Setting Free the Bears Read online

  Imagine: the oryx was born in the Hietzinger Zoo! Brainwashed! He thinks his balls are just for lugging around. They never told him; he probably wouldn't know what to make of a lady.

  And that's when I got to thinking: Why isn't there an antelope of sorts, a mountain goat or experienced gnu, who could show this poor oryx what his volleyballs are for?

  I'm convinced: it's abstinence that's given them their size!

  So I made a check of the surrounding pens, looking for a lady who might enlighten the naive and apathetic oryx. Now this was hard. The blesbok was too small and skittish - would only teach our oryx frustration. I felt the white-tailed gnu was far too hairy; Mrs Gray's waterbuck looked absurdly virginal; the lesser kudu had little to offer; the hartebeest had too thin a back; and the only female wildebeest had a beard. There was nothing in all the Hietzinger Zoo as perfect for the oryx as a gentle old madam cow.

  So I decided. Rather than corrupt the oryx with a lascivious llama, I'd hope for the best on the day of the bust; that our oryx would escape forever to the Wachau pasture lands along the Danube, plundering queenly cows and lording over the awe-struck herds.

  And thus encouraged, I skulked past the Small Mammal House. O. Schrutt was off somewhere in the back streets of the Small Mammal Maze - still creaking doors, I could hear, and sliding the sliding glass.

  But along with O. Schrutt's sounds of clumsiness, I could hear something new from my stand just outside the open door, O. Schrutt had woken up his charges; there were shuffles, scratchings, claws clacking on the glass. And just as I began to think of this waking as a preface to O. Schrutt's own sudden emergence in the aisle, and his striking out for the open door - just as I'd turned a bit down the path, and was retreating to my hedgerow - I heard a wail from some lost aisle of the Small Mammal Maze. A cry cut off at full force, as if O. Schrutt had flung open a door on some poor beast's nightmare and slammed the door shut again as quickly as he'd opened it - fearing, perhaps, he'd be involved in the beastly dream.

  But the wail was contagious. The Small Mammal House whimpered and moaned. Oh, the screams blared and were cut off again, muffled but not altogether gone. As if a certain zoo train had passed you somewhere, going fast, and the frightened animals' cries had slashed out at you like a passing buggy driver's whip; and the cries hung for a moment all around, like the sting of the whip lingering on your neck after the buggy driver had slashed and passed on.

  So I pawed my way through the nearest root gap and crawled under and behind my hedge. Holding my breath.

  It wasn't until I exhaled, and heard a thousand exhalations round me, that I realized the rest of the zoo was awake again too.

  (CONTINUING:)

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

  On Sunday the twenty-sixth of October, 1941, Vratno Javotnik was judged by the Slivnicas as being prepared to meet Gottlob Wut, who had Sunday habits convenient for a meeting.

  The scout outfit had Sundays off. There was no guard at the Balkan 4 Barracks on Smartin Street, and no guard at the motorcycle unit's garage - a nearby block down Smartin Street, flush to the Mislinja riverbank.

  Sunday was Wut's day for a leisurely breakfast with his Serbian mistress, whom he'd openly moved to a Smartin Street apartment, half-way between the Balkan 4 barracks and the garage. Wut would cross Smartin Street every Sunday morning, briskly out of the barracks, wearing his bathrobe and unlaced dress shoes, carrying his uniform under his arm; it was the only day of the week he wasn't wearing or carrying his crash helmet. Wut had his own key to the Serbian woman's apartment. All Smartin Street watched Wut let himself in.

  Occasionally, one of the scout outfit's members would have stand-by messenger duty on Sundays. In which case, one of the 600 cc NSU side-valve sidecar models would be parked in front of the barracks. Otherwise, all the bikes were locked up, downstreet at the garage.

  Wut had a key for the garage too. He'd leave his mistress in the late afternoon and go down to his motorcycles, letting himself in again, neat in his uniform - this time - his bathrobe under his arm. Then he'd fiddle with the bikes until dark. He'd start them, adjust them, tighten them, bounce on them, leave little tickets tied to several handlebars - stating the nature of maladies he'd discovered, noting ill effects of maladies left uncorrected, sometimes suggesting punishments for the more careless of his drivers.

  When fussing, he left the garage door open to vent the exhaust - and to admit his audience; mostly children, they'd stand in the doorway and make revving sounds of their own. Wut let them sit on the sidecar models, but never on the ones that could tip off their kickstands and crush a child. Gottlob brought pastries from the Serbian woman and had a snack with the children before he closed up. But the children who stole - even so little as an insignia - he never let come back. Wut always knew who stole what too.

  Gottlob Wut was a stringy, hipless and rumpless man, bent-backed, and stiff in all his twitchy motions; he had a wincing walk, as if it hurt him to unbend his joints. It probably did hurt too. At one time or another, Gottlob Wut had broken all his fingers and half his toes, both wrists and both ankles, one leg and the other elbow, all but the highest rib on his left side, once his jaw, twice his nose, and three times his sunken left cheek - though never his right. Wut had never driven in a race, but he'd tested all the racers before the flaws were gone. NSU discovered flaws through Gottlob Wut. Poor Wut, pinned under one test model or another, his hand lanced through by a front brake handle, fuel sloshing over his chest, the old hand gearshift of a Tourensport stuck in his thigh - while hirelings pull the monster off him. Wut is speaking: 'Ja, I'd say there is clearly no rear suspension, and we'll have to retain the girder fork in front if we're to have any suspension at all. Because I certainly was totally lacking suspension of any kind, in that corner I missed back there.'

  But now Wut had a dull job, writing tickets: Bronsky, your tires are forever soft; Gortz, tissue paper will not stop your leak, you've lost a seal in your transmission, and don't you ever put such gunk as tissue in there again; Wallner, you've been laying over too much on your corners, you've skinned your tailpipes and bent your kickstand - such hot-rodding will get you just nothing but a sidecar attached, to slow you down, you fool; Vatch, your tail fender Iron Cross is gone, and don't you tell me it was my children who took it, for I watch them and I know it's some girl that has it or you sent it home and said it was a medal you never got - it's got screw holes in it, you won't be fooling anyone - so get it back on that tail fender; Metz, your sparkplugs are filthy, and I don't scrape carbon for anyone, that's unskilled labor like you can do - Monday, instead of your lunch.

  Yes, Gottlob Wut had a dull job - survived adventures to be bored to death. He would have liked to tell his best driver, Wallner, how he could skin his tailpipes down to dust, how he could lay over on a corner and really grind his tailpipes down to nothing - only watch out for the kickstand, it can snap you up, which is why you don't put one on a bike you're racing, and often no tailpipes either. But Gottlob wrote tickets on Sunday, and had to write tickets that kept Scout Outfit Balkan 4 intact, even if obsolete; parts and drivers weren't so easily replaced in Slovenjgradec as they were in the old Neckarsulm factory.

  Certainly the Sunday of 26 October 1941 was a fine Slivnica sort of choice for a day when my father could attempt to bring some excitement into the dull life of Gottlob Wut.

  It was also the fifth and last day of gravedigging for the shovel-sore and weary widows of Kraguyevats.

  And it was probably a day of sneaky fighting, like many other days, for the Chetniks of Mihailovich and for the Communist partisans who at this time were supporting the Chetnik forces against the Germans - the Communist partisans being led by a little-known son of a Croatian blacksmith from the village of Klanyets. The blacksmith's son had gone to the Russian front with the Austro-Hungarian Army, but he went over to the Russians and fought with the Red Army through the civil war; then returned home as a leader of the Yugoslav Communist part
y; then was arrested as a Communist in 1928 and served five years in prison; then allegedly was in charge of the Yugoslav Communist party through the period of illegality, although those involved with the Balkan underground centers in Vienna, at the time, swear they never once heard of this blacksmith's son. Certain members of the Balkan underground claim that the blacksmith's son was actually a member of the Russian secret service, and that he was in Russia until the Germans' delayed invasion got under way. Whatever his real history is, the blacksmith's son was the mystery-man leader of the Communist partisans, who were fighting along with the Chetniks against the Germans - when they weren't fighting against the Chetniks. He was a Communist; he had a large and handsome Slavic head; he was fighting along with Mihailovich before he turned against Mihailovich; he was indeed mysterious.

  At the time my father was on his way to meet Gottlob Wut, very few people had ever heard of Josip Broz Tito, the blacksmith's son.

  My father certainly hadn't heard of him, but, as I've said, Vratno paid little attention to politics. He was attentive to more constant details: the various uses of Amal carburetors, the advantages of the double-overhead cam, umlaut sounds and verb endings. In fact, by the Sunday of 26 October 1941, my father had learned his introductory lines by heart.

  Vratno spoke his German softly to himself; he even spoke made-up lines for Wut. Then he strolled through the open doors of the motorcycle unit's garage, an indigo-blue racing helmet with a red-tinted visor cocked a bit back on his head, chin strap loose and jaunty; and over the ear hole of the helmet, a crossed pair of chequered racing flags with a halo printed above them, reading: AMAL CARBURETORS FINISH FIRST - AND LAST!

  'Herr Commander Wut,' he said. 'Well, yes, I'd still recognize you. You're older, of course, I was only eleven, so of course I'm older too. That wonderful Wut!' Vratno crowed. 'If only my poor uncle had lived to meet you.'

  'What?' said Wut, strewing tools and children. 'Who?' said Wut, a socket wrench firm in his puffy old hand - the dirtiest, most knuckle-cut hands that my father had ever seen.

  'Javotnik here,' my father said, 'Vratno Javotnik.'

  'You speak German,' said Wut. 'And what are you doing in leathers?'

  'Wut,' said Vratno, 'I've come to join your team.'

  'My what?' said Wut.

  'I've come to learn all over again, Wut - now that I've found the master.'

  'I don't have any teams,' said Wut. 'I don't know any Javotniks.'

  'Remember the Grand Prix of Italy, 1930?' Vratno asked. 'Ah, Wut, you really made a killing.'

  Gottlob Wut unsnapped his sidearm holster.

  Vratno said, 'My poor dead uncle took me, Wut. I was only eleven. Uncle said you were the very best.'

  'At what?' said Wut, holster open.

  'Motorcycles, of course, Wut. Fixing them and driving them, testing them and coaching drivers. A genius, Uncle said. Politics got in the way, of course, or my uncle would have joined your team.'

  'But I don't have any team,' said Wut.

  'Look,' my father said. 'I've got a real problem.'

  'I'm very sorry,' said Gottlob Wut, sincerely.

  'I was just coming along as a driver,' Vratno said, 'when my uncle was killed - drove his Norton into the Sava outside the Bled. It ruined me, Wut. I haven't sat on a bike since.'

  'I don't know what you want,' Gottlob said.

  'You can teach me, Wut. I've got to learn all over - how to ride. I was good, Wut, but I lost my nerve when poor Uncle sank in the Sava. Uncle said you were the very best.'

  'How did your uncle know me?' Wut asked.

  'The world knew you, Wut! The Grand Prix of Italy, 1930. What a killing!'

  'You said that before,' Wut complained.

  'My uncle was teaching me, Wut. My uncle said I had all the moves. But I lost my nerve, you see. It would take a master to have me riding again.'

  'There's a war now, you fool,' said Wut. 'What are you anyway?'

  'Croat, I guess - if it matters,' Vratno said. 'But motorcycles are international!'

  'But there's a war now,' said Wut. 'I'm the scout-outfit leader of Motorcycle Unit Balkan 4.'

  'That's the team I want!' my father said.

  'It's not a team!' said Wut. 'It's a war!'

  'Are you really in the war, Wut?' Vratno asked. 'What will the war do to NSU?'

  'Set us back ten years,' said Wut. 'There won't be any racers made, there won't be any improvements made. There might not be a factory to go back to, and all my drivers could lose their legs. Everything will come back, covered with camouflage paint.'

  'Oh, you're surely right that these politics have no place with motorcycles,' my father said. 'Wut, is there any way I can overcome my fear?'

  'My God!' said Wut. 'You can't have anything to do with a German military unit.'

  'You can help me, Wut, I know you can. You could make me a driver again.'

  'Why are you speaking German?' said Wut.

  'Do you speak Serbo-Croat?' my father asked.

  'Of course not,' Gottlob said.

  'Then I'd better speak German, don't you think? I was driving all over the continent, you see - mostly amateur events, sure. But I was an alternate for the 1939 Grand Prix races. Pity that NSU wasn't a winner in '39 - a bit heavy, your racer model that year, wasn't it? But I picked up some languages when I was touring.'

  'Before you lost your nerve?' said Wut, who was lost.

  'Yes, before poor Uncle drowned with the Norton.'

  'And you were only eleven at the 1930 Grand Prix of Italy?'

  'Eleven, Wut. Merely an admiring child.'

  'And you found out I was here?'

  'I found out, Wut.'

  'How did you ever find that out?' Gottlob said.

  'The world knows you, Wut - the motorcycle world.'

  'Yes, you said so before,' Wut agreed.

  'How would you go about overcoming such a fear?' my father asked.

  'You're crazy,' said Wut. 'And you'll frighten the children.'

  'Please, Wut,' Vratno said. 'I had all the right impulses, and now I'm frozen.'

  'You must be out of your head,' said Wut, and my father cast a wild eye around the garage.

  'Lots of sidecars,' he said, 'but they're not motorcycles, really. And side-valvers,' he said, 'lots of low-speed torque, which is all right for the war, I guess, but you don't win races with them, do you?'

  'Just a minute,' said Wut. 'I've got two six hundred cc overhead valves. They move along all right.'

  'No rear suspension, though,' Vratno said. 'Centre of gravity was too high, and hurt the handling - if I remember '38.'

  'Remarkably, you remember,' said Wut. 'And how old were you then, boy?'

  'Just two '38 models, the side-valvers and the sidecar tanks,' my father counted scornfully. 'I'm sorry, Wut,' he said, 'I was mistaken. You don't have anything for me here.' And he started for the door. 'By the end of this war,' he added, 'NSU will be back to making nothing but mopeds.'

  'And they don't even send me where the real driving is!' said Wut.

  My father walked out into Smartin Street, with Gottlob Wut wincing behind, socket wrench stuck in his boot.

  'Maybe,' said Vratno, 'they thought you were too old for the front. Maybe, Wut, they figured you had your action behind you. Lost your zip, you know?'

  'You didn't see the racer in there,' said Wut, shyly. 'I keep it under a tarp.'

  'What racer?' Vratno asked.

  'Grand Prix racer of '39,' said Wut, and stood unbalanced with his feet too close together - his hands locking and unlocking behind his back.

  'The one that was too heavy?' Vratno said.

  'I can make it lighter,' said Wut. 'Of course, I had to put some trimmings on it so they'd think it was just a workhorse machine like the others. But I take them off for a run, now and then. You know - the kickstand, toolbox, pack rack, radio mounts and that saddle-bag crap; I had to fill it in a little, for the war look, but it's still the '39 Grand Prix racer, five hundred cc model.'

&nb
sp; My father came suspiciously back to the doorway. 'That's the twin, right?' he said. 'The supercharged double-overhead-cam twin? Got the duplex cradle frame, and the boxed plunger rear suspension?'

  'Want to see it, huh?' said Wut, and he blushed.

  But under the tarp was the racer disguised as a war bike, the camouflage paint a somewhat darker tone because of the black enamel layers underneath.

  'What can she hit?' Vratno asked.

  'Strip her down and she'll hit one-fifty,' said Wut. 'Her weight's still high at four eighty-six, but a lot of that's fuel. She puts it away; she's under four hundred when she's dry.'

  'Roadability?' said Vratno, giving conspicuous little jounces to the front end, as if he knew all about the shocks.

  'Oh, still a bit rough,' Wut said. 'Handles hard, maybe, but the power never fails you.'

  'I can imagine,' said Vratno, and Gottlob Wut looked at the racing flags crossed over my father's ear hole. Then he sent one of the children to the barracks for his helmet.

  'Javotnik, wasn't it?' he asked.

  'Vratno. Vratno Javotnik.'

  And Gottlob said, 'Well, Vratno, about this fear of yours ...'

  'Overcoming it's the problem, Wut.'

  'I think, Vratno,' Gottlob said, 'that good drivers have to transfer their fears.'

  'To what, Wut?'

  And Gottlob said, 'Pretend it's a different fear, boy. Pretend it's like the fear when you first learn to ride.'

  'Pretend?' said Vratno.

  'If it's not too hard,' said Wut, 'you should try to pretend that you've never driven a motorcycle before.'

  'That shouldn't be too hard,' Vratno said and watched Gottlob Wut doing knee bends - limbering up the old sticky joints before mounting the monster Grand Prix racer, '39.

  If you're careless with the spark retard, the kickstarter can kick you back hard enough to slide your ankle joint flush to your knee joint - shove the whole shaft of your thighbone screaming up under your lungs.

  Or so claimed Gottlob Wut, the motorcycle master and secret keeper of a Grand Prix racer, '39, who was as unconcerned with politics as my father was; who hadn't yet heard of Josip Broz Tito, either.