The dog was tethered to a tree in Madame Hélènes garden when I got back, wriggling with pleasure as I came through the gate. He had been clipped down to stubble, making his head look even bigger and his bones even more prominent. The only part of him that had escaped severe pruning was his stumpy tail, which had a whiskery fringe trimmed to a modified pom-pom. He looked mad and extraordinary, like a child’s drawing of a stick dog, but at least he smelled clean.
He was thrilled to be back in the car and sat bolt upright on the seat, leaning over from time to time for a tentative nibble at my wrist and making small humming noises that I assumed were signs of contentment.
In fact, they must have been hunger, because he fell on the meal that was waiting for him at home, putting one foot on the empty bowl to keep it still while he tried to lick off the enamel. My wife watched him with the expression that most women reserve for well-behaved and intelligent children. I steeled myself, and said that we must start thinking about finding his owner.
The discussion continued over dinner, with the dog asleep under the table on my wife’s feet, snoring loudly. We agreed that he should spend the night in an outbuilding, with the door left open so that he could leave if he wanted to. If he was still there in the morning, we would call the only other man we knew in the region who had a Korthals and ask his advice.
My wife was up at dawn, and shortly afterward I was woken by a hairy face thrust into mine; the dog was still with us. It soon became clear that he was determined to stay, and that he knew exactly how he was going to convince us that life without him would be unthinkable. He was a shameless flatterer. One look from us was enough to set his whole bony body quivering with evident delight, and a pat sent him into ecstasy. Two or three days of this and I knew we would be lost. With mixed feelings, I called Monsieur Grégoire, the man we had met one day in Apt with his Korthals.
He and his wife came over the next day to inspect our lodger. Monsieur Grégoire looked inside his ears to see if he had been tattooed with the number that identifies pedigreed dogs in case they should stray. All serious owners, he said, do this. The numbers are stored in a computer in Paris, and if you find a tattooed dog the central office will put you in touch with the owner.
Monsieur Gregoire shook his head. No number. “Alors,” he said, “he has not been tatoué, and he has not been fed correctly. I think he is abandoned—probably a Christmas present that grew too big. It happens often. He will be better living with you.” The dog flapped his ears and wagged himself vigorously. He wasn’t about to argue.
“Comme il est beau,” said Madame Grégoire, and then made a suggestion that might easily have increased the dog population in our house to double figures. What did we think, she asked, about a marriage between the foundling and their young bitch?
I knew what one of us thought, but by then the two women were planning the whole romantic episode.
“You must come up to our house,” said Madame Gregoire, “and we can drink champagne while the two of them are …” she searched for a sufficiently delicate word “… outside.”
Fortunately, her husband was made of more practical stuff. “First,” he said, “we must see if they are sympathetic. Then, perhaps …” He looked at the dog with the appraising eye of a prospective father-in-law. The dog put a meaty paw on his knee. Madame cooed. If ever I had seen a fait accompli, this was it.
“But we have forgotten something,” said Madame after another bout of cooing. “What is his name? Something heroic would be suitable, no? With that head.” She patted the dog’s skull, and he rolled his eyes at her. “Something like Victor, or Achille.”
The dog sprawled on his back with his legs in the air. By no stretch of the imagination could he be described as heroic, but he was conspicuously masculine, and there and then we decided on his name.
“We thought we’d call him Boy. Ça veut dire ‘garçon’ en Anglais.”
“Boy? Oui, c’est genial,” said Madame. So Boy he was.
We arranged to take him up to meet his fiancée, as Madame called her, in two or three weeks, after he’d been inoculated, tattooed, fed decently, and generally made into as presentable a suitor as possible. In between his trips to the vet and his enormous meals, he spent his time insinuating himself into the household. Every morning he would be waiting outside the courtyard door, squeaking with excitement at the thought of the day ahead and grabbing the first wrist that came within range. Within a week, he was promoted from a blanket in the outbuilding to a basket in the courtyard. Within ten days, he was sleeping in the house, under the dining table. Our two bitches deferred to him. My wife bought him tennis balls to play with, which he ate. He chased lizards, and discovered the cooling delights of sitting on the steps leading into the swimming pool. He was in dog heaven.