The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving Read Free Book Online

a bear was after him, he had not yet got his bearings; he was unsure which way the main road was. If he’d found the main road, of course, he could have outdistanced the bear, but confined to the narrow paths and walkways of the hotel grounds, and the soft fields for sports, he lacked the necessary speed.
    “Earl!” growled the bear. The German swerved across the croquet lawn and headed for the picnic tents where they were setting up for lunch. The bear was on the motorcycle in less than twenty-five yards, clumsily trying to mount behind the German—as if State o’ Maine had finally learned Freud’s driving lesson, and was about to insist that the act be performed properly.

    The German would not allow Freud to stitch him up this time, and even Freud confessed that it was too big a job for him. “What a mess,” Freud wondered aloud to my father. “Such a lot of stitches—not for me. I couldn’t stand to hear him bawl all the time it would take.”
    So the German was transported, by the Coast Guard, to the hospital at Bath. State o’ Maine was concealed in the laundry room so that the bear’s mythical status as “a wild animal” could be confirmed.
    “Out of the voods , it came,” said the revived German woman. “It must haf been incensed by der noise from der motorcycle.”
    “A she-bear with young cubs,” Freud explained. “ Sehr treacherous at this time of year.”
    But the management of the Arbuthnot-by-the-Sea would not allow the matter to be dismissed so easily; Freud knew that.
    “I’m leaving before I have to talk with him again,” Freud told Father and Mother. They knew that Freud meant the owner of the Arbuthnot, the man in the white dinner jacket who occasionally showed up for the last dance. “I can just hear him, the big shot: ‘Now, Freud, you knew the risk—we discussed it. When I agreed to have the animal here, we agreed he would be your responsibility.’ And if he tells me I’m a lucky Jew—to be in his fucking America in the first place—I will let State o’ Maine eat him!” Freud said. “Him and his fancy cigarettes, I don’t need. This isn’t my kind of hotel, anyway.”
    The bear, nervous at being confined in the laundry room and worried to see Freud packing his clothes as fast as they came out of the wash—still wet—began to growl to himself. “Earl!” he whispered.
    “Oh, shut up!” Freud yelled. “You’re not my kind of bear, either.”
    “It was my fault,” my mother said. “I shouldn’t have taken his muzzle off.”
    “Those were just love bites,” Freud said. “It was the brute’s claws that really carved that fucker up!”
    “If he hadn’t tried to pull State o’ Maine’s fur,” Father said, “I don’t think it would have gotten so bad.”
    “Of course it wouldn’t have!” Freud said. “Who likes to have hair pulled?”
    “Earl!” complained State o’ Maine.
    “That should be your name: ‘Earl!”’ Freud told the bear. “You’re so stupid, that’s all you ever say.”
    “But what will you do?” Father asked Freud. “Where can you go?”
    “Back to Europe,” Freud said. “They got smart bears there.”
    “They have Nazis there,” Father said.
    “Give me a smart bear and fuck the Nazis,” Freud said.
    “I’ll take care of State o’ Maine,” Father said.
    “You can do better than that,” Freud said. “You can buy him. Two hundred dollars, and what you got for clothes. These are all wet!” he shouted, throwing his clothes.
    “Earl!” said the bear, distressed.
    “Watch your language, Earl,” Freud told him.
    “Two hundred dollars?” Mother asked.
    “That’s all they’ve paid me, so far,” Father said.
    “I know what they pay you,” Freud said. “That’s why it’s only two hundred dollars. Of course, it’s for the motorcycle, too. You’ve seen why you need to keep the Indian, ja ? State o’ Maine don’t get in cars; they make him throw up. And some woodsman chained him in a pickup once—I saw