Melodie Read Free Page B

in my embrace. I get up again and go out of the dining room. Already I hear plaintive little whistling noises, and I think I know what they mean: ‘Don’t leave me by myself. Stay here with me.’ The sobbing of this little creature, so abruptly severed from the sacred bond that tied her to the world, persuades me to stay with her.
    I go and get my overcoat, put it on and sit down on the mattress beside her, propping myself against the wall. So she lies down; without the slightest hesitation she puts her head on my lap and immediately drifts off into the deepest of sleeps. As for me, I sleep without sleeping. Waking after a time, aching and stiff, I look at my watch: 3.27am. I feel the discomfort in my neck and buttocks especially. She hasn’t moved an inch. I put my hand on her head. I hear the light snoring of a child who, completely trusting, gives herself up to the deep silence of the night.
    I drop off to sleep again and become submerged in a dream in which a pure-white puppy is racing wildly through a huge forest of bamboo.

5
    FIRST MEAL
    THE MOMENT WE decided to bring a dog into our home, one of Danna’s litter, her name came to us. This was a house of music, imbued with chords and rhythms, and it was only natural that the little dog’s name should chime harmoniously with music.
    She opens her eyes, quite amazed to be there on her mattress. Was she dreaming of being nestled against the soft, wavy white fur of her mother? She gets up and stretches, quivering all over.
    â€˜She’s just woken up’, whispers my daughter.
    I come into the dining room. Our eyes meet, hers revealing how very anxious she is. It’s as if she is asking me a question. A front paw is in the air. With her head tilted to one side, all her attention is focused on me, as if to decipher my expression and my gestures; as if not the slightest of movements will go unnoticed. I would never have imagined that the gaze of a puppy could be as eloquent and interrogating as this.

    I prepare her first meal. A mug of kibble in a pure white bowl. She is sitting there, very well-behaved. How and why has she understood that she is not to leap on her food? I don’t know. In a firm and serious tone I had simply said, ‘No!’ just as she was about to throw herself at her little meal.
    Almost imperceptibly, the anxiety she showed by tilting her head just slightly is there in the impatient look she now gives me. Authoritative, I give her the command ‘
Yoshi!
(Go on!)’.
    She gets lightly to her feet and puts her muzzle right into the heap of kibble. In a couple of minutes it is all gone. She looks at me again as if she wants something else. The schoolgirl, observing the whole scene, makes a suggestion: ‘What about some water?’
    â€˜Yes, good idea.’
    I take a hollow earthenware dish, fill it with water and place it beside the bowl. Her eyes follow my every move. She goes towards the dish and leans over it until she is just brushing the reflecting surface of the water. She sees herself in it, like Narcissus, and is no doubt amazed to see a being that looks like her. She says hello to it, kindly extending her right paw towards the other. The mirror cracks, droplets spatter; she steps back a pace.
    Some moments later a shy little lapping can be heard, a delightful tinkling of water. She gives me a look of contentment. Drops fall from her jaws and sprinkle the floor, beside her wet white paw.

6
    WAITING FOR THE FIRST OUTING
    THE DAYS PASSED . October flew by. November was colder and rainier than in previous years. The maple leaves turned red; those of the cherries turned bright orange; those of the gingko turned yellow. Then they fell one by one, blown away by the north wind. When the first days of December finally came, dry and filled with light, the bare trees were like great statues, standing there with a haughty air, more vigorous than ever; their outspread, muscular branches seemed to assert