Watch dog

From the kitchen window I could see the earthen stable, aslant, with a tile jutting out, in the white vastness of the plain, where the hawk would stand. It was only when the house was ready that I did realize I would live there, so  I thought of a saving solution –  commensurate with the land and the house - a dog to watch outside day and night, ignoring the bitter cold. In front of the stable, in the middle of the yard, I set the kennel of Baruc, a shepherd puppy who would bark all day long; he barked at the hawk, at the sparrows, at the hamsters, he barked at all living creatures. His bark was filling the darkness, s’iding down to the river and knocking against the hills. 

   As the puppy was growing, I felt more and more secure and well at ease. He was getting more and more vicious and had a special repugnance to Uncle Samu and Uncle Gabi, my neighbors on the right and on the left, respectively. He drew near the fence and barked at them till foam came to his muzzle. Worst of all, I didnlt have a solid fence. It was quite expensive to set up such a long fence and I didnlt have enough money for that.

There was an iron fence on Uncle Gabils side, but one day the old man had it removed and sold it to buy fire wood. His nephews replaced it with putrid boards which they laid among the half-dead trees, their leaves torn out by the wind. If only he had asked me, I would have paid him for the fence provided he had left it there. But when I came from work, the job was done. The next day I heard noises and I saw Baruc running about Gabils yard and chasing the hens. He had jumped over the fence and tumbled down with the boards and all, on the fowls that were quietly pecking their grains. I called out at him but he pretended not to hear me and he went on fooling around.

I ran as fast as I could to get him out of the yard; as I was pulling at the leash to force him out, for he wouldnlt obey my orders, uncle Gabils head as longish as a champ, with a high cap on it, appeared at the attic window. God knows how long he had been hiding there, poor man, not venturing to come out. Suddenly I felt I was warm and I took off two of the three pullovers I was wearing. Lest he should go on fooling around, I chained up Baruc. The chain was long enough to allow him to move. Baruc would turn around the kennel until the chain   almost strangled him, so he would start to yelp and I had to roll him over so that he could break loose.

My wife Alma and I set ourselves to pull down an old ruined shed. Uncle Samu called on us, a bottle of fresh milk in hid hands. He sat down on a pile of wood and watched us work. Baruc was struggling fiercely in his leash. 

- You got yourself a dog as big as your own fear, he said and began to explain why the dog was raging and fuming against them. Samu was Gabils brother and his lands, our lands and Gabils as well, had once been part of the same piece of property which had been divided among three brothers.

Baruc, standing right on the middle lot, felt that the lands around belonged to his master, yet they were trodden by aliens. Their fatherls dog felt that way too, just like the dog of their brother who had dwelled in that house, and the dog of the nephew from whom we had bought the land and any dog that would have stayed in that yard would have acted in the same way.

I was just jumping on a beam to fell it when, looking up, I saw Baruc running around, dragging the kennel through the garden, where tender green shoots and shrubs were sprouting here and there. The hook to which the chain was attached was broken so I had fixed it to the kennel. My wife rushed along and tried to hold Baruc but she couldnlt.

He was as tall as Alma and if he put his forepaws on her chest, he was even taller.

Samu rushed upstairs in the garret, making for safety, all you could see was his high pointed cap.

We gave up demolishing. I put the kennel back in its place, I fixed another hook into the concrete wall, I chained up the dog and I helped Samu down.One evening, as I turned round the corner of the street, I saw Barucls big white head peeping through the fence and the shadow of a villager going round by the other side. Whenever we found Baruc loose outside we feared lest someone should knock at the door complaining they had been bitten by the dog and we asked ourselves whether Uncle Samu and Uncle Gabi were safe and sound and sitting by the fire. I opened the gate and drove the car into the stable and Baruc pushed it too, standing on his back paws. In a box we kept a donkey we had received from Uncle Samu.

I gave the donkey some hay then I chained up the dog while Alma was stuffing the hen house with straw lest they should be cold. It was freezing so hard that it seemed to me the air was getting thick as if turning into metal. We made for home. I called the cat in, I lighted the fire, we ate some bread and cheese and we went to bed. It feels so good to warm yourself by the fire on such a frosty evening, while a big, fierce dog is watching outside. But it was not before long that I heard Baruc barking. I knew when he barked just for fun, when he barked with indifference, to do his duty, when he barked at the passers-by, or at the tomcat who was passing by the end of his chain, I knew when he barked impatiently and joyfully on welcoming us, or when Samu or Gabi were walking through their own yards, when the hawk would sit on the tile or when the hedgehogs came out from under the tool-shed, but this time his barking was filled with hatred for intruders.   

I sat up and listened. No, it was not just an impression. It was that bark. Barefoot as I was, I grabbed a flashlight and the c’ub we used to keep behind the door and I ran out of the house.  I directed the flash to the place from where the bark was heard. Baruc came by my side then ran towards the far end of the garden, as far as the chain allowed him. A hedgehog was sauntering idly through the frozen weeds. I pushed him on a shovel and took him inside the house that Alma could see him as well. We turned the hedgehog on all sides and then I carried him back in the bushes.  I had fallen fast asleep when Alma shook me by the shoulder.

-What is it? I asked her.

- Itls Baruc again. Hels barking desperately.   

- Oh, God, I mumbled and wrapped myself up. But the bark never ceased. I got up again, took the c’ub and the flashlight and went out. The dog was busy with the tool-shed, under which was a cellar full of carrots and cabbages. I had a look round the orchard, the fences and the neighboring yards and returned home.

Alma was standing at the window, scanning the darkness.

- Itls the hares, she said with a sigh, I saw them hopping about the trees. 
I went back to s’eep and as the bed seemed to carry us down into the realm of s’umber, I heard the dog bark again. We were getting lower and lower, the sounds were fading away in the distance and soon we were sailing on silent waters, surrounded by huge cotton walls. Behind them a battle was being fought that couldnlt reach us. When we awoke, the sun of an icy winter morning was stealing through the window panes and the c’ock stroke seven. At that hour the hens were waiting for their grains, peeping through the loops of the wire fence covered with dry stems. But there was no hen, only the cock was crowing in despair and flapping its wings, on top of the stable. I got out of the hen enclosure and I called Baruc, shouting as loud as I could, I rushed into the yard running to and fro like a madman. I entered the tool-shed. I was taken aback. We used to keep a cart there which had been left there by the former owner. There was no cart. I went round the house and I ran into Alma who was running from the other side, searching. We rushed into the stable. The donkey was nowhere to be found. Neither Baruc was. 

I entered the house to call the police and the cock followed me. He jumped on the table in the middle of the kitchen and began to flap his wings and to crow like hell. As I was holding the receiver at my ear and, at the other end, the constable was asking for more and more details, I put the receiver under the cockls beck and went off to complain to my two neighbors.

- So, your dog has vanished, hasnlt he, said Uncle Gabi, with an ironical twinkle in his eyes.

- Oh, donlt be sorry ”˜bout the dog, said Uncle Samu with a jerk and pulled his cap over his eyes, but the hens and the donkey, what a pity!

Uncle Gabi made for the field and took me along. He showed me the wheel tracks of the cart. Here, thatls the road they took. He stretched out his arm towards the hazy horizon. I looked that way and suddenly I caught sight of black and white spot looming out of the haze. Baruc!  He went round by a reed thicket and I saw him grow. Uncle Gabi said a quick good-bye and off he went. Whenever Baruc runs to me like this, I step aside lest he should knock me down.  I donlt always succeed in stepping aside and for sure I didnlt succeed that time, so the dog tumbled over me and I fell down.  

I caught him by the collar and I fixed the leash and we took the road back in the direction from which he had come. He was pulling me along. It was only in the third village that he stopped in front of a farmstead and began to bark. I knocked at the door and two lads came out. They were the culprits. They had stolen the dog to sell him for a tidy sum of money, they had intended to keep the hens and the donkey for themselves, as for the cart, which I treasured as an antique, they wanted to set it on fire. They had tied the dog and locked him up in a storehouse but Baruc had gnawed the rope, then jumped through an opening and ran off. They hadnlt expected that much. I donlt know why I felt something was missing.

- Was it just the two of you?

-No. Zsolt, Sarpe and Patru are at the dispensary.

I gave them some money to buy medicines and heal their wounds. Then I took the donkey, the cart and the hens and make for home, with Baruc tied to the axle. As I got near the house I saw a constable in the yard, quarreling with the cock. Knowing Alma, I can bet she was hiding behind the curtain, enjoying the scene.
    I stopped the cart in the field and I waited for the constable to leave.