In the office, Dave heard a story that was familiar (but nonetheless affecting): Arthur Denker was in his seventies. He had come to California when his wife died. He was not rich, but he tended what he did have with great care. He was lonely. His only friend was the boy who sometimes came to his house and read to him. In Germany he had owned a beautiful St Bernard. Now, in Santa Donato, he had a house with a good-sized back yard. The yard was fenced. And he had read in the paper… would it be possible that he could…
‘Well, we don’t have any Bernards,’ Dave said. ‘They go fast because they’re so good with kids—’
‘Oh, I understand. I didn’t mean that—’
‘—but I do have a half-grown Shepherd pup. How would that be?’
Mr Denker’s eyes grew bright, as if he might be on the verge of tears. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘That would be perfect.’
The dog itself is free, but there are a few other charges. Distemper and rabies shots. A city dog licence. All of it goes about twenty-five bucks for most people, but the state pays half if you’re over sixty-five — part of the California Golden Ager programme.’
‘Golden Ager… is that what I am?’ Mr Denker said, and laughed. For just a moment — it was silly — Dave felt a kind of chill.
‘Uh… I guess so, sir.’
‘It is very reasonable.’
‘Sure, we think so. The same dog would cost you a hundred and twenty-five dollars in a pet shop. But people go to those places instead of here. They are paying for a set of papers, of course, not the dog.’ Dave shook his head. ‘If they only understood how many fine animals are abandonee every year.’
‘And if you can’t find a suitable home for them within sixty days, they are destroyed?’
‘We put them to sleep, yes.’
‘Put them to… ? I’m sorry, my English—’
‘It’s a city ordinance,’ Dave said. ‘Can’t have dog-packs running the streets.’
‘You shoot them.’
‘No, we give them gas. It’s very humane. They don’t feel a thing.’
‘No,’ Mr Denker said. ‘I am sure they don’t’
Todd’s seat in Introduction to Algebra was four desks down in the second row. He sat there, trying to keep his face expressionless, as Mr Storrman passed back the exams. But his ragged fingernails were digging into his palms again, and his entire body seemed to be running with a slow and caustic sweat.
Don’t get your hopes up. Don’t be such a goddam chump. There’s no way you could have passed. You know you didn’t pass.
Nevertheless, he could not completely squash the foolish hope. It had been the first algebra exam in weeks that looked as if it had been written in something other than Greek. He was sure that in his nervousness (nervousness? no, call it what it had really been: outright terror) he had not done that well, but maybe… well, if it had been anyone else but Storrman, who had a Yale padlock for a heart…
STOP IT! he commanded himself, and for a moment, a coldly horrible moment, he was positive he had screamed those two words aloud in the classroom. You flunked, you know you did, not a thing in the world is going to change it.
Storrman handed him his paper expressionlessly and moved on. Todd laid it face-down on his initial-scarred desk. For a moment he didn’t think he possessed sufficient will to even turn it over and know. At last he flipped it with such convulsive suddenness that the exam sheet tore. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he stared at it. His heart seemed to stop for a moment.
The number 83 was written in a circle at the top of the sheet. Below it was a letter-grade: C Plus. Below the letter grade was a brief notation: Good improvement! I think I’m twice as relieved as you should be. Check errors carefully. At least three of them are arithmetical rather than conceptual.
His heartbeat began again, at triple-time. Relief washed over him, but it was not cool — it was hot and complicated and strange. He closed his eyes, not hearing the class as it buzzed over the exam and began the pre-ordained fight for an extra point here or there. Todd saw redness behind his eyes. It pulsed like flowing blood with the rhythm of his heartbeat. In that instant he hated Dussander more than he ever had before. His hands snapped shut into fists and he only wished, wished, wished, that Dussander’s scrawny chicken neck could have been between them.