Do they shoot dogs in Canada?
(published in the "Nethra" journal in Sri Lanka - 2007)
Shane Joseph

Martin James’s brother Paul was born two days after Easter in 1961. Martin remembered the strange antiseptic smell of the hospital when they visited Mum and the baby; and the smell hovered over the infant even when Paul was brought home, despite the talcum powder and lotions they poured over him. Paul’s arrival saw his parents shift focus from Martin, until then, their only child; they looked distracted, for the baby was colicky at night. They quarrelled – Dad even slept in the spare room as he had to go to work the next day and Mum cried often, as she lulled Paul to sleep and stuck a sucked out breast in the little bugger’s mouth. Martin didn’t like Paul much and couldn’t understand why everyone fussed over him. Even Dad stopped reading Martin his favourite western comics at bedtime. Dad had stopped reading comics altogether – his one pastime. Dad was so busy.

When they took the baby over to Grandma’s for the official “showing” after the Christening, Jess, the mixed Alsatian, had just littered again. Jess’s litter varied, as different dogs crept over the fence to mate during her heat periods. The pups were golden hued this time, and one particularly lively fellow caught Martin’s attention.

“I want to take him home,” Martin cradled the pup and announced firmly to the shrinking pool of aunts and uncles who were cooing and passing Paul around like a rare commodity. Many extended family members who had already emigrated to Australia or Canada would never see Paul, and others in the room but “in process,” would probably see him just this once.

 Dad looked up embarrassed and stared at his older son. “Let’s talk about it later.”

“No, I want him today,” Martin said, barely holding back his tears.

Grandma stepped into the fray. “Oh, let him have one, child. I was going to put those creatures to sleep anyway. Jess is a puppy factory; the pups grow up and come back to mate with her and it goes on and on…”

So, as Mum and Dad coddled Paul in the taxi, Martin petted the little pup in his arms, naming it Goldie before they got home.

Goldie grew up fast. It ran everywhere and followed Martin all the time, at first not quickly enough to keep pace, but catching up by the day. The James’s lived in the Buddhist temple town of Kelaniya, a few miles outside the capital city Colombo. Their home was a townhouse down Perera Gardens, a large estate thick with tropical vegetation. Fifteen rental units occupied the estate: small two and three-bedroom bungalows. The road running through Perera Gardens was sandy and the houses ringed lawns on which large coconut trees spouted. This was Martin’s, and now Goldie’s, stomping ground.

During the dry season. Martin took his bicycle rim out daily, propelling it with a well worn stick lodged into the crevice running through its circumference. He ran through the estate, weaving in and out of the trees. The trick was not to let the rim run away or fall down, despite twigs, cow dung and stones littering the route. With the wind flapping behind him, the familiar confines of the estate were comforting: amused glances from neighbours going about their household chores, smells of curry as he neared kitchens, or of smoke when someone was incinerating garbage. As a six-year old, he could roam about freely and so it didn’t bother him, as it did his parents, to be a Christian in a garden full of non-Christians. This became his and Goldie’s routine for the next six months. During that time, the puppy emerged into an almost full-sized dog and soon it was Martin who had trouble keeping pace.

 Martin ignored Paul and Seetha the ayah, who carried the baby whenever she was through with her housework. Seetha was an “old maid” and had no children of her own. Paul had suddenly become “her child” and at times she would even shoo Martin away from the baby. After all, Martin could never be one of hers, because she had come to work at the James household only last year.

Martin yearned for the long walks his mother would take him on outside the estate before Paul arrived, for the stories she read him on those walks when they would sit under the shade of the coconut grove where the Kelani river skirted the southern end of Perera Gardens. She had been an English teacher briefly, before she married and stayed home to raise the children. Her favourite books were Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey; Martin was captivated by the courage of Hector and Paris, but Odysseus was his real hero – not only was he brave, Odysseus was also cunning. Martin loved to lie back in the grass looking up at the sky in-between the waving coconut fronds and let his mother’s animated voice conjure up scenes of chariots and swordfights and monsters; he even though he heard the yells of men locked in mortal combat, the gush of blood, the sweat of human endeavour. However, Mum could not do any of that any more on account of being busy with the baby. Thus Goldie became Martin’s sole focus, since everyone else had sidelined him.

 One day, when Seetha was out in the garden watering the cannas, keeping an eye on Paul kicking and sucking his rattle on the blanket spread on the lawn, Goldie ambled over, sniffed and drooled on the baby. Seetha dropped the hose and screamed at the dog. She threw a twig at it, at which point Goldie snapped at her viciously. Part of her frustration, Martin realized, was that the dog had been active in the garden recently and had pissed on the plants several times. The ayah kicked out in surprise, spewing her broken English. “Ayyo! What happened this dog? Biting now, hah?”

Martin quickly sprang to Goldie’s aid, fearing Seetha might stone it next, like she had Gunadasa’s dog, when the old widowed accountant watched her bathing at the well in her diyareddah one day. On that occasion, Martin stumbled on her soaping herself slowly and deliberately under the wet cloth, while the accountant grinned by the fence and his dog barked as if in heat. Upon seeing Martin, Seetha quickly dropped her hands, picked up a stone and hurled it at Gunadasa’s dog, shouting, “Para Balla!” while the accountant shuffled off, smiling.

 Now, as Martin pulled Goldie away from Seetha, he sensed the agitation in the animal. It roared and snarled and dribble was thick on its tongue. That night it barked a lot and Dad got up several times shouting “That bloody dog! What the hell has got into it?”

The next morning, Martin found Goldie with a thick ring of foam around its mouth. It had run about the house in the night drooling on everything. Seetha rushed out of the kitchen where she slept on her mat at night, shouting, “Aney – pissu balla!”

“My dog isn’t mad!” Martin protested, but Mum had an alarmed look on her face and locked Paul up in her room. Goldie was tied to the coconut tree by the well in the back garden for the rest of the day, where it howled and frothed even more.

That evening, the neighbours, led by old Gunadasa himself, came in procession to the James house to say that they couldn’t put up with a mad dog in the estate and could the James’s “please do something about it.”

“What the hell do you want me to do, Gune?” Dad yelled. He’d just cycled home from another gruelling day at his job as a clerk in the city, after scouring the shops for a particular brand of powdered milk for Paul, the only kind the infant could digest.

“Must put it to sleep or take to the vet or something, no?” Gunadasa looked at the rest of the sombre looking neighbours who nodded in unison.

“There is no vet in Kelaniya.  I’ll have to take the animal into Colombo. Can you give me a lift in your car?”

“Are you mad, James – with a mad dog inside?”

“Then you’ll have to wait ‘til I have the time to do this. I’ve got other priorities – like finding milk for the baby. There was only one tin available today. This bloody country is going to the dogs with all this import control bullshit.”

“Well, we’ve warned you.” The neighbours nodded sadly.

The next morning a dead rat was found floating in the James’s well and the water was undrinkable.

“Bloody cowards!” said Dad.

“They are trying to tell us something, Victor,” Mum said.

“I suppose I’ll have to wring that dog’s neck and give them the carcass as proof.”

“No – don’t hurt Goldie,” Martin interrupted, almost choking on his jam sandwich. “Goldie is sick.  You take Paul to the doctor all the time – why not Goldie?”

“Because animals are not equal to humans,” Dad said and shut off further discussion.

Goldie’s condition worsened. At night, Martin stole in food for the animal, now moved into the spare room and chained to the bed in deference to the neighbours. There was frothy spittle, urine and feces all over as the animal had no way to “go outside.” And a terrible smell of something rotting; like meat in the open-air market at the end of a hot day. Seeing his master, Goldie stopped barking and took on a plaintive look that convinced Martin the animal was not mad, perhaps ill – just like Paul was, with colic periodically.

Things got serious when Seetha’s mother Kodagamage Margaret Nona arrived on the scene. Martin did not like Margaret, with her blood red mouth and missing teeth; she chewed betel incessantly and spewed forth indiscriminate streams of crimson spit wherever she settled. Therefore, Mum never invited her into the house. Margaret would sit by the well and boast about how well her seven daughters were doing, employed as domestics in various homes, and how she visited each one monthly to check on working conditions. “I guarantee my daughters will not have illicit love affairs, unwanted pregnancies – none of that,” Margaret constantly reminded Mum. Today, however, she was in a different mood, Martin observed, hovering in the vicinity.

“My daughter will need twenty-one injections in the stomach,” Margaret said with finality, raising her sari and squatting on the back porch after listening to Seetha’s recounting of recent events. She spoke in Sinhala, placing Mum, with her comfort for the patois English of the Dutch Burghers, at an immediate disadvantage in the debate.

“The dog is not mad. At least, we have no proof yet,” Mum said, in halting Sinhala.

“Then you must find out. Soon. Or I will have to find another place for my daughter. Think of it – even your baby will need injections now.”

“What do you expect us to do?”

“There are ways. Poison.”

“No!” Mum was furious at the suggestion. “I thought you people don’t kill animals?” Martin hugged the hem of her skirt, trying to shut out these diabolic plans.

“We can always go to the temple afterwards and do pooja. I can arrange for a man to come and dispose of the animal.”

“You will have to talk to my husband before you do anything.” Mum went indoors dragging Martin with her.

That evening Mum and Dad talked in whispers for a long time on the back porch.

From scraps of the hushed conversations that Martin picked up, it became clear that the animal couldn’t just be disposed of. It had to be analysed for rabies at the dog pound laboratory in Borella.

“And they only want the head at the laboratory!” Dad hissed.

“Shh!” Mum countered.

“I wish you would make up your mind and get your sister to sponsor us,” Dad said. Ever since Independence, I’ve become more of a stranger here. Very soon there will be no Burghers left in Ceylon.” 

“Canada is not easy either. It’s a lot of hard work. No servants. And it’s cold.”

Martin was forbidden from going into the spare room and food for the room’s four legged occupant was now dropped in from the outside window. Martin would peer in the bars of the window at Goldie, who though weakening, summoned the courage to bark whenever anyone came by, disgorging clumps of brownish-yellow phlegm. Its eyes poured over Martin, seemingly to imply, “Why?”

The “problem solver” arrived on a Sunday, three days after Poya day, the day of the full moon. He carried a single barrel shotgun that looked like it had last seen action in WWI.  He was thin and tall and wore a white sarong and banyan. He looked through the window and wrinkled his nose. “Can’t take him out, mahattaya.”

“What do you mean?” Dad had taken two shots of arrack before the shotgun man arrived. It was early in the day, but Dad had cut his toe working with the mammoty in the back garden and needed a pain killer. Martin guessed Dad had been distracted in his labours. He had been distracted all week.

“This dog is too far gone,” the man replied. “We’ll have to shoot it through the window.”

Dad downed his glass but did not say anything. He looked beaten.

“I guess I’ll have to say goodbye to the clothes in the spare room,” Mum said in resignation.

“But Buddhists don’t kill,” Martin said. “Isn’t that why you asked me not to shoot birds in the paddy field with my pellet gun? Because of what people would say?”

“This is different son,” Dad said putting his arm around Martin. The logic still did not add up for Martin and he struggled for other arguments.

“Why can’t we get the vet to come, instead of this man?”

“Vets don’t make house calls. Animals are not important,” Dad said. Then turning to the man he said, “The laboratory needs the head.”

Martin took his favourite book Call of the Wild and forced himself to stare at the pages at the other end of the house when the shot echoed like a cannon. He dropped the book and ran to the back of the house where Mum was throwing up by the well.  

Martin was torn between hugging his mother, partly for his own protection, but was also reverted to the cordite fumes hovering around the spare room window, behind which he knew something horrible had just taken place. Thus he remained frozen in horror as the adults began to stir from their own immobility, each silently shrugging off their own shock of the gunshot. He never hugged his mother in the end. Nobody hugged anybody it seemed, they were all cocooned in their own loss.

They later cleaned up the spare room; bloodied clothes, furniture and knick-knacks, piled up by the trash heap for burning. Every time Mum, Dad or Seetha came out of the room, their faces took on ever-lightening shades of ashen that even the bright sunlight failed to rejuvenate. Margaret had suddenly shown up and was carrying Paul, who was howling worse than Goldie ever did, but everyone was too distracted to pay attention. Margaret directed mopping-up operations, while Paul bawled away.

Martin stomped over to Margaret and Paul. “I HATE YOU!”

 The gunman sat under the guava tree chewing betel, until Dad stopped what he was doing and gave the man some money. The man got up, hauling his heavy weapon, joined his hands in a “thank you,” bowed and left. Dad finally brought out a rug with something wrapped inside it. He took it over to the communal latrines located about fifty yards from their row of attached houses.

 The James’s designated lavatory was at the far corner of “latrine alley” where the jungle encroached on the southern end of Perera Gardens. Martin followed in a daze. Approaching, he heard cursing. Dad was muttering to himself with the rug open on a block of concrete – Goldie’s head looked intact, but its stomach had exploded and hung in place by skin and bloody entrails. Dad swung the axe to chop off the head. After several swings, his cursing started again.

“Martin, go and get the kitchen knife. This skin is too thick for the axe.” Dad barked.

Martin stayed frozen.

“Damn you, child! You and your bloody pets.” Dad limped back to the house, the bandage on his foot turning brown in the sand and mud. He emerged a few moments later with the knife in his hand. Martin suddenly got life in his legs and ran, not toward the house but through the garden and out into the estate. He wished for his bicycle rim and that he could sail away from all of this with the wind on his tail. But his rim had been in the spare room and was now on the trash heap.

Martin gathered stones and pelted them at the coconut trees – one tree per neighbour. He reserved a tree each for Margaret, Seetha and the gunman – and they got a double whamming. Sobbing interfered with his aim and a few stray shots landed on Gunadasa’s roof. When Martin had exhausted himself and wound his way back to the house, Dad was mounting his bicycle, a travel bag slung over his shoulder. He had changed into his work clothes but hadn’t shaved. He wore only one shoe; his other foot, quite swollen, was wrapped in a fresh bandage.

“Can you cycle all the way, dear?” Mum looked worried. She now had Paul in her arms. Margaret and Seetha were nowhere to be seen.

“Do I have any choice?” Dad growled and pushed off. The bike wobbled every time Dad pressed down on the pedal with his injured foot. It would take him three hours to get to the laboratory, each way.

Goldie did not get a funeral, but received a cremation instead. At least, that’s how Martin remembered it. As the pyre of bloodied contents from the spare room blazed that evening on the dirt heap, Goldie’s headless cadaver reposed upon them. Martin’s eyes were riveted on the burning flesh, even though Mum said he should not look.

Dad returned home late that night and had a high fever for the next three days, having to call in sick for a week until the swelling subsided and allowed him to bicycle to work again. Just as he was mending, a letter arrived from the laboratory.

“Those assholes!” said Dad, waving the note wildly. “The dog had distemper!”

The next day Mum gave Seetha notice. “I’ll look after my children myself,” she said wiping back tears and hugging Paul closer to her.

That afternoon Martin caught her writing a letter. “I’m asking my sister to sponsor us to Canada. Do you remember the pictures she sent? Churches with tall spires, Niagara Falls and all that?”

“Do they shoot dogs in Canada?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so,” she said as she continued to write, but her face now wore a frown.

Martin went outside. A new bicycle rim leaned against the wall by the well; compensation from his father for the trials they had just gone through. Very soon, he was wheeling it faster and faster through Perera Gardens. Instead of coconut palms, he imagined leafless trees and a white landscape; seeing a golden retriever running ahead, turning back from time to time to bark gloriously into the morning sunshine glinting off the snow.