavy as stone. There seemed to be no force strong enough to make it follow Skinhead. But there was: far off in the distance a sound arose, barely audible to the ear, forewarning of an intolerable shower of black arrows. Manikin, doomed, did not jump—suicidal, it collapsed headfirst and disappeared in the fog.
The construction swayed again. At that same moment the Newling felt the sand under her feet move and shift. The sandy soil behind the crowded handful of confused people began to cave in and loosen, and an avalanche began behind their backs. It grew and widened, and a whole sandy Niagara whipped up behind them . . .
The next to plunge was Longhair. Then the pair of women chained together—Longlegs first, and Tiny screaming downward after her. With great dignity the former Limper approached the edge, sat down, and lowered himself, as if lowering himself into a swimming pool or bath. Warrior. The dog. One more woman in a running suit. A man with a briefcase. Strange Animal. A blindfolded little girl. The Newling stepped downward as one of the last . . .
None of them fell like a rock—they all descended slowly. Either the air streamed powerfully upward and supported them or the force of gravity in these parts was weaker. Down below the wind gusted. It carried them relatively far from each other in different directions. Some landed on the bridge’s large crossing planks; others, like Longhair, were less fortunate. He stood on the intersection of thin pipes, and the closest vertical support was located at a decent distance and beyond reach. He rolled back and forth to maintain his balance. His case got in his way.