Justine van der Leun - Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl about Love

MISTAKES ARENT ALWAYS REGRETS.

A SOFTER WORLD, JOEY COMEAU AND EMILY HORNE

MARCUS STOOD ACROSS FROM ME with a fluffy white chicken clamped in her jaws. Her body was taut, trembling, her skinny legs ramrod straight, her chest expanded, her eyes wild. She gazed past me, overwhelmed by her own stunning success. The chicken, though in a state of shock, was alive, and it shot me an imploring look from its hapless position.

Marcus, you drop that, I hissed. Marcus looked away and held tight to her prize. Her shiny black face, which was normally small, pretty, and prim, was feral and strewn with saliva. Her floppy ears had flipped back and inside out during the struggle, and her lips were curled into a wide, perverse grin. She slowly lowered herself to the ground in the middle of the gruesome scene and wrapped her delicate paws around the chickens legs. The grass was blanketed with feathers; some still floated mournfully in midair. Marcus threw me a guilty, sidelong glance, bird still firmly in mouth. She had plans to savor it, I could tell.

I looked ahead. A tidy stone farmhouse sat a few yards away, and this chicken belonged to whoever lived there, as did its wide-eyed companion, who was perched on a branch fifteen feet above the ground. It stared down at me. Chickens, it turned out, could be propelled to modest flight by a surge of adrenaline.

The flying chicken and I were on the same page: We had both embarked on a peaceful evening stroll, and we now bore witness to a brutal mauling. Like most brutal maulings, it had happened so quickly.

My friend Sabrina, the only English speaker in this particular landlocked area of central Umbria, and I had been involved in a conversation while Marcus had been making her usual top-speed rounds over the muddy, dark ground, under the tall pines, racing in loops, damp black snout to the soft earth. Sabrinas mother had recently told Sabrina to stop eating panettone, lest she find herself too plump to snag a husband, and had then turned to me and exclaimed, pointing at her daughter, This one is almost forty!

And once she finds a husband? I asked.

Then she can eat whatever she wants! her mother said, pushing a drawer shut with her significant rump.

Sabrinas sole wish in life was to escape from her Umbrian village to Manchester, England, where she would contentedly work as an unmarried, panettone-eating university librarian. We were discussing how she might make this dream a reality when I realized that I had not seen my dog for some time.

Marcus, vieni qua! I yelled. The forest was quiet and damp, enclosed like a big old room, with the trees so wide and packed that they completely obscured the sky. I turned to Sabrina, my heart sinking. I knew, suddenly, certainly, that disaster was inevitable. Sabri, are there any chickens around here? I asked.

Then I was running toward a thick bush and pushing apart its long branches. Light streamed in, and I stood with my hands holding the parted greenery, my head popping through, my body still in the woods. Twenty yards ahead, I saw a bucolic scene: the ancient house with its terra-cotta roof, its jade lawn, a cloudless blue sky, and a few happy hens wandering through the grass, picking up seeds and bugs, letting out contented clucks.

A few feet behind the oblivious poultry crept Marcus, her eyes hard, her movements controlled. She crouched low like a vicious feline. Her face was stone cold, dead set. It was a scene from the African prairie: the sweet antelope chomping on grass while the leopard approaches. Could the inhabitants of the farmhouse see her from their windows? Were they readying the rifle? I burst through the bushes and began to run toward the scene of impending doom, my mouth shut for fear of alerting the chickens owners. As I was closing in, so was Marcus, and she was the superior athlete. In one fluid movement, she pounced, grabbing the closest, unluckiest chicken in her jaws just as I came within arms length.

Drop it, I said forcefully. I stepped forward, Marcus stepped back. I shimmied toward her, she shimmied away. She let out a guttural noise. She seemed to be experiencing a pleasure she had never before known.

Drop it? I pleaded. I tiptoed in her direction. She rose and sidestepped. I threw myself to the ground and began to crawl.

She stood poised with her kill, fixing me with a maniacal, impenetrable gaze. This was not the dog I knew. The little hunting dog that I had adopted quivered when a motorcycle drove by and was disconcerted by especially large flies. Once, a sheep beat her up. A particularly confident cat often successfully chased her, hissing. I had never believed her capable of violence. Now, in the face of my pointer, I saw at close range the fierce undercurrent, the animal beneath. I was extremely impressed.

Part of me felt that if she was good enough to catch the bird, she should get to taste its blood. That was what she wantedjust a sip of chicken blood, thats all. Was this the extreme, gnarled love of a mother, hoping for her childs happiness even at the expense of an innocent life? Did I care?

I did careI cared just enough. There was a moral imperative here: I was all that chicken had in the world, and I couldnt turn my back on it. I continued to whisper furiously at Marcus. I could have touched the bony avian foot with my outstretched hand, but I knew any sudden movements would push Marcus farther away. She was considering her options, frowning as she held the game and mulled over how relatively important I was to her.

You let it go, I growled.

Finally, torn, she let go of the chicken and leaped over to me. As soon as she had accomplished thisit all happened in no more than a secondshe regretted her decision and tried to hop back to her gasping casualty, but it was too late: I had her by the collar.

I dragged hermuzzle coated with feathersthrough the bushes again, to find Sabrina waiting.

Sabrina, I think she may have killed their chicken! I said, the dog straining in my hands. Do we go to the house and say something? What do we do?

Sabrina was from these parts. Surely she would know the best way to proceed. She was a full-grown professional woman, well educated, composed, and polite. She paused for a moment to consider our course of action.

We run, she said, and all three of us took off through the wilderness.