Carmen Dog

by Carol Emshwiller

  Just then a bright light goes on right over her head. It turns out that this is not the door to a basement, but to a basement apartment, and someone is looking out the heavily barred window at her. She can see big, suspicious black eyes and a big, black, Escamillo sort of mustache, though the face it is attached to seems a bit too pudgy. No, the mustache is larger than any Escamillo would have and curls up at the sides. The eyes are Italian, the mouth that of a voluptuary. Surely, Pooch thinks, this is the face of an opera lover like herself. Surely she has been lucky in her choice of basement doorways.

  Behind the bars, Pooch sees that the window is open. She gestures toward the baby and then gives what she hopes is a graceful little bow not unlike what she saw at the end of the acts at the New York City Opera. She wants to say, “Kind Sir. Kind, kind, kind Sir,” or words to that effect. This is the first time since she lost her voice that she has actually tried to say, calmly, a few words, but all that comes out is a sort of yearning whine.

  "Cut the bullshit.” The voice is high for one so wide as he looks to be. “I heard you and I saw what you did. Now get out of my doorway. And you better not have peed down here."

  Pooch hangs her head, nodding at the same time because, actually, she had, in the far corner (where else was there to go?) and she never, never lies, except about such things as complimenting other people's hats.

  "Get out of here ... bitch."

  Blushing with shame even though, technically, she is a bitch, Pooch turns to gather up the baby and the rolled-up scarves she had been using for a pillow. She knows that one must remain philosophical about such harsh words. They are bound to come even to those with the best intentions and sometimes when one tries one's hardest to please, though of course this was not the case here since she didn't even know of the man's existence. Naturally, had she known this was his front door, she would have been more careful. If only she could speak and apologize, and perhaps if she could tell him what she's been through and what led to her spending the night in his doorway, he would be moved by her story and understand that she had had few choices. He might even take her in and serve her a good breakfast. (Pooch has not eaten for almost twenty-four hours, so this is on her mind.) But the way he said “bitch,” and took such slow pleasure in making the word sound ugly ... disgusting.... Naturally it's not the first time she has been called that, and she knows she shouldn't be insulted by the word since it's true, but they always mean to be insulting. She's heard them use the word girl the same way, telling some poor little boy that he's just like a girl, which, regardless of what he may think of girls, always makes him feel dreadful. If she could speak, perhaps this is the question to which she should address herself, not her own individual problems but this larger one, telling him that, while she is a bitch, she does not want the word used in a way that is demeaning to herself and to other bitches like her and that the same goes for the word girl.

  Anyway I will leave here like an opera star, she thinks. She has become quite angry about little boys being called girls as an insult. The poor little fellows suffer so from it. One should not allow it. (Pooch is always quick to anger at injustice to others, though seldom rouses herself when it is she who is put upon.) In her most regal manner, then, she starts up the stairs.

  "Wait a minute."

  The fat man has opened his door and is looking out at her. His voice sounds quite different. All the shrillness has gone out of it. Now it is low (more befitting his size) and seductive. It is clear that he considers himself quite charming when he wants to be and that, at least for the moment, he wants to be.

  "You're no ordinary bitch, are you?” Now bitch means something entirely different, though again he dwells on the word.

  And suddenly Pooch realizes the power of a pose. He has taken her for what she has pretended to be these last few moments as she started to climb the stairs. She turns, still in the role of prima donna, and does not deign to answer even with a gesture. They stand, looking at each other, Pooch forcing herself not to look away. As she stares into his eyes, as soft and brown as her own, the idea that she has killed a man comes to her, or rather that she has probably killed one, and also that she has escaped a fortress. Even though the doctor was probably a murderer himself, she feels terrible about her crimes, and yet, if the circumstances warranted, she knows she would do such a thing again. And so she does not look away. He, it is clear, is also bold. They cannot stare each other down.

  "Won't you come in,” he says softly.

  She is tempted to walk proudly away. Certainly she would never consider going in except for the thought of food, especially for the baby, and though he has not mentioned inviting her to breakfast, she feels a tiny drop of drool at the corner of her mouth. In order to keep up her dignified pose, she doesn't dare lick it away. She hopes he hasn't noticed. She comes back down the basement stairway as though entering a grand ballroom, though she is inwardly laughing at herself and her notions of her own grandeur. And yet it seems to be working. She wonders how long she can keep up the pose.

  Yes, it certainly is the apartment of a sybarite. Pooch, horrified, quickly covers the baby's eyes with her hand, but the baby protests to such a degree that there is nothing for it but that she take her hand away. The baby looks at everything with obvious delight. Clearly it has seen nothing that pleased it so much as these, the statues, the paintings, the paraphernalia (the uses of which Pooch has no idea), the doodads, large and small: pornographic candles, pornographic magnets, pornographic pillows on the sofa, pornographic lamp with pornographic shade, pornographic ash tray.... The baby crows out its whole repertoire, “No, ouch, bop, bop, littlely dittlely, later!” and proceeds to play an enthusiastic pattycake. Perhaps the baby in its turn will one day become a voluptuary.

  The fat man, clearly delighted with the baby's delight, points out to Pooch the old-fashioned shepherd-shepherdess wallpaper with its little pornographic dramas going on from scene to scene, from bush to bush. “The original paintings from which these were copied,” he tells her, “were made for Louis xvi. You must come and look at them more closely.” He is all solicitude, his arm around her shoulders. “But, my dear, I imagine you're hungry. Why not study my wallpaper while I go and fix you a nice little steak?"

  Perhaps he did see that bit of drool dripping down her chin. And now she can't help drooling even more than before, but she has not forgotten her vows. She shakes her head a vigorous no and then, keeping her dignity as best she can and also as gracefully as she can manage it, she pantomimes vegetables and nuts, first herself as carrot, then broccoli, then cashew nut, and finally she ends with herself as rain, the sun, shining down with a bright smile. Will he get the point? She gives a final little curtsy. He answers with a mocking bow. (Somehow he makes her feel operatic. No one has ever done that before except sometimes when she was singing.) “Then a salad it shall be,” he says.

  After he has moved out into the kitchen at the back, Pooch puts the baby on the floor and, keeping an eye on it, tries to find something to look at that's not pornographic. In a few minutes she finds a magazine that she has heard about but never seen before, the Opera News. It is on the little writing desk next to a pornographic eraser (worn down just “there"), and a pornographic pencil (two crocodiles entwined, each one's head to the other's tail). Pornography or not, Pooch thinks, how can he not but be a worthy person if he has this magazine, and she is immediately engrossed in it. She does not get far, however, before she sees a small ad:

  —

  Will the creature who sang out from the balcony on the night of May 14th please contact the impresario Valdoviccini at 555-6656 as soon as possible.

  —

  Pooch of course is instantly in tears. This, more than anything so far, brings home to her the disaster of the loss of her voice, but there is no time for self-pity. Luckily that name and telephone number are etched forever in her mind, for now she is interrupted by a shriek from the baby. Pooch lets out an unpremeditated little yelp which she stifles with her hand. A
t first she can't find the baby, but then she sees it crawling out from under the bed with four bloody scratches on its cheek. In the dark beyond it, under that huge, king-sized bed, she sees two luminous blue eyes.

  "Pussy!"

  The fat man has heard the commotion and is immediately down on his knees trying to poke the creature out with a large wooden spoon. “Pussy, you ungrateful wretch. Didn't I rescue you from several fates worse than death, as well as from death itself!"

  "Out of the frying pan...."

  "Come out and behave yourself."

  "Not until she and that other thing go."

  "Don't be jealous. You were, yourself, not so long ago, in the very same situation as this young thing. Come out. We'll have a nice ménage à trois."

  "It came after me."

  "Don't be ridiculous. It's just a baby."

  The spoon is evidently not long enough.

  Pooch, watching it all and hardly realizing what she is doing, licks the blood from the baby's face. She stops herself in a moment and sees that there is really not much damage done, though there is always the risk of cat-scratch fever.

  The fat man is flailing out quite violently now. By the wall at the far side of the bed appears a slinky, light tan (almost white, in fact) and almost black ... a seal point, the blue eyes startling in that dark face. And no doubt about it, of royal birth and at least as pedigreed as Pooch herself, or even more so.

  "You look ridiculous down there,” the Siamese says.

  The fat man is still on his knees reaching under the bed from the other side, but now he leans back and sits on his heels. “Well, well, Chloe, may I introduce.... This is.... Well, who are you?"

  Pooch goes to the writing desk and takes a piece of note paper and, having dared so much already, dares again, twice. First she dares to pick up the pornographic crocodile pen, and second, she dares to write Pucci, for after all, she once could sing and, evidently, rather well. That is clear from the ad.

  "Pucci! And a very charming and accomplished lady, I must say. And now, my dear, if you would like to eat, you must promise me ahead of time that you'll reveal charms and accomplishments of an entirely different sort from those you have already shown me. I am sure you will comply. You would not want the baby to go hungry, would you? And it is obvious that you, also, would enjoy a bit of breakfast."

  With that he goes back into the kitchen and returns with two trays of food, each more inviting than the other, with marinated vegetables, green salad, dark bread, two kinds of cheese, and a little bowl of nuts on the larger tray for Pooch.

  "I will consider your eating my food as acquiescence to my plans, but now you must excuse me for a moment,” he says, putting the trays on the Louis xiv coffee table, “while I go and take my aphrodisiac."

  The baby immediately begins to eat and Pooch, of course, cannot bring herself to try to stop it. Since this is the case, she thinks that she might as well eat a mouthful or two herself, though there is no guarantee that, if she eats only a little, she will only have to comply with his sybaritic desires by an amount commensurate with what she has eaten. No, she might as well gobble it all up. Perhaps there is another way out than starving herself.

  Chloe now sits opposite them on the floor and, with regal disapproval, watches them eat. It's disconcerting, but even so Pooch doesn't stop the baby from making a mess of it. She does try to counteract that image by eating with all the elegance and grace she can manage, even though this does detract somewhat from her enjoyment.

  "Can't you speak?"

  Pooch is not absolutely sure, but shakes her head no. She would not want to try again and have barking come out.

  "Are you interested in serious questions?"

  Pooch gives a little I-don't-know shrug.

  "I have heard there are efforts being made. For us, I mean."

  Pooch hopes Chloe is not referring to such things as the doctor was doing. She is hoping that, if efforts are being made, they are on an entirely different level than the experiments to which she has been subjected. She makes the I-don't-know shrug again.

  "Up or down?"

  Pooch points up.

  "I also."

  Pooch makes a gesture to show that that is obvious. It seems to please Chloe, and her manner softens a bit.

  "I'm sorry I scratched your baby,” she says.

  Pooch gives a forgiving wave of her hand.

  "He wears the key around his neck. On a gold chain, no less. A short one. I tried once, but one can't get it over his nose without waking him up."

  Just then the fat man returns. He has changed out of his purple silk pajamas and now he wears an embroidered headband and a loose black satin robe with gold braid about the collar. He is carrying three little paper cups with an inch of liquid in the bottom of each one. “I made this outfit myself,” he says, “including the embroidery on the headband. I know it doesn't match, but I can't resist wearing it every chance I get, and I wanted you to see the workmanship. Now Pucci.... “(In spite of herself, Pooch visualizes it as Poochie.) “Pucci, see to it that the baby drinks this. It's very mild. It'll just make it sleep for an hour or two. It should like it. It's cherry, if you'll pardon the expression. And here are your aphrodisiacs. I'll be watching, so don't try to throw them in the dieffenbachia."

  Pooch rushes to the writing desk for more paper and the lewd pen. “Kind sir,” she writes, “for I know you are kind, I have seen it and felt it.” This is not exactly true, but better to err on the side of expecting virtues than the opposite, in the hope of making them come true. “Surely a man of your sensibilities will not ask of me what I have no right to give since it is certainly the property of the man I may one day fall in love with. As the root yearns toward the stalk, as the bud yearns toward its flowering, as the chrysanthemum as well as the delphinium...."

  "Enough!” the fat man shouts, reading over her shoulder. “You cannot wriggle out of it. You ate, therefore you promised, and I can see you are not the sort to break your word."

  With that he snatches the pen from her and, leaning over her, breathing, deliberately it seems, on the back of her neck, he draws a quick yet practiced rendering of a strawberry. Clearly he is a man well versed in many arts. “But let some others convince you,” he says. He opens a book and reads: “'only there, do hearts less etiolated by the thousand little worries of vanity,’ vanity it says, my dear, ‘find delicious pleasures even in the lesser varieties of love,’ lesser varieties, it says. ‘For I have seen far more furious transports and moments of intoxication caused by a caprice,’ caprice it says! ‘than were ever brought about by the wildest passion here in the longitude of Paris.’ So. No more stalling. Come, both of you. Take your aphrodisiacs."

  Pooch decides there is nothing for it but to do so.

  The fat man turns out the lights (anyway, it is now dawn) and, with a little Baryshnikov flourish, leaps onto the bed. “First you two be Tristan and Isolde for a while,” he says, “and then I'll be Queen of the Night. I want to save myself for last."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 10: In Which the Baby Saves Them Both

  And so, after all, his acquaintance with the languages of dogs, frogs, and birds was of as much use to him as if he had been a man of great learning.

  —Grimm's Fairy Tales

  Pooch does not want to sink into licentiousness. Perhaps if she comports herself with the utmost decorum.... But already the aphrodisiac is beginning to take effect and Pooch's mind turns, of its own accord, to the pale, thin young man with tan eyes and tan hair who must have been the one singing the part of Escamillo. She feels sure that, were he here, he would be as kind to her as her beloved master used to be. Hadn't she seen that in his eyes? Hadn't she smelled it? Why, even the faint whiff of sexual interest? Perhaps he lives nearby and might rescue her any minute now. She would say yes to him. Yes, yes, yes, and yes, she thinks (remembering Joyce's Ulysses).... But Pooch knows this is only a silly wish that cannot be.

  Several little yelps of
passion now escape her in spite of herself. Quite uncouth, really, and then she, along with the other two, falls across the king-sized bed in a semiswoon, her master, the pale young man, the dark, evil (or perhaps only misguided) doctor, and even the psychologist, all swirling together into a single sexy being.

  * * * *

  Meanwhile, at the little opera house on Third Avenue, they have found the rolled-up blue smock with what looks like blood on it and have turned it over to the police, whom the pale-eyed young man has just reluctantly told of the young thing at the stage door dressed in what he now realizes were bits and pieces from the cast-off costumes of Cavaleria Rusticana; and the doctor, with bandage on neck and shoulder and looking quite out of character in sneakers and sweatshirt, is skulking about in an entirely different part of town ordering every creature he sees, from Pekinese to canary, to take him to their leader and to be quick about it. At the New York City Opera they have just lost another top soprano, who has run off with a trumpeter swan; and in government offices as well as in institutions of higher learning, secret meetings are in session this very morning on the topic of motherhood. What, for instance, are the alternatives to it should worse come to worst? A decision has already been made to outlaw from the human race all creatures except primates (and of those, only the ones who have passed a certain level of expertise) in order to preserve, as well as possible, future generations from contamination with inferior and outlandish genes. It's a question of priorities, and for once motherhood and related topics seem to be at the top of the list, though it's true they are hoping to find ways of eliminating it altogether. Already research is being done not only in in vitro fertilization but also in the coupling of the germ cells from the male only. The present problem would be solved, then, by simply going around it. In the future one would not need to create any humans (so-called humans, that is, for a great deal of doubt has been cast on the status of women as human beings all through the ages of course, but now in particular) ... at any rate, one would no longer need to create beings with two x chromosomes at all.