Bear Witness

by Mandy Haggith

  Petr seemed to understand her quietness. No doubt he’d seen countless visitors breathe out after the long suspense and thrill of their first night walk. He poured them each a second glass of wine. They clinked a toast. ‘To bears.’

  ‘Tomorrow I’d like to walk in the forest,’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’

  She yawned. In the dark she could barely make out his features, but somehow she could hear him smile. ‘I thought I would be buzzing with excitement, having seen a bear,’ she said, ‘but I’m sleepy.’

  ‘Good.’ He ruffled her hair. ‘The excitement was out there. There will be more adventure tomorrow. We’ll put you to bed soon, sing you a lullaby.’

  His whisper was spiced. She sipped her wine.

  ‘I wonder if…’ She stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. I was thinking of home.’

  ‘Your home. In Norway?’

  ‘Scotland.’

  ‘Ah, Scotland. Beautiful.’

  ‘You’ve been?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I took some bears there, oh, what, six years ago now.’

  ‘Bears? You took bears to Scotland?’

  ‘To Glenmathan. You know it?’

  ‘Yes, I was there recently. I saw a mother with cub, it was lovely.’ The memory of the bear sighting was still fresh – and it was good to have hit on something positive to recall from her trip home, in among the misery of the funeral and the fall-out with Diana and Frances. ‘I hadn’t realised the Glenmathan bears were from here.’

  ‘Yes. So do you know my friend, Luke Restil?’

  ‘Not really, but I have met him.’ She remembered the tall man who had greeted them that morning, the way he had acknowledged her half-intelligent question about bears from the back seat of the 4x4, how moving it had been to see bears in her home country, even if they were behind a fence.

  ‘Luke’s great. He spent a lot of time here on the large carnivore project. Glenmathan’s only a wildlife reserve of course, not like your plan in Norway, but it could be a real home for them one day, don’t you think?’ It was as if he had known what Callis had been thinking and spoke it aloud. ‘Bears should roam wild again in Scotland, in those great glens. I felt it strongly when I was there. They would do so much good.’

  ‘How do you mean, they’d do good? They’re hardly going to be cuddling people.’

  He looked at her, one eyebrow raised, long enough to make it plain what he thought of such a remark. ‘It looked to me as if their contributions would be more than welcome.’ His tone was that of a lecturer.

  She bit back a trite comment about shitting in woods and wondered what he might be getting at. ‘Excuse my ignorance, Professor.’ He raised the eyebrow again. ‘What contributions?’

  ‘Seeds, mainly.’

  ‘Seeds?’

  ‘Yes. Seeds.’

  Callis was looking at him blankly. ‘It’s amazing how few people understand this,’ he said. ‘After the ice age, how do you think the fruit and nut trees managed to recolonise Europe? How did all those oak trees make their way up into northern Scotland? Acorns don’t blow in the wind, they need to be carried, same for all the fruit – brambles, raspberries, cherries. And what better seedbed is there than a big mound of bear crap? And did you know that we should thank the bears for apples? Over thousands of years they’ve eaten the biggest, fruitiest, sweetest, yummiest fruit and spread their seeds around. They’re the masters of selective breeding. So if you look around at all the fruit in this forest, which all the other birds and animals can enjoy as well, it’s in large part thanks to the bears.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Well, well, well, you botanists don’t see the forest for the trees.’

  ‘I’m not a botanist.’

  ‘What are you then?’

  ‘I normally say ecologist.’

  ‘Well, good. Bear ecology fact one, they spread seeds.’

  ‘Do they eat much fish here?’

  ‘Some, not a huge amount. But it forms an element of their diet. It’s not like America, where the bears pull the salmon out of the rivers in huge numbers, capturing all those nutrients and fertilising the forest. But they do their bit for the ecosystem here, too.’

  ‘What else do they eat?’

  ‘Let’s go and see tomorrow.’ He took her glass. ‘More?’

  She shook her head.

  He corked the bottle. ‘I’ll wake you for a dawn walk.’

  ‘Yes, fine.’

  He went inside. Callis got to her feet. He reappeared with a candle for her. ‘Sleep well.’

  ‘Dawn.’ Once more Callis juddered awake to see Petr standing over her with that not-saying smile. He handed her a mug of tea as she struggled into a sleepy sitting position.

  ‘You’re tired?’ he sat down on the end of the bed.

  ‘Hmm. I’ll be OK once I’m awake.’

  ‘How long do you want to walk?’

  She blinked blearily.

  ‘I think you’re too tired. We’ll keep it short.’

  ‘I’ll be fine once I wake up.’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘No. You’ll need to sleep later. I can tell. It’s not a problem.’ He shrugged.

  She sipped the tea.

  ‘How are you about a gun?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not big on guns.’

  ‘Will you be worried if we do not carry one?’

  ‘Should I be worried?’

  ‘Some people are,’ he said. ‘Most people are.’

  ‘I’ve read that you’re only at risk if you come between a mother and a cub, or between a bear and its kill.’

  ‘Yes. They can get a little grumpy if you disturb them when they’re eating.’

  ‘There are worse ways to die.’

  ‘Many.’

  They understood each other. She finished her tea. ‘Thanks.’ He took the cup.

  ‘Ready in five minutes,’ she said.

  She dressed and took a hasty turn in the bathroom. Petr was waiting for her, calm on the deck, a small rucksack beside him. He slung it on to his shoulder.

  ‘Breakfast,’ he smiled.

  They set off upstream, facing into the breeze flowing down the glen, following a track that hugged the bank. The world was all dew-spangled spiders’ webs caught between grass blades and freshly dropped blossom. As they walked, the sun rose, creeping down from the uppermost miraculous golden green tips of beeches on the opposite side of the river. Birds twittered in high branches. Here at ground level the shadows remained cool.

  The path was wide enough to walk side by side. Petr seemed to adjust his stride to hers, his arms swinging loosely as he padded along. She noticed he had a camera on a belt and for a moment she regretted her decision not to bring her own on the trip. She had decided her phone would do, but she had even left that in the cabin. What the hell, it was the experience, not the record, that mattered. She found herself relaxing, a sense of fluidity coming into her body as she paced and breathed. Rounding a bend, he pointed ahead: a red hind was grazing in a clearing. It caught wind of them and melted away.

  He pointed out an anthill, a huge mound of fir needles and leaf litter, with a dent in one side. ‘See that hole, that’s a bear. They love ants. The grubs are high in protein and fat and we estimate they might account for as much as fifteen per cent of a bear’s protein intake. You don’t often see a fully intact mound in the woods here. It must be a constant nightmare for the poor ants.’

  ‘Fifteen per cent,’ Callis said. ‘Wow.’

  As they moved out of the forest shade into the space the deer had occupied, the warm sun was sweet. Bees and butterflies guzzled on the herb-rich under-storey. Scent billowed in the morning warmth and the last drifts of mist dissolved. A grasshopper scraped an inscrutable song.

  They strolled on up the valley. As they came out of another dense overhang of fir trees, there, in the river, was a dark, hairy animal.

  Callis stood, not daring to breathe. A
breeze touched her face; they were downwind. The creature dawdled in the shallows, its back to them. Petr reached for his camera. The noise of the river trickling among stones hid the sound of his movement. The bear was oblivious to them.

  Petr took a cat-step sideways, towards Callis, and whispered, ‘White Scar, female, five years.’

  Her fur was rough, shaggy. She seemed close enough to reach out and scratch. Callis imagined the touch of pelt under her fingers and became aware of the animal’s primeval smell. The river skittered and splashed at full volume. The moment was endless, the world complete.

  She stood feeling a thrill root through her into the ground beneath her feet, so powerful it seemed as if it must surely make the earth tremble and give them away. But the bear just lumbered on upstream, muscular step by hairy-legged step, her rump an impossibly beautiful, dark, wonderful, scruffy, big roundness. After a few metres she raised her head, ears like a teddy, furry and round, but alert.

  Callis held her breath. The bear’s nose, a sharp point not at all like a teddy’s, lifted, sniffing. Her shoulders tautened. She sniffed again and was off, up the far bank, into the dark vegetation. Hidden.

  The river sang. Callis gazed on, in rapture, her eyes watery. So close! So close! To be so close to a bear! For the bear to be so scruffy, so real! To be so bear!

  A camera clicked. Petr lowered the lens from his eye. It was pointing at her. He was smiling, too.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said.

  She shook her head, blushing. ‘No, she’s the beautiful one.’ She pointed to the bear-shaped space in the riverbed. It hung like a chiming bell, its emptiness loud and portentous.

  He chuckled.

  Callis hugged herself. She wanted to bounce and cheer. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’ He was putting his camera back in its case around his waist.

  ‘For showing me the bear.’

  ‘Me? I didn’t do anything. Thank her!’

  ‘I’m so excited.’

  ‘You’re like a little child.’ He smiled. ‘And that’s a compliment.’

  She could tell. ‘Can I hug you?’

  ‘Of course!’ He stretched his arms out. Callis crushed herself to him, squeezing her joy between them. Her hands crossed behind his back. He smelled of wood smoke. His arms slowly wrapped around her. He felt bigger than he looked. Powerful. He did not squeeze, just held her, lightly. She felt a tension in her shoulder muscles release. He rubbed his chin slowly across the top of her head and made a deep sound, a short, animal groan, like hunger.

  Callis pulled away. There was no sign in his face of anything that could be the source of such a sound. He looked serene, fluid.

  ‘Did you see her move when she smelled us?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, amazing speed. She was there one moment, then gone.’

  ‘Faster than an Olympic sprinter,’ he grinned. ‘If a bear chases you, forget it, you can’t run away.’

  ‘It’s the way she looks so floppy at rest and then all that flesh is suddenly rippling muscle.’

  He nodded.

  ‘She scampered away like a dog,’ she said.

  ‘No, not like a dog, like a bear.’

  She giggled. He took her arm. ‘Come on, breakfast time.’

  ‘Where will she be now?’ she asked.

  He gestured up into the forest, the looming fabric that cloaked the riverbank up as far as the ridge line, and said. ‘She’ll be way away up there. She’ll put distance between us. They don’t like to encounter humans.’

  ‘Will she be looking back, watching us?’

  ‘I doubt it, but who knows?’

  ‘Do you think she knows you, like you know her? Is she thinking, “There’s that handsome Petr with a strange woman”?’

  He laughed. ‘What’s the ugly brute doing with Scufiţa Roşie, you mean.’

  She looked blank.

  ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ He grinned and tugged her along the path towards the next sunny clearing.

  After breakfast they walked on, up the river valley. Callis kept her eyes peeled for more bears but perhaps White Scar had warned them off. They did see a pine marten, its yellow chest like egg yolk spilled down a bib, bright eyes scrutinising them from a fallen beech trunk before bounding off into the undergrowth. Beside the path grew a profusion of raspberry, strawberry and bramble. Everything seemed to be in flower. The woods were diverse stands of fir and beech giving way to giant sycamores and oaks along the river’s edge. Sometimes, rounding a bend, they would get a perspective on the forested slope, with its rich tapestry of greens, rowans, hornbeams, ashes, willows, birches and hazels jostling for position.

  By mid-morning Callis was flagging and they turned back and strolled down the valley for lunch and an afternoon snooze. They had the perfect excuse: this was what the bears would be doing, too.

  Callis woke from her doze without prompting and lay listening to Petr’s faint snoring in the room next door. She got up and by the time she had splashed water on her face, Petr was also up, in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. They ate a quick dinner of pasta before setting out for a hide a few kilometres upstream.

  For the first kilometre they took the same path as that morning, then broke off up a tributary of the Strimba river. They followed its valley, winding and twisting up a steep slope. Callis was glad it was now the cooler part of the day. Even so she was sweating hard. Petr stripped off his shirt. Balls of moisture formed and rolled down his back. After an hour he stopped where the path crossed by a wooden bridge over the river. A short fall trickled into a pool.

  ‘I need to cool off,’ he said. ‘Coming?’

  He dropped his pack, untied his boots and peeled off his trousers. Naked, he splashed into the water. It looked too delicious for Callis to refuse. She contemplated stripping naked but, with British prudery, kept on her sweat-drenched T-shirt and knickers.

  He shook his head. ‘You’ve got your clothes wet. You’ll get cold later.’

  ‘I’m shy,’ she said. ‘And anyway they’re already sweaty.’

  ‘Bears don’t wear clothes to swim,’ he chided.

  ‘They keep their coats on.’

  He chuckled. ‘You’re a funny one.’ He rolled over to float outstretched from a black mossy rock, his buttocks white and touchable. He stuck his head under the water, then pushed forwards towards the waterfall, letting it pound him before emerging with a gasp and shaking himself like a dog.

  Callis wallowed tamely, her T-shirt billowing. She would have to take it off to dry, baring herself then, anyway.

  ‘I can see through it, if you were wondering,’ he said, as if reading her mind. ‘Very nice!’

  She splashed water at him, blushing, but liking him for it.

  ‘Do you have something else to wear?’ he asked. ‘It’ll get cold later.’

  ‘Yes, I brought a fleece. It’s in my pack.’

  ‘Why are you shy?’ he asked. ‘There’s no need to be here. Just me and the bears.’

  ‘I don’t know why.’

  ‘Are you scared of me?’

  He was sitting, dripping on a slab, his hair sleek, his brown face shiny with wet, dribbles of water trickling down his chest, hair just visible between his legs, thigh raised. He is gorgeous, she thought. Any sensible woman would be throwing herself at that body. The sudden image of Yuri’s scrawny frame came to mind and the very idea of bathing in a forest pool with him made her want to cackle. And then she couldn’t help but think of Malcolm, whose body she could barely picture, except it was bigger, much bigger, than the one before her.

  ‘More of men in general,’ she said, ‘rather than you in particular.’

  ‘Why?’

  She wondered where this conversation was going, where she wanted it to go.

  ‘I’m not sure. Apart from drunken one-night stands, I haven’t had much experience with men. I don’t know what they’re looking for.’

  ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked.

  She looked at him aga
in, felt herself starting to lose her footing. She floundered on to her front, felt the T-shirt balloon stupidly on her back and rolled back again. What was she looking for?

  ‘I’m looking for someone who’s satisfied with me, I guess.’

  ‘You have to want more than that, no?’

  ‘Really. I want to be enough for someone. So they don’t want something, someone else. So they’re satisfied.’

  ‘But what about you? What about your satisfaction? Your own needs, your own appetite?’

  ‘I haven’t thought in those terms.’

  ‘I recommend it.’ He smiled that warm smile. She wondered what exactly he recommended. She let herself think momentarily of what it might be like to touch him. To feel him touch her. It would be like touching mercury. He was too perfect to contemplate, and far too dangerous. She rolled over again.

  He was hauling himself up the rock, water sweeping from his skin. ‘We’d better get to the hide before it gets much later,’ he said. Dusk was clambering up the trees. The last glimpses of sun had abandoned the pool. ‘I’m not watching you, don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Here, dry yourself on this.’ He tossed her his shirt.

  ‘Are you sure? I’ll get it wet.’

  ‘Take it.’ He was emphatic. ‘Take what you need. It’s allowed.’ He stepped into his jeans and put his back to Callis to tie his boots. Then stood, waiting. She dried and dressed, her attempt to hurry thwarted by damp skin.

  He grinned. ‘Let’s go see the bears.’

  She gave him his shirt back and he put it on. She felt bad, although he didn’t appear uncomfortable. She squeezed out her T-shirt and knickers and strapped them to the outside of her pack. They walked on.

  Five minutes further up the track they diverted on to a small side-path towards a wooden hut raised on stilts. He motioned her to silence. They tiptoed towards it and up the ladder to the door, which he unlocked without making a sound. Inside were two beds, a bench, two plastic chairs and windows on all three walls. Beside the door, a cupboard, which he rummaged in, extracting two small sacks and a gun.