Mafish and the dogs of Leo Mafish, a female German shepherd that Leo had adopted and had her sterilized, was the first to have come spontaneously to the farm four years ago. She was also the last survivor of a number of dogs that had
decided to move to the farm. Mafish had arrived thin and so starved that she could barely walk. Leo thought that if he did not give her something to eat quickly, she would die. So he gave her a piadina, some sort of pita bread from Romagna, and water to drink in a bowl. Not knowing her name he called her Mafish Mushkeela, which in Arabic means No Problem, but usually only called her Mafish for short. Since then he had continued to feed her until she gained weight and her coat was again shiny. Mafish was now an excellent example of a German shepherd. On summer afternoons, Leo sat on a deck chair under the large olive tree behind the house and Mafish would lie in the shade next to him. She never left him for a moment. Where he was, there she was. Then came Maaquq, a beautiful black Belgian shepherd, his hair long and lustrous, a beautiful dog, very young and strong, with beautiful and healthy white teeth. He had come to visit Mafish but was frustrated by the fact that being sterilized, Mafish did not appreciate his advances. Also Maaquq stayed and Leo started feeding him too and named him Maaquq because he reminded him of the crazy Abdel Basset. Now under the olive tree there were two dogs lying at the feet of Leo while he was dozing in the summer afternoons. Maaquq always wanted to be stroked and if Leo closed his eyes for a while, Maaquq woke him up pushing his wet nose under his hand to be stroked. When they went around the farm to inspect the plants, Maaquq, crazy with joy, used to run here and there chasing lizards. He was the terror of the lizards of the area. He jumped the dry-stone walls with surprising agility and was always in motion. Then came Ben Zaqen. A beautiful sporting dog of Setter breed, a dog good for hunting birds. Ben Zaqen was also adopted by Leo who thought: One more one less, the farm is big. The dogs keep the thieves away when I m gone, since I prefer to sleep at the house by the sea. He named the Setter Ben Zaqen, which in Hebrew means Son of the Old Man. Ben Zaqen was a bird chasing dog and did not belie
his character. If he saw a bird or any feathered animal resembling a bird, he ran after it and chased it in earnest until the bird stopped flying. Then Ben Zaqen remained motionless with a paw raised wagging his tail until Leo came. He was never still a single minute. When Leo was dozing under the olive tree, with at his feet Mafish and Maaquq, Ben Zaqen s eyes followed the flight of the magpies and he ran here and there. Then came Dolly Parton, a plump little female dog, quite short, white with coffee stains and a thorough bred mongrel. Leo adopted also her and gave her that name because she reminded him of the famous singer of western songs with the big bursting chest. Leo liked to name the dogs because in the Bible it was written that God after He had created the animals, had asked Adam to give them their names. Now Leo, surrounded by all four dogs, was dozing blessedly beneath the olive tree. He could hear the chirping of cicadas, the croaking magpies and the sparrows were twittering from the nests that they had built in the stone walls of the houses of the farm. In the air there was the smell of dry hay and the pungent smell of ripe carob. Peace was perfect. Children of the God of agriculture, Leo and his dogs were enjoying the peace of the Sicilian countryside on the farm that Leo had bought with money earned in Libya. I must ask the vet to also sterilize Dolly Parton, thought Leo, otherwise I will fill the place with dogs. Four are enough for me. But time passed and his proverbial laziness prevented Leo to bring Dolly Parton to the vet. So in a beautiful autumn day, when Leo arrived from Pozzallo to the farm to feed the dogs, he found a nice surprise: Dolly Parton had given birth to twelve puppies. Strangely, half of them resembled Maaquq and the other half resembled Ben Zaqen. When the pups grew up they showed the same kind of character of their fathers. The children of
Maaquq were chasing lizards, and as it is known, were also good for hunting rabbits. Lizard s dog is also a rabbit s dog, they said. The sons of Ben Zaqen were instead feather chasing dogs, they were never still, always in search of birds. Now Leo was bringing the food for the dogs every day with big bags, because all those dogs ate quite a lot of food. To the twelve puppies he gave the name of the twelve tribes of Israel, without fail. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulon and Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher. But lacking a name, the only female he named Dina, according to the Bible. When the puppies grew, the trouble began. First of all dog s droppings were everywhere. Although the farm was large it was difficult to get around and avoid stepping on a fresh poo. Then the dogs began to annoy the neighborhood. The dogs were good natured and did not bark and did not bite people. However the children of Maaquq were chasing the rabbits and the lizards of the neighboring farms within a radius of five km. The sons of Ben Zaqen were chasing the chickens of the neighbors and moved up to Sanpieri eight km away. The word spread and neighbors complaints reached Scicli and the authorities responsible for preservation of wildlife. The WWF was also alerted and they were sending their spies to ascertain the situation. But Leo was quiet and kept resting under his olive tree, surrounded by his dogs. When however also Dina, imitating her mother, gave birth to twelve puppies Leo thought that it was time to intervene. He invited Pippazzo a character from Scicli, known to all including the the police for his suspected illegal activities. Pippazzo was a self-proclaimed dog dealer, a profession that was more than legitimate but that people found it hard to believe. The spies of the WWF, who were keeping an eye on the farm, hiding among the carob and olive trees, saw
from a distance with the telescope that Pippazzo was sitting in the sun together with Leo and they discussed drinking beer together. Nobody knew what was said, the fact is that a few days later all the dogs were gone, except Maaquq and Mafish. When the authorities showed up to Leo to notify a large fine for mistreatment of animals, Leo said that, no dog had ever had in all of Sicily a good treatment like his. But even if the dogs were gone and therefore was lacking the evidence of the offense, Leo had to pay a large fine all the same. A few months after that, also Maaquq disappeared and Leo with Mafish looked for him everywhere in the neighborhood. Leo was asking Mafish: Where is Maaquq? And she howled mournfully. Tell me the truth Leo told her, but she remained silent, conspiratorial like all Sicilians. Two months after the disappearance, Leo found the body of Maaquq in the river cobbles of the San Bartolomeo canyon, under the bridge near his farm. The day of the disappearance of Maaquq, Leo had indeed found a spot of blood in the yard in front of the garage and other spots of blood mixed with urine in the shed where Maaquq used to sleep. At first he had not paid much attention to the blood, because he hoped that Maaquq had disappeared behind some bitch and then would return. But now that he had found the body, everything was clear. Maaquq was not killed by a hunter or a thief, because the murderer in this case would have left him there and would not have bothered to throw him in the canyon to erase the tracks. The spots of urine in the shed showed that Maaquq had died there because in the act of dying humans also pee on their pants. This was an argument that had been suggested by the cow herder Gna, whose cows Leo allowed the right of grazing in the ground in front of the farm. Someone had killed him in the yard, said Gna, perhaps by accident with a
tractor or a truck, and then to get rid of the traces of the killing, he had thrown the dog down the bridge. It was apparent to Leo that Maaquq was killed by a son of a bitch he knew well, maybe one of his workers or a neighbor. That was the story of Leo s dogs. When he remembered his dogs Leo thought that here was a spirit of growth that pervaded the Universe. Every living species tend to multiply as if the available space was infinite. This was true for men as well. Be fruitful and multiply, said God. It was evident in the head of Leo that God was not concerned about the lack of space, because He knew that the space was infinite.