Sometimes, the bear wins
Sometimes, the Bear Wins
Copyright 1990s Theodore Holden
Once upon a time, back around the early eighteen-hundreds, when the Russian empire was at a sort of an all-time high after the victory over Napoleon and the great poet Pushkin lived in St. Petersburg, there lived on the outskirts of Novgorod an evil prince, Anatoli by name, who, with his family and entourage, formed a sort of a black-sheep branch of the imperial family. These people had been banished from the court for lack of couth, and for being scoundrels, blackguards, and assholes generally. All except the for the youngest daughter Irina, that is; apparently, being an asshole does not breed 100% true.
Anatoli and the Asshole family lived in a manor and compound on a small hill and about 300 acres of cleared area which abutted a deep forest, and the little girl used to play by the edge of the forest; her governess warned her strictly never to venture into the forest for fear of dangerous animals, particularly a large bear which had been seen on the edge of the clearing. Irina had a german cousin send her a compass so as not to get lost, and was off into the woods faster than you could say Baba-Yaga, and there encountered not one bear, nor two or three, but an entire family of bears... just gobs and gobs of them.
The bears were overjoyed at the thought of a human child for a companion, and taught the little girl how to catch fish, how to find and pick berries and which ones to pick, and how to steal honey without getting stung too much. The little bears chased the girl and tackled her and splashed her in the river and practiced biting and gnawing at her ankles so that, when she finally arrived home at the manor, the brothers and sisters at first exclaimed "Bozhe!, shto c tvoyimi nogami?" and the governess said "That's just a hell of a thing, and there isn't supposed to be any poison ivy in Russia!" The little girl replied "That's just from bears biting on my ankles; just little bears, not big ones..." Irina noted the strange looks and went about her usual studies, but thought to herself: "Gee, it wouldn't take a whole lot more than that to convince them that I was totally insane; that could be awfully useful some day..."
If Irina had anything you might call a recurring nightmare, it had to do with the nerd collections which her father trotted through the manor whenever one of her sisters reached marriageable age... "zhenikhi", or suitors her father called them, and the unfortunate sister had to pick one for herself. There seemed to be some cosmic reason why a girl from the Asshole family couldn't simply marry a soldier or some member of the minor nobility of the region, from amongst which an occasional winner might be chosen, and the situation had gone from bad to worst with her last sister, who had actually ended up marrying a cigar salesman from Vladimir. The salesman, the sister, and the two children all smoked cigars, and Irina found it increasingly difficult to abide them.
Aside from all of that, another problem began to arise when Irina got to be about 13 or so; she began to understand the perfidious nature of some of Prince Anatoli's business dealings. Her little library abutted her father's main conference room and, by putting her ear to the far wall, she was able to pick up on various and sundry schemes, all of which seemed to end up with serfs, peasants, gentry, minor nobility etc. etc. on the short end of the stick:
"I know you're tired of living in this chicken coop, and the new palace sounds like a great idea to you and me, but how're we gonna get the low-lifes to pay for it?" Baron Petrich queried. "You can't just start building somethin' like that... all bonds have to be approved by somebody!? "
"That's only when you're talking about a purchase." replied Anatoli. "You need to get used to thinking more about leases. Here's what we'll do: My couson Pyotr heads the local order of St. George. We get him to sell 500,000 rubles worth of generic bonds, he hands us the money for the palace, we grant the order a 30 year lease on the building for the 500, and then SUBLEASE it back from em, subject to appropriations, of course. They pay off their bond-holders from the rent money; no need for any voter say-so anywhere at all. They gotta call the bonds something else though, maybe 'moral obligation' bonds, or 'sacred' bonds. Somethin like that. What the hell, it works for New York City and Fairfax County!"
"What keeps the low-lifes from revoltin'?" queried the baron.
"Lack of funds!" replied Anatoli with an evil grin which stretched nearly from one ear to the other, and tears beginning to roll down his cheeks. "heh heh heh heh heh... HAR HAR HAR HAWHR......"
The door opened and closed, and the counsellor walked out amazed to ponder what he had heard.
Irina began to spend more time with the bears. Bears are pragmatists, little given to ideologies or false doctrines, and can find a million and one uses for a clever human child. Aside from scratching ears, combing fleas, pulling thorns out of paws and the usual offices which a child might provide for them, these bears had a particular problem which they soon prevailed upon Irina to attempt to resolve. Irina noticed them sulking and looking hang-dog at the times of the full moon. What had happened, was that the wolves in the forest had somehow or other taught themselves the rudiments of harmony, and were jamming at the full moon, rather than each merely howling his own laments, as is customary. Afterwards, the wolves would gloat, and look down their noses at the bears; the bears hadn't a clue as to how to sing.
Irina not only taught the bears to sing, but she taught them to read musical notes and a number of them began to be able to sight-read. Irina selected a number of choral works which could be sung in bear registers, and there came a full moon unlike any full moon in that forest since the beginning of the world. A deep chorus rumbled through the forest in flawless harmony; first a round of God Preserve the Tsar, and then, from a book which the afore-mentioned German cousin had included with the compass, every verse of Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress is our God", which had never been heard in that part of Russia previously. "Orthodox it ain't, but if the Pope doesn't like it, there must be something to it!" thought Irina. The wolves were blown away.
Irina was becoming loath to admit to being a part of the Asshole family. When asked her name, she began to reply "Ya Medvyeditsa" (I am a girl bear!). This bears a little explaination, if you'll pardon the pun. At some early time, Russians in all likelihood must have used one of the common Indo-European words for "bear", either "bear", or "urse"... That, however, somehow became a tabu word, and Russians began to use the term "medvyed, which is a combination of the Indo-European roots "mead" for honey and "vid" for vision, or sight; literally, one who keeps track of where the honey is stashed. "Meedvyeditsa", of course, would be a girl medvyed.
This, Irina figured, would surely eliminate any interest amongst potential suitors, but it didn't work out that way. By the time of her sixteenth birthday, Irina had become one of the two or three most beautiful women who had ever been seen within 100 miles of Novgorod since the middle ages, bite marks on ankles or no and, of course, we live in a world in which nearly everything is relative. Without going into too many details, it will suffice to say that, in view of available alternatives, a truly beautiful and wealthy girl like Irina's thinking herself to be a bear was not seen as anything like an insurmountable problem by local suitors.
"You've got to be the luckiest girl in all of Russia." Anatoli was explaining to Irina. "I'll tell you what I mean. A lot of girls prefer the strong, stupid type, you know, a hero like Siegfried or Ivan Durachok, capable of superhuman deeds but a bit short on brains; a smart girl can control one of those types. Other girls prefer the scholar type: a chess grandmaster or mathematician or some such. Still others prefer an older man, say, late twenties to mid thirties or maybe even forty, still interested in girls, but already been out and made some sort of mark in the world; already been through the school of hard knocks and less likely to take you through it with him. You're going to get to pick whichever you prefer; I'll have one of each type at dinner tomorrow, and you can meet them.... heh heh heh heh heh... HAR HAR HAR Hawhr......"
Indeed, Anatoli's description was allmost perfectly straight on the money. Ivan Dubinski appeared to be straight from legends, a 20-year-old Ruslan or Siegfried with 18" arms, golden hair and ruddy cheeks, a permanent smile, and Irina could tell from looking at him that he'd have difficulty spelling 'cat' if she spotted him the 'c'. Pyotr Primudriy, on the other hand, had nothing of Ivan's physique, but had a wizard's eyes behind a tangled mop of black hair with a long beard and, one could see easily enough, a mind which was permanently in motion of some sort or other; so much so that Irina easily surmised he could (and in fact often did) walk into trees in daylight. And then there was Captain Petrov, representing the third type which Anatoli had mentioned. Petrov was a hero and survivor of Boradino and, in his mid thirties, still cut a dashing figure in his hussar's uniform and sabre; from appearances neither a mental giant like Pyotr nor a match for Ivan at wrestling, yet strong enough in an angular sort of way and obviously sagacious and experienced. There was only one problem; the man smoked cigars, and not even the good Havana cigars which Irina's sister's husband imported, but the kinds of old green stogies which are produced in the Carolinas, and smell like a chemical warfare experiment.
The dinner and evening passed pleasantly enough, and Irina was a model of aristocratic grace in a blue formal gown. "I'm going to teach all of you turkeys a lesson you shan't soon forget, and especially you, Mr. Supreme Asshole!" she thought to herself, smiling and looking across the table at her father, prince Anatoli.
The choice and the manner of choosing, of course, were Irina's. "I'll tell you what we're going to do..." she said to Anatoli the next morning. "We're going to have a contest of sorts, a sort of a tourney like they had in the middle ages, to determine which of these three worthies is truly the strongest, wisest, and most talented and, beyond that, the one other condition which I shall insist upon is that a fourth suitor of my own choosing, shall also be allowed to compete. This fourth shall be from amongst the gentry living within 20 miles of this very spot, and shall serve as a kind of a control... one would assume that you have chosen well enough that no such local might reasonably have a chance of besting all three of the gentlemen we dined with last night."
"Done!" replied Anatolie. " heh heh heh heh heh... HAR HAR HAR Hawhr..." Anatoli walked away in stiches, unable to picture any of the locals doing anything but looking like an idiot either wrestling with Ivan, playing chess with Pyotr, of fencing with the dashing Petrov.
Now, it happened that during the same time in which Irina had grown into the fairest young woman in the environs of Novgorod, one of the aforementioned little bears had grown into the finest, the strongest, the wisest, the most clever, handsome, and talented bear, which had ever lived in the forest since the time of Noah and the flood. Irina had insisted that her own hand-picked entry would be a surprise, to be announced only upon the actual commencement of the tourney and, indeed, as the tourney began, the three previously described contenders were warming up for the rigors of the day, the trumpets finished sounding, and the last spectators were clamboring into their seats, Irina announced this worthy under the name of Boris Medvyedich.
"Surely you cannot be worried that all three of these noble suitors will be bested by a humble bear!" Irina queeried. Anatoli had no legitimate beef, and agreed that the contests should begin without further ado.
The first order of the day involved wrestling. It was not at all obvious that Boris was any stronger than Ivan, and it was absolutely forbidden for him to use his claws in any manner at all, nonetheless Boris had an advantage which none of the others could anticipate. A cousin bear had worked in a circus in which two Japanese judo wrestlers had long been a featured attraction and, to the amazement of the crowd, Boris executed a classic outer reap (o-soto-gari) and pinned Ivan before he could recover his breath from the fall.
Petrov tried a different approach, entering the ring wearing a suit of armor from the Asshole castle museum, of the same style and manufacture worn by Alexandr Nyevsky during his famous battle against the Teutonic knights on the frozen lake. "A varmint like that won't be able to deal with all this technology!" he thought to himself. What he didn't realize was that nobody had ever smoked cigars in the middle ages, and that helmets therefore did not have any vent port for smoke. Boris feinted an arm drag, and then slammed the visor of the helmet down so tightly that it couldn't be opened, and within five seconds, Petrov had passed out from the trapped fumes.
"A taste of your own medicine!" thought Irina. "I love it!" The crowd went wild.
Pyotr had no illusions of taking Boris straight up with any normal sort of wrestling move, but he figured that a bear's stomach might just be a soft spot, and attempted to feint a leg-dive and then come up and plant his head in the pit of Boris' stomach, sort of like spearing in football. Boris saw it coming a mile away. The wrestling area was on the edge of the forest; Boris had very nonchalantly and cleverly backed into the vacinity of a large tree he had been keeping his eye on and, with expert timing, sidestepped Pyotyr's rush and crammed him headfirst into a hollow opening in the tree so that it appeared to the bemused spectators as if he might have nailed Pyotyr into the solid side of a tree and possibly killed him. Pyotr extricated himself from the tree, his head dripping with a sticky, sweet-smelling substance.
"Honey!" Pyotr cried out in an excited voice. "You knew that was a honey tree!!"
"A bear HAS to know that sort of thing..." replied Boris, "That's how we earn our livings!"
It was getting to be about 10:30 or so in the morning and, in that part of Russia, very nearly warm enough for bees to fly and swarm.
"Those bees are gonna be right pissed!" said Pyotr, and in about another three minutes, it wouldn't do for us to be around here. In fact, I seriously doubt we could get back to the buildings in time even if we ran. I'm sure you thought of that! You've got some plan, I assume??"
"I was curious to see if you were actually as bright as we've been lead to believe!" replied Boris. "There IS a solution; I'd be curious to see if you can figure it out."
Pyotr looked around for several anxious moments, and then, noticing that several bees were beginning to fly around the opening of the tree: "I don't think there's time for any games here... if you've got a plan, you'd better tell us what it is!"
Boris repeated: "There IS a solution..." and cast a long gaze over towards where Petrov lay in his armor, smoke still exhuding from the view openings in his helmet visor. "For instance, I don't suspect bees are going to bother that fellow over there much..."
"Oh SHIT!" exclaimed Pyotr. "You don't mean......"
'You'd rather get stung to death??" Boris replied and, suiting actions to words, walked over to the fallen Petrov, somehow forced open the visor, removed the breastplates, took another cigar from the captain's uniform pocket along with a box of matches, and lit up. Pyotr followed suit immediately. Petrov began to come around.
Irina thought to herself: "Maybe this is just some sort of a family curse which I'm simply not ever going to get away from in my lifetime... what the hell!" and took a cigar and lit up along with the others; Irina's brother-in-law the cigar salesman passed out twelve entire boxes of cigars to the crowd and EVERYBODY lit up. The bees didn't even try; they simply packed their belongings and migrated to a huge oak tree deep in the interior of the forest.
The morning's activities thus conculded on that note, Boris the clear winner of the wrestling part of the contest. After a break for lunch, the competition began again, this time with the favorite Russian passtime of chess. Ivan was entirely over his head in this event, losing quickly to Petrov and Pyotr, but it was seen in the games which followed that Petrov was still attempting to play chess the way it had been played since the middle ages, while Pyotr and Boris were using the new American and English opening theories which stressed rapid development of pieces and avoidance of premature attacks. The games between Boris and Pyotr, other than for one which Boris won with a brilliant double-rook sacrafice, devolved into complicated end-games of 50 moves and more. The match ended with Pyotr holding a narrow 5-4 game edge over Boris and, thus, the winner. Pyotr, however, was in no particular mood either to gloat or to tell anybody that he, a grandmaster, had just lost four chess games to a bear.
At this point, it was getting dark, and the contestants, along with officials and all in attendance retired to the cathedral at Novgorod for the third and deciding event of the day: singing. At this point, Boris was acknowledge to be in the lead, having won the wrestling event and finished a very close second in chess. None, however (other than Irina, of course, who knew what was in store), were able to picture a bear doing anything other than embarassing himself attempting to sing.
Ivan was first up in this competition, displaying a robust tenor voice and excellent control in singing a number of cossack songs, finishing with the classic song-tale of Stenka Raizin's drowning the Persian girl in the Volga river, and drew a long standing ovation from the crowd.
Petrov followed, beginning with two of the hymns which commemorated Tsar Peter's victory over the Swedes at Poltava, and following with a medley of rather standard army songs. Again there was a standing ovation, though not so long or loud as had been given Ivan.
Pyotr followed, displaying a splendid voice and, unfortunately at the same time, an utterly wretched taste in music as is often the case with intellectuals, beginning with a Gregorian chant, and attempting to progress through the renaissance with an aide and a rendition of Thomas Moreley's duet, "Love's Wounding". This he appeared able to sing quite flawlessly despite the enormous complexity of the piece, but about two-thirds of the way through, the fusilade of tomatoes, shoes, bottles and what not from the audience became too intense for him to continue, and it was Boris' turn.
Boris began with the other song involving Stenka Raizin, the haunting lullaby of Stenka Raizin's dream ("Oy, to ne vyecher") and, quite to the astonishment of the crowd, carried it off flawlessly. There was a short standing ovation, and then Boris continued with the King of Day aria from Mozart's Zauber Flute, and for the finale of the evening, accompanied by members of the cathedral choir, Beethovan's Ode to Joy, with Boris singing the solo part. That was absolutely too much; the crowd went wild with a thirty minute standing ovation, roses, encores, curtain calls, and the whole nine-yards. There was no question regarding who had won the contest.
Boris and Irina rode off to the forest in Irina's carriage, and there was nothing which Anatoli could do about it. No, they didn't marry eachother... that doesn't really work. But Boris had many cubs (with other bears), Irina taught all of these to sing, and a number of these went on to become the brightest bears ever to work in Russian circuses. Two years later a wandering organ-maker, fleeing political persecution in Poland, ended up in this same forest; He and Irina were married, and they constructed a gigantic organ in the center of the forest; some say that, on occasion, organ music and a very deep, but perfectly orchestrated chorus may still be heard there at times.
The other three contestants, none of whom had done truly badly, all found brides from amongst local girls who had watched (and been impressed one way or the other by the proceedings.
And Prince Anatoli, last but not least, went on to lead a reasonable enough life for an asshole, finding a way to complete his castle without recourse to phony bonds. And, unlike the vast majority of assholes of his rank, he tended to spend most of his time around his own dominions, solving his own problems and the problems of his own district. This was because, whenever he ventured to St. Petersburg or Moscow or anyplace like that, somebody would recognize him and yell: "Hey, isn't that that asshole prince whose daughter eloped with a bear? heh heh heh heh heh... HAR HAR HAR Hawhr......"