The North Water

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

One bright morning, a month later, he visits the Zoologischer Garten in Berlin. He is clean shaven now, and he has a new suit of clothes and a new name. He strolls about the gravel paths, smoking his pipe and pausing every now and then to watch the animals as they yawn and shit and scratch themselves. The sky is cloudless, and the low autumn sun is broad and warming. He sees lions, camels, and monkeys; he observes a small boy in a sailor suit feeding buns to a solitary zebra. It is close to noon, and he is beginning to lose interest, when he notices the bear. The cage it is standing in is no wider than the deck of a ship. There is a lead-lined pit at one end, filled up with water, and a low brick archway in the rear wall leading to a den with straw for bedding. The bear is standing at the back gazing indifferently forwards. Its fur is shabby, lank, and yellowish; its snout is mottled and threadbare. While Sumner watches, a family arrives and stands beside him at the rail. One of the children asks in German if this is the lion or the tiger, and the other child laughs at him. They argue briefly and the mother scolds, then quiets them. When the family leaves, the bear waits awhile, then slouches slowly forwards, its head twitching like a dowsing rod and its heavy feet scuffing gently against the cement floor. It reaches the front of the cage and pushes its nose through the black bars as far as it can manage, until its narrow wolfish face is only three feet from Sumner’s. It sniffs the air and stares at him, its gimlet eyes like strait gates to a larger darkness. Sumner would like to look away but can’t. The bear’s gaze holds him tight. It snorts, and its raw breath brushes against his face and lips. He feels a moment of fear, and then, in its wake, as the fear fades and loses its force, an unexpected stab of loneliness and need.