The Year of the bears
J. Nicole Jones—Were you there the year the bears came? But what am I saying? Of course not, you would be dead!
—Forgive me, my boy, it seems my clap on your arm has spilled your drink. But what scrawny shoulders you have! Young men are not what they used to be . . . Let me buy you another and regale you with an old man’s stories, the only thing he has left!
—No, no, I insist! But do not ask me how I escaped alive. It is a story too unbearable to relive. Harhar! Oh, but it is no trouble at all. You are kind to forgive an old man his indulgences. I can tell that you are a true Russian.
—What’s that, my boy? How true, my new friend! Indeed, the snow is falling heavy now. We are stuck here, just as you say, with nowhere to go. Country travelers thrown together by a contrivance of fate and fickle weather.
—But do not be so hasty! I shall accompany you back to your corner perch—a darkened post for romantic interludes. Your companion is quite the looker. Do not think I did not notice the curving of her winter coat.
—Ah, your wife, you say? Married a month? But I must buy you another round! A carafe for my good friend!
—It is no trouble at all, my young friend, no trouble. A toast to the newlyweds! And now I will accompany you to toast your shapely bride in person. I will not hear of it! It is not any trouble, I have told you! You must stop your protests. Let this story be my wedding gift to you. Let me warm your hearts—and possibly your beds!—with tales of man’s intellect.
—I did not catch your name, my boy?
—Sergei! A fine Russian name for such a fine, strapping Russian man! A bit scrawny, but a good wife will put meat on the bones. A native Cossack, I can tell!
—No? Estonia, you say? Well, I must disagree with your Estonian mother, if you will permit me. A Cossack, if ever I saw one. I would know!
—Ah, my boy! Seryozha! It is no trouble at all. I will not hear of it, now come let us drink to the event of your marriage and, by looking at the hips of your new wife under her coat, to the dozens of Cossacks she will give to the fine mother country!
—What are you saying? You are not imposing on my solitude at all. Let me get the attention of the barmaid, Suzannah.
—Ah, you are a rascal, Seryozha! Almost got away in the crowd, but now that I have caught up with you here at your romantic corner, I will sit and gift you and your shapely bride—how do you do, my dear?—with the story of how I escaped from the village that was invaded by fifty bears one spring day. I would die of shame to deprive you of this tale.
—But first, if you would be so kind, pour another round to wet the whistle of an old man with nothing left but his memories, and we shall toast to your wedding and to man’s intellect. To love! To friendship! Ah! But where has our carafe gone, my friend! You have had none yet? Impossible, we just enjoyed a toast together!
—Sit, sit, the both of you, in the devil’s name! I have only to snap my fingers and another refreshing glass will appear. We shall toast your love again. On your tab, it must be said. The wedding party must provide the refreshment, I am merely the entertainment. But the barmaid—hardly a maid, harhar!—owes me a favor. She has been in love with me since the days of the Singing Guitars, but that is another story. A pitcher, Suzannah! A pitcher for me and my new friend, Seryozha, and his shapely new bride!
—Here she comes with a whole tray of glasses and beer. You see the truth of how she loves me! How clever I am! Snap, snap, and she rushes to fulfill my request! A marriage tip for you, my boy: snap your fingers to make her come to you. Where are you going? Did you not hear my advice? No need to get up to help Suzannah with the tray. You are stuck with me now, harhar!
—My dear young bride, you are looking tired! No sleep? Our boy Seryozha has been showing you the joys of married life? Having his way with his shapely bride! But what is your name?
—Lena! A beautiful name for a beautiful bride. Where was I, Lenochka? Oh yes, the bears!
—It was Mrs. Babanova who saw them first. Mrs. Babanova, called “Mrs.” by all, though she had never been married. She was treated with the respect of a widow, and sometimes we called her that. The Widow Babanova, though it was said with a wink. Who would have married that old hag? She was no beauty like our Lenochka here. No man would stand next to her before God. I may have made her some promises in my youth. I was a strapping young man. My arms twice the size of our Seryozha’s! How could she expect me to follow through with it? The very definition of unreasonable, but she could not stay angry with me. A real witch, with a mouthful of missing teeth and a wart on her nose to boot. She lived at the edge of the forest in a cabin on a lane the farthest away from the town square with its statue of Lenin, our greatest man. It was very famous for a time. He wore a cap on his head and clutched another in his hand. Two hats for a doubly great man, I told the reporters who printed my words in many newspapers. In Pravda itself! How lucky our village was! Before the bears, of course . . .
—The day the bears came, Mrs. Babanova rose with the sun, as she did every morning, and walked to her garden to retrieve herbs for the large black cauldron she kept bubbling in her cabin. The herbs
she made her potions out of. The young girls often came to her for potions and elixirs of nefarious purposes. A real witch, I told you! It was always a mess, her cabin. A shack, more like. Dried roots and flowers hanging upside down from her ceiling. They scratched the top of my head, and the smell! Like hair burning, always. Her many cats left fur on top of the bed and the sofa, and her dog licked himself constantly in front of the fire. It was always licking himself! Chekhov, he was called. That rascal of a hound . . . I will never forget that sound. Like wet socks falling to the ground, over and over, all night long, even as we were having our way! You know, I met a man once who could do the same, but that is another story . . . Where is Suzannah with our carafes? She is teasing me, no doubt. She is trying to make me jealous, serving the group of scoundrels by the door. No need to get up, my Lenochka, sit, sit! I shall snap my fingers at her once more.
—On this morning, in early June, Mrs. Babanova found her garden occupied by no less than ten bears! I know because I was there. In a housecoat, she left with the first light, as she did every morning, but that day, she let out a shriek. “My krishka,” I cried. “My crumb! Why are you screaming? I am trying to sleep, you know! Shut up, please,” I yelled, and then, fearing she might put a curse on me for my rudeness, I creaked to the window in the kitchen in only my underthings to apologize. “Have the deer been eating your celery?” I asked, in a gentler tone, so as not to be cursed. She had those deer with the face of a rabbit and the fangs of a vampire. I would come to her to pay my respects after the bars closed, and in the dead of night, you would see only their eyes and fangs glowing white in the forest. After some time standing in my underthings only, she still had not answered me. She herself was a very rude woman, a real witch, as I said, who would not let me perform the sexual act I had always wanted, even though I could tell by her blushes that she wanted me to have my way.
—As I got to the window, I was always slow to rise in the mornings, I heard another scream. Standing over the sink, finally at the window, I saw her in the garden lying over her beloved patch of beets, which she would often make into stew for me. And there my first glimpse of the bears. A half dozen of them at the very least! It was just like the wrapping on a mishka chocolate, edges of blue sky around a silhouettes of towering spruce trees with the bears at the center. I have a clumsy bear in my pocket right now! I eat one every morning. I swear on Suzannah, it was that scene exactly—two little bears batted each other playfully on a fallen log. A mother beneath swatting at them unhappily—except for the enormous shaggy bear, as tall as a man. I call him Pushkin still. The shaggy fur on his jaws reminded me of the face of our greatest poet. He pawed at her house dress, almost as a kitten would, so gentle at first with the hem of that dirty, ragged dress. How I hated that house dress! That she entertained me in it with no embarrassment—what’s that you say?
—Oh, yes, a meal does sound wonderful, Seryozha. A splendid idea! But sit, sit! Where are you going? Lenochka, I hope you are as generous with your groom as he is with strangers. Suzannah! I shall get her attention. She is in love with me, did you know? What am I saying, it is obvious to everyone. Suzannah! She must not have heard . . . I will snap my fingers when she is closer. She cannot resist my snapping.
—Where was I? Pushkin, the enormous fellow, toyed with the frays of Mrs. Babanova’s housecoat. His paws were as large as her head! His claws, twice as long as the fangs of her vampire deer. She screamed out again. If only you had not screamed, my crumb! She had not yet shut her toothless mouth, before Pushkin gobbled her up in one swallow. But that’s a poet for you, harhar! They are greedy fellows, who want to taste it all. He left of her only the hem of her shabby housecoat, a crumb from my crumb, while the
other bears, twenty or more, ate every cat that had followed her into the garden . . . a somewhat less unfavorable turn of events. Good riddance, I still say.
—Of course, I had to get out of there at once. In my underclothes only, I sneaked out through the front door and hopped onto my bicycle, which I kept leaned into the bushes, lest anyone determine Mrs. Babanova’s guest was me. Pushkin, and the bears in the garden, were no match for man’s intellect! My only regret was leaving poor Chekhov, though it must be said that his canine duties went unfulfilled. He had not barked once to warn us of the bears. As old and toothless as his mistress, he sat licking himself beside the cauldron while his mistress was gobbled up. For all I know, he is still licking himself by the fire.
—I pedaled and pedaled, as fast as I could, the wind blowing through the holes in my underthings. Mrs. Babanova said she would mend them for me that very morning. I have just seen Mrs. Babanova, my crumb, devoured by a bear in her garden, straight from the patch of beets that I loved to eat, I thought.
—Suzannah! Eh, she will see us next time! Some beets would hit the spot, with one more carafe. They say beets get the blood flowing, the best food for having your way! While we wait, I will finish my story—it is bad luck not to finish a tale once started! I turned down from the mud-slathered main road onto a smaller dirt lane, which was not dirt really, it must be said. Only mud, that thick mud that only the midges enjoy and that freezes in winter to become frozen mud! But . . . our village has a beauty, I have been told by officials.
—On this lane, suddenly the bears appeared. I had to swerve left and right to avoid them. One after another, they came out of the spruce and lunged at me. I could see the fleas on their noses. They roared and smacked their chops, and I could see the spittle shining between their teeth in the morning light like spiderwebs catching
dew. But even nature’s most fearsome beasts cannot defeat man’s intellect. I stopped at the first house I saw, on the main street leading to the town square and pounded on the door. I must have looked like a wild man. Practically naked but for a suit of mud.
—“Mrs. Dubcek,” I cried and pounded on the door. Through the browned lace curtains, I could see she was home. “My fishlet! Let me in,” I cried. Finally the door opened, and I fell into the house.
—“My rypka! Thank god!” I sobbed into her apron. “Oh, my fishlet! What I have seen this morning!” Had I not been an expert bicyclist, having watched the Tour de France several times in this very tavern, I would have joined my beloved crumb in the belly of Pushkin. You may even have compared me with the Bronze Horseman himself, harhar! I jest, I jest. I myself have never seen the rendering, having never been to St. Petersburg.
—“My fishlet,” I continued, “in my underthings I have pedaled from a rabid pack of bears, but I saw among the trees even more in my escape! Black bears. Gray bears with no teeth. Skinny brown bears. Fat ones with mutton chops, and a white bear with red eyes.” She stroked my back and let me sob into her apron. I confess I must not have been at my most attractive. Normally, as you can see, I am the picture of Cossack masculinity. My great-grandfather fought in the Imperial Army at Borodino with General Kutuzov, you see. He rode with the Bronze Horseman himself, the great Peter, all the way to Dagestan! They say he bedded every village maid along the Volga! Your pretty, shapely wife and I may be related! Ah, but your cheek is cold my dear! What? How can you begrudge an old man his kiss with the bride. It is tradition!
—But where are you going, my friends? Sit, sit! I insist! Here comes Suzannah, any moment. Snap snap! My love, Suzannah! Another round! A plate of beets! Finally, Suzannah! Where was I?
—Even in my underthings of white shorts and mud up to my face and neck, I would have been an irresistible sight to any woman in
those days, I assure you. And more than one man has professed his love for me on sight. In a train station in Novgorod on my way to Odessa, for instance, a man approached me, leaving his wife and six children on their bench. “I have never done this type of thing before, but I could not stop myself. I have left my wife and six children to profess that you are the most attractive man I have ever seen and to propose that we run away to Odessa, the most romantic city in the world, for the weekend.”
—“What about your family?” I asked, even though I was not interested. It was the niece of my fishlet, Mrs. Dubcek, with whom I was sneaking away. She had a break in her university studies and found me irresistible. She was at that moment visiting the restroom. “They can stay here for all I care,” the man replied. “The bench is long enough, and the snow is melting.”
—Ah . . . but that is another story! Perhaps for the birth of your first child? Drink up my friends!
—What’s that? You need to go? Nonsense! You cannot refuse a wedding gift, it is un-Russian. My fishlet, Mrs. Dubcek, she was a true Russian beauty, no offense to our Lenochka. Sit, sit! I will keep going, please, sit.
—“Mrs. Dubcek, my fishlet, you must help me!” I cried into her apron. “Vilen, I told you, you must not come here during the day—what are you saying about bears?” I wiped the tears from my face, and mud splattered across the embroidery of her skirt.
—“Quick, my crumb—errr, my fishlet! Lock the door! I have just seen old Widow Babanova eaten by a bear in her garden!”
—“You were with that witch?” she hissed and stepped away. All of my bunnies were jealous of one another—the tell-tale sign of a good lover. But what would you expect from a descendant of Peter the Great himself?
—“Shush, my darling, my fishlet!” I said, crawling my way over to her. “You know that I am a man of many appetites! Now is not
the time!” I yelled and seeing my forceful nature, she relented. My fishlet always liked when I took charge. “Oh, Vilen! You poor man. Come, my husband is visiting his mother for lunch. Let me wash your underthings.”
—Before I knew it, her arms were around me. You know what they say. There is nothing so conducive to love as a brush with death or a morning bicycle ride. They say our mud has many special properties, if you understand what I mean, eh? A jar is often given to newlyweds. I must give you some mud! We must not forget! Old women spread it across their faces for youthful appearances. Who can say if it works? Our old women are not the shapely beauties of new marriage, but that makes them more willing, eh Lenochka? I have never known a woman who does not spread mud on her face every now and then. What would they look like without it, might be the better question . . .
—I let my fishlet bathe me in a wooden tub in front of the fireplace, and we had our way. “Vilen,” she said, “I am going outside to have a cigarette. My husband will know we’ve had our way if he smells the smoke in the house. You must dress yourself,” she pointed to some clothes of her husband’s for me, even though I was a much bigger man. But I returned to sleep and was awoken for the second time that day by a woman’s screams. I ran to the door, and through the lace curtains I had so recently been on the other side of, I saw the bears again. Pushkin himself had my fishlet in his furry jaws. Pieces of her, that is to say. On the ground was her hand, bitten off at the wrist. Between her fingers, the cigarette smoldered still. I wanted a puff very badly at that moment, and I had no time to try on the clothes of my lover’s husband. I pulled a blanket from her sofa to cover myself.
—I was trapped! The bears had torn my bicycle apart. From the window, I watched Pushkin gnaw on the shoulder that I had also tasted in my mouth not twenty minutes before. A small gray
ragamuffin of a bear wore the rusty chain of my bicycle like a necklace around his dirty neck. A skinny black bear used a blue metal bar from the frame like a toothpick, no doubt picking crumbs of Mrs. Babanova, my toothless crumb herself, from his pointed teeth.
—My crumb! My fishlet! The bears blocked the cottage door I had entered through. I watched the cigarette unspool between the fingers of Mrs. Dubcek’s severed hand, wondering how I was going to escape. And then I saw him even closer. Pushkin, with a scar across his nose and a chunk taken off the tip of his right ear. A real devil! He lumbered toward the house on paws as big as my head—I swear on the life of my Suzannah—around to the window and stood like a man, as tall as the statue in our beloved town square. One claw reached through the glass, and the other waved at the other bears, fifty at least by now, as if to command they follow suit. They began to accost the front of the house, and the whole cottage shook as if there were an earthquake or a parade.
—Wrapped in only the holey, handknitted blanket—my fishlet once told me that it was a wedding gift from her sister—I ran to the back door. In pleasanter times, this was the way I snuck into the house so that Mrs. Dubcek and I could have our way. Ah, how many times had I come to this back entrance, a narrow door that connected a small porch with the kitchen door out to a short path through a patch of spruce that led to the town square. I could sit in front of our statue of Lenin with his two hats, and watch Mr. Dubcek in his overalls—he was quite unfashionable . . . a pitiable man and no match for me, it must be said—whistle his way to his job at the factory or to his mother’s house for lunch. Then I would walk straight to my fishlet’s backdoor. Oh, how we would have our way! We would laugh at his foolishness, and she would tell me that he had not been able to have his way in many years. The stress of his mother’s many demands, apparently. She telephoned
nonstop and insisted he spend all his free time at her table. A real meddler, if you want to know the truth. That is no way to keep a happy marriage, let me advise you newlyweds, my very close friends.
—Through the backdoor that held so many fond memories, I ran wearing nothing but this sorry excuse for a blanket. At first, I thought I had outsmarted the bears, having shut the door so silently—I have very delicate maneuvers with my hands, my crumb and my fishlet would attest. Then, the corner of the infernal blanket—why would a blanket have so many holes in it?— entangled my toes and I tumbled into the wood pile prepared by Mr. Dubcek, that useless oaf. I heard the snapping of twigs and snuffling of breath and slapping of paws in mud puddles and jumped to my feet. I had not run so fast since I was a boy. By the time I reached the first building on the cobblestoned street facing the town square, I could not catch my breath. A nude run through the forest was exhilarating, I must admit, and I have since added just that exercise to my morning routine, weather permitting and avoiding the vicinity of the bears.
—Finally, I reached the town square and pounded on the door of a ground-floor apartment. The windows were held by green shutters, with flower shapes cut into the corners for a decorative touch, like all the other windows and shutters of the square. Not wearing a stitch of clothing, not even my underthings, which I can only assume lay uncleaned on the floor where my fishlet discarded them to bathe me and have her way. She was insatiable, especially when her husband might come home at any moment. In my rattled state, I then rapped on the window of the apartment’s door. The home of my fishlet’s sister.
—“Irina! My zaika! My bunny! Open up! I must see you! I’m not wearing a stitch!” With two fists I banged and rattled and pulled at the doorknob. I knew the bears would catch up with me, eventually.
A window on the first floor opened above me, and the shining bald head of a my bunny’s husband appeared. “What is this racket?” he called. “Why are you calling out for my wife and not wearing a stitch?” I could see the face of my bunny standing behind him, so different from her sister. Her hair was the orange of butterfly wings and her lips, of the sweetest strawberry jam. Her curls! She had the most charming curls that bounced and bounced when we had our way, but of course I could not say that to her husband. A good thing that I am such a quick-thinking, fellow, eh? My intellect is said to be the biggest thing about me, which is saying something, harhar! Ah, I have made your shapely newlywed blush! Lenochka, we are all friends here!
—“Thank God you are here, my good sir!” I called out to this man, whom I knew from his pretty wife, my bunny Irina, that he liked to pretend to be a babe suckling at her breast each night. “Sir, I have this very morning witnessed two women eaten alive by a pack of bears. I have outsmarted them for now, but there are a hundred of them headed straight for the town square.”
—“Irina!” cried this man, whom I could only ever picture with my bunny’s perfect breast in his mouth and squirming like an infant. There is no one who appreciates the body of a woman like me, it is a fact. Not even your husband, Lenochka, you must admit. No, wait, my friends. Do not go! Suzannah! Another carafe! Stay, stay, we are nearing the end. It is bad luck for the marriage to refuse a gift.
—“Irina! Get this man some underthings and let him inside.” The front door opened and my bunny handed me some of her husband’s clothes. I could not help but fall into her arms. “Vilen, you must not let him see us,” she began as the echo of footsteps came down the stairs. She pried open my fist, which had been banging on their door with a scrap of fabric from my fishlet’s blanket clutched in panic.
—“Is that from Vera’s house? I would never forget the blanket I hand-knit for her,” she threw the piece against my face. “Now is not the time, Irina!” She was the most jealous of all of my bunnies. “You think yourself a Russian Cassanova!” It is true that I am a descendant of the greatest lover Europe had ever known. “My bunny,” I pleaded, but she would not listen. She wanted me all to herself. She turned to her husband, who now stood behind her. “He is a ridiculous man. Probably just a vagrant, my darling,” she tried to convince him. “Irina, can’t you see this man has been through something terrible. Give him some clothes and some tea,” he gestured to the folded clothing my bunny had snatched away from me. “I do not believe him. I will go outside, and you will see there are no bears,” she said, her curls bouncing off before I could stop her.
—“You must forgive my wife,” said my bunny’s husband, but before he could tell me why, we heard a roar. The orange curls I loved flew past the window as if a cloud of butterflies floating between rose bushes. “Irishka,” cried her husband at the same moment that I blurted out, “My bunny!” Thank God for his shock, he did not notice. He went to a cabinet I knew held the long rifle for hunting reindeer that he inherited from his father. He wanted a son to teach to shoot reindeer, she confessed to me, but she could not stand the thought of another babe suckling from her breast. She had been to see the Widow Babanova three times since their marriage, and he was growing convinced that he could not have any children. Ah, the secrets that a Casanova draws out of women, after we have had our way. She liked it best when I came up behind her—what’s that? Another round you say? Yes, I will drink up.
—Where was I? Ah the kitchen table! Three of my lovers gone in one morning! It was too much to contemplate! I sat in silence at the kitchen table I had so many fond memories of. Blue and white checks beneath her curls. I realized then that I was still naked,
and I pulled the tablecloth and wrapped it around my waist. “We must do something!” sobbed my bunny’s husband. He continued to blubber while the bears wailed and scratched outside, until a sudden boom came from the kitchen. The smell of gunpowder burned my nose. How right was my bunny! Holding the rifle as he sobbed, Ivan had accidentally shot a hole in the ceiling. Sawdust fell into my eyes, as I watched the smoke clear. It was not very considerate of him, but then, he had just lost his wife. Never mind, my having lost three of my favorites in one morning . . . I was the saddest man alive! Three times as sad as Ivan!
—At the shot, the bears had scattered, and I could see the square through the window. I decided to open the door to see if my bunny was still alive. I was feeling bolder with the tablecloth around my waist. The bears were no match for weapons created by man’s intellect, even if used accidentally. Pushkin, the menace, was hiding behind the statue with two hats. A stray curl from my bunny’s head blew across the cobblestones. Oh, my bunny! To think I would never see those curls against the checkered tablecloth . . . Just as I was despairing, who did I see, but Mr. Dubcek in his overalls with the tin lunch pail coming from his mother’s apartment on the other side of the town square. “Mr. Dubcek! You must come inside at once!” It was what my fishlet would have wanted. I am nothing if not charitable, my friends, as you yourselves know. —There I was, with the husbands I had made cuckolds. “Ivan! Velin! But what are you doing in here together, and you, Velin, wearing a tablecloth? Is that a bear beneath the statue with two hats?” We had known each other for our whole lives. It is very hard to leave the taiga, you know. It is too beautiful to live anywhere else, I was told each time I tried to leave. “It is only one of two hundred. We are being invaded by bears!” I whispered in outrage. “My Irina . . . eaten before my very eyes,” Ivan sputtered, still crying, only now he sat on the stone floor with the rifle across his
lap. “Is this true?” Mr. Dubcek asked, and I nodded, trying not to think about my fishlet, his wife. Only a lovely hand left. “I saw the Widow Babanova gobbled up by the very bear behind the statue.”
—By then, the bears were returning to the town square. A thousand, I tell you, if there was one. I could hear their snuffles and grunts. The glass of windows breaking and screams of women and men. In the tablecloth, I crawled to the window and saw little bears splashing in the fountain, but I must have lingered too long. Pushkin, the devil, the size of an elephant, turned his head in my direction. I ducked and turned to my fellow men. “Men, we cannot stay here for long,” I said, just as a scream outside was cut short by a roar. The bears had taken over the town square in the blink of an eye. It was Napoleon all over again! “We were all Young Pioneers together. We must do something,” I pleaded. Mr. Dubcek brightened for a moment. “Hang on, my fellows. I know who to call. Ivan, where is your phone?”
—After a short conversation, he turned to me. Ivan was still in no state to listen, and I’m sure Mr. Dubcek would have been similarly affected, had I told him about his wife. “Help is on the way. I called the zookeeper, old Maxim, who is releasing his fiercest Siberian tigers to fight the bears.” Old Maxim had lost all but three fingers to his beloved tigers and was once a rival for Mrs. Babanova, but that is another story.
—“Now we will have them,” said Mr. Dubcek. “Ivan, Vilen, we must fight for our village while he releases the tigers.” He picked up the rifle from Ivan’s knee and opened the front door. He motioned for us to follow, and I made as if adjusting my tablecloth, while the husbands of my fishlet and my bunny walked into the square. The last time the men of our village had gathered, it had been to drive out the intellectualists from taking over the coffee shops and bakeries of town. They had left no marzipan for the rest of us! That turned out to be only a rumor, and the marzipan was well
stocked at the bakery. But man cannot attack a rumor, no matter how good a warrior he may be, despite his genes from Peter the Great! No, it is as impossible to drive away rumors as it is to drive out hundreds of bears . . .
—I watched this small army of cuckolds march off bravely, and they were not five steps beyond the door when a black bear stood on its two legs and swiped their heads together. They fell to the cobblestones, and it dragged them both by their collars, kicking and screaming, behind the statue with two hats. “Vilen, you cad, help, help!” cried Ivan, but I was petrified, and could only watch them hang from the mouth of the bear who carried them away.
—And then I noticed the rifle, waiting for me between the cobblestones. I crawled as quickly and quietly as I could. My hand reached the cool black metal of the barrel, and I looked up— straight into the eyes of that shaggy bear Pushkin! There we were, beneath the two-hatted statue, finally face to face, wearing only a soiled tablecloth around my waist, staring into the black eyes of Pushkin, the bear who had eaten three of my lovers for breakfast. We didn’t move, the two of us, enemies recognizing their match in fierceness and strength. Splashes of water from the baby bears frolicking in the fountain landed on my cheeks. He continued to stare at me, a white scar across his nose and whiskers, his breath falling across my face smelling of dirt and blood and pine, with a hint of lilac . . . the perfume of my fishlet. I noticed an orange curl shining between the brown hairs of his right mutton chop. Oh, my bunny! At the sight of those curls I loved so much, I began to drag the rifle slowly closer, but it banged against a cobblestone, and at the sound, he opened his mouth and raised his paw. I was about to be eaten, just like my lovers and their husbands.
—Just then, a blur of orange and black. One of old Maxim’s tigers! How they tussled and roared and swiped at each other! Blood sprayed across my bare chest. I grabbed the rifle and ran to the
nearest bicycle, and for two days and nights, I pedaled through the roads until I reached safety. What’s that you say? Yes, I swear on my Suzannah’s nose, it is all true!
—To this day, the village is still overrun by bears. There are rumors that the tigers and the bears live together in the town. I have heard they are very friendly with each other. There are sightings of bears with the stripes of tigers and large cats with beards like Pushkin’s bathing in the fountain beneath the statue of Lenin with the two hats, and even as far away as Kamchatka. I have seen one myself. But that is another story. What say we get another carafe? Suzannah!
