As a departure from my usual spontaneity, I am enclosing a little piece I did for the momenti journal about 10 minutes, from 5:50 – 6:00 p.m. yesterday:
Dog Day: Ten Minutes on the Streets of Tel Aviv
Karen Alkalay-Gut
At her advanced age of fourteen Shusha the terrier can manage one square block in the posh and quiet neighborhood of Afeka in Tel Aviv where there are few cars to scare her. With no leash so I can take pictures if I want, she is the one who decides which way to go, and I follow. The beat is standard and the time is regular. We cross one street and pass the house that hasn’t been changed since the fifties, then the bare-blocked frame that hasn’t gotten a license to finish building for at least two years. Shusha pees there. She doesn’t stop at the new villa with the enormous shaded windows and the security cameras, but squats to finish her business as soon as we pass it. I have a little problem manipulating the doggie bag to pick up her product without getting my little digital camera involved, and erase the architectural documentation by mistake. Now she is walking more lightly and turns the corner at a slightly faster pace. Some dogs are barking but they’re locked inside the fortress-like walls so we pay no attention. She breaks into a run rounding the last quarter because she is suddenly reminded there is something interesting ahead.
The little hidden grocery is where she likes to stop to see if anyone dropped something she can eat on the way out. The cats like this place too, for the same reason, but even though the weather is beginning to cool and become even pleasant, most of them are not out yet.
The pickings are very slim anyway – the crows have probably been there before them. For sure there haven’t been any street cleaners around lately, but it doesn’t take all that long to examine this little square of sidewalk to see that most of the dirt is not edible.
Once past the grocery we visit a little grove of fichus trees, where extra garbage is sometimes dumped and sometimes one can find the remains of a picnic someone left for the cats, but the few broken plastic chairs and some cut branches don’t impress her, and she’s ready to leave. We’re on our way home now, and except for the cats and Nachman the grocer, all of whom have ignored Shusha because she has a tendency to shriek when approached, we haven’t seen a soul.
This ancient mixed-breed dog, followed by her faithful valet – me, owns the street.
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