Love in a Cage

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SHORT NOVEL Paolo Picariello To Nikita, who taught me that character is not bred: it is recognised.

PART ONE THE BARS 1. The Bite and the Look Genoa stank of rain and urine that morning. The wind drove water beneath the awnings of the Monteverde dogtraining ground and sent an advertising banner slapping against the fence: CHAMPIONS ARE BORN. Pepe walked across the concrete, avoiding the puddles. Vanessa had put him in a sand-coloured coat, light but waterproof, and every time he slowed the lead went taut. 'Head up, darling. The television people are here today.' Pepe knew that voice. Darling meant: do not get dirty, do not bark, do not look where you want to. Behind the fence of the main ring, a Neapolitan Mastiff sat beside a man with a cigar. His coat was grey, his lips heavy, and a white scar ran along his right flank. He did not pull. He did not pant. He watched. Pepe slowed. 'Come on.' Vanessa gave the lead a short tug. The mastiff followed the movement with his eyes. Then he looked at Pepe, not at the coat, not at the bow fastened to his collar. He looked at the tremor running through his legs. That look was the first bite. Pepe stopped in front of the fence. Up close, the mastiff smelled of wet earth, iron and something sweet, perhaps the hay in his kennel. 'What's your name?' he asked. The humans heard a whine and a deeper breath. 'Number Seven.' 'That's not a name.'

The mastiff barely moved one ear. 'They used to call me Gennaro.' Pepe repeated it softly, to feel its weight. 'I'm Pepe.' 'I know. Your name is written everywhere.' There were three photographs of Pepe on the barriers: on a red carpet, in Vanessa's arms, in front of a fountain in a city he could not remember. He was smiling in the photographs. 'Don't believe the photographs,' he said. Gennaro lowered his eyes to the taut lead. 'I don't.' The man with the cigar noticed that the mastiff had shifted his weight forwards. He jabbed him in the flank with the toe of his shoe, just below the scar. Gennaro made no sound. Pepe did. A dry bark, out of all proportion to his body. Vanessa lifted him by the harness. 'Do you know how bad you make me look?' As he was carried away, Pepe kept watching Gennaro over her shoulder. The mastiff had not moved. Only his tail, stretched out in the mud, moved once. It was not a farewell. It was a promise that they would recognise each other again.

2. Number Seven Alfredo Esposito's breeding kennels occupied a warehouse on the edge of Bolzaneto, between the stream and the motorway. At the front stood a gold sign, two cypresses in pots and an electric gate. At the back, twenty-six concrete kennels. Gennaro lived in number seven. In the office Alfredo kept the framed pedigree and a photograph of Gennaro's father beneath the words BLOOD DOES NOT LIE. He talked about jaws, heads, angulation. When clients arrived, he opened the kennel and made Gennaro step out onto a rubber platform. 'Forty-nine kilos of pure breed.' He weighed sixty-two, but forty-nine sounded better in the brochures. Two or three times a month, a female was brought in. Alfredo closed the sliding door, gave orders and recorded the times. Afterwards, Gennaro was left with the smell of the others on him and the feeling that he had lent his body to someone who would give nothing back. That evening he refused the tawny female brought from Turin. Her legs were rigid and she was breathing too quickly. Gennaro sniffed her muzzle, then sat down. 'Come on.' Alfredo clapped his hands. 'Work.' The bitch tried to approach. Gennaro moved away. The first blow landed on his back. The second on the scar. Lorenza, Alfredo's wife, watched through the office window, a notebook held tight against her chest. 'Enough,' she said, without opening the door.

Alfredo did not hear her, or chose not to. When the warehouse fell silent again, Gennaro dug at the patch of earth beneath the kennel fence. He was not looking for a way out. With his muzzle he drew two pointed ears and a tiny body. Wind-blown rain erased the picture before dawn. Across the city, Pepe slept in a faux-leather bed beneath a shelf full of trophies. Vanessa had left the light on so that she could film him if he did something funny in his sleep. Pepe did not move. He counted the sounds in the building and thought of a name that appeared on no billboard. Gennaro.

3. Rain on the Training Ground They saw each other again three weeks later. The storm broke during the group trials. A flash of lightning extinguished the floodlights and the humans ran for the shelter, dragging chairs, bags and dogs with them. To prevent a fight, the attendant put the animals into the available transport crates. Pepe ended up in an aluminium cage that was too large for him. Gennaro was in the one beside it, too small for him. Rain on the roof drowned out the voices. Vanessa was arguing on the phone near the entrance; Alfredo was smoking beneath the NO SMOKING sign. Pepe moved close to the perforated panel between the cages. Through the holes he could see one of Gennaro's eyes. 'Did he hurt you?' 'No.' 'You lied.' 'Yes.' Pepe sniffed the metal. 'Why don't you bite him?' Gennaro was silent for long enough to make the rain sound louder. 'Because after the bite there is always a smaller cage.' Pepe thought of hotel rooms, carriers beneath aircraft seats, windowless dressing rooms. 'Even without the bite.' Gennaro moved his muzzle until it touched the metal. Pepe did the same. The panel was cold between their noses.

'How old are you?' Gennaro asked. 'Eight. Vanessa says six when they ask on television.' 'I'm four.' 'And they still call you Number Seven.' 'Numbers don't grow old.' A cough came from the far end of the shelter. Alfredo was telling another breeder that he would send Gennaro to Milan for semen collection. He spoke of the journey, the price and the quantity as if he were ordering diesel. Pepe listened. 'Will you do it?' 'They'll muzzle me. Then they'll do what they want.' 'You can refuse.' 'I refused yesterday.' Gennaro turned slightly. Through the holes Pepe saw the scar and, lower down, two dark bruises. Anger rose from his belly to his throat. He did not bark. He placed one paw against the metal. Gennaro covered it from the other side with his own. The hole between them was no larger than a fingernail, but it was enough to let the warmth through. When the lights came back on, the humans opened Pepe's cage first. Vanessa picked him up and wiped his paws with a cloth. 'You look as if you've been to war.' Pepe looked at the cage beside him. Gennaro had not withdrawn his paw. 'Not yet,' he said. Vanessa heard only a small growl and held him tighter. * The following Sunday, the ground hosted a regional dog show. Barriers divided the grass into two rings; names, numbers and results came through the loudspeakers. Pepe spent the morning on a grooming table while three people arranged fur that did not need arranging. Vanessa sprayed a talc-scented product over his back. 'No tantrums today.' Across the grass, Alfredo walked Gennaro back and forth in front of a judge. He lifted his head with the lead and pushed his legs into the position he wanted. Whenever the mastiff tried to sit, the chain tightened beneath his throat. Pepe watched everything in the table's mirror. When his category was called, he crossed the ring without putting a foot wrong. The judge opened his mouth, checked his teeth and ran a hand along his back. Pepe stood motionless. He had learnt that stillness shortened the contact. He won. Vanessa lifted him above her head while the photographer took pictures. From her arms, Pepe saw Gennaro behind the exhibitors' curtain. Alfredo had tied him to a post with three females and was drinking at the bar. As soon as Vanessa put him down, Pepe slipped beneath the table and ran behind the curtains. He had less than a minute before they noticed he was gone. Gennaro heard him coming. 'You won.' Pepe looked at the rosette pinned to his harness. 'I didn't do anything I wanted to do.'

'You walked well.' 'I walk well when I go for a drink too.' One of the females tied beside Gennaro watched them. She was young, her teats still swollen with milk. 'You two are the ones from the storm.' Gennaro lowered his muzzle. 'How are the puppies?' 'Sold. They say they're all well.' The bitch turned her head towards the bar, where the breeders were comparing photographs on their phones. 'I can't remember their smell any more.' Pepe could find nothing to say. The rosette weighed against his chest. Gennaro brought his nose close to Pepe's. 'When are they taking you away?' 'I don't know yet.' 'Learn the route.' 'I always do.' Vanessa called. Pepe had just enough time to lick Gennaro's lower lip, where the skin formed a damp fold, before running back towards the ring. In the official photographs that day, his muzzle was perfect and the blue rosette shone. No one noticed a grey hair caught between his teeth.

4. The Trophy Room Vanessa lived in Castelletto, in a flat with two balconies and no photograph that did not contain her face. Pepe's trophies covered the corridor wall; his toys were kept in a basket behind the service door. That night she came home late and sat on the floor fully dressed. She had taken off one shoe, but not the other. Pepe watched her from his bed. 'Do you know what the problem is?' she said. 'If you stop winning, I stop existing too.' She was not drunk. She was tired, and when she was tired she spoke to him as if he could answer. Pepe went over to her. Vanessa lifted him onto her lap, picked a blade of grass from his coat with two fingers and massaged the base of his ears. She knew the exact spot. For a few minutes there was no phone, no lights, no orders. Pepe felt her heartbeat beneath her blouse. Then the screen on the table lit up. Vanessa picked it up. 'We're doing Righi on Saturday. Sunset, skyline and a new collar. If it goes well, the brand will renew.' Pepe climbed down from her lap. The contract lay on the table. He had learnt to recognise his own name among the lines and the figure written at the bottom. Vanessa had not taught him to read; years of labels, scoreboards and papers left open had done that. She pointed to a page. 'And then Milan. They have a breeding programme. Only two months.'

Pepe knew what breeding programme meant. He had heard the words used near the kennels. Vanessa noticed that he was trembling. She covered him with a cashmere blanket and turned up the thermostat. 'Are you cold, darling?' Pepe stayed beneath the blanket until her breathing became regular. Then he crawled out, crossed the corridor and sat in front of the wall of trophies. The metal gave back a broken image: an eye, an ear, the collar. For the first time, he did not see a champion. He saw an animal who had let others decide everything.

5. The Smell of Iron Alfredo kept the warehouse keys on his belt. When he walked, they struck the buckle with the clatter of teeth. Gennaro had learnt to tell each key apart. The long one opened the outer gate; the flat one, the office; the small one with the red rim, the medicine room. The key to his kennel was second from the left. One morning Lorenza came in alone. She carried a bowl of water and clean gauze. Alfredo had gone to the bank. She opened the kennel without looking Gennaro in the eyes. 'Let me see.' He remained still. Lorenza touched the fur around the scar. The skin had split open again. She cleaned the blood away with gentle movements, but her hands trembled. 'He wasn't always like this,' she said. Gennaro sniffed her fingers. They smelled of soap, second-hand smoke and fear. She finished dressing the wound and left the door open while she gathered the used gauze. Nothing stood between Gennaro and the yard. Beyond the yard, the electric gate had been left ajar for the feed van. Gennaro took one step.

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