"...Excuse me, as I told you, Miss Daigo will not give up appointments to anyone else. -He approached he with conspiratorial gesture and muttered under his breath-: Just now she just entered your office with Mr. Príapo and, if you are looking to stay to try to convince her to meet with you, give up. Mr. Príapo will not let them, he is your lawyer and he has told you that you should not talk to people who seek to negotiate your company. He is...very persistent and jealous."
He smiled.
<
He unscrewed the cap of his soda and tried to imagine that the liquid that coursed through his taste buds was beer and not that bubbly, somewhat salty beverage. His nose wrinkled as a stray dog with fur stuck to his bones looked at him from across the street; however, what made him get up and approach a pie stand to buy three pies from him was not his pent-up hunger or his dirty fur. What made him do that charitable deed was her suspicious and hopeless eyes.
Seeing that filthy and malnourished dog was like seeing him: there, accepting the scraps that some person with a heart -not being his case- would give him to keep breathing, but with the knowledge that it would be almost impossible for anyone to save him. Today he would be given food, and tomorrow? The cycle of his life was subject to two elements: survival and resignation to death. Only in the case of the mutt, maybe he didn't deserve it, but he yes.
-Here, my little friend, here....
Maurer did not like dogs, cats, parrots, animals in general and therefore never allowed Mauricio to have a pet....
His heart shuttered as he brought back old painful memories, which he decided to put aside to get closer to the gigantic dog that stared at him, transmitting through his sad eyes contradictions: he didn't want to receive his crumbs, however delicious they smelled, but he needed them. It was funny, because I was betting and not losing that he looked exactly the same every time he was in a similar situation.
-Come on, don't make me go down your rabbit hole. One your size bit me as a child and now I have a bit of a phobia of your kind, especially your size. -He confessed, coming a few steps closer with the warm paper bag in his hands. The mutt growled as he foresaw him coming even closer and Maurer had to suppress the urge to tell him to go fuck himself and swallow the three cakes by himself. -Don't be ungrateful, I'm not -he said wisely-. If you're hungry, which it's stupid to deny because it's so obvious that you are, come yourself and take my fucking cakes so I can go off and make a living, just like I've always done.
The animal was baring its teeth at him - and perhaps, already apart from being wretched it was now mad - but stopped as soon as it heard everything he said last. As if he understood. However, it didn't even make a gesture to come closer. Maurer let out an irritated snort, opened the bag and left it a few steps away so that the he could smell it more accurately and be tempted. He waited patiently, there, tucked into a dirty, foul-smelling, death-smelling alley, until the mutt propelled itself on its front paws to get up, an act that remained an attempt when it howled with what appeared to be pain and went sideways.
Maurer forgot his past fears of canine teeth and reached over the pastry bag to take it in hem large hands and check it over. He admired him that even being on the verge of death with a rather worrisome hole just over his right shoulder, he bared his teeth at him ready to tear him apart for daring to touch him.
-Ironies of life. You're more like me than anyone ever will be. -She let him go and ran a hand over her face, not caring that it now smelled like a wet dog and was stained with his blood. -The pride will pass soon; it passed me as soon as I realized that carrying it everywhere would not help me in the arduous task of living for many years, even if it is not what I really want. -She looked at him and he kept showing his teeth, growling under his breath. Maurer smiled.
< Then he got up from the ground and turned around. Ten minutes later, an elderly couple along with their grandson helped him move the dog into their van, bound for the nearest veterinarian there. And to his surprise, the mutt just let him touch it. He was grateful after all, he told himself. What happened was that he was afraid, and that made him as human, if not more human, than anyone else in that park. It made it more human than he was; in the end, the dog might end up giving him a lesson that would serve him well for the future: do more than fear and risk, trust. *** Before his mission, he had nowhere to drop dead and now he was paying the vet to a mutt off the street. His mouth savored the mint he had bought at the reception and he folded his arms, waiting. He was patient, he had learned to be, so he didn't find it an ordeal or a waste of time to wait in the hallway with his butt on an uncomfortable chair. After all, he had to reinvent his plan on how he would get to the very busy Miss Daigo. He wasn't one for sticking his nose into anyone's life, but when doing so was part of the price his life was worth, he didn't mind digging deep. Zhaymara Hakan Daigo - a rather rare name, quite worthy of an Asian - was twenty-nine years old. Her name complemented that of her soon-to-be ex-husband in various shoe companies in different parts of Germany: Munich, Heidelberg, Berlin..., and some cities in Central Asia. She was proud and despite all those rumors of a vindictive woman saying that she probably has a lover, who to top it all was her lawyer, her way of being seen before the world was like a lady: polite, elegant, gentle and apart from that a good businesswoman. Although with enough fortitude to face any lawsuit or problem. Needless to say, many of the German press were on her side. A curious woman, she thought, but a woman after all, who with a couple of nice words would fall back into the hands of a beast - formerly her husband and now him. He should feel guilty - and perhaps in some hidden place inside me he was; however, the fear of parting with his punishment at the hands of the devil himself overcame him more than cheating on a woman who had only suffered disappointments at the side of the one who had been her husband since she was twenty. Just the age he was when Karla stayed.... << Enough, you fucking bastard, let your memories die once and for all!>>. He berated himself, he demanded, but it was useless. The past always tormented him and infected him with its sorrows, as powerful as a terminal disease. -Mr. Beerli. The turn of his thoughts left him weak and wanting to retreat from the world, - like the coward he was - but he tried to play it down, giving his full attention to the veterinarian who had cared for the mutt. The man with the robe and the bright smile gestured for Maurer to accompany him to his office to discuss payment. Maurer followed him, still in high spirits. He did not detail the fittings of the small office, for him details were just that: details, unimportant. And he sat down when he pointed to the chair. -Well, as you will see, Mr. Beerli, the German shepherd you brought in is fit for rest. -The denial of his position was on the tip of his tongue, but the vet was much quicker when he added-. We took a bullet out of his shoulder, it was pretty deep. Who knows what he might have done that someone so inhumane would have shot him. Maurer was speechless. < The veterinarian folded his hands and rested his elbows on the desk. < He took a few minutes to think and the doctor seemed to understand. He had just moved out of a dilapidated shabby shack into an apartment the size of a shoe, but he had his own bathroom, a bedroom and a mini kitchen, and that was much more than he could ever hope for. But the problem wasn't the space, or even the fact that he didn't like animals; it was that he wasn't living in the good part of Munich because he had come to his senses and was now making an honest living - like when he met Karla - no, he was there and had plenty of dough because he was doing a job for the devil himself. He must have to cajole a woman into giving him enough money so he wouldn't die at the hands of thugs! He was definitely not fit to adopt a dog. Maybe not now, maybe not ever. The animal doctor seemed to guess that his answer would be negative, because he went ahead of him again. -Look, I ask you to keep him for at least a month and a half, while the puppies are adopted and we free up space for him. Only a month and a half, Mr. Beerli, don't tell me no, please. The canine's eyes came back to his mind and he felt nauseated at the feeling of having regret for a being other than him. But to his regret, he still had a heart and the memory of a smaller being's eyes lit up with the idea of having a pet someday, bent him. He scratched the back of his neck and faked a smile. -Well, give it to me to go then. -He sighed-. A little company for a while wouldn't hurt, would it? *** A week later, Maurer, sitting face to face with the mutt he had temporarily adopted, wanted to swallow his own words. Of course that a little companionship would come in wrong! By God - if there was such a thing, although he rather doubted it, since his bad experiences had made him somewhat atheistic - he didn't know what he had been thinking when he had agreed to bring that flea-dog into his own den. Though of course he did know. He hadn't been thinking at all. A mistake that could have cost him dearly had it been something else. Maurer wasn't allowed to make mistakes-not anymore. He'd made enough mistakes to live on forever; however, the decision to keep the mutt had come from his heart - but it was pretty clear by now that he hadn't. So he didn't understand why the fuck he was playing doctor, overseeing her wounds and buying her food, when he should be kicking the streets of Munich all the way to Daigo&Klose companies: footwear in variety and trying to come up with the "perfect plan" to bamboozle the lady. Maurer had to get... whatever the woman's name was, to fall in love with him, or love him enough to give him the keys to some of her bank accounts so he could pass them on to his soon-to-be - if the mission didn't go wrong - ex-boss. The woman was loaded with money, and after her soon-to-be-divorce she would be even more so, so he didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about making her lose a few million. Maker her fall in love already was another story, one that had many of his mixed feelings. -Let's see, you fucking mutt. If you don't eat the pill, the pains will never go away. And if you don't let yourself clean the wounds, it could rot. Which would lead to that death that might have been inevitable if you hadn't bumped into me. Aside from being a doctor, he had gone completely insane. A hopeless one. He would talk to the mutt from the time he got up until he went to bed to try to sleep - which he almost never did, and when he did, it was only for about two or three hours before the usual nightmares attacked him relentlessly. But even crazier, he felt that the mutt understood him and that, had he been able to speak, he would have answered him -by the mocking look he gave him every time he attacked him with his string of words- he would tell him what he had already been telling himself: < Exhausted, he lowered the hand that contained the pill that the vet had prescribed for the pains that the poor thing must be suffering, some that he imagined would be like an injection in the ass. He himself had suffered that same burning and stitching on more than one occasion - not that the mutt had told him, of course, but he could sense it from his non-stop panting. And yet, on none of those occasions had he had anyone to help him cram the fucking pain pill down his throat. Contrary to what was said before, the mutt was not so grateful, for he was giving himself the luxury of refusing his help. The dog looked at him and tried to move from the place where he had let him sleep: in a corner of his room and far away from his bed - as far as the tiny room would allow - without success. And at the action, Maurer arched an eyebrow. -Well, fuck you, because I'm not going to keep begging you. I've got better things to do. And he got up from the mattress, hiding the pill in his pants pocket. However, as he grabbed the keys to his old four-seater sofa - the only item of value he still had from his old home - and left the apartment, it wasn't to try to figure out and prioritize his real business, but to drive in his truck - also borrowed - to a place where they sold dog stuff. He needed guidance on how to get a pill down the throat of a huge dog that could tear the skin off his arm with its fangs if he moved or touched it the wrong way. And he got the help he needed, but not from a veterinarian or intern. -Give it to him camouflaged in a piece of meat or inside a strawberry, he'll eat it without complaining and he won't even notice. The voice belonged to none other than... whatever the woman's name was. Ironies of life, it was supposed. Go out looking for anything, and you'll find the opposite of your intentions.