Higher Life

Short story (2022)

On August 19, 1960, a Soviet vehicle entered outer space. On board the spacecraft were 2 dogs, 2 rats, a rabbit, 42 mice, a variety of plants and a jar of fruit flies. Their safe return to the earth marked the first instance of successful space travel for forms of what is called “higher life.” This is at least what I’ve learned from my (admittedly superficial) research. At times the information I’ve found on the internet does differ slightly, depending on the source-here and there the rabbit is not listed, sometimes there are 40 mice and not 42, certain sites omit the fruit flies. Reliably though the dogs are mentioned, and they are the only two travelers who are given names.

One of these dogs, Strelka, produced a litter of six puppies upon her return from outer space. She conceived the puppies with Pushok, who was once a candidate for space travel as well but ultimately did not make the cut. In 1961 Nikita Khrushchev gifted one of Strelka’s puppies to President John F. Kennedy. Pushinka was one of many gifts exchanged between Khrushchev and Kennedy (among cigars, barrels of wine, ship models). The two men had a lively if not competitive relationship. A few years later Pushinka birthed a litter of four puppies herself. Kennedy’sWelsh Terrier, Charlie, was the father.

What sort of jar contained the fruit flies? It’s a funny image: the most standard glass jar covered with carefully punctured tin foil. Like a child collecting insects in a tupperware. But surely it was something more professional, more scientific. And how on earth did they select Strela and Belka off the streets of Moscow? What qualities need a stray dog possess to be spotted en situ, kidnapped and shipped off to fucking space? The two of them, pissing on a dumpster, demonstrating some grit or integrity, appearing fit for the job.

I read on one site that Pushinka and the other puppies in her litter were raised in a lab. I guess the insinuation is that they weren’t socialized right-that she was “a little nippy,” not great with children. But the president loved her, I know he did. Maybe he even preferred her over his first two dogs, Clipper and Charlie. The way I see it: Kennedy and Pushinka were inseparable. The two of them playing fetch for hours on the beach by the house in Squaw Island. Tiring each other out. Inside the children drink lemonade. Clipper and Charlie patiently watch the game of fetch from behind the screened-in porch.

Picture the seats in a movie theater. Stationary, fixed in the direction of a single giant screen, their orientation an indicator that whoever inhabits these seats is meant not to fraternize or chat or move around much at all, but to dutifully absorb the pure gift of motion picture. But instead of a movie screen, in this case, the little audience of plastic chairs in the lobby half of which are empty) faces a pane of glass. And through the glass the audience can look into a room of equal size, sealed off from the waiting area, with a swimming pool in it.

The atmosphere of this facility, both the pool room and the waiting room, feels clean smooth, poreless tiles, the smell of chlorine and bleach though surely it is not. Now and then I hear the distinct shriek of a child, but even between shrieks, the space retains a static bouncy squeak that echoes like it’s trapped between the walls. The people who sit in the plastic chairs are focused ahead (with the exception of a loud blonde on a distressing work call) as they watch beyond the glass at children-presumably their children-learning to swim. Instructors guide children across the surface of the water as they spastically kick. Eager, so confident, believing themselves to be independently propelling across the pool.

I’m here as a favor to my upstairs neighbor. Something came up at her job, I didn’t ask much. It’s a few hours sitting in a lobby. No big deal. The kid takes off right away for her private lesson in the back. I take a seat among the young parents. I have a few hours to kill. I try to read but I find myself distracted by the noise-splashing water and muffled cheers from behind the glass. Little fits of clapping. Defeated, I put the book away and watch the children learn to swim.

The longer I stare at the pool, the more aware I become of the glass that divides us from the children. The dampening of sound, their oblivion to our side of the window. It’s like two-way glass in a cop show. It starts to feel like we’re staring into a fish tank-a big, aquarium tank-that the parents and I watch like television.The fish tank feeling is momentarily broken when a child leaves the pool room and enters the lobby through a heavy door on the side, goggles suctioned to his head. The child walks through the threshold and (with such nonchalance!) disrupts the fish tank illusion simply by exercising his right to come and go. Before the door shuts, the echo of laughter and splashing is no longer suppressed by the glass Sound from the other side trickles out into the waiting area. Then the door closes behind him, sealing in the sound again.

Can they breathe in there, I wonder, unable to stop myself from picturing the fruit flies trapped in the jar. Of course they can . The children are in a room just like ours. And I can breathe just fine. Yet the more I consider my ability to breathe the harder it is. The air inside the building feels old and chemical now, tainted by the infinite cycle of children and cleaning products that have passed through.

An older woman with a severe haircut sits a few seats down from me. She speaks loudly in Russian with a small swimsuited girl, her granddaughter I assume, while they share a granola bar. The woman scolds the daughter about something I cannot understand. Between words the woman catches my eye and smiles at me privately.

I walk to the back of the facility to stretch my legs. The larger pool, for the teenage athletes, is sectioned of into lanes by bright plastic ropes. The swimmers occupy the room like one singular organism; all the same in their dark swimsuits and rubber caps performing an identical task. They swim their laps. Parallel movement, passing one another on lonely trips back and forth. United but not united, like ants performing a duty for the greater good of the colony. The black swim caps and goggles have a funny way of punctuating the roundness of their heads, making them truly aquatic, like tadpoles or sperm.

I return to the lobby and the scolding is over between the Russian woman and her granddaughter. Silent now, the two of them stare straight ahead, clearly not looking at anything; instead they both replay the upset and think deeply about each other. After appropriate pouting has elapsed, the woman takes out a second granola bar. She peels the wrapper and holds it out to the girl who leans over and bites into it. Peace offering. This lady, I think, would be good company on the space craft. We kill time during our orbit, floating around the shuttle, getting sick and confused without gravity. She teaches me Russian. We play cards. She opens a granola bar, the crumbs breaking loose, dispersing like atoms and floating around the cabin.

One small child stands by the edge of the pool, only a few feet away from the front row, separated still by the glass. Without removing his trunks, he pulls out his penis with a mindless look on his face. The grown-ups look around at one another and laugh, not so much at his display, but at his oblivion to the audience. For a brief moment ti really is like watching television; we’re witnessing a performance, an event, happening completely independent of its viewers. He looks not only trapped behind the glass screen but trapped in another time and space, pre-recorded and playing again now for our entertainment. But after a delay he turns to us, processing us, the onlookers. And almost in slow-motion his face changes. A fluid rearranging of muscles crumpling and descending into humiliation. A betrayal. He starts to wail but the sound is suppressed by the glass wall. We can see the crying in all its glory, but we can hear only a faint impression.

The loud blonde hangs up the phone and flies to the door. With both hands she opens it, crossing over to the other side, leaving the audience and becoming part of the television image, where we watch her kneel beside her son to comfort him. The door closes gradually, lagging behind her. Suspended, shutting in slow motion, allowing the sound ofthe boy’s crying ot leak out into the lobby at full volume. The door latches shut with a thud, the noise from the pool room now muffled, the two spaces are divided again.

Kennedy and Pushinka have a special thing. And Pushinka gets along fine with Clipper and Charlie too, but it’s true she’s a bit troubled. She has a temper with them. She was raised in a Soviet lab, after all, under intense observation. When she first arrived in the U.S. they x-rayed her to check for listening devices. And although she can’t really comprehend her lineage, her mother’s notoriety, fame changes you. But she and the president love each other. Kennedy had to admit, it would be hard for him to find a gift for Khrushchev as wonderful and rewarding as Pushinka. No aged scotch or special edition could compare to this kind of companionship.

There was a time in Pushinka’s life, before she left the lab, when she didn’t know what fetch was. But soon as she found out, she couldn’t get enough. In the summer, the president throws a tennis ball down the length of the beach. Charlie and Clipper wait patiently for their turn from the porch. Pushinka hurdles after the ball, kicking sand behind her. She returns, deposits it on the sand in front of him. But he doesn’t throw it again just yet. He crouches down beside her to kiss her head and tell her how good she is. She’s panting and raring to go again, needing a few more sprints before the sun sets. He looks to the sky, thanking God and Khruschev, sighing. She’s getting agitated, desperate for him to throw the ball, but Kennedy doesn’t notice. He calmly scratches her ears, staring off at the water, saying something to her about family. Come on, Mr. President, throw the stick, she thought. Just throw the fucking stick.

Rodrigo’s accolades include three Grammy Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, and seven Billboard Music Awards. She was named Time’s Entertainer of the Year in 2021, Billboard’s Woman of the Year in 2022, and ASCAP’s Pop Music Songwriter of the Year in both 2022 and 2024.