K O R O

I have always been a cat person. I like the diffidence and quirkiness of cats, the fact that they purr, the way they don’t come when you call. While I don’t actively dislike dogs, I have had little time for them in my life. Dogs jump on you. They are boisterous and noisy. They track mud on your floors. They need to be taken for walks. Every single day.

But years ago when I was a student in Japan, I fell in love with a dog. I am being perfectly honest: it was nothing short of love. She was a mutt, a stray, perhaps the size of a small Labrador, with rough, tawny brown fur, pointy ears like a German Shepherd, and eyes that caught yours and held them. I am not exaggerating when I say that this dog loved me back. Indeed, I am positive that she loved me as much as I’ve ever been loved by any living creature. And yes:  she jumped on me, she tracked mud on my floors, she was noisy and boisterous and she needed to be taken for a walk. Every single day.

I first became acquainted with Koro in the Chinese restaurant that was just downstairs from my apartment. Koro had taken to hanging around for the odd scraps of food that the students who frequented the restaurant gave her.  My landlady, who was the owner and chief cook of the restaurant, fed a number of stray dogs and cats herself. She not only knew about my relationship with Koro, she openly encouraged it.

When you gave Koro a scrap of food, she had the incredible habit of thanking you first. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself, so when people (especially other cat people, I hasten to add) accuse me of projecting human qualities on a dog, I have to remind myself of that. You would put the food in front of her and she would give it a quick check (to make sure that it was edible perhaps), then she’d look you in the eye in a meaningful way and lick your hand. After that she’d eat it. The first time she did this I thought that she must not be very hungry. But after she’d done it time after time, I knew that it was one of the many things that made her unique: it was just in her to be grateful. And that in her own way, she was saying grace.

The apartment I lived in was on the first floor, and in the summer, when we first met, Koro slept across the street under a tree. In the morning, I would call her from my balcony just after I’d gotten up, and every morning she did the exact same thing. First, she pricked up her ears and turned to the direction of my voice. Then, trembling with the joy of recognition she would begin a high-pitched barking, turn three times – always three! – and jump up higher than you’d have thought a dog of her size and weight could jump. Next, she would race, in a frenzy of excitement, across the street towards me. I always felt awful about that. The street was more of a lane than a proper street and got very little traffic, but she never, ever looked.

Being a cat lover, I have to say that I was (and still am) ashamed at how gratified my ego was by that wonderful, over-the-top show of affection. I have always thought that dog lovers were egoists to expect that kind of slavish adoration from their dogs. But God, it was wonderful. Once Koro got to the stairs that led to my apartment I could hear her ecstatic yipping, the frantic, scrabbling clickety-click of her toenails on the concrete stairs – then she would throw herself at me in wild abandonment and allow herself to be petted and hugged. Once she had calmed down I would give her her breakfast.

After breakfast, Koro followed me to school. I studied modern Japanese literature and did pottery during that year, and if I was in the pottery studio or a classroom, I could usually see Koro from a window, waiting. Sometimes while I worked at my wheel she would sit in a corner of the ceramics room and track my movements with those eyes. Later, she would follow me home.

In the winter, Koro slept in my genkan, the entrance area you find in every Japanese home, where you change into and out of your shoes. It got so that when people saw me, they expected to see Koro, and wherever she was, they knew I must be nearby too.

My student visa was for one year only and I was not able to extend it. My boyfriend managed to find Koro a home in a nearby children’s home, and she and I parted company. It was awful. Parting from my boyfriend was traumatic too, but when I returned to Japan two years later, the boyfriend was very much past history. Not Koro, though. I was positive she would still remember me and be happy to see me.  

It was summer, and one of the hottest I can remember. I arrived at the children’s  home terribly excited at the prospect of seeing Koro again. One of the young men who helped run the home greeted me and went to get her. I waited, my excitement mounting, chatting with the young people who worked there. All of them were full of Koro’s praise:  such a good dog, so faithful, fond of the children, too. I beamed happily. Did she still do the thing she did every morning? Turning three times, jumping up, yipping wildly? They looked puzzled. No, no, she didn’t do that sort of thing, at least they’d never seen it. Perhaps she was getting old. Secretly, I have to admit, I was glad. 

I waited for two hours, but Koro never showed up. They were very apologetic, they couldn’t think where she’d got to they said. I had a train to catch and people were expecting me, so I couldn’t wait any longer. I left the cans of dog-food I had bought for Koro with the people who ran the home and made my way to the station, tears streaming down my face.

A year later, a mutual friend told me that Koro had died. Once in a while I see a mutt that looks a bit like Koro:  a certain brisk intelligence in the eye, a way of moving, signs of her depth of character. It’s never her, of course – no dog ever could be. But of I know she did exist and I want to think that someday, on some plane, we’ll meet again.