The Girl in the Well

by Alan Falkingham

LaMotta is Dead

“I put LaMotta in the chest freezer.”

“The freezer? Shit Ramon. Why did you do that?” Ali gives me that look. The one that says she is frustrated with me and tired to her bones. In part, that’s because she’s been working two jobs after I got laid off last year from La Nacion and haven’t found steady work since. In fact, I haven’t written anything for months, not even freelance stuff I could sell for a peso or two here and there.  

“I didn’t know what to do with him. You know? He’s been a part of our life so long.”

I try and explain. But the truth is I don’t have a good explanation. I just knew I couldn’t leave him there.

LaMotta was our Rhodesian Ridgeback. A beautiful creature that we had gotten right after we were married and moved into this trendy apartment building in San Telmo with its multi-colored stucco walls and big high windows that you could open up wide on warm summer evenings to let in the sounds of the street below. I named him after the Raging Bull, Jake LaMotta. Back when Ali and I used to watch old movies together. But that was nearly fifteen years ago now, and I know what she is thinking. That he was our baby test. To first prove we could look after another living thing, and that the tequila bars and trendy cantinas that were our life in Buenos Aries, were not everything in our life. And now LaMotta is dead, and we are still childless. That’s why LaMotta had witnessed our marriage creak and groan until it finally had started to crack.

“So, what are you gonna do, genius?” I remember when Ali used to tease me, but only ever affectionately. In a way that made us both laugh. These days her words are barbed, and she doesn’t care that neither of us find them funny.

“I don’t know. I was thinking maybe some kind of tribute. Something to remind us of him even though he’s gone. He was just a really good dog. You know?”

I feel like I want to cry but I don’t want her to see. Because LaMotta was a really good dog. And, more importantly, he was my friend. So, I go over to the door leading out onto the fire escape and open it—my signal that I plan to smoke a joint.

Ali shakes her head, “Shit, Ramon. You got too much time on your hands. Just go get a job.”

“I’ll get a job,” I tell her, but defensively and without venom. Because, despite everything, I still love her. “But I’m not gonna take just anything. I broke the Mendoza affair back in 2013. Remember? And the Banco Municipal pyramid scheme. I’m not going to write obits or sell advertising space. I’ll find work.”

She looks skeptical. “Have you ever thought that, maybe, now that you’ve turned forty, you’re at the point in your career where if that’s all the work there is out there that you can get, then that’s all the work there is?”

She grabs a glass and fills it with water, heading to bed. I will join her later, by which time I know she will be cocooned in a blanket on her island—the rhythm of our life together these days.   

“I know you loved LaMotta,” she says by way of a parting shot. “So did I. But he was a dog, Ramon. Just a dog.”

Mrs. Sebastian

This is a bad idea. I know it’s a bad idea but, for some reason I cannot quite explain, I do not have the courage to quit on it. As if to do so would be a failure. More grist to Ali’s mill, I suppose.

The address is in a not-so-great area of La Boca, not far from where the Matanza empties in a rush into the Rio del Plata, steady and strong. The bank of intercom buttons carries no names and, after I press the number that she had texted me when we set up the meeting, nobody answers. I try a second time and am on the point of turning away, relieved that fate is going to derail my plan after all, when the door buzzes, inviting me to enter.

I climb the stairs, avoiding the service elevator with the pullable grill, the kind you see in horror movies, and when I reach the third floor, I find Mrs. Sebastian silently watching me, visible in the crack of the door that she holds ajar, like a spy awaiting some secret rendezvous.

But when she speaks, there is a warmth to her voice that I find encouraging. “You must be Ramon? With LaMotta?” She opens the door wide.

The world that I encounter is both what I had expected and feared in equal measure after I had found her ad online in the local classifieds: Taxidermy. Family Pets. Street Dogs Also Welcome. 30+ Years of Experience.

Mrs. Sebastian’s apartment is a monument, of sorts, to her craft. Every corner, every shelf, every surface houses an animal. Otherwise, the place is spotlessly clean, as if the nature of her work requires an environment that is as antiseptic as an operating theater.

“If people bring me dogs from the villas, I never turn them down,” she explains, as if she is used to her visitors reacting like me. “So, over the years, I’ve developed quite the collection, as you can see.”

She is well spoken, wearing a floral dress with a headscarf. Not what I had imagined.

“Would you like a glass of fernet?” It is the sort of invitation that suggests she is a good reader of people, or just someone who likes to feel the buzz of alcohol in the late afternoon. Maybe a little of both.

I hesitate, but not for long.

“Is that LaMotta?” she says motioning towards the oversized duffel bag on my shoulder.

I shrug, embarrassed, heaving it to the floor with a grunt. Because LaMotta is heavy. “I wasn’t sure how best to transport him. He’s frozen.” I confess.

But Mrs. Sebastian is used to much worse. “Then we definitely have time for a fernet!” she announces with confidence.

She invites me to sit, while she fixes drinks, and I feel like I am waiting for some kind of uncomfortable get-introduced-to-the-parents-for-the-first-time meeting. All around, stuffed dogs look at me, their eyes watchful but also strangely affectionate. As if each of them is waiting to be called to heel or nuzzle in and be petted. The dead dogs of the barrios.

“So, tell me about LaMotta.” Mrs. Sebastian says as she puts down a drink in front of me. “Tell me about when he was alive. About what he meant to you and your family? I find that every dog has a story that mirrors the life of its owner……..”

And with LaMotta lying frozen stiff in the duffel bag in the corner, I find myself telling Mrs. Sebastain about his life. This ridgeback who had been with us since he was a puppy. And of my life with Ali, and all its twists and turns. It’s happiness and its heartbreak.

And Mrs. Sebastian listens. Intently in a way but also kindly. Asking the odd question, but mostly just listening, until our glasses of fernet are drained, and all that is left are the dogs, their jaws barking soundlessly in my imagination.

Then, it is her turn.

Story, No Story

“There is no story, Ramon.” Ali seems certain of that. “And this whole thing with LaMotta is just plain weird.”

She busies herself with the groceries. Unpacking the bags she has just hauled inside. More work that she has shouldered.

I exhale. Wait for her to pause for a moment.

“She’s a crazy cat woman; That’s the story,” Ali continues, putting soda cans into the fridge, like she is loading bullets in a gun.

“No, she isn’t.” I defend Mrs. Sebastian.

“So, what is this about?” Ali puts her hands on her hips. “What the hell, Ramon? Our dog dies and suddenly you are obsessed with having him stuffed. Like that’s not weird?”

“This has nothing to do with LaMotta.” It is hard to explain. Because in part, I suppose, it is about LaMotta.

Ali cocks an eyebrow and waits. She has become good at this. Asking questions without words. Questions she usually knows I have no good answers to. In fact, more like accusations than questions, if she was prepared to admit it.

So I try a different tack. “Did you know it’s estimated nearly thirty thousand people disappeared during the Guerra Sucia. Our Dirty War.”

Now an eye roll. “Ramon. You’re not the first person to write about that. Everyone already knows it’s a dark part of this country’s history. Not something anyone should be proud of. But at the same time, that all happened before either of us were born. Is it something every generation should revisit again and again?”

“I think it is,” I say quietly, like a small boy valiantly muttering something inaudible under his breath in response to a scolding from a teacher.

“And what has all this got to do with Cat Lady?”

“Don’t you see? She is the story.” I try again.  “Her grandparents came to Argentina in thirty-six to escape the Nazis. The rest of their village ended up in Dachau. They bought a small peach farm up in Los Antiguos, not far from the Chilean border in the shadows of the Andes. That’s where her father was born and where he eventually met her mother. But he was a communist sympathizer and when she was twelve years old, she had to hide down a well to escape one of the Junta’s death squads that visited the farm. She had to climb down and sit there in the total darkness, waist deep in freezing cold water, listening to the shooting up above. Bam. Bam. Bam.”

I let the palm of my hand fall onto the kitchen countertop in time with the shots and I can tell it grabs Ali’s attention.

“Down a fucking well, Ali. A twelve-year-old girl, listening to her grandparents, parents and her brothers and sisters all being massacred. Her grandparents escaped the Nazis and then died like that? Can you imagine? How scared you’d be?” I look at my wife. “And you think we’re having a tough time just because…..” I leave my sentence dangling, frustrated.

She tilts her head. “I see. Cute. So, this is about me, again?” Her voice is loaded with indignation. This is an old fight, but one we keep returning to. Because it defines us. Or, at least, it defines Ali.

“No. It’s not about you,” I say softly, tired of all this. “It’s a story about a woman who stuffs dogs.”

Ali does not look entirely convinced. But she softens a touch, because I know she is tired of this constant fighting too. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I wish I could shake this. I know it’s weighing us down.”

I have no cure for that, and she knows it. But we reach an uneasy truce of sorts.

“Anyway. Why?” Ali asks after a few moments of silence. The sign of any good story is a hook, and her question makes me realize that maybe it is me who is missing the point.

“Why what?”

“Why does she stuff all those dogs. The street dogs from the villas?”

“I don’t know that yet,” I tell her.

Running with the Pack

When I return to Mrs. Sebastian’s apartment, LaMotta is waiting for me. Even in death, there is something magnificent about him, the way she has captured the line of backward growing hair along the length of his spine.

“He was beautiful,” she tells me as she watches me stand back to admire her work.

“He is,” I feel the need to avoid the past tense, although I’m not sure why, because I know that she is right. This is a wonderful piece of art, in its own way. It captures the spirit of LaMotta. The physicality of him. But, in the end, it is not LaMotta.

I will pour us a glass of fernet,” she insists, perhaps sensing my restlessness.

“How much do I owe you?” I ask, circling the room looking at all the stuffed animals on display. You can tell which ones are the street dogs. No collars, thin, bald patches in their fur, some of them carrying visible injuries.

“I just ask my clients only to pay whatever they can afford,” she says, suddenly beside me.

“Why do you stuff the ones from the villas?”

She smiles. Perhaps she was waiting for the question.

“Because they are nobodies. And they are dead. But still they deserve to be remembered.”

If she has given the answer before it does not show. And I like it. I feel vindicated. Because I was right about her story. It has symmetry. And purpose. This woman who escaped the death squads. 

But when I look at LaMotta with his perfect fur, I suddenly feel guilty.

“My wife thinks I’m crazy. You know? For having him stuffed,” I tell her.

“Why did you?” Now it is Mrs. Sebastian’s turn to ask the questions. To try and get to the bottom of things.

I shrug. I suppose because he was such a constant part of our life for so long. In much happier times. And perhaps because I’m afraid of what things will be like without him. But I do not tell Mrs. Sebastian any of these things. “To make sure he isn’t forgotten,” I say instead.

But Mrs. Sebastian is wily. “Then your wife is right,” she says. “It does sound a little crazy.”

I nod. “I guess so,” I tell her.

“Why don’t you leave LaMotta here?” she asks. “You won’t forget him. He was a good dog, I’m sure. But he was only a dog.”

It is an odd suggestion, but for some reason I like the idea of him running with the street dogs more than him being posed motionless on a shelf in our apartment. Ali is right. That would be weird. 

“OK,” I tell her.

“OK,” says Mrs. Sebastian, looking satisfied to have resolved the matter.

“And you and your wife should quit hiding from each other,” she tells me, suddenly making me pause as I rub my hand down the ridge line of LaMotta’s fur one last time.

Six Million Dogs

When Ali returns from yoga, she finds me with my laptop lid flipped up, typing away. I have the windows open and outside rain slants down through the streetlamps.

“Where’s LaMotta?” she asks me, as she snags a snack from the fridge, still flushed from exercise, hair damp from the rain. “Weren’t you supposed to pick him up from Cat Lady today?” Although she still refuses to use Mrs. Sebastian’s name, I can tell that the nickname she has adopted for her is no longer meant to be an insult.

“I left him with Mrs. Sebastian,” I tell her. “In the end, I figured you were right. You know? About it being weird.”

Ali tries to hide her satisfaction, but I notice how the corners of her mouth change from commas to apostrophes.  

“Did you talk to her some more when you went over there?” she asks.

“Yes. She is an interesting woman. This thing she does, stuffing the dogs. It’s all about honoring the dead. Remembering them when otherwise they would be forgotten.”

Ali considers things. “You can see why, I suppose.” She stops short of conceding that Mrs. Sebastian’s story might be worth telling after all, but she comes over to where I am sitting and stands there, gazing out at the rain. Below us, a couple rush to cross the street, laughing beneath an umbrella as they dodge a plume of spray from a passing car.

“And are you writing again?” she says, motioning towards the open laptop. It has been months, and I know my inactivity has irritated her.

“Yes.”

“Are you writing about the Dirty War?”

“Not exactly,” I shake my head and try to change the subject. “Do you know that there are six million stray dogs roaming the streets of Buenos Aries. Six million.”

She gives me a confused look. I can tell she wants to ask me what that has to do with Argentina’s Dirty War. And, of course, the answer is nothing.

“Do you want me to make you tea?” I say suddenly. “I can make chamomile rather than yerba mate, so it won’t stop you from sleeping.”

Ali hesitates, but I get up anyway before she has chance to say no.

“I figured, while we drank it, I could explain what I was thinking. I’ve got a basic framework, but it needs strengthening.” My olive branch.

“OK,” she says eventually. She recognizes the signs from years ago. Knows that, after we have talked, I will likely stay up all night working on this idea and will still be sitting here in the morning when she wakes up.

I go and fill the jug with water and set it to boil, grab two traditional mate gourd cups from the cupboard.  

Ali wanders over and leans against the kitchen counter. I can tell she is watching me as I busy myself. “Six million dogs?” she says as we wait. “Just in Buenos Aries?”

I hand her tea, steaming in the cup, and she takes it back over to the open window and sits cross legged on the floor, waiting on me to come and share whatever it is I am working on.  

“Yeah,” I say. “Six million.”

“That’s a lot of dogs,” says Ali.