by Sam Munson
At last, I thought. As if I had been awaiting this tentative and clumsy young man. He did not smell me, but I smelled him, his sweat, the rum on his breath. Decaying teeth as well. The detergent in his uniform and the polish on his high boots. I backed up, closer to the tomato vines and hedges to hide myself. Their cool shadow embraced me, sleeved my pelt. The young officer lost track of me. I saw it in his eyes when I glanced up (now I kept my face aimed earthward as he swung the flashlight back and forth). It was much easier to evade these agents, these state breathers, as a dog. I remembered without rancor or self-pity all the difficulties his now-dead colleagues had caused me, all the pain they had inflicted. True. Nevertheless — well, for one human to kill another, that belongs to the moral world. For a human to kill a dog, that does too. But the moral world excludes whatever does not originate with humanity.
The cupped leaves of the tomato vines held darkness. The windows of the Pensión Vermesser held light. The young officer struggling to grow a mustache came closer, still looking for me. The glow from the window crossed the nameplate on his sky-blue chest: SCHULZ. I recalled the stiff cloth of Klemperer’s uniform against my human shoulders. Officer Schulz came closer and closer, his voice growing louder and lighter at each step, as though he were speaking to a child. Finally his cries alerted the Danish guests in the back parlor. They set down their wine glasses and came to the window; one of them asked Schulz what he was looking for, and he answered, without any shame: A dog, the owner called; you have no idea the trouble they cause law-abiding citizens and business owners. I glanced up toward Violeta’s window. She was there again, in her green shirt, staring down, her mouth impassive and her eyes half-closed.
As Schulz gave this little speech, the meat still flapped in his hand. Back and forth, back and forth. That I could smell, too, and the blood trickling from it down his wrist and into the uniform cloth. In his van, a service radio began to hiss and chime. His words, dull as they were, calmed the guests. The woman made no more objections. She leaned on the sill, looking from Schulz to the darkness where she imagined I was. Schulzpor was already twisting his boy’s mouth — the presence of this woman added a new audience for him. I gazed between the vines at the young officer. Through his veins, pearly darkness pulsed, I knew, and pearly darkness craves its source. The night lay in curved sections along the streets. The streets retreated, eternally. My course became clear. Saliva filled the hollow beneath my tongue and poured over my pointed teeth. In the moment of bodily unguardedness that precedes action, my bladder spasmed and my urine sprayed the grass. The modest noise made Schulz widen his false smile. He saw me now, he waved the meat, he flapped his right hand to summon me closer. An artery jumped under the hinge of his jaw near the skin. I set my feet, tensed my muscles, I prepared to leap. And I realized I could, for the first time, smell the sea.
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