Originally, I had ventured to the Tatras to find an old sanitorium. Kafka, when his tuberculosis first flared up, had stayed at the facility and I thought it a curious pilgrimage to go see where the eerie man spent his days a century ago. I left the organized, safe, civilized confines of the city in hopes of coming back home with a quaint souvenir. I thought it a pleasant way to spend a weekend.
I thought wrong.
I found no sanitorium. Instead, I found the world to be a much more inhospitable place than I thought it before. I also found, in great detail and against my will, why it is that in the village of Ultár there is a law that no man may kill a dog.
I came upon the settlement by complete accident. The hills of rural Slovakia are a labyrinth thousands of years in the making and the roads that lead through them are quite often construction fraud made physically manifest. I was lost. The navigation in my motor had refused to cooperate and the maps which I thought I had packed I had not. I was lost and covered in sweat and the fuel gage on the motor was starting to run dangerously low.
It is in this state of panic and confusion that I spotted the Slovnaft gas-station that stands next to the settlement of Ultár. The station itself, sitting before the aged village and eternal mountains, is a curious sight. Bright and yellow and filled with electric lights and pumps, the structure looks like it came from a world wholly foreign to its rural surroundings. I chuckled at the absurdity, wondered what Kafka would make of it and then hurried to fill my gas tank.
My motor was the only car present at the pumps, yet I was not alone. The moment I stepped out an old, heavy hound was quick to meet me. Brown and black and gray with age, the animal trotted up to my car and sat itself in my way. The hounds’ eyes were milky with years, yet even past their murkiness I could see a familiar expression. The dog was begging for treats. Having no scraps nor any interest in befriending animals, I ignored the dog and focused on the gas pump.
The man behind the register was way beyond the years of retirement but he was animated and clearly still in touch with his intellect. He was overjoyed to see a customer, especially one with foreign plates. The old man, completely needlessly, pointed out where each product was in the station and then finished off his tour of the cramped premises by making a sales pitch for the two solitary hotdogs that were rolling around beneath the heat lamps. I declined the offer of processed meat but grabbed myself some bottled water from one of the coolers.
As the old man tapped away at the register he inquired of my travels. Seeing no need for secrecy, I told him. Upon hearing of the sanitorium I was searching for, he gave me a knowing glance and said it was not far from where we were. Without being asked, he provided me with the directions to get to my destination. I heartily thanked him and then, as he continued to struggle with the register, I strolled around the miniscule station.
It is then, that by chance, I became aware of that peculiar law concerning the dogs of Ultár. Right beneath the cashier’s desk, in prominent view and in three languages it stood: Under the penalty of death, no man in Ultár shall kill a dog.
Out of curiosity, and because the old man seemed to have trouble with the cash register, I asked about the curious law. Why was it displayed so prominently? Was the law meant in jest or did the village of Ultár carry a steeper punishment for animal abuse than would be the European norm? At my inquisition all pretense of commerce had been abandoned. The old man immediately launched into a history lesson fueled by the zeal of a lifelong raconteur.
‘There,’ he said, pointing out to the village beyond the plexiglass window of the gas station. ‘There once stood a mighty manor and now only its skeleton remains. You see those stones that circle the center of Ultár? Those, back in the days of serfdom, were walls. A mighty manor stood here hundreds of years ago and those walls of stone protected it.
‘The family that lived within that manor was exceedingly cruel in their ruling of the land. Their taxes left the peasantry hungry and their laws were strict and they were quick to use violence to make examples of folk, yet, what that cruel family was known for most of all was what they did to the village dogs.
‘In a village, a dog rarely sleeps inside. They are shepherds and guards and live in the yards or in the fields. In Ultár, however, the villagers have always kept their dogs inside after sundown. It is a tradition from the olden days when the manor still stood tall. The serfs would hide their dogs inside of their cabins, for the noble family that ruled over them would steal them otherwise.
‘No certain record exists of what horrors happened behind those walls. Some villagers thought the nobility simply killed the dogs for pleasure, or perhaps as a part of some demoniac feast. Others suggested that the dogs were being used for the purposes of dark magic, or dark science, or a mixture of the two. No one knew what happened beyond those walls, save for the wails and howls the villagers would hear if a dog was ever unaccounted for.
‘For years this tradition went on and the common folk were simply happy that the family that ruled over them didn’t form an appetite for their livestock or children. Then, many years later, once the cruel family living in the manor had become a fact of life to the villagers — a caravan of a traveling circus rolled into town.
‘Jugglers and fire-eaters and men wearing strange headdresses of bone and horn flooded the town square with their presence and goods. In this caravan, there was an orphan boy who had lost his parents to war and disease and was only left with a dark mutt puppy to keep him company. The child had drawn a poor lot in life, but as long as he was in the company of his yelping black hound he was happy. For the first two days of the caravan’s stay, the boy and the dog were inseparable.
‘It wasn’t until the evening of the third day, when the boy had lost track of his pet while playing with the local children, that the puppy went missing. Well until sunset the boy walked through the village streets and called out to his companion, yet no dog presented itself. When the sun finally set and the boy was called back to the camp, he made the villagers promise him that they would keep his dog safe were they to chance upon him during the night. The villagers agreed, but they knew full well what fate awaited the boy’s cherished pet.
‘During the night, those that drank and those that slept lightly could hear the sounds all too familiar to the people of Ultár. The puppy had ended up in the manor.
‘When, in the morning, the townsfolk sought to tell the boy about the fate of the puppy, they expected him to be heart broken. The dog, was, after all, his steadfast companion and he loved it the way only a child can love a pet. Yet when the boy was told of the fate of his puppy, he did not weep. Instead, he simply turned in the direction of the manor, knelt and started to recite some sort of prayer.
‘The words and motions of the child were completely alien to those of the village, but when the fellow nomads of his kind noticed the boy, they joined him in his communion. Soon enough all the foreigners in the village were on their knees, praying in a queer way in the direction of the manor in which dogs would disappear.
‘It wasn’t but a couple of minutes into the strange chant that the skies above started to shift. It was a cloudless morning, yet as the prayers went on a cover of darkness descended as if it were birthed by the sky itself. A storm the likes Ultár had never seen before descended on the village and only on the village. Thunder and hail and rain beat against all within the limits of the city, yet the world beyond was dry and calm.
‘Sensing foul play in the nomad’s prayers the nobility sent out the guards to disperse the crowd. The strange folk retreated to their camp on the outskirts of the village yet when the storm refused to relent the guards chased them even further. Even with the nomads gone, however, the storm continued to persist, making any fieldwork fruitless and driving all of the villagers indoors.
‘The storm dragged on well into the evening and showed no signs of weakening. The villagers wept for their rain-soaked crops and prayed to God that he find mercy on them, but then, knowing there was work to be done in the morning — they slept. To the crackling of thunder and flashes of lightning the people of Ultár lay in wait for the morrow’s labor.
‘The morning brought an end to the storm, but it also brought something infinitely queerer than the people of Ultár had ever witnessed. When they awoke, they found all their dogs gone. At first it was feared that the family of the manor had kidnapped the hounds in the night, but the animals were quickly found in the streets of the village. They were safe and healthy, but strange. As if drunk on some magnificent liquor, the dogs stumbled through the streets with their bellies filled to burst. They would reject all food and drink and simply stroll through the sun-lit streets basking in the warmth of the morning.
‘The dogs were queer but safe and the villagers took comfort in that. Furthermore, the manor was quiet and the guards were nowhere to harass the townsfolk. The village of Ultár considered this a blessing and simply went on with their labor. It wasn’t until the morning of the following day that they were to find why the manor had been so silent.
‘A guard emerged from behind the gates of the manor. He was bloodied and bruised and barely holding onto his life. The people of Ultár did the most they could to keep him alive, but he perished not far from the manor where he had received his injuries. As he went, they say, he spoke of a night of horrors.
‘He spoke of the ground beneath the manor shaking all throughout the storm. He spoke of the grass turning to mud and that mud drifting apart. He spoke of creatures, wild hounds that rose from the earth with the flesh barely holding onto the bone. He spoke of a terrible battle and then, he spoke of the dogs of Ultár.
‘The dying guard swore that as the demoniac beasts of the earth descended on him and his comrades, the dogs of Ultár were among their midst. They walked on their hind legs with their paws in the air. As the eldritch beasts from the mud ripped away the throats of the guards and the family which they protected, the dogs of Ultár followed behind feasting on what was left.
‘When a brave group of villagers ventured into the manor, they found enough blood and bones to bring truth to even the most absurd of allegations. The earth was disturbed and no one dared to disturb it further to this very day.
‘History books tell of the family and their entourage dying of a wolf attack, and perhaps that is what the rest of the world beyond the valleys must believe. But the people of Ultár know the truth, and because of that truth, we have our law. For we never want to see our dogs walk upright again.’
With that, the old story teller tapped at the till once more and produced my bill for the gas and water. I paid what I owed in silence. The old man’s story had been entertaining enough to make me forget about the old sanitorium I had been looking for, but my thoughts of Kafka were quickly replaced with thoughts of skepticism.
‘Has a dog ever been killed in Ultár since?’ I finally asked.
The old man nodded and then, pointed to the old dog sitting by the gas pumps. ‘His great grandmother, seven times over. Cukrik might not know it, but his blood ties to Ultár history.’
The hound outside seemed far too old to hear, but at the mention of his name Cukrik got up. He trudged over to the automatic doors of the gas station and didn’t enter until they were fully open. With a low grunt the dog laid down at my feet and looked up at me as if I might feed him.
‘And did anything happen?’ I asked, ignoring the hound, ‘Was there a storm? Did demoniac dogs rise from the earth?’
‘Well, that depends on who you ask. The outsiders say that the whole story of the manor is just an old wives’ tale. They say that over the years dozens of dogs have died in accidents or through malice. They say that the only laws that apply in Ultár are laws which the politicians have decided. If you ask the skeptics they’ll say nothing out of the ordinary happens when a dog dies in our fair village.’
The man shrugged and, with that, the heating lamps over the hotdogs went dark and the conveyor belt ceased to move. Calling to the hound, the old man took one of the hotdogs and cut off a small bit with a knife he seemed to have hidden in his sleeve.
‘Can’t feed him the whole thing,’ the old man said, dropping a small slice of hotdog to the ground ‘Old dog would choke. They forget, unlike wise old humans, what moderation is.’
We stood there in silence, watching the old hound sniff and chew and groan at the small cut of meat. It wasn’t until he fed the dog a second piece of processed sausage that the old man spoke again.
‘Outsiders say that the old story of the dogs of Ultár is a fabulation of the highest degree, but they’re wrong. They lie to their peers and to themselves in an impotent effort to convince everyone the world is much plainer than it is. Yet, dear traveler, if you’ll believe me, I know the truth. Only one dog has been killed in Ultár since the night the manor fell. Only one dog has been killed and when she was killed all the hounds of Ultár rose to their hind legs,’ the old man said, the flame of the raconteur starting up behind his spectacles again, ‘I know this, because I was there to see it.’
The story seemed to be confidently set in the realm of folklore, but the old man’s passion for telling it kept me fascinated. I inquired of the old man to tell me more, to spin another tale about the dogs of Ultár. In response he told me that a man shouldn’t talk about the past without a drink. Then, with an acrylic grin, he nodded to the liquor shelf behind him.
I told him I would happily buy him a drink and he happily turned on his heel and retrieved my purchase. His choice of drink was a plastic shot glass of what I presumed to be vodka. He emerged with not one, but two. When he pushed the single serving of liquor to me I rejected it. I was, after all, driving and though I was unfamiliar with the alcohol laws of Ultár I was sure that Slovakian police would not approve of me operating my motor under the influence.
In response the old man told me that there are no police in the hills that I would be taking to get to Kafka’s old sanitorium. Without giving me much room to negotiate, he undid the seal on my drink and then grabbed the last hotdog in the heating machine. He placed the processed meat in a bun, told me where the ketchup and mustard are and then he produced my bill.
A hotdog and two shots of vodka — 3,50 €. It seemed like a reasonable price to pay for the old man’s tale.
He undid his own shot glass and raised it in a toast to Cifra, the dog that had been lost many years prior. I never knew of the dog, but I raised my plastic glass in her honor as well. Before he drained his shot the old man took a big bite of his hotdog. Not knowing if this is local custom, I took a bite of mine too. The processed meat had a most unpleasant taste, yet the cheap liquor washed it away with all other sensation in my mouth.
‘It was the end of the war,’ the old man said, feeding his old hound another slice of meat. ‘The valleys here are deep and things often get lost. We didn’t see any fighting for the most of it, Germans scarcely made their way down here. It wasn’t until the end of the war that a group of Soviet soldiers made their way through Ultár.’
‘There were about thirty of them and they were accompanying a lone broken-down tank. They were hungry and tired and completely lost. At first, some of the village welcomed the soldiers with food and drink. When the donations proved to be insufficient, however, the troops started to freely take from the people of Ultár regardless of whether they were willing to give. They traveled through the village and saw what each house had and, if they liked it or thought that it could fetch a kopek somewhere, they took it.
‘During this grand transfer of wealth, the soldiers came upon a certain home where a man with three beautiful daughters lived. They had not hidden sufficiently and soon enough they too were to become a ‘gift to the liberators.’ In an effort to protect his daughters the man told the soldiers of a better reward. Across the road there lived a family who had connections to a bartender in one of the nearby cities. In the house across the road there surely would be some spiritus which would ease the minds of the war-weary soldiers.
‘Thrilled by the promise of pure alcohol, the soldiers went across the street and demanded what they considered to be theirs by birthright. I do not know if there was any spiritus in that house, but what I do know — as a matter of fact — what everyone in Ultár knows — as a matter of fact — is that in the house across the street lived a shepherd dog by the name of Cifra.
‘Now Cifra was accustomed to chasing wolves and bears and wild hogs. She had a wild streak about her and when the strange men entered the courtyard of the home, she made no effort to hide it. Whilst the soldiers interrogated her owner, she barked. No words from the soldiers, or from her master for that matter, dissuaded her. Cifra only grew louder and angrier with every second of the exchange. Then, perhaps because she started at him or because she simply made him scared — one of the soldiers raised his rifle and shot the dog dead.
‘The life scarcely went out of the dog before the rain started to fall. A storm which Ultár had not witnessed for hundreds of years came down upon the village and dispersed the arguing crowd. The soldiers retreated back to the edge of the village to secure their equipment and the families of Ultár retreated back to their homes and locked their doors.
‘Once again, a torrential rain had descended upon Ultár as punishment for the sins of the cruel manor family. The wind tore at the roofs of the cottages and the hail wreaked havoc upon the fields. The thunder that rocked above the village was deafening. So terrible was its howl, in fact, that no one could hear the firefight at the outskirts of the village.
‘My father had told me that the story of the dogs and the manor had been a complete lie. He was, much like you, a skeptic of the old tales. As we cowered from the storm, he assured us all that there had been clouds gathering all afternoon. He tried to explain everything away with the most common of views. My father held on to his rationality as tight as he could, yet when he saw our family dog rise to his hind legs, he was left speechless.
‘I loved the dog the way only a child can love a pet. He had been my steadfast companion for all of my few years. Cukrik was his name. I have never owned a dog with any other name since. I knew Cukrik. I knew Cukrik better than anyone else, yet that night I could not recognize him.
‘Standing on his hind legs, he looked as if he were begging for treats, yet there was no joy in his eyes. The dog was as if possessed by some foreign force which made our whole family strangers to him. He stood on his hind legs and pawed at the door and he grew increasingly agitated when he found it locked. When the queer beast started to bark and snarl at the family my father lost all his skepticism and unlocked the door.
‘I tried to follow my steadfast companion into the rain, but I was held back. The dog was going off to do what Ultár dogs are to do, my father said. He was right. When the rain finally cleared and the world outside drifted out of the storm, the village of Ultár was treated to a sight which vindicated the law of old. As a child, I was not allowed to look upon what was left of the camp for long. The memories, however, those will haunt me until my dying days.
‘They say that the bones were buried in the churchyard and that the tank was driven up to the hills to be reclaimed by the forest — of these things I do not know, for I was but a boy and children are not entitled to the world of adults. What I do know though, is that the earth around the manor, beyond those remnants of white stone where grass now grows — I know that the earth around the old manor was disturbed. No one dared to touch it and for seasons no grass grew there.
‘Most of those who were there to witness that night now lie at the cemetery. Soon I’ll join them too, God willing. But until then, until I lie dead, buried next to my dear old wife — I will happily tell a stranger, why no man in Ultár is to harm a dog.’
Even with the cold hotdog in my hand, I found myself clapping when the old man finished his tale. I, of course, did not believe a word of his story, but the passion with which he weaved his tale left me a fan.
There were no other customers and the old man seemed more than willing to indulge me in another story, yet the sun was starting to set across the hills and I feared driving in the dark. I asked the old man to repeat the directions to the sanitorium again and then, with some sadness, I bid my goodbyes.
When I left the gas station, I found my feet light from the cheap vodka shot the old man forced upon me. I had not eaten much on my travels and I have never been one for liquor, yet I still found the ever-so-gentle lack of balance in my steps to be emasculating. It is, perhaps, because of the imbalance in my steps, that I took pity on the old dog.
The hound had followed me out of the gas station. I had little doubt about why the dog was following me. He was, after all, a simple creature whose biological priorities were firmly in the realm of food. Having a cold hot-dog in my hand that I wasn’t interested in eating made me the most interesting character in the immediate vicinity.
When I got back to my motor, the old hound outpaced me and sat himself directly in front of the door. His milky eyes made their intentions clear and I felt charitable. With some effort I pinched off a bit of the processed meat and threw it to the hound.
He was beyond ecstatic to receive the treat.
The hound quickly scarfed down the thumb sized bit of hotdog that I provided, but he was hungry for more. At first I attempted to pinch off another piece of the processed meat, but the hotdog was wet and greasy and far too messy to deal with.
Perhaps, it was the liquor. Perhaps, I took the old man’s warning as another fabulation. Perhaps, I just wanted to give the dog a treat he would never forget. Regardless of what my motivations were, I gave up on partitioning the meat and gave the hound the whole hotdog.
The joy in the hound’s failing eyes was palpable. In an instant he transformed from an animal aged to an animal in his prime. Without any hesitation he retrieved the meat from the bun and trotted off a distance from my car to eat in peace.
I considered my charity a good deed. For a couple of minutes, at least.
The old man had given me simple instructions on how to get to the old sanitorium, yet I still made an attempt to coordinate my path with the navigation system in the motor. It took me a while to get the address to match the instructions that were given to me, yet with some effort the two sets of directions unified into one. I flipped on the radio and turned the ignition and was ready to depart the village of Ultár.
Yet a drop of rain stopped me in my tracks.
It had been a completely clear afternoon when I arrived at the gas station and the skies were just as clear when I left. In my short time in the car, however, clouds gathered above. Dark clouds, clouds which descended from the sky as if they were birthed outside of Earth’s atmosphere — they gathered and rained and leaked lightning.
In the rear-view mirror of my motor, I could see the gas station hound. He was no longer happily gnawing on the stick of processed meat which I gave him. He was lying on his side, motionless, his massive chest absent of all breath.
The dead dog quickly disappeared in a curtain of thick rain and my aspirations to check on the animal were displaced by my fear of the old man’s reaction. Without much thought, I stepped on the gas pedal and drove away. I had hoped to outrun the storm, to find shelter in the old sanitorium, to dispel all thoughts of the Ultár legend being true.
My hopes proved to be deeply misplaced.
The storm followed me out of the village and into the hills. It tore away all sight from the road and rendered the world beyond my headlights invisible. Had I met another car on those thin forest roads, I would not be here to tell my story. Had I met another car, both me and its driver would have died a quick fiery death in a patch of nearly untouched land.
The roads were, however, empty.
I do not know if I took a wrong turn or whether my navigation led me astray on purpose, but in my rain-drenched blindness I drove the motor off of roads of cement to roads of packed earth. By the time I realized I was driving on terrain the automobile was unaccustomed to, it was too late. Beneath my wheels the road turned to mud. For a while the motor still crawled through the forest path, yet soon enough even that inkling of movement came to rest under the strained howl of the automobile’s engine.
I have been sitting here for nigh thirty minutes. The moment the storm started up I found doubt in my heart about whether the legends of Ultár were truly a fabulation. It did not take long for that doubt to turn into certainly.
With the rain beating against my roof and windshield I have been rendered deaf and blind to the world outside, yet past the downpour and steadily advancing darkness — I can see them. Silhouettes of beasts have been circling my car, growing closer and closer with each rotation of their demoniac circle. I know from whence those beasts came. Every fiber of my being wants to reject the knowledge as a fable, as a childish story told by a senile man — yet I know from whence those beasts came.
The circle grows closer and closer with each rotation and the outlines of skeletal hounds start to peek at me through the rain. Yet, there is something else. Past my headlights I see another group move. They do not stand on all fours like beasts, no, they stand on hind legs like men.
Yet they are not men.
They are dogs.
They are dogs and they carry in their eyes the queerest of expressions. They are dogs but they have been possessed by something foreign to both the realm of man and animal. They are the dogs of Ultár and once again, they walk on hind legs.
Out of the curtain of rain, a leader emerges.
He presses his paw against the handle of the door. He moves in a way in which a dog should never move. He presses his paw against the handle of the door and he tries to open it.
The door is locked, but the dog is not alone. His brothers and sisters join him. They join him and they bark and howl and scratch, trying to get inside. Standing on their hind legs, they beat and rage against my motor. They stand on their hind legs, ready to deliver the punishment which meets any man who dares to kill a dog in the village of Ultár.