It
is impossible to recreate the intensity of feeling generated in me by my
reunion with Flipper. I crept silently into the dim interior of the
rough stone shed where he lay. He was flat out on his side, fast asleep
on an old potato sack. I could barely make him out at first, for the
light which came from the one mini-glass window at the rear was heavily
filtered by the age-old grime which covered it. But as my eyes adjusted
to the gloom, I saw him clearly. At last! He had been gone just over
24 hours. Curled up beside him was a compact bundle of brown and white
Podenco pulchritude…also fast asleep, and also on an old potato sack.
The couple were clearly, well, a couple. There was that aura of
trusting togetherness, of how shall I say, affectionate closeness, which
was so like the same thing in humans that I was touched to tears.
Our
hosts, Madame and the rest of the family, remained quietly just outside,
anxious and supportive. They had a special problem, however. Baby
Sandra’s affection for Flipper had grown from the seed planted at their
first meeting in Paris into a full fledged love affair since being
reunited with him in Ibiza. When he had gone lost she had been haunted
by a conviction that he would never be found, and she had refused to be
comforted. And now, despite that he had been found alive and in
reasonable shape, she continued inconsolable, having become convinced
that he would not survive the wounds of his ordeal. The family, even
now as I had made my way inside the shed where he was lying, had tried
to make her realize that Flipper was, in fact, alive and basically well.
But logic it seemed had nothing whatever to do with her feelings. She
was an extremely sensitive child and would become even more so as she
grew up. Her distress during the past day over Flipper’s disappearance
had been formidable, and her continuing fear for his future well being
began to loom as a real problem for Catherine and her father. And for
all of us, really. It wasn’t until she actually was able to hold him in
her arms again and see for herself that he was in good spirits that she
began to feel better about him….and that moment, alas, was to be delayed
for some time.
The
shed was cramped enough in feeling to be a claustrophobic nightmare to
the sensitive. But it was just right for the two animals in winter
time. It was so small and so nearly air tight that their body heat
helped to keep it warm. And it was almost entirely countersunk into an
earthen bank behind and around it, which also helped to keep the
mid-winter chill well in check. This bode well for the two dogs. Our
hostess was right; warmth was a critical healing element in their
recovery.
Overhead were crude, open ceiling rafters, made from the trunks of only
half-grown, hard-pine, Sabina trees. The wood from these trees was so
hard it was insect and water proof and almost indestructible. The beams
supported not only the heavily thatched roof, but also a, primitive
collection of worn farm-life work sundries which hung from them. There
were ancient mule harnesses, even crude mule saddles, saddle blankets,
bridles with dried out leather fittings, odd coils of heavy rope, some
antique agricultural tools, rusted saws and even a venerable butter
churn. The walls, of hand laid stone, could not have been more
uneven. They bulged from their centres as if about to collapse. But
one knew that was a long way off. The floor was hard-packed dirt.
Most
telling, to be sure, was the startling, if half expected, powerful smell
of the place. It was a smell which had been developing for years. It
was an individual, a very unique, a particularly indigenous smell. It
was also a non-offensive smell, one that told of farmyard happenings a
hundred musty years ago. And all of it, the roof, the walls, the
hardened earthen floor, and even the deeply sleeping dogs, all of it was
true. All of it had never known pretension, never made a false
statement. The whole thing, like the main house in front of it, was
perfect in all of its attributes: its function, its construction for
that function, its proportions for that function and its long years of
service in that function. It was an honest outhouse, indeed.
All
of these tidings were passing through my mind as I stood there, a bit
hunched over because of the low ceiling. But it was on Flipper that I
focused. His breathing was regular, his body was relaxed. Every once in
while one of his feet would move abruptly as he dreamed. It was an old
story. Flipper dreamed endlessly and very often would seem to be
running in his sleep. He seemed quite all right as I watched him and I
was filled with unbounded relief. As to the bitch, she too seemed not
to be too badly off. She also slept the sleep of the weary. She also
told the silent story of lost dogs. Extreme exhaustion followed by deep
slumber, buried in which were dreams of home. And so the two of them
lay there.
It
had been my intention to take Flipper to a Vet after we had all gone
back to Madame’s house and had our lunch. Juanito would have by then
decided whether he also wanted to have his bitch checked by a Vet. But
standing there, looking at the two animals peacefully sleeping together
on potato sacks, I was given pause. I decided to talk with our
Ibicencan hosts, who would have canine savvy as country people do, and
to Madame and the others as well, before I did anything. Backing out of
the shed as silently as possible so as to leave the dogs undisturbed, I
motioned for a return to the main house. On our way back we had to duck
carefully beneath the extraordinarily low overhead of the back doorway,
to avoid damaging our heads. This, I had discovered, was typical of all
the old casas payesas. Only the main front doors of these old
houses had been made a bit grander than the rest, and therefore were
able to more easily accommodate taller people than the ones who had
built them. Like their child-sized general purpose chairs, their
general purpose doorways were made for very small people, indeed.
We
gathered in the front room, the entrada, Seated on the
kindergarten chairs, knees almost to our chins, we debated the next move
while tea was being prepared in the kitchen. The question came down to
this: should we waken the dogs and leave with them after tea? Or should
we be off without them after tea, leaving them to sleep off their ordeal
in a natural way? We could drive back to Madame’s place, have our lunch
and a siesta and then return in the later afternoon to pick up
the dogs, bringing Juanito with us.
Our
kind hostess tried quite genuinely to persuade us to have our lunch with
them, then and there. She insisted we could even siesta
comfortably in her house. It had been, she said, built for large
families. And were we not, at least for the day, her family? She had
known us for years, she insisted, and had never been favoured by
circumstance before in this way. She was about to go on with it,
ramifications proliferating as she went, but her husband gravely
interrupted and said it was not for her or for him to make the decision,
but for us. We could be sure, he emphasized, that whatever seemed best
to us, would be welcomed by them. And so it went for awhile, back and
forth, until it became clear that we could afford to wait half an hour
while we had our tea. If, in that time, the dogs awakened, we could be
off, taking them with us. If not, we would go without them.
Then, suddenly, just as tea was being brought out, it was taken out of
our hands. Flipper had slept it off, it seemed, for he began to bark in
a way which I recognized at once. He wanted to be let out. And it was
urgent. I rushed out to the shed, and, in my hurry and excitement, I
smashed my forehead against the low overhead of the back door. It was
painful and stunning but it wasn’t enough to stop me. I lurched on, not
forgetting to duck this time, before bursting through the also low
overhead of the outhouse door. Flipper tried valiantly to jump up when
he saw me, but there was something missing in his motion and I knew with
a sinking heart that all was not right with the little fellow. He fell
back on his potato sack and began to whimper, so I gathered him up in my
arms and, with the bitch following, severe limp and all, we made our way
back into the entrada. The greeting given the two dogs was
general and generous and they both responded as well as they could.
Flipper yipped a little and the bitch wagged her tail furiously and
licked hands widely. After a bit, I took both of them out to the back
of the house and let them relieve themselves, which they seemed able to
do in the normal way. But Flipper could hardly manage to walk.
Nevertheless I was reassured, because it seemed that there had been no
internal damage. And, indeed, as later examination proved, there was
not.
Needless to say, there was not only tea for us before we left, but
also….salsa. |