Many years ago, after I retired from the bank, James brought a small terrier to our apartment in Paris. I told him I did not want it. I knew he was trying to keep me occupied, and it is a ridiculous thing, to have a dog. Maybe one day you rise from bed and say, “I would like to pick up five thousand pieces of shit.” Well, then, I have just the thing for you. And for a man to have a small dog—it makes you a fool.
“Please,” James said. “Let’s just see how it goes.”
I considered the dog, a blond female no bigger than a cat. She had long hair like whiskers over her eyes, so she seemed always to be raising her eyebrows. She sat down, as if she knew that would help her case. James is English and wanted to call her Cordelia, not for “Lear” but for an English novel. It was not the name I would have chosen, but it was not worth the argument. He did a ringmaster act with some toys—a knot of cloth, a ball, a round bed—to show me how good this would be. I had long associated terriers with the barking arts, but this one did not bark. She sniffed at the toys and the bed, waiting for my decision.
The next day James was gone to Brazil or Argentina, leaving me with the dog. He had an import business, and was often away. I think Cordelia had already guessed that he was not a sure thing, and she looked at me for our next move.
I took her outside to do her business. She was not allowed to go in the impasse, where the cars park and the concierge is always watching, so we went out through the gate to the street. We walked around Paris. We went to the Bois de Boulogne, and there a hawk circled, eying Cordelia like a snack.
“Don’t even think of it,” I told this hawk.
People spoke to me who would not have before, and they wanted to pet Cordelia, who let them. When we arrived home, Desi was there to make lunch, and she cried out and dropped to her knees to rub the ears of the dog. Desi is from Indonesia, very proper, and she had worked for me for many years, but I had never seen such a display. Cordelia licked her face in greeting, and Desi laughed. Then I sat to read the paper, and Cordelia curled herself into my lap.
At first I believed that the appearance of love from a dog is only a strategy, to win protection. Cordelia chose me because I was the one to feed her and to chase away the hawks and the wolves. But after a time we crossed over a line, Cordelia and I. We went out each day to chase the pigeons and smell the piss of other dogs on the trees, and we came home to read the paper. The look with the eyebrows was sometimes skeptical about my actions, and sometimes a question that I understood. There were no arguments except silent ones—I do not want to go there on the leash—and these could be easily solved. Her hair needed to be cut, so I found a woman to do it, who tied pink ribbons over Cordelia’s ears. She hated these ribbons. You could see she was ashamed. I told the groomer no more—she is too dignified for this. And, if she feels shame, then why not other emotions? A creature’s eyes are on you all the time, or the warm body is next to you. There is an understanding. And I think this becomes something like love.
I am older now than I thought possible. I did not believe I would ever be this ancient person. The doctor says I should have no wine at lunch, for my heart. But if you cannot have a little wine with your lunch, there is no life. If you are as old as I am, you believed a German would shoot you in the head before you were old enough to have sex with another human being. Everything beyond that becomes extra. The things people do to live long—drinking so much water, running up and down to ruin the knees—this is what the doctor should warn about.
James is young, far younger than I. When you are the older man, you can be equal, for a time. He has youth and beauty, but you have money and experience. You know many people, and you can take him to Portofino, to Biarritz, to Capri. It is an old story.
But the years go by, and your doctor is concerned for your heart. Your joints are not so good. You don’t want to look in the mirror when you go to take a bath. And the man you love is still strong and young, more or less. He travels a great deal. He is away more often. The dog knew the first time she saw him: he was not the one to rely on.
My ex-wife, Simone, comes for lunch sometimes, and we talk of our sons, who are long grown and have children of their own. One lives in New York and the other in Zurich—they are both in the banking. They know James, of course, but they do not like him. There is no reason they would. They are serious men, and James is not. Their children, my grandchildren, are charmed by him. They consider James an uncle. He is the correct age, and he is willing to play with them in a way adults are not. And Simone accepts him, which is in some ways a remarkable thing.
Simone looks as she always did, although she says this is only because I never saw her, not really. But I do: she is an elegant woman, all angles, gold bracelets on thin, tan wrists. And she understands what it is to be old, which is a comfort. After she leaves, Desi clears away the lunch dishes, and I take Cordelia out for a walk.
There came a point when I realized that James was in Paris only when there was an important party. Every person has one great gift, and James is unequalled at an important party. He is good-looking, of course, with the well-cut brown hair and the trim body and the bespoke suit. He has a brilliant smile, very warm and interested and sincere, and when he talks to people they feel special. He has many other abilities, but this one above all. They want to do business with him because of this attention. He is never looking over the shoulder to see who else is at the party. Who he is talking to, this person gets everything.
But then we go home, and the attention goes off like a light. He does not give me the warm and interested smile. He says a thing or two about the party, in the French he speaks like an Englishman but very well. He looks at his phone, swiping with his thumb. He takes his expensive clothes off carelessly, leaves them on the furniture like a child. He has had money always, and good looks, and was his mother’s darling. He says Desi will pick up the clothes, although I tell him this is not her job. He says of course it is, what else is her job? He is careful only with his shoes. He puts them on wooden shoetrees in the closet, then goes into the bathroom and closes the door.
I think of the first boy I loved, two lifetimes ago. He came to my family’s house, and I ran inside from playing and saw him standing with his mother. He had a light behind his eyes and a crown of silken curls. He was like someone standing in the sun, even in the dim, cool room. I was still very young, and it was a shock, because it was the first time I knew who I was. He was older than I, and he understood also—I could see that.
Then came the war, and the people fleeing Paris, and the Germans in the city. I was sent to England to live with some cousins, and I did not know what happened to this boy. He stayed behind. When I discovered him again, in a night club after the war, he did not like to talk about those years. The beauty that could help him in another time was not so useful during the Occupation. The Germans would be happy to kill him, or to send him to build their bunkers, which would be the same, and I do not know how he escaped. He said he tried to help the Maquis, but the people he knew did not want him. He did not seem strong, or robust. He was not a saboteur. Perhaps he could get information, but they did not trust how he would do it.
He was arrested at the end of the war, when the Germans were in a panic, and they simply left him in prison with no food. When I saw him in the night club he had the tuberculose from this prison, but he was still extraordinarily handsome. He seemed very pitiful to me, and very desirable.
My older brother had his own flat then, to be independent, but I still lived in the family house. This boy came to visit me when my parents were away. I knew my father would not approve, but it was exciting. I remembered the way the boy had lit up the old carpets, the paintings, the dust floating in the air.
One night, the boy and I were eating dinner at one end of the long table in my family house—he was always hungry—when he began to cough. The sound was wet and terrible, and the coughing did not stop. There was blood on the napkin, and his face was purple around the eyes, and then something went very wrong. There was so much blood, and he was coughing, dying, there on the dining-room floor. I didn’t know what to do, how to stop this hemorrhage. I thought, He will open his eyes in a minute, he will smile, he will wipe his mouth and say, “No, no, do not worry. I am fine.” But it did not happen. I heard a roaring like the sea in my ears. My hands were shaking.
I telephoned the doctor and my brother, and they came. My brother was furious, concerned only with the scandal of this disreputable night-club boy dying in our family house. “You should have put him in a bathtub,” he said. “For the blood.”
I stared at him. When was I to carry him upstairs? There would be blood everywhere if I did this.
The doctor was kinder, more practical. He asked if there would be semen on the body, or inside it. I was shocked by the question, but I said no. It was the truth. He said this would make it easier. He asked me to help carry the boy to his car, and I lifted the shoulders. The doctor took the legs. He weighed so little. The head dropped back—the pale face, the bruised eyes—and I could not look, I was filled with horror. The doctor took him away in his car to the morgue and said I was never to speak of it. N’en parlons plus jamais. And, you see, still I find I do not want to say his name.
The housekeeper would arrive in the morning, so my brother helped me clean. I moved very slowly, my arms and legs frozen, while my brother gave me orders. I ran cold water on the napkins and towels in the sink, for the blood. I knew I could never repay what the doctor had done. I also knew that my brother would now have the moral advantage over me for the rest of my life. That is what I thought with my hands in the cold pink water, feeling sorry for myself, when it was the boy I loved who was dead.
Within the year, I met Simone. She was very appropriate, with a good family, the most graceful lines in a dress. She was in every way correct, and I must have proposed, because there was an engagement, a great announcement. I had never seen my father so happy. My mother was not so sure, but we had no way of discussing this at that time. There was the momentum of the approaching wedding—it was like climbing into an enormous car without brakes. The party, all the people watching, the flowers and the caterers. In front of everyone I knew, I put my grandmother’s ring on Simone’s elegant hand and made promises that I could not keep.
Cordelia sleeps on our bed, in the wide gulf between James and me. But she is old now, like me, and she gets down and pees on the rug. I go for the bottle of Perrier, the towel. Then she pees in the hall. James is still asleep, so I clean the hall floor and leave the bottle there. I put on my clothes quietly, and I take the dog outside.
Cordelia starts to go in the impasse, which she knows is not allowed. The concierge will come out, the neighbors will complain, it will be a whole issue. I speak to Cordelia, I pull on her leash, but she does not want to move. I pull harder. Finally she follows, very slowly. I could pick her up, but she needs to walk, just a little. This is the important thing, not to stop moving.
On the pavement outside the gate, she stands and seems to think about something far away. Her eyes are cloudy. She does not do a shit. She makes a strange sound and falls over. Her feet go up in the air, like a dead dog in a cartoon.
Here I become not so dignified. I fall down on my knees on the pavement and put my hands on Cordelia’s chest. I feel no heartbeat, and I try to remember the rules. Two fingers for babies, or you break the ribs. Cordelia is about this size. I put my two fingers on her chest and start to push. I think about the heartbeat—how fast? My own heart is pounding in my ears, too fast, but Cordelia is small. Perhaps the rhythm is right. I press down with each loud pulse in my head.
People walk around me on the street. I can feel them stare. A few speak: they ask can they help, should they call an ambulance. I only feel for the pulse. I think, absurdly, of the boy coughing and dying on my floor, in another time. I could not press on his chest because the blood was coming from his lungs, and everything had broken loose. I did not know what to do.
Now I press and press. My knees ache, and I think there is broken glass on the pavement, cutting into my skin, but it is only sand and grit. Minutes go by, and more minutes. My arms tremble. I count the times I push, and then stop counting. I wonder if I have broken Cordelia’s ribs. Someone told me once that this pressing does not work without the truc machin—the paddles to the heart. I think if I could open the bony chest I could hold the heart in my hand and squeeze it until it began to beat again.
Maybe someone should call an ambulance. But what would the driver say, arriving to see me with an old dog? Do they have this service for animals? I have no feeling in my hand.
“Il est mort,” a helpful person says, standing over me. A young man this time.
“Elle,” I say. The dog has her feet in the air. The world can see she is not a male. Do the young know nothing? But when I look at her I think he is right—she is dead.
“Ouais, bien, elle est morte,” the young man says. And then he is gone.
I continue to press. I look at my watch, but I do not know what time we came outside.
And then Cordelia coughs. She opens her cloudy eyes. She seems to feel the indignity of her position, and she wriggles until her legs are under her. She coughs again, and shakes her head. She raises her eyebrows, as if to say how ridiculous we are, sitting in the street. What am I thinking, to make her so foolish? I struggle to my feet and pick her up, ignoring the people who stare. I carry her into the impasse. I can feel her heart beating against my arm. We take the tiny elevator—I have no strength for the stairs. In the faded bronze mirror, I have never looked so old.
In the apartment, James is awake, holding the Perrier bottle, in a white cotton dressing gown that Desi has ironed. He rubs his face, runs his fingers in his hair. “I didn’t know where you were,” he says.
“Outside.” My voice is hoarse.
“Another accident?” The green bottle is bright against the white cotton.
“The dog is killing me,” I say, and I hand Cordelia into his arms. “She was dead. Now she’s not.”
“Dead?” he says.
But I have no explaining left in me. My legs will not hold me up. “I’m going to bed.” I go into the bedroom, take off my clothes, step around the piss on the rug, and climb beneath the covers. Then I hear a scratching at the door, which opens, and small footsteps. Cordelia climbs the little carpeted steps at the end of the bed, which James bought when she couldn’t jump up anymore—there is still tenderness in him—and I feel the small body curl beside me. We sleep.
James calls the vet, and we take the dog together. The vet says Cordelia is mostly blind, and deaf, and demented. But she wags her tail, she eats some food. She puts on a good show, for the vet.
James asks the doctor, in many different ways, if Cordelia’s quality of life is not diminished. This is a code, a hint. He wants the vet to say maybe it is time to kill the dog. I find this more upsetting than I should. But the vet is cheerful and will not say the words. He pretends not to understand. He calls the dog Madame Lazarus and says it is a miracle, she has returned from the dead. Cordelia licks my hand as we drive home: a steady, appreciative lick. She knows.
The next morning, James leaves again, for Amsterdam, Dubai, I don’t know. Somewhere is a schedule. Desi comes to clean and make lunch, and I tell her what happened. We study the dog together. Cordelia wags her tail at us, she eats. But she cannot turn her head to the right anymore, only to the left. She turns her whole body in a circle when she wants to look right. No one asks how Lazarus felt after he came out of the tomb. Maybe it was not so good. Maybe he fell over and died again as soon as the people were not watching.
Desi goes to work on the spot on the rug, and I think of the morning after the doctor took the boy away, when the housekeeper found that I had washed some napkins and towels. She was French, her gray hair in a tight knot. It was not normal for me to wash anything. She frowned down at the place where the carpet was wet and a little pink, and I told her I had spilled the soup. She looked at me in the steady way of a maîtresse in school. And then she went back to her work, and said nothing.
Sometimes Cordelia takes her small steps into an empty room and stands there, staring. I follow to see what she sees: the furniture, the pictures on the walls. But can she see them? She is listening, maybe, for James’s voice. She stands there a long time, waiting for something that does not come.
I begin to carry her up and down the stairs and out to the street. Sometimes, after pissing on the rug, she cannot do it outside. I know this feeling, so I squeeze her to help, while people pass by. A river comes out. I carry her a bit so she can smell the air, and I think, My God, what comes next?
What comes next is a morning, three months later, when Cordelia does not get out of bed. I carry her to the street, but she cannot stand up. She does not wag her tail. She does not eat. I call James on his mobile in some other country. He sounds busy at first, but then he is listening, paying attention. The tenderness is there. He says, “Chéri, maybe it’s time.”
I wait for Desi to arrive. We speak English together, because she does not speak so much French, after so many years. Enough to shop and to eat. She lives with other Indonesians, it is not necessary. “Come with me to the vet,” I say.
Desi’s eyes slide away from me, and I see she does not want to go, but then she collects her bag. I carry Cordelia, and we find a taxi. I cannot drive and hold the dog also, and Desi does not drive. The taxi-driver talks on his mobile, the radio is low—all in Arabic. Desi sits with her hands folded on her bag. Cordelia is very still in my lap.
I think about seeing that boy the first time, when I was only a child, before everything happened. The crown of hair, the dazzling eyes, the bolt of understanding. N’en parlons plus jamais.
At the vet’s office, I ask Desi to come to the back with me, but she shakes her head. She will wait.
The vet greets Cordelia, cheerful as before. “Madame Lazarus!” he says. But I do not want more jokes. I put her on the table. The doctor examines her. I press my hands together to stop the shaking. I feel a skip in my heart and think of the wine I will have at lunch.
“Ah, Cordelia,” the doctor says, stroking her. “Tu n’es pas immortelle, après tout.”
Cordelia looks for the source of the touch, with her cloudy eyes.
The doctor says it might be time. He says all the lines James suggested to him before, about the diminishing quality of life. I ask him to wait a moment. I go out to the waiting room, where Desi is sitting with a girl with purple hair and a small diamond in her nose. A big sheepdog lies at the girl’s feet. It lifts its heavy head to look at me, to see if I am a threat.
“Desi,” I say. “The vet says it’s time. Will you come in?”
Desi shakes her head, tears in her eyes. “I can’t,” she whispers. “I can’t see it.”
“Don’t make her,” the purple-haired girl says. She has a German accent. “It’s terrible. I was here two months ago, with my old dog, and I cried for a week after.”
I look at the German girl, whose business it is not. She is strong, a little heavy in the hips. I am the age of her grandfather. I do not want to talk about her dog, killed in this doctor’s office.
I turn back to Desi. “Please come in,” I say.
But Desi says no. She has cooked my food, cleaned my house, picked up after James for so many years I cannot count. Her job is to do as I ask, but she will not do this. “I can’t,” she says, and she is pleading.
So I go back alone to the room where Cordelia is on the table. Her eyes look at nothing. James was right to bring her home, to give me something to take care of.
“You look terrible,” the vet tells me. “Sit down.”
The nurse brings me a glass of water and says something comforting.
I think of James, our long life together, his shoetrees in the closet, his clothes on the floor. The dog is the last string to tie him to me, and now—snip. Soon I will start walking into the bedroom, staring at nothing, listening for voices that are not there.
“It’s your decision,” the vet says.
I nod.
“You can hold her,” the nurse says, and she puts Cordelia into my arms. Then she puts a pad on my leg like a diaper, beneath the dog, and I think, This will be bad.
Cordelia sniffs my hand, licks it once, and I am no longer sure about the quality of her life. She can still smell the world, she can still love. But then I remember the morning. Her legs not holding her up. I wish for a wild moment that I had brought Simone with me, my loyal wife, but she has never liked dogs. Allergique. The doctor is working—he ties a tourniquet on Cordelia’s leg, and then he prepares a needle. I think he will miss, he will jab it in my arm. But he doesn’t, he slips it into her thin leg where I can’t imagine there is a vein.
Cordelia looks around the room for something. We have to wait some minutes for the tranquillizer to work. I feel her pulse in her throat and think again that this is a mistake. Three months ago, I got on my knees to push blood through this small body, and now I am letting the doctor kill her. She closes her eyes, and I think I will tell him this is wrong, but he is already there with another needle, another injection. Cordelia flinches, she makes a little sigh. Then her head sinks, and her chin is on my hand, her throat soft. The white pad on my leg becomes heavy—she has gone in the wrong place one more time. The doctor takes her from me, and the nurse puts her hand on my shoulder.
Out in the waiting room, the German girl has her arm around Desi, and the two of them are crying. The sheepdog’s head is on the girl’s knee. Desi looks at me, her eyes wet and swollen, and I wonder, for the first time, if Cordelia will be the last string for Desi, also. She could find a new job and start again. She might find children to care for, to delight her as Cordelia did. It would be more interesting than an old man.
I reach into my pocket for my wallet, but the receptionist shakes her head, makes a little gesture of sympathy. This is something, at least. They do not make you pay.
If we lived in the country, we could wrap Cordelia in a blanket and bury her, but we have nowhere, so we leave her with the vet. My arms feel empty. Outside, we wait for a taxi. I see an old man walking down the street, bent almost in half, even older than I. He would have been a young man during the war, but old enough to fight or to work or to run. I think I need something to carry. My mind is confused. I have just killed my dog. A taxi pulls up to the curb.
I turn to Desi, who is blowing her nose, looking at something in the street. Her black hair has some gray now. I never see her outside, in the sunlight. Her bag, bright yellow, hangs on her arm.
“Don’t leave me,” I say.
Desi looks up, surprised. Her eyes are red. The taxi is waiting, impatient. I think I will say everything now, I will speak of everything. There is not so much time.
“Please don’t leave,” I say. ♦
