Bear Witness

by Mandy Haggith

  ‘So join in. Write to someone. Phone them up. Don’t tell me. I’m in Scotland.’

  ‘I might have to go for a total change of life: job, home, everything.’

  ‘Go to bed, Cally,’ he said.

  She flicked off her phone and smiled around at the sky-blue walls of her living room. Eventually she took herself to bed. For the first time since her mother’s death, sleep swallowed her willingly.

  She dreamed that she had snuggled into a bear’s winter den and lain down next to the sleeping bear, rolling into its warm, hairy body, wrapping herself in its musky pelt, feeling its fur rubbing against her skin, its heart thumping slowly, deep in its body. The bear was not alone: it was suckling a tiny baby, not a bear cub but a human baby, eyes and fists tight closed in an ecstasy of milk-sucking. She watched the infant until it woke and when its eyes opened they were her mother’s eyes, and as they recognised each other both of them began to cry. The baby’s voice grew to a wail and she, worried at what the bear might do, tried to withdraw, but there seemed no way out of the cave. She woke to her own baby-like whimpering, face wet with mourning.

  She began the day at home, in the doldrums, doing nothing much, mind flitting from task to task, drawing up lists, tyrannising herself with trivia. After breakfast, she worked herself up enough to call the bear reintroduction group number from the clipping she had taken the night before. It switched to voicemail so she left a message offering her services and giving her work number. Then she wrote a resignation letter to the Institute and emailed it to Yuri, reflecting that the last time she had seen him he had asked her to let him know her plans. This probably wasn’t what he was expecting.

  After that she couldn’t settle to anything, and tricked herself out of the door for a walk, on the excuse of having no fruit in the house. With a bag in her pocket she set off, and let herself go the long way around to the shops. She plodded up the lane behind her house and into the forest, following the wooded path that wended up the hill. Her breath deepened and she increased her pace, feeling the need to pant, to push herself on. She took her jacket off, tied it around her waist and kept climbing.

  A couple of kilometres up, through spruce and birch woods, she came to a waterfall, a white spate, gushing on to black gleaming rocks, splashing the ferns and mosses gathered around it as if to appreciate the spectacle. She stood letting its roaring force fill her with energy then allowed its momentum to carry her back home, deviating for only a couple of minutes to pick up essentials from the corner shop by the tram stop.

  As soon as she was in the door, she knew she couldn’t come up with any more sidetracks. She would have to go into work eventually. It might as well be now.

  Striding from the back door down the main corridor to her office, she saw Maria, the Institute receptionist, clock her arrival. She had taken off her coat and just fired up the computer when there was a knock on her door. It was opened without needing a response from her.

  Yuri shut the door behind him. ‘Welcome back,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

  It was a friendly enough opening gambit. She was prepared for a storm and thought she’d rather endure it sitting down, so she offered him a seat, stalled him while she made coffee, chatting about the funeral, the ferry crossing, not much caring what she said. She knew she had to go.

  ‘I am surprised to get your message,’ he said. ‘I hope you change your mind. I do not want your resignation. Your work is important, Callis. To us. I don’t want to lose such a valuable member of the team.’

  She looked him in the eye and wondered if this was a purely professional speech. A predatory look had been in his eyes ever since that one night, that one mistake, drunk on vodka after a leaving do for a colleague. She had known he was drawn to her and had let the flattery of being fancied by her boss carry her along. Naked, she had discovered something reptilian about him. Her refusal to repeat that night had soured their previously collegiate friendship. She had insisted when he asked her outright to come back to his flat after a post-work session in the pub, that she was merely standing by a pledge she had made to limit her indulgence in sex to one-night stands, but it cut no ice with him. He still stood half a metre too close with a visage full of expectation.

  ‘Perhaps you can explain to me your reasons for resignation.’ In his Russian accent the word was portentous, with its rolling r and hard g. Ressick-nation. ‘Losing your mother, I understand, it is a difficult time. It is hard to be away from your homeland. If you need more time off work, you can ask. More vacation, for example, it’s no problem.’

  ‘It’s not my mum,’ she said. ‘At least, not directly.’

  ‘So what is it? I did not know you are unhappy. Is there something you want change about working here?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. It’s been a great place to work. You, the team, you’ve all been really nice.’ She had a glimmer of the disruption her departure would cause: the projects she was involved in, all the lab work that would need to be tied up or handed on to someone else. And then she remembered it was all, literally, ancient history and she was giving it up to go and save the bears.

  Yuri was looking at her as if he was the one who was grieving. ‘So, you have been offered something else?’ he said.

  ‘Um, not exactly.’

  There was a knock on the door and Maria stuck her head around it. ‘Dr MacArthur.’ Callis nodded. ‘Professor Eldegard from the National Science Institute is trying to reach you. She phoned here twice this morning. She says she responds to your message and wants you to call her urgently.’

  ‘Thanks, Maria.’

  She handed across a slip of paper with a phone number on it and tiptoed out to start a rumour.

  ‘What is this that is urgent?’ Yuri gave a pained smile. ‘Palaeobiology is not so often urgent.’

  ‘I don’t know what it is until I’ve spoken to her. Obviously.’ It came out sounding more petulant than she had intended.

  ‘A job?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ There was an uneasy silence. ‘I’m sorry, Yuri, I might as well come clean. This is going to sound crazy, but I need to join the campaign to bring the bears back.’

  He relaxed suddenly, as if she’d put a weapon down. ‘You join campaigns, it’s no problem. It’s not reason for resignation. I am sure many others in department feel same way. We can have some little debate about it. I am Russian, I am not sentimental about bears. But it’s not big deal. Some…’ he paused, seeking the word, ‘activism is quite OK, I think.’

  ‘Yes, but I wasn’t just thinking of a little activism. I was thinking more of giving it all I’ve got.’

  He reached out and touched her lightly on the arm. ‘Callis, perhaps you are maybe being hasty. What is it you plan? Street theatre?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Your science expertise is very important here. Your historical work is crucial for us to understand how the climate is responding post-420. You have many opportunities here in the Institute. We can make many things possible for you, I think.’

  Callis looked down at her feet. Yuri was confusing her, repeating her own arguments for the relevance of her work to the current crisis, referring to the atmospheric carbon dioxide threshold of 420ppm, long touted as the maximum tolerable level, but now exceeded. Perhaps she was being too hasty.

  ‘I have spoken with Anja Eldegard. She will understand,’ he said.

  Callis stared at him, outrage flooding out reason. She didn’t know what to say. Had he only been pretending not to know what was going on?

  He got to his feet. ‘You can retract resignation, you know?’ He stood, waiting, mouth pursed shut.

  ‘What do you know that I don’t?’ she said.

  He raised both hands. ‘You call Anja Eldegard. I stay?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘OK, come talk to me after.’ He left.

  Callis was sweating. She took a deep breath and reached for the phone.

  ‘Professor Eldegard, Callis MacArthur here.’

  A sonor
ous voice responded in impeccable English, with just a trace of a Nordic accent. ‘Ah good. The vegetation dynamics expert who wants to give it all up to save the bears.’

  She found a smile breaking out. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re hired.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you could be here for a meeting tomorrow morning? We have a roundtable with the Energy and Environment Minister. A vegetation expert with a passion is just what we need, especially an international expert. I’ve read your work, Dr MacArthur, and I’ve spoken with my old friend Yuri Zeveris and you come very highly recommended, though I think he will fight to keep you. I’d like to welcome you on to my team, if you’d be willing to join.’

  She grasped the arm of her chair, needing its solidity to hold on to. Something fizzy was unbottling in her stomach. ‘Um, of course. I’d be delighted. What team, exactly?’

  ‘Oh, I thought you knew. It’s the Norwegian government’s expert group on Ecological Restoration, which has been set up to advise the Energy and Environment Committee. I’ve sent you the remit. We all know it’s about bears really, that being the hot political issue as it were. But they can hardly have an advisory body on bears alone, hence the general title and the need for people like yourself to broaden it out beyond the charismatic megafauna.’

  ‘So you need people with interests in habitat and such like.’

  ‘Exactly. And I gather you’re good on climate change, likely impacts on various ecosystems, that sort of thing?’

  ‘That was my PhD, yes. It’s a core interest of mine.’

  ‘Perfect. You’re just the woman we need. And you did say you’re keen on bears?’

  She could hear the smile down the phone. ‘Mad about them! Always have been.’

  She gobbled down the relevant email. In it Professor Eldegard explained that the post was a secondment rather than a position of employment. She also offered to help persuade Yuri if he proved unwilling to release her, suggesting that he would be amenable once he appreciated the kudos the position would bring to the Institute. The implication was clear that she should not give up her current post. The roundtable was next morning at 9am in the Storting, Norway’s Parliament.

  It was the opportunity of a lifetime, if she could persuade Yuri to let her take it up. She was bursting to tell someone her news. Realising that the window blinds were down, she stood up and opened them. The old roller snagged where it always did. Impatiently, she unfurled it and slowly rolled it up again. There was no view to speak of, just the back of the next block and a mass of piping. But the sky was blue.

  She reached for the phone and called her father. It rang and rang and just as Callis expected the message service, he picked it up.

  ‘MacArthur.’ His voice was hoarse.

  ‘Dad, it’s me. Are you all right?’

  ‘Hello, love. I’m fine.’ He sounded tired, sad. ‘Good to hear you. What’s doing?’

  She poured it out as succinctly as she could manage.

  ‘Well, congratulations, quine. A government commission.’

  ‘Och, it’s not quite.’ She liked the phrase, though.

  He made her explain what little she understood about the workings of the Norwegian Parliament, the Storting, and the role the expert group would play.

  ‘Well, quine, your mother would have been proud.’

  It cut right through her. The gap between the high she had been on and the pain of missing her mother set her teetering, one foot on joy and one on sorrow. ‘Dad.’

  ‘Aye. I mean it. She’d’ve been proud of you. As I am. I’ve probably not said it enough.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ She felt her heart swelling up into her throat.

  ‘And what does your boss say, what’s his name, the man in the moon, Yuri Gagarin?’

  She laughed. ‘Zeveris. Yuri Zeveris. He’s, um, I’m not sure he’s going to like it.’

  ‘Have you not asked him?’

  ‘Well. Kind of.’

  ‘It’s a good job you’ve got there. Don’t do anything that’ll jeopardise it.’

  ‘Um.’

  ‘Och, Callis, mind you don’t let flattery get the better of your senses.’

  The bubble inside her chest deflated.

  ‘OK, Dad. I’d better go.’

  She put the phone down and sat looking at it. She took a deep breath and felt tears welling up. She bit them back, hard. Work. She would just focus on the work.

  Turning to her in-tray, she took the first sheaf of papers off it, but couldn’t take a word in. Damn it. She had to do it. It was an offer too good to refuse. Her father had never understood that kind of thing anyway.

  She checked the night train to Oslo. There were berths available.

  Before she could lose confidence, she strode along the corridor to Yuri’s office and tapped on the door. She blurted all she could remember about the meeting the next day in Oslo and how she had to go to it. She couldn’t not go. And was that all right? Could she have his permission?

  He stared back, one finger crooked under his nose, his blue eyes impassive. Callis began to feel like a teenager asking to stay out late. She elaborated on the need to attend the meeting the following day, repeating what Anja Eldegard had said about kudos, then petered out.

  He put his hand down on his desk. ‘So you retract resignation?’

  She nodded and gulped. ‘Yes.’

  ‘We will assess how much time this role will take. When you return from Oslo.’ He turned his head towards his computer. The interview was over.

  She slipped out of his room, but as she was leaving he said, ‘Perhaps I can buy you dinner before your train?’ He had turned back to her, his smile avuncular.

  Callis, taken aback, could think of no immediate reason to refuse. ‘OK.’

  ‘We can meet at Macbeth.’

  The Scottish bar was a long-term Trondheim institution. ‘I’m not that bothered about the Scottish thing, you know.’

  He shrugged and pointed to himself. ‘Maybe not. But I like whisky.’

  What was he plotting? ‘You can get whisky anywhere.’

  ‘You want to meet somewhere nicer. The Brittania then, I’ll book a table.’

  The Brittania was an excessive choice, but the luxurious hotel’s restaurant did have a good reputation and it was convenient for the station. ‘OK,’ she said.

  ‘Nineteen hundred. I will expect you.’

  Back in her office she found herself annihilating tasks in minutes that had been stagnating for months. All day she had colleagues coming up to her with commiserations for her loss. She batted them off one by one with her news about being a government advisor on bears, but each one left a mark.

  Mid-afternoon she went home and changed out of her jeans into her best leather boots and skirt, topped by a patchwork jacket she had bought several years back and hardly ever worn. She packed light.

  On the way back to the Institute she stopped on a whim at Michel’s salon and asked if she could get her hair done. He gave her a slot right then. She didn’t know what she wanted, as ever. She had never really latched on to the idea of hairstyles. Hers was ginger, ragged by default because she rarely took the trouble to get it tidied up until it grew down into her eyes. It had reached that stage.

  Michel made her smile, gave her coffee and a biscuit, told her that it was the colour of fox’s fur and asked if he could cut it short. They talked bears and he growled and squealed and strutted while she laughed and trembled under his hands, letting herself sink into the luxury of his fingers on her scalp, massaging her neck, feeling as if electric currents were sizzling beneath her hair follicles.

  By the time she emerged, groomed and renewed, Yuri was waiting for her at the hotel. She hurried there, not sure what to expect. He was at a table close to the door, with two glasses and a bottle of champagne. Not whisky after all. He waved the waiter over with a plate of fish roe.

  ‘You deserve,’ Yuri said, when Callis made protestations at the expense. ‘Not real cavia
r, but as good as they have here.’

  As they clinked glasses he said, ‘You have new hair. It is very beautiful.’

  Callis managed to smile and accept the compliment, while something inside her cracked. The champagne must be going to my head, she thought. She became acutely conscious of his perfect teeth, the point of his tongue once as it licked across his upper lip, the clusters of stubble above and below his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing over the open shirt collar as he spoke. Flashbacks to their night together kept intruding, making her feel embarrassed all over again.

  They talked bears mostly. She showed him the programme of the meeting the next day. He put his hand over hers and she left it there until she had to move it, feeling its weight pressing down on hers. He did not seem to notice that she did not touch the fish roe, or was too polite to comment.

  She got out her phone and sent a message to confirm that she had officially retracted her resignation and he messaged back accepting the retraction. They clinked glasses again and downed the last of the champagne. ‘Now, dinner,’ he said, picking up the menu.

  They ate well, but her food became harder and harder to swallow as his arguments against the proposals for more bears mounted up. As he got more drunk, his scorn at the attempt grew stronger. ‘This is small country,’ he said, repeatedly. ‘Too small for bears. Bears and people make conflict. It is inevitable. You can see in Russia. Bears must be hunted. They need big forests, much bigger than here. This is too small country. Tomorrow, you will hear many people talk in Oslo. But it is political talk. You are ecologist. You must think like scientist. Not stupid dreams and politics. Anja Eldegard, she is dreaming. Do not listen. You must be rational.’ He rolled the ‘r’. ‘Rational. This is too small country.’

  She argued in vain, her grasp on reasons why bears might feasibly survive being brushed aside by Yuri. ‘This is too small country,’ was a fixed point from which he was immovable. His certainty rocked her. And between his assertions about the impossibility of bears expanding their range, he smiled his blue-eyed smile and insisted on the importance of her work to the Institute. ‘You are one of us,’ he said. ‘We need you here, for real science. Tomorrow, you will see Committee of Dreams. And you come back to Institute of Truth.’