Dogs at the Perimeter Read Online Free Page B

save him,” I tell her. “I tried to keep him from drowning.” She looks up toward the high altar, the glowing lights, Jesus illuminated on his cross, then she gazes at me with understanding in her eyes. Sometimes it’s pity, undeserved as it is, that hurts me most.
    When the unthinkable happened, I had gone to Hiroji’s apartment. Years ago, when he was travelling more frequently, he had given me a copy of his keys so that I could take care of Taka the Old. For nearly a month now I have slept on his couch, leaving the curtains open as if I believe he will re-enter through the unlatched windows. I know that he is in Cambodia, the place where his brother, James, was last seen. There is no other place he would go. I imagine him unpacking his suitcase, telling me what he has learned, all the things he has seen: the Tonle Sap reversing its waters, the sprawling jungle, bats high in the shadows of the caves. He will tell me how to accept this life. I dream of returning home, not only to the place of my birth but to my son. My mother who died without me, who died so long ago, will finally close her eyes. She will turn her gaze from this world, she will slide like a boat up against land, into her future.
    In the morning, I walk to Kiri’s school. From Monday to Friday, I see my son once each day, we meet in the playground before school begins. This is the routine Navin and I have worked out. It is an interim measure, we have both said. A way forward.
    When I arrive, Navin is already there, leaning against the fence. I go to stand beside him. He touches my cheek. For a brief moment, his lips are warm against mine. “You didn’t sleep last night,” he says.
    I tell him that I did, a little, enough. My hands are icy and Navin takes hold of them. He says that I look exhausted, that I should take some time off. “It’s okay,” I tell him. Work gives me a feeling of order, of cheer. He kisses my frozen fingers, and the kindness that I have always loved in him, that he gives so freely, washes over me. But Navin, too, is worn out.
    I say again, “It will be okay.”
    In the playground, there are so many snowsuits in so many primary colours that my vision is temporarily dazzled. I stand at the fence and search the kaleidoscope for Kiri. There he is. I see him now, I see him. My son races across the grounds, a cub in a pack of awkward pups, pursuing a soccer ball. When his team scores, he howls with joy. The pink sky burns around us. Kiri chases the soccer ball, he tussles, fights, drops his hat, picks it up, and waves it like a flag.
    “Did you get my message,” Navin asks. “About Vancouver?”
    I nod. “When will you go?”
    “Next week, if I can pull everything together.” He says he is just finishing up a project, a new building design, but his colleagues can oversee it. He thinks the distance will be good for Kiri. He says that Kiri keeps asking when I’ll be coming home. “I’ll talk to him,” I say. We are surrounded by parents and children, by the rippling joy of the playground. Navin begins to say something but just then Kiri glimpses us. He runs forward. A girl stops him. “Kiri! Kiri!” she calls.
    “I’m a caterpillar,” he says.
    She frowns, “No! You’re not.”
    “I’m a worm,” he says charmingly, and the girl waves both arms in kind of Hawaiian dance.
    Kiri comes to me. I kneel down and he tells me, in a rush of words, that he’s going to visit his Auntie Dina later, they’re planning to build a rocket park, that she’ll make him murtabak and roti canai, that her dog, Bruno, is kind of old and shuffles very slowly. Kiri has taken to speaking quickly now, as if he is afraid he will run out of time. As if he will be too late.
    “Will you build a moon?” I ask him, kneeling in the snow. I busy myself readjusting his hat, which has fallen between his neck and the collar of his coat.
    “Oh!” he says, surprised. “Good idea.”
    “What about moon boots?” Navin says. “Moon