Setting Free the Bears Read online

  This is enough, I thought. Enough, for sure. And I was winding through the other, roaring bear cages when Gallen screamed. Schrutt's out! I thought. But when I squinted through cage corners and down the dark paths toward the Small Mammal House, I saw a man-shaped figure, loping more or less on all fours, turn the corner by the Monkey Complex - followed by another just like him, though not as thick in the chest. The orangutan and the lowland gorilla, in cahoots.

  I thought: But how the frot did they ever get out? And saw then - cantering sideways behind them - the housesized blur of the African elephant, carrying a cage wall in his trunk; a great rectangle of bars bent every which way.

  When he flung the cage wall down on the path, it rang off the cement - as if the bell in St Stephen's had broken loose and dropped straight down the steeple, striking the organ pipes behind the center altar.

  Then all running forms stood still; I stood trying to hold my breath. The zoo was church-still; a new hope brings silence. And I started up slowly, past the polar bears and brown bears and American grizzly; I turned up the path by the Famous Asiatic Black Bear, who stood like an assassin in his cage. But I was forced to leap over the Oriental's safety rope and crash against his wrist-thick bars - when the elephant blurred up in front of me on the path and charged on by me after I'd crumpled against the terrible bear's cage door; the elephant tore through the Biergarten, squashing umbrellas and grinding up fallen mirror-bits under his mammoth feet. And I was almost up and away again, when the Famous Asiatic Black Bear seized me round the chest and hugged me back against his bars. I took a breath and held it; I was back-to him and could feel his foul breath stir my hair. I thought, calmly: When he realizes he can't fit his great head through the bars to eat me, then he'll rake up my belly with his claws and gobble me innards-first. But instead, he turned me to face him; his head seemed buffalo-sized. But when I dared to look him in the eye, I saw that he eyed the keyring looped over my shoulder.

  'Oh no!' I told him. He hugged me; I was chest to chest with him, the bars grooving my ribs. I felt the claws plucking at my spine. 'Squash me, then,' I grunted at him. 'Just get your eyes off that keyring, because I'm not ever letting you out.' He roared all over my face; he bellowed up my nostrils, so loud I almost choked, 'Never!' I squeaked. 'You have to draw the line somewhere!'

  But then Gallen screamed again. I thought: That elephant has loosed O. Schrutt! Or: That virile orangutan has got my Gallen - surely, the best he's ever had.

  I moved my hand for the keyring; the Asiatic Black Bear let my spine move out a notch. I fumbled, reading in the dark for the key I thought would probably be labeled: NEVER USE! But it said simply: ASIAN BEAR. Such understatement, but I fitted key to latch; the bear held me, unbelieving. I felt the door swing into me; the bear and I swung out together on the opening frame of bars. And for a moment, he still squeezed me, not really believing he was free. Then he let me go; we both plopped to all fours.

  Now he'll run around this door and eat me whole, I thought. But both of us heard the Big Cats then, a brief upcry noticeably louder than before, as if - at the very least - their general house door had been opened. And then I heard the terrible Big Cats, purring close-by. The Big Cats were prowling, on the loose. I crept backward from the door. But the Oriental took no notice; oddly, he crouched very still, his nose lifting up now and then - salivating, and quivering the long, coarse hair on his flanks.

  The Famous Asiatic Black Bear is thinking! I thought. Or plotting.

  And I didn't wait a moment more - for him to make up his awful mind. I bolted round his open cage and back to the path, past the ponds, to the Small Mammal House. Where I found my poor Gallen huddled in the doorway aisle of the maze, watching down the blood-bathed path to where a tiger, his stripes tinted crimson and black in the infrared, was squatting over a large and tawny, deep-chested antelope with spiraled horns; with a large brain-shaped mass of intestines spilled over his side. And with a hind hoof bent or drawn up under his thigh, over which sprawled his unmistakable, familiar balloons of volleyball size.

  'Oh, Siggy, it's the oryx,' I said.

  'It's a tiger,' said Gallen, colder than the winter river. 'And I'm not Siggy.'

  And just as coldly, I said, 'You screamed?'

  'Oh, you heard?' she said, with a demented brightness to her voice. 'Well, I got over whatever it was, without you.'

  'Where did the apes go?' I asked. But she sat mum and hardfaced, so I didn't press her.

  Down the maze, a muffled voice was naming names. I went to see: old O. Schrutt upright against the glass, the ratel almost playful with his odd snarls - boastful in the center of the cage. And old O. was naming names, or asking them.

  'Zeiker?' he called, 'Beinberg? Muffel? Brandeis? Schmerling? Frieden?' Name by name, O. Schrutt was leaving his mind behind.

  So I went back to Gallen, just in time to hear the final thunder: the Famous Asiatic Black Bear's deciding roar. At last, adjusted to the surprise of his freedom, the bear had made up his mind. The zoo pitch of the other creatures hit hysteria, as if this bear were a griffin and what they feared was more his myth than his reality - all of them knowing what he thought for so long about Hinley Gouch, and how that had warped his mind.

  'You let that bear out too,' said Gallen.

  'No!' I said. 'I mean, I had to. He caught me. He wouldn't let me go. I had to make a deal.' But she stared at me as if I were as foreign to her as the fallen oryx, whom she'd never seen when he was so wondrously whole and upright.

  'Oh, Graff,' she whispered. Her eyes glazed.

  I looked out the doorway of the Small Mammal House and saw the Asiatic Black Bear mounting the stairs, four at a time. Gallen was benumbed; she never even flinched when he rushed at us, and by us, echoing through the maze. But he stopped, silent, when he saw O. Schrutt. Who was saying: 'Weinsturm? Bottweiler? Schnuller? Steingarten? Frankl? Little Frisch?'

  And I thought: Why not Wut? Javotnik? Marter? Watzek-Trummer? Or loose-ended Hannes Graff too?

  Having found what he came for, the Famous Asiatic Black Bear sat down at the glass front, perplexed, and rapped the hopefully foot-thick frontispiece once or twice, with a curious, pecking sort of claw. O. Schrutt stopped reciting. 'Who's there?' he said. 'I know it's Zeiker!' But the Asiatic Black Bear was not one to further endure O. Schrutt's yelling at him. He reared up and thudded against the glass; backed away; thudded again; and sat down, puzzled.

  And O. Schrutt said, 'Come on! Who are you? I know you're out there!' And the Asiatic Black Bear began to roar. A gathering din that gained force through its own echo in the maze. O. Schrutt flopped backward in the sawdust, rolling into the ratel, who snapped, but who backed away himself - at the chute door, the two of them quaking at the close-range roar familiar to all the inmates of the Hietzinger Zoo.

  O. Schrutt screamed, 'No! Not you! Don't let him in! Not him! Not ever! No! Please! Zeiker? Beinberg? Frankl? Schnuller? Schmerling? Little Frisch? Please!'

  And I hustled Gallen out the door - the roaring seemed to shove us out - into a zoo that was bolting; hearing, no doubt, the rage of the animal no one dared to challenge. Not Big Cats, and not the elephant, either; nor apes running somewhere - for the main gate, it seemed. Along with everyone else. They were organized; the zoo was mustering. The Asiatic Black Bear was out, and nobody wanted his unreasonable company.

  But when Gallen and I turned round the ticket taker's booth and headed for the main gate, I saw outside the zoo a daze of headlights, parked in rows - and heard the blurry, human sounds of a crowd in waiting. And saw a stream of animals, hoofed, padded, clawed and dashing, splashing through the ponds for Various Aquatic Birds, setting the night aflight - all of them making for the rear gate that opened to the Tiroler Garten. Where there's moss and ferns, all the sweet way to Maxing Park.

  There was a jam at the gate, but the elephant had obliged, and left a passable hole for all but himself. He'd managed to spring one hinge, but the bottom corner of the gate had held, and the bottom hinge had swun
g the whole gate crosswise in the exit.

  Gallen and I sneaked by the elephant's trapped and blundering shape, plunging through little mustering teams of monkeys.

  But in the Tiroler Garten there was also a crowd, a predawn army of more citizens than police - of suburb folk in nightwear, blinking flashlights. We were not noticed in the mayhem; we jogged alongside housewives, shriller than monkeys.

  It was only when we reached the larger, darker shrubs of Maxing Park, that a sense of outcome loomed clearly in my mind against this chaos. Through the shrubs, I saw them hiding. Anonymous men with ancient weapons - with fireplace tridents, grub hoes and gleaming bucksaws; pitch forks, sledges and moon-shaped sickles. And people's voices, now, were raised above the Asiatic Black Bear's din - left behind me.

  And when I'd dragged Gallen as far as she could go, I knelt over her, sobbing on a stone park bench, and saw how the hiding men seemed uniformed and old and starving; an army of diehard meat-eaters, all these years of nights in the parks round the Hietzinger Zoo. Ever since Zahn Glanz, or whoever he was, was eaten.

  I heard a shot or two; the trees shook with birds and monkeys. Beside us, on the park bench, a comfortably seated gibbon ate a candy-bar wrapper.

  I said to Gallen, 'Will you promise me to stay here with this gibbon?' Her face was as calm, or numb, as the gobbling primate's.

  I dashed for Maxing Strasse, tracing down the curb for the bike, and spotted the bush where our lumpish rucksack was stashed.

  It was still dark, but all the houses were lit along the street and headlit cars tore by; cabs unloaded customers carrying things - sticks, brooms, mops and shish kebabbers. Men stepped out into the battle sound. A din like they hadn't heard in years.

  I lashed the pack on the motorcycle and drove down Maxing Strasse, yelling for Gallen. I didn't know if I could be heard above the clamor - the wailing police-green Volkswagens sounding behind me in Maxing Platz. And over the trees of the Tiroler Garten, their blinking-blue bars of light. Streams of people pouring into Maxing Park, and streams of animals pouring out.

  I saw Gallen on the curb, standing as if she were catching a bus she always caught at this hour, in this customary traffic. Mounting numbly behind me, she was slightly bumped by a Siberian ibex, stumbling blindly and goatlike over the curb - a chunk of his hide torn open and flapping down over his shoulder; the gash was sort of hoe-shaped.

  And I listened and listened for him - the Famous Asiatic Black Bear - for some final roar of despair or satisfaction. But I could never have heard him above the din the people made; not even him.

  Gallen sat like a puppet behind me, and I pulled us out in the traffic of Maxing Strasse. The police were now cruising Maxing Park; I saw the bobbing, single headlights and pearl-white fairings of their BMWs - weaving through the shrubs, trying to rout the mob. Inside a fast-closing circle of motorcycle headlights, the great gray boomer was beating up a man, who'd lost his grip on his garden shears; they shone in the grass, pinned under the boomer's hunting claw.

  The mob was around us for five suburb blocks of driving. In a doorway on Wattmann Gasse, I saw the snow leopard panting and licking one paw. And in Sarajevo Platz, I saw a team of five successful hunters trying to crouch down out of my passing headlight, thinking I was a police cycle; behind them, they attempted to conceal the dragged, bloodied and unprotesting gaur. Who, when he was upright, was six-foot-four.

  The low, sturdy zebra herd came in a noiseless wave across the lawns, weaving through shrubs - shifty, and able to fool the threesome of hunters with a net and two-man saw. The zebras came out over the curb in front of me, their hooves sparking off the cobblestones. Their own clatter startled them; they veered and zigzagged between parked cars, crossing the far sidewalk and bolting down tiny Wolter Gasse, where onrushing headlights turned them back - again across Maxing Strasse - and once more drove them into Maxing Park.

  Then Gallen and I were in the Lainz suburbs, in the eerie outlying hospital district. We passed them altogether - the Old People's Home, the Invalids' Home, and City Hospital; the floodlit lawns, and stark, beige stucco. On the balconies, rows of wheelchairs gleamed; on the lawns and in the windows, cigarettes and pipes were glowing. The old and sick and maimed were listening to the clamorous zoo, like people in the country watch the lighting effects in a city being bombed.

  And for a moment I idled low, listening with them and watching, as they were, for the one brilliant animal who might any second appear - having run the best possible obstacle course. For the one superb gibbon, maybe, who would come handspringing over the hospital grounds - be surrounded by nurses, showered by wheelchairs off the balconies; be finally snagged in rubber breathing tubes, and strangled with a stethoscope. A capture for which all the hospital staffs and patients would take proud credit.

  But no one made it that far. Gallen slumped more heavily on my back; I felt her start shaking against my neck. So I turned us past the waiting hospitals, toward the country west of the suburbs, with Gallen's wet cheek sliding against my own, and her hands plucking at my shirt; and her teeth in my shoulder, biting me fierce.

  But I didn't mind it, and wished for all this world that she could bite much deeper and hurt me more. While I alternated driving fast with driving slow; fast so the din would fade behind me, and slow so that if there were any who successfully escaped, they might overtake me and lope before me in my headlight - serve me for that moment kindly, as guides I would be happy to believe in.

  But no one overtook me; there was no traffic headed in my direction. All the traffic I met was going the other way. Family autos, farmers' wagons, clattering with tools and weapons - in the early morning dark, the people poured eagerly into the calamity area.

  For every headlight I met, I saw again my old soccer-ball situation. And I was beaten to the kick, every time.

  Making New Plans

  THE BEGINNING DAYLIGHT found us out of the city, in the countryside above the Danube, south of Klosterneuburg. Where there still were monks.

  I don't know how long I'd been pulled off the roadside, sitting down in the ditch, before I noticed the country folk coming wearily back from the wondrous, city-type excitement in the Hietzinger Zoo. Truck and whole wagonloads of them, mostly; some of the loutish younger farmers whistled at Gallen, who sat in a ball on the other side of the road from me.

  We hadn't spoken. I thought: It's not wise of me to let her do so much thinking by herself. But I had nothing to say, so I kept the peace of the road between us. Until these farmers started coming back.

  Then I thought: We look suspicious. Although O. Schrutt never got a look at us, and probably would never be coherent again, there was that Balkan waiter and little Hugel Furtwangler who might have had something to say about a big, ragged motorcycle, and a madman who spoke zoo talk.

  O. Schrutt, I thought, at least was found with his nametag on - and his epaulettes buttoned down sharp. That's something.

  But it wasn't enough, for sure. Because the last of the pickup trucks to pass us had a load in the back - a lump under a tarp, hanging down off the tailgate. I saw a bit of leg and hoof protrude; I recognized the brownish-red and creamy-white striping, running from hock to shank. Heavens forfend all evil from the previous bongo, handsomest of antelopes - about to be eaten and have his rack mounted over the mantle of the humble peasant dwelling. For later generations of hunters to ask: Was he once native to Austria?

  Oh yes. A slave boat to Austria brought the first of them.

  But extinct now?

  Oh yes. They were a damaging lot - to the gardens. And dogs were gored.

  By them?

  Oh yes.

  But he has such a thin, gentle face.

  Oh yes. But he was actually fat and very tasty.

  Him?

  Oh yes.

  And when the last of the caravan had passed us, I thought I should try to salvage Gallen out of this. She sat across the road from me and stared over my shoulder, or through my chest. But I couldn't face her; I looked down my
pant leg and discovered, wadded and clinging to my sock, a little mesh of fur.

  Oh, I am sorry, Siggy, I thought. But you were more than illogical. You were wrong.

  Then Gallen crossed the road to the bike and stood over the lumpish rucksack, for a moment, before she began to take her things out.

  She'd done entirely too much thinking, for sure.

  And since I had nothing to say, I said, 'Well, what do you want to do now?' She just gaped at me. So I said, 'We'll do whatever you want.' But she just pulled her things out faster; she made a sack of her ladies' leather jacket; I saw her stuff her silky blue panties up one sleeve. And that hurt me.

  I thought: She's going to give me back my soccer shirt. But she gave no signs of taking it off. At least, she was sparing me the little gestures.

  'Where are you going?' I said.

  'To Vienna,' she said. 'May I have my hair money, please?'

  'To Vienna?' I said.

  'Aren't you interested in going back and reading all about it?' she asked. 'Don't you want to know, exactly, just what happened? Aren't you interested in all the details, Graff?'

  But she wasn't going to get a rise out of me; I had no place to come up from. And casualty statistics were of no interest to me, for sure. After the oryx, there was no need to keep count of disasters.

  I said, 'Really, please. Why is it Vienna?'

  'Because,' she said, 'it's one place I can think of where you wouldn't try to come along with me.'

  And I got some footing, suddenly - to rise from. I said to her, 'You won't ever sneeze again, I hope you know.' And she just glared at me. 'Well, you won't,' I said. 'Whoever gets you.'

  'It was my hair,' said Gallen. 'You give me the money now, please.' So I did. She took it like suspected bait, as if she were afraid I'd touch her.

  'Wherever will you go, Graff?' she said, in a bright, cold clear-sky voice. But I wouldn't allow myself to be taunted.