(vignette 3) A Day of Rest

      

     

Who knew what the dog knew?  Or, as the Sunday paper voiced the headline the day after Dominque had been seen leaving the President’s residence, IF THE DOG WOULD SPEAK.

Mitchell could only wish that he might pick up the telephone and tell all.  The dirty underwear.  The take-away Chinese delivered to the front gate.  The late nights, falling asleep in front of the TV tabloid news with its salacious headlines and right-wing anchors feigning indignation.  Maybe then the telephone would stop ringing.  Mitchell could enjoy his days.

What did they want anyway?  They, the unknown callers.  Did they expect that a housekeeper might answer?  That she might say anything just to silence the incessant ringing?  Mitchell read the headline.  How trite!, he thought.  He could have come up with that himself.  Sunday was a solitary day of rest.  No one dared call, it seemed, when the President was home.

What did Mitchell really know?  That the life of a University President was a lonely existence?  That an unmarried man would crave company?     — as if Mitchell’s existence was inconsequential.  He couldn’t have known that, not with certainty anyway.  Who was to say what the President did . . . when he went away during the day?  Not Mitchell.  The President didn’t talk much about his work, not to Mitchell.  And, this thing with Dominique?  Well, it simply proved that this college town was far too small, too far removed from the big city in which Mitchell had been rescued so many years ago.  No — Mitchell knew only as much as he himself knew.  It was a dog’s life.  Food and games.  Huggies and walkies.  And, yes, water.  Mitchell loved water.  If anyone was going to make up answers to questions that dared impose upon one’s private life, better it was the reporters than Mitchell.

Mitchell tried, in fact, not to give questions much mind.  Curiosity killed the cat, he told himself.  And, neighbourhood cats were dying or disappearing with increasing frequency.  Why weren’t the papers concerned with that?  Mitchell didn’t want their fate to befall him, and, neither did he know how to control, even affect, his fate.  He rephrased the question: They don’t give a damn about what the cats might have to say!  Cats loved to speak, to rub themselves against you, invading your space, and let everyone know.  You had to command a dog, SPEAK.  Their loyalty was unquestioning.

And, Dominique?  Dominique was one in a string of people that came and went, several sleeping over.  It was no big deal.