"I assume you got the dead dog e-mail," was the opening line in a puzzling message from my sister in Mexico. Thanks to new technology, she need no longer live in the hell that is Mexico City, but spends most of her time in a small village near Cuernavaca, lower down the mountains, where the air is less thin and the climate is warmer. It also means that we can, and do, exchange transatlantic gossip. What else is email for?
The last time I stayed with her, the snarling mongrel dog, Chapulin, which belonged to the gardener, Eliseo, choked to death while fighting over a bone with the bulldog, Tongolele. Was the dead dog in the e-mail Tongolele (named for a torch singer whom she in no way resembled)? Or was it Hector, a good-natured, slightly crippled Alsatian who had recently returned from exile in Acapulco?
On tenterhooks
I replied, putting "Re: Dead Dog" in the subject box: "I have not received the dead dog e-mail, and I am on tenterhooks. Did Eliseo manage to kill Tongolele? Or was it Hector? Details, please." Wealthy people living in the countryside in Mexico believe in big dogs as effective deterrents against burglars and vandals. Hence the popularity of large, intimidating pedigree dogs, which are also of course a status symbol. Tongolele cost $600. The Mexican relationship with dogs is, like many things Mexican, complex and contradictory. The Aztecs bred special hairless dogs, which they used as hot-water bottles on cold winter nights, sleeping with their feet on the dog, which, being hairless, was guaranteed not to have fleas. This did not mean the dogs were pets. When I lived in Mexico, I was often warned not to eat pozole, a delicious stew of meat and chickpeas sold at street stalls, because it was widely believed that some vendors made it the traditional Aztec way, with dog. No doubt the hairless hot-water bottle dogs, esquintles, were also cooked if the occasion demanded it. The gardener Eliseo was apparently fond of the snarling Chapulin, but was terrified of the fiercer looking but docile bull-dog, Tongolele. I saw him kicking her once, but I must admit I kicked out at Chapulin whenever he snarled at me.
The sister is one of those people who never does things by half. Last July, for example, I tripped over my own feet and fell flat on my face on the pavement, grazing my hand, bruising a cheekbone, banging my knee and breaking my glasses: no harm done. A week later, my sister in Cuernavaca tripped while out jogging, and needed ten stitches in her knee and minor plastic surgery to sew the skin back on to her nose. I received an e-mail with "Re: Hopkin Nose" in the subject box, reassuring me that she was fine; once the stitches came out you'd never notice. Luckily, she wrote, her friend Carol had been running with her, and went to the nearest house for ice, or the damage might have been worse.
Animal lover
Carol Hopkins, the sister's friend, is an American Seventh Day Adventist, who has some connection with a mission they run in the village. She is chiefly known locally as an animal lover, taking her daily walk with a large mastiff, a standard poodle and a rescued donkey.
In came the reply, also tagged "Re: Dead Dog". It read as follows: "I better put you out of your agony immediately. Tongo is fine, and so is Hector. My neighbour, Carol Hopkins, called me in hysteria from San Diego to tell me that her maid had just called from Cuernavaca to tell her that Nero, her big black poodle, had fallen in the pool and drowned! Nero, by the way, was deaf and blind and incontinent and very, very smelly.
Cremation
"So Carol, in tears, asked me to go to the house and give Nero a hug (ugghh) from her, and wrap him in his blanket and arrange for his cremation with the vet [sic]. The maid's husband got him out of the pool, and tried to revive him, so he told me. I did not dare to ask if mouth-to-mouth. Apparently they were upstairs watching TV when they heard the mastiff barking and went downstairs to see what was up and found Nero floating in the pool, still warm, they told me.
"Well, it's the first time I have had to manipulate a stiff smelly dog. The vet could not pick him up till the next day so Carol said take him up to my room and let him lie on my bed tonight like he always does. . .yuukkkk grooosss!!! Anyway the maid and I carried him up in a rug, and so be it!
"He was on ice for the weekend with the vet, and supposedly went to Mexico City yesterday to be cremated. We are supposed to go pick up the ashes from the vet when Carol gets back next week. I'll keep you posted."