23
As he pulls up to his house, he misses the way Koko and Pugliese used to bark and chase after the car along the dirt road lined with eucalyptus trees. It was Koko who had found Pugliese. He was crying under the tree where the two of them are now buried. He was a puppy only a few months old, full of fleas and ticks, and malnourished. Koko adopted him as if he were her own. And though he’d been the one who removed the fleas and ticks from the pup, and fed him so he’d regain strength, Pugliese always saw Koko as his saviour. If someone shouted at Koko or threatened her, Pugliese went crazy. He was a loyal dog who looked out for everyone, but Koko was his favourite.
The sky is loaded down with black clouds, but he doesn’t notice them. He gets out of the car and walks straight to the barn. The female is there. Curled up, asleep. He has to wash her, it can’t wait. He looks around the barn and thinks that he should clean it, create a space in which the female can be more comfortable.
When he leaves to get a bucket to clean her, it starts to rain. It’s only then that he realizes a storm is coming, one of those summer storms that’s both frightening and beautiful.
He goes into the kitchen and feels a crushing exhaustion. What he wants to do is sit down and have a beer, but he can’t put off cleaning the female any longer. He gets the bucket, a bar of white soap and a clean rag. In the bathroom, he looks around for an old comb without much luck, until eventually he finds the one Cecilia left behind, and picks it up. He thinks he’ll have to connect the hose, but when he’s back outside, it’s raining so hard he gets soaked. His shirt is with Jagger, Watts, Richards and Wood. He takes off his boots and socks.
All he has on are his jeans.
Barefoot, he walks over to the barn. He feels the wet grass beneath his feet, smells the wet earth. He sees Pugliese barking at the rain. Sees the dog as though he were there, at that moment. Crazy Pugliese jumping around, trying to catch the drops, getting covered in mud, seeking the approval of Koko, who always looked out for him from the porch.
Carefully, almost tenderly, he takes the female out of the barn.
The rain frightens her and she tries to cover herself. He calms her
down, pets her head and, as though she could understand, says, “Don’t worry, it’s just water, it’ll clean you up.” He soaps the female’s hair and she looks at him with terror. To reassure her, he sits her down in the grass. Then he gets on his knees behind her. Her hair, which he moves around clumsily, fills with white soap suds. He goes slowly, he doesn’t want to frighten her. The female blinks and moves her head to look at him in the rain, she writhes, trembles.
The rain falls hard and starts to clean her. He soaps her arms and rubs them with the clean rag. The female is calmer now, but she looks at him with a degree of distrust. He soaps her back and then slowly brings her to her feet. Now he cleans her chest, armpits, stomach.
Diligently, as though he were cleaning a valuable, but inanimate object. He’s nervous, as if the object could break, or come to life.
With the rag, he wipes off the initials that certify the female is First Generation Pure. There are twenty of them, one for each of her years in the breeding centre.
Then he moves on to her face, and with his hand, cleans the dirt stuck to it. He notices her long eyelashes and her eyes, which are a vague colour. They’re perhaps grey, or green. She has a few scattered freckles.
He crouches down to clean her feet, calves, thighs. Even with the drops of rain falling hard, he can smell her, wild and fresh, the scent of jasmine. With the comb in his hand, he sits her back down in the grass.
Then he moves behind her and begins to work it through her hair. She has straight hair, but it’s tangled. He has to comb it carefully so he doesn’t hurt her.
When he’s finished, he brings her to her feet and looks at her.
There, in the rain, he sees her. As fragile, as nearly translucent, as perfect. He moves towards the smell of jasmine, and without thinking, hugs her. The female doesn’t move or tremble. She just raises her head and looks at him. Her eyes are green, he thinks, definitely green. He runs his hand over the mark on her forehead where she’s been branded.
Then he kisses it, because he knows she suffered when they did it to her, just as she suffered when they removed her vocal cords so she’d be more submissive, so she wouldn’t scream when she was slaughtered. He strokes her neck. Now, he’s the one who trembles. He
removes his jeans and stands there, naked. His breath quickens. He continues to hug her as it rains down.
What he wants to do is prohibited. But he does it anyway.