Setting Free the Bears Read online

  And when I left the Cat House, the cheetah was bolting down his vomit. The other Big Cats were padding in circles, envious that someone had a bit left to eat.

  And even now, at four-thirty, I don't see any signs of the zoo getting ready to close. I'm under an umbrella in the Biergarten. You remember? The Rare Spectacled Bears. They've surely not bathed since the last time we were here; they're reeking worse than ever; they seem very nice, though; they're very gentle with each other. We should decide: either we let both of them out, or we leave them both. It wouldn't do to break them up. That's where the viciousness would come in.

  Of course, I don't believe we can do anything for the Big Cats. I'm afraid they'll have to stay. Although I hate to admit it, we do have a responsibility to the people of this world.

  (CONTINUING)

  THE HIGHLY SELECTIVE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIEGFRIED JAVOTNIK: PRE-HISTORY I

  22 February 1938: morning in the Rathaus Park. Hilke Marter and Zahn Glanz are sharing a bag of assorted Spanish nuts. They're taking a chilly, head-down walk, and they've kept a tally of how many different, following squirrels have begged and received a nut from the bag. Hilke and Zahn have counted four: one with a thin face, one with a tooth gone, one with a bitten ear, and one who limps. Zahn makes squirrel-summoning sounds. And Hilke says to the thin-faced one, 'No, you've had yours. One apiece. Isn't there anyone else?'

  'Just four squirrels in the whole park,' says Zahn.

  But my mother thinks she spots a fifth; they count again.

  'Just four,' says Zahn.

  'No,' says Hilke. 'The one with the limp is gone.' But Zahn believes it's the same, fourth squirrel who's given up limping for leaping.

  'That's a different one,' Hilke insists, and they approach a squirrel chasing its shadow. But the shadow-chaser isn't after its shadow at all. Zahn kneels, blocks off the squirrel's sun, and Hilke offers it an almond. And the squirrel goes right on unreasonably leaping, in circles.

  'Some sort of calisthenics,' says Zahn, and Hilke holds the almond closer. The squirrel reels, draws back, leaps - spinning and directionless, like a bronco tossing off its rider.

  'It might be a trained squirrel,' Hilke says, and sees the pink on its head.

  'It's bald,' says Zahn, and he reaches. The squirrel spins; its only course is around. And when Zahn has it in his lap, he sees that the baldness has a shape; there's an etching on the squirrel's head. The squirrel shuts its eyes and bites the air; Zahn stops breathing to unfog his view. The squirrel has a pink and perfect, hairless swastika carved on its head.

  'My God,' says Zahn.

  'Poor thing,' my mother says, and offers the almond again. But the squirrel appears dizzy and near to fainting. Maybe it was an almond that set the trap before. The scar is edged with blue; it pulses - signals that this squirrel wants nothing more to do with nuts. Zahn lets it go; it goes around.

  Then my mother feels like bundling. Zahn tucks her head in the great fur collar of his cavalry coat, which is in style with students of politics and journalism; on snowy days there's such a wet-fur reek in the classrooms that the university smells like a rabbitry.

  A one of tramcars comes down Stadiongasse at a tilting jog: the cars wince and tip along, like heavy men with cold, brittle feet. Hands are rubbing the steam from the windows, a few gay hats are waved; some fingertips are spread on the glass and pointed at the couple bundling in the Rathaus Park.

  A wind blows up; the squirrels crouch when their fur gets tufted. Mindless of the wind, and of all else, the fifth squirrel goes his own way: around - leaping, maybe, to catch up with the hat it's lost, or to regain whatever sense is only skin-deep for squirrels.

  'Someplace warm?' says Zahn, and feels Hilke Marter catch her breath against him. My mother gives a nod that bumps Zahn Glanz's bright, smooth chin.

  The Third Zoo Watch: Monday, 5 June 1967, @ 7.30 p.m.

  I CONFESS I'VE not seen any evidence of actual atrocities being performed on these animals, either by the guards or by the customers. Unhappy arrangements, I've seen, but actual atrocities, no. Of course I'll keep looking, but right now it's best if I don't come out of hiding. It will be dark very soon, and I can investigate more thoroughly.

  I had plenty of time to get myself hidden. A little before five a janitorial fellow came through the Biergarten, sweeping across the flagstones with a great push broom. Well, I got up and strolled. All over the zoo I could hear the brushing sounds. When you passed a sweeper, he'd say, 'The zoo's about to close.'

  I even saw some people trotting for the gates - panicked, it seemed, at the thought of spending the night.

  I thought it best not to try and hide with any of the animals; that is, I felt if I got inside a pen with one of the safe creatures, I might be discovered by some after-hours guard whose job it is to come and wash the animals, or give them a bed check - read them a story, or even beat them.

  I did consider the lofty shed of the Yukon dall sheep, which sits on top of a fake mountain - a man-made pile of ruins, knit together in cement. The Yukon dall sheep have the best view of the zoo, but I was worried by this after-hours-guard idea, and I also thought the animals might have an alarm system.

  So I'm in hiding between a high hedgerow and the fence line for the Assorted Antelopes. It's a long, thick hedgerow, but at root level I can find spaces to look through. I can watch down one path to the Cat House, I can see the roofs of the Small Mammal House and the House of Pachyderms; I can look up another path, past the great oryx's private shed and yard, all the way to where the Australian creatures dwell. I can move behind the cover of this hedge, almost fifty yards in two directions.

  As far as guards go, they won't be any problem. The sweepers passed my way several times after the official closing. They came brooming along, chanting. 'The zoo is closed. Is there anyone in the zoo?' They make a game of it.

  After them, I saw what you'd call an official guard - actually two guards, or the same guard twice. He, or they, took more than an hour testing cages; giving a tug here, a clank there, jingling a very large keyring; and then seemed to leave by the main gate. That is, I can't see the main gate from here, but an hour after my last glimpse of anybody, I heard the main gate open and snap shut.

  I've seen no one since then. It was a quarter to seven when I heard the gate. The animals are quieting down; someone with a large voice has a cold. And I'll be a while yet behind this hedgerow. I don't think it's going to be as dark a night as I'd like to have, and although it's been almost an hour since I've seen or heard another human being, I know someone's here.

  (CONTINUING:)

  THE HIGHLY SELECTIVE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIEGFRIED JAVOTNIK: PRE-HISTORY I

  22 February 1938: afternoon in a Kaffeehaus on Schaufler-gasse. My mother and Zahn rub steam off the window and look out at the Chancellery on the Ballhausplatz. But Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg isn't going to come and stand in an open window today.

  The guard at the Chancellery stamps his boots and takes a wishful peek at the Kaffeehaus, which seems to be thawing; the snow is building ledges on the guard's mustache, and even his bayonet is blue. Zahn thinks the rifle bore is full of snow and no defense at all.

  It's only a guard of honor, after all, which was certainly known well enough in 1934, when Otto Planetta walked past the honorable, unloaded gun, and with his own, dishonorable weapon shot and killed the previous Chancellor, little Engelbert Dollfuss.

  But Otto's choice for a replacement didn't fare well; Nazi Doktor Rintelen attempted suicide by inaccurately shooting himself in a room at the Imperial Hotel. And Kurt von Schuschnigg, friend of Dollfuss, moved his slow feet to fill the shoes.

  'Does the guard of honor load his gun now?' says Zahn.

  And Hilke squeaks her mitten over the window: she touches her nose to the glass. 'It looks like it's loaded,' she says.

  'Guns are supposed to look loaded,' says Zahn. 'But that one just looks heavy.'

  'Student,' the waiter says. 'Why don't you charge the guard, and see?'
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br />   'I can't hear your radio,' says Zahn, uneasy to be here - a new place with an untested volume, but the nearest warmth to the Rathaus Park.

  The radio goes loud enough; it catches the guard's attention, and his boots start to waltz.

  A taxi stops outside, and whoever is the taxi's fare dashes into the Chancellery, giving a hand signal to the guard. The driver comes and mashes his face against the Kaffeehaus window, fish-nostriled, appearing to have swum a snowy ocean to the farthest, glass end of his aquarium-world; he comes inside.

  'Well, something's happening,' he says.

  But the waiter only asks, 'A cognac? A tea with rum?'

  'I've got a fare,' the driver says, and comes to Zahn's table. He rubs himself a peep sight on the window above my mother's head.

  'A cognac's quicker,' the waiter says.

  And the driver nods to Zahn, compliments him on the elegance of my mother's neck.

  'It's not every day I get a fare like this,' he says.

  Zahn and Hilke make peep sights for themselves. The taxi stands chugging in its own exhaust; the windshield is icing and the wipers slip and rasp.

  'Lennhoff,' says the driver. 'And he was in a hurry.'

  'You could have finished a cognac by now,' the waiter says.

  'Editor Lennhoff?' says Zahn.

  'Of the Telegraph,' the driver says, and wipes his own breath from the window - peers down Hilke's neckline.

  'Lennhoff's the best there is,' says Zahn.

  'He puts it straight,' the driver says.

  'He sticks his neck out,' says the waiter.

  The driver breathes like his standing taxi, short huffs and a long gust. 'I'll have a cognac,' he says.

  'You won't have time,' says the waiter, who's already got it poured.

  And Hilke asks the driver, 'Do you get a lot of important fares?'

  'Well,' he says, 'important people like the taxi all right. And you get used to it after a while. You learn how to put them at their ease.'

  'How?' the waiter asks, and sets the driver's cognac on Zahn's table.

  But the driver's eyes and mind are far down my mother's neckline; he takes a while to get back. He reaches over Hilke's shoulder for his cognac, tilts the glass and twirls to coat the rim around. 'Well,' he says, 'you've got to be at ease yourself. You've got to be relaxed with them. Let them know you've seen something of the world too. Now, for example, Lennhoff there - you wouldn't want to say to him, "Oh, I cut out all your editorials and save them!" But you want to let him know you're bright enough to recognize him; for example, I said just now, "Good afternoon, Herr Lennhoff, but it's a cold one, isn't it?" Called him by name, you see, and he said, "It's a cold one, all right, but it's nice and warm in here." And right away he's at home with you.'

  'Well, they're just like anyone else,' says the waiter.

  And just like anyone else, Lennhoff stoops in the cold; his scarf flourishes and drags him off balance; he's flurried out of the Chancellery and swept into the surprised guard of honor, who's been scratching his back with his bayonet and has his rifle upside down above his head. The guard avoids stabbing himself by a batonlike brandish of his weapon. Lennhoff cringes before the spinning rifle; the guard begins a slow salute, stops it midway - remembering that newspaper editors aren't saluted - and offers a handshake instead. Lennhoff moves to accept the hand, then remembers that this isn't part of his own protocol. The two scuff their feet, and Lennhoff allows himself to be buffeted out to the curb; he crosses the Ballhausplatz to the shuddering taxi.

  The driver fires his cognac down, swallowing most of it through his nose; his eyes blear. He swims his way up Hilke's neckline, clears his head, and steadies himself with a touch to Hilke's shoulder. 'Oh, excuse me,' he says, and gives another complimentary nod to Zahn. Zahn rubs the window.

  Lennhoff pounds on the taxi top; he opens the driver's-side door and blares on the horn.

  With a miraculous, run-on fumble, the driver finds the right change for the waiter - touches my mother's shoulder again, and gets his chin tucked under his scarf. The waiter holds the door; the snow scoots over the driver's boots and flies up his pants. He slaps his knees together, spreads himself out thin and knifes into the flurry. At the sight of him, the horn blares again.

  Lennhoff still must be in a hurry. The taxi reels round the Ballhausplatz, drifts to a curb and caroms off. Then the snow makes the taxi's straightaway journey seem so slow and soft.

  'I'd like to drive a taxi,' says Zahn.

  'It's easy enough to do,' the waiter says. 'You just have to know how to drive.'

  And Zahn orders a bowl of hot wine soup. One bowl with two spoons. Hilke is fussy about the spicing; Zahn sprinkles not enough cinnamon and too much clove. The waiter watches the spoons compete.

  'I could have given you two bowls,' he says.

  And Zahn hears the signal blip he knows so well - news-time, Radio Johannesgasse. He pins down my mother's spoon with his own and wishes the waves in the soup to be still.

  Worldwide: French charge d'affaires in Rome, M. Blondel, is rumored to have suffered some unspeakable insult from Count Ciano; and Anthony Eden has resigned from whatever he's been doing.

  Austria: Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg has confirmed his new appointments to the Cabinet - Seyss-Inquart and four other Nazis.

  Local: there's been a tram accident in the first district, at the intersection of Gumpendorfer Strasse and Nibelungengasse. A driver on Strassenbahn Line 57, Klag Brahms, says he was creeping down Gumpendorfer when a man came running out of Nibelungen. The tram tracks were iced, of course, and the driver didn't want to risk a derailment. Klag Brahms says the man was running very fast, or was caught in a gale. But a woman in the second tramcar says the man was being chased by a gang of youths. Another passenger in the same tramcar refutes the woman's theory; the unidentified source says that this woman is always seeing lookalike gangs of youths. The victim himself is as yet unidentified; anyone who thinks he knows him may call Radio Johannesgasse. The man is described as old and small.

  'And dead,' the waiter says, while Hilke tries to remember all the old, small men she knows. No one she can think of was ever in the habit of running on Nibelungengasse.

  But Zahn is counting up his fingers. 'How many days ago was it,' he asks, 'when Schuschnigg went to Berchtesgaden and visited with Hitler?' And the waiter starts counting his own fingers.

  'Ten,' says Zahn, with fingers enough. 'Just ten days, and now we've got five Nazis on the Cabinet.'

  'Half a Nazi a day,' says the waiter, and spread-eagles a handful of fingers.

  'Little old Herr Baum,' my mother says, 'isn't his shoe-shop on some street like Nibelungen?'

  And the waiter asks Zahn, 'Don't you think the man was chased? I've seen those gangs around myself.'

  And Hilke's seen them too, she remembers. In trams, or in the theater, they sprawl their legs in the aisles; arm in arm, they shoulder you off the sidewalks. Sometimes they march in step, and they're great at following you home.

  'Zahn?' my mother asks. 'Would you like to come home for supper?'

  But Zahn is looking out the window. When the wind drops, the guard of honor looms clear and motionless; then the snow gusts him over. A totem-soldier, turned to ice - if you bashed his face, his cheek would break off bloodless in the snow.

  'That's no defense at all,' says Zahn, and adds, 'now the trouble starts.'

  'Now?' the waiter says. 'It started four years ago. Four years ago this July, when you weren't even much of a student. He came in here and had a cup of mocha. He sat just where you're sitting. I'll never forget him.'

  'Who?' says Zahn.

  'Otto Planetta,' the waiter says. 'Had his cup of mocha, watching out the window, the smug pig. Then a whole truckful of them unloaded outside. SS Standarte Eighty-nine, but they looked like Army Regulars. This Otto Planetta - he had his change all counted - he said, "Why, there's my brother." And out he went, marched right in with the rest of them, and killed poor Dollfuss; he shot him twice.'<
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  'Well, it didn't work,' says Zahn.

  'If I'd known who he was,' the waiter says. 'I'd have had him where he sat - right where you're sitting.' And the waiter fumbles in his apron pocket, conies up with a pair of meat shears. 'These would have done him, all right,' he says.

  'But Schuschnigg took over,' says my mother. 'And didn't Dollfuss want Schuschnigg?'

  'In fact,' Zahn says, 'when Dollfuss was dying, he asked that Schuschnigg be the new Chancellor.'

  'He asked for a priest,' the waiter says, 'and they let him die without one.'

  My mother can remember more; these are the sad, family pieces of history she remembers over the rest. 'His wife and children were in Italy,' she says. 'His children sent him flowers on the day he was killed, so he never got them.'

  'Schuschnigg's half of what Dollfuss was,' says the waiter, 'and you know what's amazing? Dollfuss was such a little man. I used to watch him going out and coming in, you know. I mean, he was a tiny one - with all his clothes too big for him. Really, he was almost an elf. But it didn't matter at all, did it?'

  'How do you know?' says Zahn, 'that it was Otto Planetta who came in here?' Then Zahn notices the waiter's size. He's a very small waiter. And the hand that holds the meat shears is more fragile than my mother's.