A Dog Called Perth Read online

  “Your dog bit me. As soon as you were out of sight, she twisted to get free and when I gripped her more firmly she turned round and took a chunk out of my nose, fast as lightning.”

  “Oh, no. Is it bad? Does it hurt? I’m truly sorry, Jim. This is awful.”

  “For a moment I didn’t know what had happened. It was a neat bit of work, very clinical. It didn’t hurt. I saw the blood and let her go. I exaggerated, it’s not that serious, but noses bleed a lot. She really wanted to go after you, I’ll tell you that.”

  “She’s never bitten anyone before,” I said weakly. I could see there were two neat little tooth marks on either side of the bridge of his nose. “Can I do anything for you, Jim?” I added anxiously.

  “Never mind, it’s just two little punctures. She didn’t intend to eat me up, just wanted to send me a message. Anyway, she doesn’t have rabies, does she?”

  Those were days before suing even your best friends became a national pastime. Jim was polite and unconcerned. I, on the other hand, felt sick.

  He consoled me. “Come in and have a Coke and let’s forget about it. That’s some dog. Really attached to you. She really looks sweet until you try to make her do something she doesn’t want to do. If I were you, I’d warn people not to put their noses close to her head.”

  Cindy worried. That night she said, “This is a problem. We can’t have her biting our friends. How can we remember to tell all our guests, the moment they step through our front door, not to put their heads close to her?”

  “It’s just that she doesn’t like it here. She’s bound to get used to it. We’ve known from the beginning she’s not an average kind of dog. We’ll have to be careful, that’s all.”

  Very troubled, we eventually went off to sleep, with Perth as usual sleeping on the end of our bed. But she continued to snap at people in Ohio, though only twice more making contact with noses. “No, don’t put your head down to her,” I shouted frantically as a colleague named Jerry one day recklessly rushed over to where she lay in an armchair and lowered his head toward her. It was too late. Frighteningly fast, Perth grazed his prominent nose with her teeth, immediately drawing some blood. I heard it, not saw it. He was good-natured about it, but the poor man left in some agitation.

  We didn’t have much time to worry more about Perth, because the following Monday morning a tragedy struck. Cindy left for work preoccupied with the especially heavy day she had ahead of her, so she was not concentrating entirely on her driving. About five miles from home, on one of the winding farmland back roads she used as a shortcut, she allowed the car to drift into the lane of oncoming traffic as she swept around a bend. At that time of the morning on those narrow, quiet roads, there was hardly any traffic, but at exactly that moment a car rushed toward her around the bend. They collided. Fortunately it was not a head-on collision, but it was very close to it.

  I was in the kitchen at home talking to Perth when a policeman rang the doorbell. Perth howled wildly as she did whenever anyone rang the bell.

  “Are you Peter Martin, husband of Cindy Martin?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll have to come with me to the hospital,” he said coldly. “Your wife has had a car accident.”

  Perth was standing next to me when the policeman said this, and immediately she stopped wagging her tail. A horrible chill ran through me, and for a few moments I said nothing. It was a feeling of desperation such as I would never care to have again. I feared the worst, imagining that our world had suddenly collapsed, and along with it all our plans and dreams.

  “Someone hit her?” was all I could manage.

  “I’ll tell you the details on our way. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”

  “Stay here, Perth.” Perth understood the tone of that command and sat quietly as I left. She waited all day.

  The policeman asked several questions on the way, but I was afraid to ask him any. Instead, I prayed. I am religious, and especially at times like this I always feel that God is close to us. We walked into the hospital. The smells there instantly worried me. I had been in a hospital only once before. It seemed an alien place, cold and metallic. I was directed down a corridor and was halfway down it when a door opened and Cindy was wheeled out on her way to the operating room. She was fully conscious and, typically, was grinning broadly, which looked incongruous with the cuts on her lovely features. I could not hide the pained look on my face.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” she said, “it’s just a broken leg. They’re going to operate on the leg now. It doesn’t hurt. And all my face needs is a minor stitch or two.”

  Holding her hand, all I could say was, “See you soon. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” They had started down the corridor with her when she added, “Where’s Perth?”

  “She’s fine, at home. She was very quiet when I left. She seemed to know something was amiss.”

  Cindy smiled, and they continued on with her toward the operating room.

  An hour later a nurse told me they had decided to delay the operation for a few weeks. But they had fixed up Cindy’s cuts. “Go home now,” she said to me, “she’s asleep. Come back around dinnertime.”

  Frank Jordan, our best new friend in the English de-partment, a gracious bachelor from North Carolina, had by then joined me in the hospital.

  “Come and have lunch with me, Peter, and we’ll talk,” he said. “You need to be with someone.”

  “Thanks, Frank, but I can’t. I really should be with Perth.” I felt it would do me the most good to be with her.

  “Well then, have dinner with me this evening.” I agreed and drove home.

  Perth was quietly waiting for me. I hugged her on the grass, for a long time. She knew something was dreadfully wrong. She could tell. This was not the first time I had sought consolation and comfort from her in this way. In Cazenovia, whenever my writing was giving me trouble or when I was worried about our future, or even if there were smaller problems, I let her know what was troubling me. People who have never had relationships like this with dogs may think this kind of behavior in a grown man is sentimental and childish nonsense. I myself may have thought so before I found Perth, because all the dogs in my family while I was growing up were mere pets to me, to cuddle, take for walks, feed and pat on the head. Perth, on the other hand, had become a saving grace, friend and comforter—and never more than at this moment. She was hugely reassuring. She took me out of myself. Instinctively, on some mysterious level of understanding and communication, she knew what she was doing.

  After a long walk with her in the afternoon by the pigs and corn, dreaming of better days in Cazenovia, I took her with me to Frank’s house. I could not bear to leave her behind. It was early and Frank was not yet home, so I hurriedly left her alone in his house before walking over to the hospital. I found Cindy’s room and peeked in. Her leg was suspended high in some complicated apparatus. I decided to be light-hearted at all costs.

  She was jubilant when she saw me. “Oh, come in, I’ve been longing to see you. Where’ve you been?”

  “Well, you’re still in one piece, I see, even if you’re in an odd shape. They told me not to come before now. Are you in any pain?”

  “None at all. I’ll have to stay in traction for three weeks, though, before they can operate on my leg. I don’t know if I can take that. I’ll go crazy!”

  I was shocked, but sitting down and taking her hand, I said gently, “They have ways of making you comfortable, don’t worry. And think of all the reading you’ll get done—the time will pass quickly, you wait and see.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears. We talked for some minutes more and then she asked, “How’s Perth?”

  “As a matter of fact, she’s only a couple of blocks from here. Frank invited me to dinner and I brought her along. I couldn’t leave her, not tonight. She misses you. We took a long walk together this afternoon.”

  “I wish I could see her.”

  I suddenly had an une
asy feeling as I thought of Perth in Frank’s house, without Frank there. Perhaps I should have left her outside. But surely she would never damage the inside of someone else’s house. If she did escape from the house somehow, where would she go?

  “Peter, what’s the matter?”

  “I think I’d better do a quick check on Perth. I keep hearing in my mind the tearing of wood and the muffled sound of billowing chair stuffing.” I had another ghastly thought as I remembered Frank’s antique Persian carpets. “I’ll be right back.”

  “But I’ve got so much I want to tell you. Can’t Perth wait?”

  “I don’t think so. Really, I’ll be back in a flash.”

  I kissed her and walked toward the door, but before I reached it Perth trotted in, her little nails clicking delicately on the tiled floor, her tail wagging wildly, her head jauntily held up, as if she were thinking, “I can get in wherever I want.” We both saw her at the same moment. I was speechless with amazement.

  “Perth!” Cindy shouted. “My little doggie. Come here, come here, you precious, naughty hound.”

  Perth made for her like a shot. She did not bark or howl. Landing on the bed, this time with a sense of occasion she gave Cindy three or four licks.

  I was torn between delight and guilt. To have Perth on Cindy’s bed was therapy that the doctor could never prescribe. It was richer medicine than he had in his bag of tricks. But dogs were not supposed to be in hospitals. The nurses would attack me if they found her here. Where were the nurses?

  “How did she get in here? We’re on the third floor, for heaven’s sake! How did she find us?”

  She had jumped out of one of Frank’s open windows, I later found out, and apparently followed my scent to the hospital. The sliding entrance doors were open on nice days, so she slipped in unseen and followed the scent by the reception desk, up two flights of stairs, by the nurses’ desk in Cindy’s ward, down the corridor, and into the room. Since nobody followed her in, it seemed nobody saw her.

  I locked the door and relaxed in the general merriment. Cindy’s color returned and her spirits soared. She had a kind of healing at that moment.

  Fifteen uninterrupted minutes of undiluted joy passed and then we had to plan Perth’s escape. There was no container to put her in, so after Cindy gave her a few last hugs, I wrapped her in a blue hospital blanket and walked out into the corridor as nonchalantly as I could holding the bundle under my arm. I had to walk by the nurses’ desk.

  “Got to go now,” I said to one of them at the desk, smiling. “I’ll be back at eight.”

  “Not so fast, Dr. Martin, I need you to sign a form, please.”

  “Could I do it this evening? I’m rather in a rush now.”

  “It’ll only take a minute. It has to be done before I go off duty.”

  The only thing I could think of was the toilet.

  “Well, may I go in there first?” I motioned to the men’s room.

  She nodded. I took Perth inside one of the toilet stalls and uncovered her.

  “You must stay here, Perth, for two minutes, without speaking,” I said with some feeling. “If you don’t, your goose is cooked, and so is mine. And you won’t be able to see your mistress here anymore. Stay here, do you understand?”

  Knowingly, she looked at me, perfectly still. I walked out to the desk and signed the papers.

  “Thank you very much,” said the nurse, looking straight at me searchingly.

  “Oh, wouldn’t you know it,” I replied, looking at the men’s room, “I forgot my blanket in there.”

  I walked back in. Perth was still waiting quietly in the stall. I wrapped her up again and walked out, not daring to look at the nurse. I didn’t release Perth from the blanket until I was around the corner, out of sight of the hospital entrance. She ran the rest of the way straight to Frank’s house; I walked slowly after.

  A few hours later at home, depression got the better of me. Perth had lifted our spirits in this crisis like nothing or nobody else could have, but I felt the shock and tension of the day. Not yet two months into our new lives and jobs and this had to happen. Cazenovia seemed a lifetime away, an irrecoverable idyll.

  Friends and family rallied round us in the following days and weeks. My brother even flew his plane down from Chicago to see us. Cindy had one or two teeth repaired so that she was as presentable as ever, and she entertained a steady stream of visitors from the university. I eased into a new routine of teaching, cooking and visiting the hospital for a few hours in the late afternoon and evening. For the first time since my marriage I was spending nights without my wife and I did not like it.

  Our car had been destroyed beyond repair, so I bought a motor scooter to get to the college. I had meant to do that anyway, before the accident. On the first morning I used it, I arrived at eight o’clock, taught two classes, talked to a few students in my office, and was about to leave to go and see Cindy when Frank popped his head into my office.

  “How did you manage to juggle Perth here on your scooter?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Perth is outside, by your scooter, waiting for you.”

  “She can’t be,” I shouted, jumping up from my chair. “I didn’t bring her here. It’s two miles here from home and she doesn’t know the way.” Or does she? I thought to myself. “Besides, scooters surely can’t leave enough of a scent for a dog to follow. It must be somebody else’s dog who just happens to be sitting next to my scooter.”

  Frank was amused. “Come on, I know what she looks like. It’s Perth. I can see it now—you’ll never be able to hide from her. She’ll track you to the ends of the earth.” We hurried outside and there she was, sitting demurely in the bright October sunshine, very correctly, very patiently, not drawing any attention, looking closely at everyone who passed by. She was beautiful, with snow-white paws and chest, elegant head, and the deepest brown and black playing over the rest of her body. Recognizing me immediately, although there was a crowd of people around the door, she trotted over. I bent down, grabbed her shoulders and lifted her up onto her back legs, resting my forehead against hers and staring into her eyes. I loved doing that. She looked back into my eyes, deeply.

  “How did you find me, you hound? You’ve never been here before. This won’t do, Perth, you really mustn’t track me down everywhere.”

  She barked twice and walked around the scooter triumphantly. I sat down on the scooter with her on my lap, and holding her with my left arm I started the engine and drove off across campus toward home, a fairly eccentric sight not unnoticed by several of my students. It was not the last time I had to take her home like that.

  As it turned out, Perth played a large part in my visits to the hospital. I reasoned that if I could smuggle her out of the hospital, I should be able to smuggle her in. All I needed was her cooperation. I first tried a spacious duffel bag with large handles, the kind professional tennis players use. She barely fit into it.

  “My dogge,” Cindy exclaimed, when I pulled Perth out of the bag in her room, taking her in her arms. Instead of “doggie,” we had taken sometimes to calling her “dogge” in the style of medieval English, which I had been teaching my students—pronounced as if the final “e” were an “a.” I also called Cindy “wyfe,” again with the “a” ending; and she called me “housbounde.” It may sound nutty to others, but to us it was preferable to names such as “babe,” “jewel,” “sweetheart,” and “precious.”

  “Ah, she smells great, she even has the groggy-doggie smell. I wish I could keep her here to cover up all these hospital smells. The bag’s a great idea.”

  “It won’t work again. It’s too small. She began to whine by the desk out there.”

  Perth had stretched out on the bed, pressing herself next to her mistress’s good leg and looking in a puzzled way at the strange apparatus suspending the broken leg.

  “Won’t the blanket work?”

  “I can’t very well keep bringing in a blanket under my arm. Besides,
I’m afraid she’ll move her head.”

  “Or her tail. Well, it’s beautiful being all together. I look forward to it so much.” We could hear lawnmowers at work outside, and the sounds of children playing in a nearby garden. Everything out there was going on normally.

  “How are you coping?” I asked her. “Are you sore?”

  “Mainly restless. If it weren’t for the reading I do, I’d go crazy. Television is useless during the day, and even for much of the night. The nurses massage me and help in all kinds of ways. They are so sweet—they’d do anything to make my life easier.”

  I tried other ways of smuggling Perth. One that did not work was to strap her to my stomach and wear a large jacket to conceal her. The problem with this was that I could not keep her from slipping down. Eventually, I reverted to the blanket. Nobody seemed to notice or questioned anything, so I stayed with it for the last two weeks.

  The operation, when it came, was a success, and a few days after that Cindy was released, four weeks after the accident. On the last morning, Frank and a couple of other friends joined us in her room and we celebrated with a few toasts to health and longevity—Frank smuggled the beverage in, although it was nothing scandalous for a hospital room.

  As we walked down the corridor by the desk, Cindy on crutches and I with her suitcase in hand, we paused to thank and say goodbye to the four nurses on duty. Then came the surprise. One nurse, as we were leaving, with a broad smile on her face, piped up rather loudly.

  “Your dog is so well behaved, by the way. I love beagles. Bring her back one of these days so we can all meet her.”

  I stared at her, acutely embarrassed. Cindy lowered her head. All that eventually came out was a feeble, “Okay, we will, yes.” Perth had been a well-kept secret, but it was not just we who had kept it. This had been an example of healing in the hospital, a more powerful agent of healing in this case than all the cold and expensive machinery and apparatus money could buy. It was, in fact, simple, quiet love. The nurses had understood.

  4

  BY THE FOLLOWING MARCH, Cindy was stable enough on her feet to resume teaching. A teaching job had come up in town, so from then on she was able to get to work in less than ten minutes without any more worries about a long drive. The months passed and the summer holidays came. We decided to get away from home for the summer by traveling across the country to southern California, then up to British Columbia, and back to Ohio in time for the beginning of the term in September, camping all the way.