Watchers

performed at Carnegie Hall,” Travis said.
    “Shut up.” To the dog Nora said, “All right. Now is the violin related to any of these other pictures? Is there a link to another image that would help us understand what the violin means to you?”
    Einstein stared at her intently for a moment, as if pondering her question. Then he crossed the room, walking carefully in the narrow aisles between the rows of photographs, sniffing, his gaze flicking left and right, until he
    found the ad for the Sony portable stereo cassette player. He put one paw on it and looked back at Nora.
    “There’s an obvious connection,” Travis said. “The violin makes music, and the cassette deck reproduces music. That’s an impressive feat of mental association for a dog, but does it really mean anything else, anything about his past?”
    “Oh, I’m sure it does,” Nora said. To Einstein she said, “Did someone in your past play the violin?”
    The dog stared at her.
    She said, “Did your previous master have a cassette player like that one?”
    The dog stared at her.
    She said, “Maybe the violinist in your past used to record his own music on a cassette system?”
    The dog blinked and whined.
    “All right,” she said, “is there another picture here that you can associate with the violin and the tape deck?”
    Einstein stared down at the Sony ad for a moment, as if thinking, then walked into another aisle between two more rows of pictures, this time stopping at a magazine open to a Blue Cross advertisement that showed a doctor in a white coat standing at the bedside of a new mother who was holding her baby. Doctor and mother were all smiles, and the baby looked as serene and innocent as the Christ child.
    Crawling nearer to the dog on her hands and knees, Nora said, “Does that picture remind you of the family that owned you?”
    The dog stared at her.
    “Was there a mother, father, and new baby in the family you used to live with?”
    The dog stared at her.
    Still sitting on the floor with his back against the sofa, Travis said, “Gee, maybe we’ve got a real case of reincarnation on our hands. Maybe old Einstein remembers being a doctor, a mother, or a baby in a previous life.”
    Nora would not dignify that suggestion with a response.
    “A violin-playing baby,” Travis said.
    Einstein mewled unhappily.
    On her hands and knees in a doglike position, Nora was only two or three feet from the retriever, virtually face-to-face with him. “All right. This is getting us nowhere. We’ve got to do more than just have you associate one picture with another. We’ve got to be able to ask questions about these pictures and somehow get answers.”
    “Give him paper and pen,” Travis said.
    “This is serious,” Nora said, impatient with Travis as she had never been with the dog.
    “I know it’s serious,” he said, “but it’s also ridiculous.”
    She hung her head for a moment, like a dog suffering in summer heat, then suddenly looked up at Einstein and said, “How smart are you really, pooch?
    You want to prove you’re a genius? You want to have our everlasting admiration and respect? Then here’s what you have to do: learn to answer my questions with a simple yes or no.”
    The dog watched her closely, expectantly.
    “If the answer to my question is yes—wag your tail,” Nora said. “But only if the answer is yes. While this test is under way, you’ve got to avoid wagging it out of habit or just because you get excited. Wagging is only for when you want to say yes. And when you want to say no, you bark once. Just once.”
    Travis said, “Two barks mean ‘I’d rather be chasing cats,’ and three barks mean ‘Get me a Budweiser.’ “
    “Don’t confuse him,” Nora said sharply.
    “Why not? He confuses me.”
    The dog did not even glance at Travis. His large brown eyes remained focused intently on Nora as she explained the wag-for-yes and bark-for-no system again.
    “All right,” she said, “let’s try it. Einstein, do you understand the yes-no signs?”
    The retriever wagged his tail five or six times, then stopped.
    “Coincidence,” Travis said. “Means nothing.”
    Nora hesitated a moment, framing her next question, then said, “Do you know my name?”
    The tail wagged, stopped.
    “Is my name . . . Ellen?”
    The dog barked. No.
    “Is my name . . . Mary?”
    One bark. No.
    “Is my name . . . Nona?”
    The dog rolled his eyes, as if chastising her for trying to trick him. No wagging. One