Aika

Aika is the narrator’s family’s Landseer, a large, black-and-white dog formally belonging to the narrator’s second-oldest brother but loved most intensely by the narrator. Aika’s place in the story is defined by this difference between ownership and attachment: the brother chooses the breed, names and trains the dog, and takes him to competitions, while the narrator seeks closeness in everyday gestures, in the sea, and finally through a misguided attempt to unite their blood. Aika is not merely a companion in these episodes; his patience, fear, exuberance, and physical presence make the relationship’s tenderness—and its harm—unmistakably real.

Identity and Place in the Family

The narrator’s second-oldest brother wanted a Landseer, though the narrator later admits not knowing why that particular breed was chosen. For years, the narrator accepted his brother’s invented explanation that the dogs had once watched for land from ships and barked when they spotted it. The actual name came from an English lord, a celebrated painter of landscapes and animals whose favorite subjects included these black-and-white dogs. The distinction between family lore and correction introduces a recurring feature of Aika’s remembered identity: the narrator’s affection is attached not only to the dog himself but also to the stories and explanations surrounding him.

Aika’s formal name was Biggi von den Ziegelteichen. He came from a litter designated B, and the narrator’s second-oldest brother had spent a week with breeders near Hamburg before bringing him home. The family called him Aika. The account makes the division of their relationship explicit: the brother had sought out Aika, given him his name, and taken him to competitions, but the narrator was the one who loved him beyond measure and continually tried to win his nearness. This bond could be seen in unceremonious acts: secretly feeding him sausage, patiently picking burrs from his bushy tail, and accepting dog hair over clothes as the cost of being close.

A Companion in Distress

The narrator describes Aika as an ally. When unhappy, the narrator would lie crying against the dog’s belly, convinced that only Aika understood. Aika was allowed to sleep in the narrator’s bed; the child lay pressed against the wall, directly in front of the dog’s sleeping, open mouth. The bodily detail is affectionate but not idealized: even the smell of Aika’s breath, compared to a defrosted refrigerator, belongs to the intimacy of sharing the bed. Love here means proximity in its ordinary, unpolished form.

That closeness was not the same as formal control. Aika was the brother’s dog, and the brother took him to competitions, giving the phlegmatic animal commands that the narrator regarded as ridiculous, including one requiring him to lift his lips. The contrast sharpens the narrator’s role: while the brother’s connection involved training and competition, the narrator’s devotion centered on care, companionship, and the wish to remain near Aika. The dog’s patience with these different demands is part of the portrait, though the story does not pretend that he was simply an extension of the narrator’s wishes.

Water and Shared Play

Aika’s strongest breed trait, in the narrator’s account, was an overwhelming love of water. Landseers, also called black-and-white Newfoundlands, were said to have webbing between their toes and to be able to swim and dive. When the narrator repeated this in biology class, the teacher refused to believe that dogs could have webbed feet. The narrator offered to bring Aika to school. At the agreed time, the narrator’s mother arrived with the dog; Aika jumped onto the cleared teacher’s desk, and the class gathered around to inspect the paws. The teacher tested between Aika’s toes and, astonished, had the pupils line up so each could feel the webbing. Aika’s body settled the dispute more persuasively than the narrator’s explanation could.

At the Baltic Sea, Aika’s eagerness began before he reached the water. The family parked on a meadow converted into a parking area, and he could barely contain himself on the back seat. As soon as the door opened, he squeezed out, ran to the sea, and plunged in headfirst. Rather than paddling clumsily, he moved through the rippled surface with the force and ease of a dolphin. The narrator followed in a bathing suit and diving goggles, and the two swam to the first sandbank together. Underwater, the narrator saw Aika looking back, his floppy ears spread from his head like fins, seeming to grin. The scene gives the dog a physical vitality that exceeds the role of a comforting pet: he is a fellow swimmer, encountered in a shared element.

The Attempt to Become Blood Brothers

The narrator’s wish for closeness eventually took a dangerous form. After seeing Winnetou and Old Shatterhand cut their forearms and bind their bleeding wounds together, the narrator wanted a blood brother of his own and imagined having dog’s blood in the narrator’s veins. The idea was an imitation of a scene from television, but its object was the real, trusted Aika. In the parents’ bedroom, the narrator could now reach a high medicine cabinet by climbing onto a chair. Its smell, folded package inserts, medicines, and individually wrapped scalpels had long fascinated the narrator. The narrator took a scalpel and a familiar bottle of Kutasept-Orange, then lured Aika into the cellar with a Frolik.

Alone with the dog, the narrator used a shoelace taken from one of the narrator’s father’s disused running shoes and asked Aika to give a paw. The intention was to make only a slight cut. When Aika recoiled at the blade, the startled narrator cut deeply into the soft pad of his paw. Aika, bewildered, licked the gaping wound. The narrator then cut a hand with the scalpel, drew Aika close, and tried to bind their bleeding wounds together. Aika whimpered, tore free, and ran. The narrator followed as he limped up the cellar stairs, through the living room, and across a new ochre-colored carpet, leaving a trail of blood.

The consequences continue after the attempted pact itself has failed. The narrator shut Aika in the bathroom and wrapped the cut hand in a kitchen towel, then focused on removing the blood from the recently installed carpet. Water spread the marks; Domestos lifted the blood but also bleached the carpet. Meanwhile, Aika cried in the bathroom. When the narrator ran to him, the room looked like the aftermath of a massacre. The child’s frantic attention is divided between the injured, frightened dog and the damage to the house. The episode exposes the gap between the narrator’s intended closeness and Aika’s experience: what the child imagines as a binding ritual becomes pain and fear for the animal.

Later Recollections of Aika

Aika also appears in the narrator’s memory as a partner in exuberant play. After the heavy snow of the winter disaster, the narrator devised a sled from rubber boots enclosed in plastic bags and secured with elastic bands. On a long, straight forest track where the narrator’s father’s running ambitions had failed, the narrator held Aika’s leash with both hands, crouched, and urged him forward. Aika accelerated, pulling the narrator over the uneven ground at speed. At the end of the run, the narrator fell into the snow; Aika licked the narrator’s face, and the child embraced and kissed him. The exhilaration remained for days as a small, bright memory of happiness.

The narrator’s later encounters with other Landseers reveal how singular Aika remained in memory. Because the breed was so rare, seeing another one—only three or four times in thirty years—could momentarily make the narrator think Aika had returned. These mistaken recognitions became uncanny experiences after Aika’s death. The account gives no further details of his death, but it shows its persistence: even a lookalike could call up the absent dog. Across comfort, swimming, injury, play, and remembrance, Aika’s story holds together the narrator’s powerful desire for closeness with the animal’s own responses, including the moments when that desire hurts him.