The Dialogue of the Dogs Page 2

  “So,” said the scholar at length, “we’ll call it a draw.”

  “Enough that we can shuffle the cards and deal a fresh deck, Peralta. But the hell of it is that she can pawn my fake chains, but I can’t get loose of the chicanery she roped me in with. This bit between my teeth never comes out, and she remains my wife.”

  “You can thank God, señor Campuzano,” said Peralta, “that your wife has taken to her round heels, and that you don’t have to go looking for her.”

  “Very true. But even without searching, I always find her in my thoughts. Wherever I am, I have only to look in the mirror to see my disgrace beneath my very eyes.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” the scholar said, “except to quote this snatch of Petrarch:

  Che qui prende diletto di far frode,

  Non s’ha di lamentar s’altro l’inganna.

  “That is to say, ‘The liar can’t well feel aggrieved/When he finds himself deceived.’ ”

  “I’m not complaining,” answered the ensign, “just feeling sorry for myself. Even when the sinner at last empties himself of excuses, the punishment still burns. I know better than you that I got a dose of my own medicine, trying to rook her and getting rooked myself. But like all our feelings, self-pity is beyond my control.

  “So, to get to the heart of this sorry tale—since that’s what it is—I heard that Doña Estefanía had run off with that cousin from our wedding, who was really an old flame of long standing. After getting all she had to give and then some, I had no wish to go after her.

  “I changed my lodgings—and, eventually, my looks. My eyebrows and lashes started to fall out. Soon enough the hair on my head followed and I went bald before my time. My scalp shone as empty as my pockets, because I had nothing either to comb or to spend. My illness and my indigence each compounded the other. Honor is no match for poverty, which drives some to the hanging tree and some to the hospital, and makes others swallow their pride and beg for something more nutritious at their enemies’ doors. Want is one of the greatest woes that can befall some unfortunate man. So, rather than pawn my clothes to pay for private treatment and then have to go naked if I recover, I entered Resurrection Hospital and took my forty sweatbaths. They say I’ll get well, that I only need to take care of myself. I’ve got my sword, and I leave the rest to God.”

  Here Peralta renewed his friendly invitations, marveling at all the things he’d heard.

  “If you find what little I’ve told you surprising,” the ensign said, “what will you say to the other things I haven’t got around to yet, which defy natural law and imagination both? I can only tell you that it makes up for all the misadventures that landed me in the hospital, because only here did I see what I’m about to tell you now, that nobody including you will ever believe.” The ensign’s preambles piqued Peralta’s curiosity so much that he dearly wanted to hear, in detail, everything there was to tell.

  “Surely you’ve seen,” the ensign began, “the two guard dogs who go around at night carrying lanterns for the monks, to give them light while they collect alms?”

  “Yes …?” Peralta led him.

  “You’ve also seen or heard that, if anybody dispenses their charity out a window and onto the ground, the dogs immediately bring their light and help look? They also stop on their own before windows where they usually receive alms. But despite all this tameness—to the point where they’re more like lambs than dogs—they are lions in the hospital, guarding the place with great care and vigilance.”

  “I’ve heard all this,” said Peralta, “but it doesn’t turn my world upside-down. Should it?”

  “What I’m about to tell you will,” answered the ensign. “Even if it sounds bizarre, you have to try to believe it. One night, the second to last of my treatment, I heard and saw with my own eyes—well, almost saw—those two dogs, Scipio and Berganza, stretched on some old matting behind my bed. Then, in the middle of the night, lying awake in the dark thinking of my past adventures and current travails, I heard voices nearby. I listened closely to see if I could make out who was speaking, and what about. Soon enough I deciphered both and I knew, to a certainty, that the dogs were doing the talking.”

  Campuzano had hardly finished the sentence when the scholar leaped to his feet and cried, “That does it, señor Campuzano! Up to now I couldn’t decide whether to believe what you’ve told me about your marriage, but after all this about hearing dogs talk, I’ve made up my mind not to believe you any farther than I can throw you. Sweet Jesus, ensign, don’t ever repeat this nonsense to anybody except a friend like me.”

  “I’m not so ignorant,” replied Campuzano, “that I don’t know animals can’t talk without some miracle. Even if mockingbirds, mynahs and parrots appear to talk, I know they only repeat the words they’ve learned by rote, and only then because they happen to have tongues like ours to pronounce them. But they can’t talk, let alone talk back, with the thoughtful exchange of views that those dogs managed. Much as I heard them afterward, I scarcely believe it myself. I listened, made notes, and finally wrote it all down verbatim—wide awake, with all five God-given senses working—and still I’d rather write it off as a dream. This transcript here will make the case better than I can that what I saw there was real. Their topics were many and varied, more what you’d expect from a pontiff than a mastiff. So, since I couldn’t have invented their remarks myself, I reluctantly have to believe that this was no dream, and this canine conversation really happened.”

  “Odds bodkins!” the scholar exclaimed. “Are we stuck inside Aesop’s fables, where the cock talks to the fox, and all the animals have intercourse together?”

  “If I believed that,” replied the ensign, “I’d be a dumb brute myself—maybe the dumbest—but I’d be even worse if I doubted something that I myself heard and saw. I’ll testify to it under oath, under hypnosis, under any damn thing that might convince even doubt itself to believe. But even supposing I’m kidding myself, and what I took for truth was a dream, and that to insist on it makes no sense—still, wouldn’t you like to read my transcript of what those dogs, or whoever they were, had to say?”

  “So long as you’re done pretending that you heard the dogs talk,” replied Peralta, “I’ll gladly hear out your shaggy-dog story. Since it comes from so fine a pen as yours, it has to be good.”

  “And another thing,” said Campuzano. “Since I was very attentive, my mind tightly constrained, my memory very retentive (thanks to the restricted diet of prunes and almonds I was on), I got it all out in one piece—writing it down the next day by heart, word for word. I didn’t compress it or build it up to make it more attractive, or try to shape or perfume it. The conversation didn’t happen all at once, either, but over two consecutive nights, though I have only the one here, which tells the life of Berganza. I plan to write up his mat-mate Scipio’s life, which provided the sequel, only if people buy the first one, or at least don’t just write it off. I’ve written it out as dialogue, to avoid the unwieldy repetition of ‘said Scipio,’ or ‘replied Berganza,’ which, for even the best of us, gets old in a hurry.”

  And with that, the ensign took a scroll out of his breast pocket and pressed it on Peralta, who—as if to make light of all he had heard—took it with a smile and prepared to review it.

  “I’ll recline on this ottoman,” said the ensign, “while you peruse these dreams and delusions. They have only this to recommend them: if you tire of reading, you can always put them down.”

  “Make yourself comfortable,” said Peralta, “and I’ll polish it off in no time.”

  The ensign lay down, and the scholar opened the scroll and found it headed this way …

  THE DIALOGUE OF THE DOGS SCIPIO AND BERGANZA, A.K.A. THE DOGS OF MAHUDES, AT RESURRECTION HOSPITAL IN THE CITY OF VALLADOLID

  Scipio: Berganza my friend, let’s let the hospital look after itself this one night and stretch out in peace on these mats, where we can enjoy unseen—and unheard!—this great gift that heaven has
lent us both.

  Berganza: Brother Scipio, I hear you speaking, and I know I’m speaking right back, and yet I just can’t believe it, it’s so unnatural.

  Scipio: True enough, Berganza—and what’s more, we don’t just speak, we talk, as if we could even think. And yet the power of thought has always been so far beyond us that the main difference between men and animals is: they can think and we can’t.

  Berganza: I’m hearing everything you say, Scipio. Your saying it and my hearing it have me fairly gobsmacked. Of course, it’s true that I’ve often heard about our great canine endowments. Some even suspect we have a natural intelligence so supple and sharp that it all but proves we’ve got it in us to think.

  Scipio: People go on and on about our strong memories, our sense of gratitude, our great fidelity—so much so that artists sometimes use us as symbols of friendship. If you look, you’ll notice that in those marble crypts where you see statues of the dead buried inside, whenever it’s a husband and wife there’s the figure of a dog at their feet. They mean this to show that their love and fidelity to each other knew no bounds while they were alive.

  Berganza: I know of some faithful dogs who’ve hurled themselves into the graves of their dead owners. Others have kept watch above the sepulchres where their masters lie, without rest, without food, until death at last delivers them. I’ve also heard that, for intelligence, the dog enjoys pride of place after the elephant, after us the horse, and finally the ape.

  Scipio: Sure, but admit it—you’ve never heard an elephant talk, or a dog, or a horse or a monkey. This talking of ours qualifies as one of those omens that, whenever you see them, you know to expect disaster.

  Berganza: If that’s an omen, then so is what I heard a student say a few days ago, passing through the Alcalá de Henares.

  Scipio: And what’s that?

  Berganza: That out of five thousand students at the university last year, fully two thousand were studying medicine.

  Scipio: What’s so ominous about that?

  Berganza: That either two thousand doctors had better find patients to cure—which would require quite a plague—or they’ll die of hunger instead.

  Scipio: Well, whatever happens, let’s talk. Omen or not, if something’s meant to be, nothing on earth can stop it. There’s no point arguing over how or why all this is possible. But it’ll be better if, so as not to waste a minute, we stay put. And since we have such comfortable mats, and we don’t know how long our luck will hold, it’d be smart to talk all night, without dreams getting in the way of this gift I’ve wanted for so long.

  Berganza: I feel the same way. Ever since I could chase a bone I’ve longed to talk, to say all the things I’ve been saving up in memory for so long that either they were growing murky, or I’d forgotten them completely. Now that, without ever daring to hope for it, I’ve got this divine gift of speech, I plan to make the most of it and pour out everything I remember, even if it comes out wrong or confusing. I don’t know when I’ll have to give back this gift, which I still think of as on loan.

  Scipio: Here’s how we’ll do it, friend Berganza. Tonight you’ll tell me about your life, and all the sidetracks that brought you here, and tomorrow night, if we can still talk, I’ll tell you mine. Because jawing about our own lives is more fun than poking into anybody else’s.

  Berganza: I’ve always considered you a thoughtful friend, Scipio, and now more than ever because you’re a friend who wants to tell me his life and to know mine. This wise idea of divvying up the time in front of us is just like you. But first, warn me if anybody can hear us.

  Scipio: Nobody, as far as I can tell, though there’s a soldier near here dozing. This time of night, he’d rather sleep than eavesdrop.

  Berganza: If I can talk in safety, then listen. If you tire of what I tell you, you can always tell me to shut up, or at least call me on it.

  Scipio: Talk till dawn, or until somebody finds us. I’ll listen to you gladly, without butting in unless you’re asking for it.

  Berganza: Well, I seem to remember that I first saw the light of day in the Seville slaughterhouse, beyond what’s called the Gate of Blood. From this you might imagine (if you didn’t know what I’m going to tell you later on) that my parents were watchdogs raised by the lords of that confusion, the meatpackers. My first master went by the name of Nicky Flatnose—a strong hothead, like all the butchers. This Nick trained me and some other pups how to go with the older mastiffs, attack a bull, and make ourselves a prize of his ears. In no time, I became expert at this.

  Scipio: Berganza, I’m not shocked that—since there’s good and bad in all of us—we get the hang of evil in no time.

  Berganza: What can I tell you, brother Scipio, of what I saw in that slaughterhouse, and of the outrages that take place there? First you have to understand that everybody working in it, from the lowliest to the top of the heap, are people of little conscience and less soul, merciless, fearing neither king nor justice—and most of them are living in sin. They’re like buzzards, supporting themselves and their mates on whatever they can steal. Every morning on meat days, all these toughs and their molls show up before dawn, each carrying bags that arrive empty but go home heavy with chunks of meat, and the maids tote away organ meats and sirloins of pork. Nobody kills anything there without these people carrying off the choicest gobbets first. Since in Seville there’s no meat inspector, everybody can grab whatever cut they please of the freshest and the best, and there’s always plenty to go around.

  Their masters defer to these worthies, not to stop them from stealing—which would be impossible—but just in hopes that they might cut back on the pilfering and gouging of carcasses, which they carve and prune as if they were topiary. But nothing amazed or disgusted me more than how these butchers kill a man as easily as you would a cow. In an instant, two or three of them plunge their horn-handled dirks into someone’s belly as if they were goring a steer. Hardly a day goes by without fights, or blood, or even a death. Everyone prides himself on his bravery and outlaw flair. Each has his guardian angel in the courthouse at St. Francis Square, paid for with beef tongues and pork roasts. In short, I once heard a clever man say that the king needed three districts to carry Seville: the game market, the fish market, and the slaughterhouse.

  Scipio: Friend Berganza, if you insist on running down every last particular of the masters you’ve had, and all the shortcomings of their trades, we’ll have to petition heaven to let us keep talking for a year. Even then, at the rate you’re going, you won’t tell even half your story. And I’d like to warn you about one thing, which you’ll appreciate when I tell you the events of my life: some stories are enough by themselves, and their wit lies in the story itself. With others, it’s all in the telling. I’m here to tell you, some can entertain without any throat-clearing or wordy frills. But others you have to dress up in words, to make something out of nothing with eye-rolling and gestures and whispers. That way, even a dull, thin, depressing story can become piquant and juicy. Don’t forget this, and take advantage of it from here on in.

  Berganza: I will if I can, so long as you humor this great impulse I have to talk. I get the feeling I’m going to have my hands full just holding back the floodgates.

  Scipio: Just watch your mouth, because that’s where the worst of man’s woes begin.

  Berganza: Anyway, as I was saying, my master taught me to carry a basket in my mouth and guard against anyone trying to take it from me. He also showed me his girlfriend’s house—that way, her maidservant wouldn’t have to visit the abattoir—so I could bring to her at dawn what he’d filched during the night. One morning at daybreak, when I was dutifully bringing her portion, I heard someone call my name from a window. I lifted my eyes and saw an exceedingly pretty girl. She motioned for me to wait, came down to the street door, and called to me again. I approached her to see what she wanted, namely to leave the treasures of the basket and put an old moccasin in their place. “Sweets to the sweet,” I said to myself. After hel
ping herself to the meat, she said to me, “Get along, Gavilan, or whatever you call yourself, and you tell your master Nicky Flatnose never to trust an animal. From the wolf’s mane, trust only a hair—and even that, only when he’s dead.” I would’ve reclaimed what she took, but I didn’t want to sully those clean white hands with my dirty, bloodstained mouth.

  Scipio: That’s what I like to hear. Beauty—there’s no arguing with it.

  Berganza: And I didn’t. I went back to my master without the morsels, but with the moccasin instead. At first he just thought I’d made good time, but then he saw the shoe, got the joke, pulled out one of his shivs and went for me. If I hadn’t ducked, you wouldn’t be hearing this story—let alone the many others I plan to tell you. I made tracks and, taking to the road behind the San Bernardo district and through the fields, I struck out for any country where fate cared to carry me.

  That night I slept under the open sky, but the next day fortune sent a flock of sheep my way. The minute I saw them, I knew I’d found my station in life, for it’s the proper and natural chore of dogs to guard livestock—a duty that bespeaks great virtue, because it shelters and protects the meek and defenseless from the high and mighty. I had hardly seen one of the three shepherds guarding these animals when he called to me, saying “Here, boy! Come here!”

  I, who wanted nothing else, went up to him with head down and tail wagging. He patted my flank, opened my mouth, felt around in it, looked at my teeth, estimated my age, and told the other shepherds that I had all the signs of pedigree. That’s when the rancher rode up on a sorrel horse with short stirrups, carrying a lance and shield. “What dog is this,” he asked the shepherd, “who looks so sharp?”