Bear by Marian Engel Read Free Book Online Page A

At noon, the skies opened up. It was raining as if it had never rained before. Raining buckets, raining thick sheets of grey water.Thunder rolled.The skies flashed lightning. The sky was dark grey. The wide river flattened and puckered to receive the raindrops. Mist began to rise. She could hear the lawns turning into mush. She went to the back window and stared towards the den ofthe bear. His yard was a sea of mud, and dimly she saw his eyes gleaming in the darkness.I can’t bring him in tonight, she thought.Rain thrummed on the roof and cascaded off the eaves. She could not remember ever having seen such rain except in England. She wondered if there was a lightning rod on the lantern. It was a miracle it didn’t leak.The rain made her want to urinate. She went downstairs and found, as she had expected, a rose painted, lidded chamber-pot in the bedside table. And used it gratefully. Resisted, then, the urge to crawl into her sleeping bag and put her hands over her ears. The bear, she thought affectionately, is in his sleepingbag with his hands over his ears. He has no middle-class pretensions, no front to keep up, even to himself. She went into the kitchen and began to make a pot of soup. Late in the day, the rain stopped suddenly. The sun came outand gleamed through the trees, turning her view from the library into an astonishing tunnel of green. She put on her boots and went down to the river. The boat was half sunk. She would bail it later.
    Now she wanted to listen to the river world shaking the rain off its wings.A bittern boomed eerily. With a rush, a flock of returning swallows careened across the sky. A fish leapt. At her feet, frog spawn winked in the sun.

Chapter 10
    The next morning was hot.She took the bear down to the river, hooked his chain on a nail in the dock, and jumped naked into the water beside him.He seemed enormous, with his fur alternately flaring out and clinging seal-like. She dog-paddled beside him, scooping little waves towards him. He slapped the water with his paw in return.The water was icy. She was about to swim to shore, when playfully he swam under her, then, with a sudden turn, tried to leap over her.She sank underwater and opened her mouth to scream. She choked, and trying to rise to the surface,found him above her.For a moment she thought she had drowned; then she found air and courage top ropel herself the few feet to the shore,where she threw herself on the soggy bank, rebelliously panting. Then she felt the tremendous shower of his shaking beside her.A moment later, he began to run his long, ridged tongue up and down her wet back. It was a curious sensation. Much later, she took herself upstairs to work,for there seemed no reason to lie about savouring fright. She was, however, shaken, and her sensation of narrow escape was not helped by the fact that it reminded her of a time when, in a fit oflonely desperation, she had picked up a man in the street. She still shied away from the memory of how he had turned out not to be a good man. Surely the bear … no: it was fright that linked them, fright and flight. Book, book. Always, when these things happen,pick up a book.A paper floated out:In Wales, the bear was used as a beast of chase. The name Pennarth means bear’s head. Item: My Lorde usith & accustomyth to gyfeyerly when his Lordshipe is at home to his barward when he cornyth tomy Lord in Cristmas with his Lordshippe’s beestes,for makying eof his Lords chippastime, thesaid xij days, xx s—Household book, the Earl of Northumberland. The Esquimaux believe that the soul of a wounded polar bear tarries three days bear the spot where it leaves his body.Many taboos and propitiatory ceremonies are observed with regard to the slaughtering of the carcase and the consumption of the flesh. To the Lapps, the bear is King of the Beasts. Hunters who kill him must live three days alone, else they are considered unclean.“But he wasn’t chasing me, he was playing with me!“she cried