Fiddler and Bear
Fiction - by Tom Brennan
The brown bear shuffled from the forest’s edge and paused with his muzzle in the air and his eyes half-closed before he dropped onto all fours and swayed down the field toward the fiddler. As he parted the tall grass the bear made little sound. The tips of his claws gouged neat furrows in the moist September soil.
Where the field met the wooden roadside fence, the fiddler lay on his back with his knees drawn up and his head against a patched canvas knapsack. A brown fiddle case rested on his stomach next to an almost empty bottle of clear spirit. The bear thought the fiddler was sleeping, but as he got closer he saw the fiddler’s open eyes apparently focussed on the white clouds that scudded high above. The fiddler didn’t move, didn’t seem to register the bear’s approach. Not until the bear’s overhanging muzzle blocked out half of the sky.
“Finished?” said the fiddler.
The bear grunted and scratched his rump.
With the case in his left hand and the bottle in his right, the fiddler rolled over and stood up, swaying slightly. Both bottle and case went into the knapsack which then went over his right shoulder. Man and bear stared down into the valley to where grey-tiled roofs and a faded golden spire broke through early morning mist. Church bells rolled through the air before the steep valley's conifers absorbed the echoes.
“What do you think?” the bear said, its breath clouding.
“I’m thirsty. And hungry.”
“We’ve never been here before.”
“There are plenty of villages we haven’t been to before,” said the fiddler, pulling his jacket tight.
“We don’t know what the people are like.”
“They’re just people.”
“I suppose.” The bear scratched at his left flank, just above the hip; his fur had never grown back over the scars that showed pale silver against the brown.
The fiddler shivered and said, “Your decision.”
The bear nodded. “I’m hungry too.”
They climbed over the wooden fence and started down the road towards the village, the bear swaying as he walked along beside the fiddler. A dappled grey horse watched them from a field before bolting away. Smoke rose from a farmhouse, probably the same one that housed the unseen barking dogs; the bear’s shoulders hunched at that sound and his head checked left to right.
Then the fiddler stopped suddenly. “Damn, I almost forgot.”
“What?”
He produced a worn leather collar from his knapsack. “This.”
The bear shook his head. “Really? You’re serious?”
“The audience expects it.” The fiddler looped the collar around the bear’s wide neck but struggled to fasten it. “Hold still.”
“It’s not even connected to anything.”
“Doesn’t matter; people see a collar and they think there’s a chain. They think you’re owned. Stop fidgeting... There, all done.”
The bear slipped an extended claw under the collar and chafed at the fit. “Maybe you should wear it next time.”
The fiddler grinned. “That would be a completely different act altogether.”
As they walked on, the bear remembered the first time he’d seen that grin: as a cub from inside the too-small, filthy, rusting cage. The fiddler, exponentially drunk, had spent every penny of the not small amount of money he’d just won at cards in order to buy the emaciated cub that couldn’t—or wouldn’t—dance for its captors. But sometimes, when they were poor or hungry or both, he wondered if the fiddler ever regretted exchanging those coins for him.
Now, where the road joined another and became wider and paved, they saw their first locals: a hay cart full of festival-goers wearing conical straw hats and clean white costumes edged with red and gold. The families in the cart gripped its sides and stared at the man and the bear; the driver held his whip ready but the blinkered horse continued at a steady trot down the road.
The bear watched the tail of the cart until it disappeared around the bend ahead, then snorted. “More yokels.”
“Salt of the earth,” said the fiddler, “who work the fields almost every day that God sends but who also like a good tune and a dance when they can.”
“And getting drunk.”
“There’s that, too.”
On the outskirts of the village, more paths and side-roads converged and more families appeared, all heading for the festival, nearly all wearing white costumes edged with vivid colours. And all of them kept well away from the bear and what they took to be its handler. Soon the crowds trickled into the village square with its narrow church surrounded by grey stone houses. A knot of pretty, young, blond folk dancers in white and red stood on the temporary wooden stage in the square’s centre, talking and laughing. Every pair of eyes glanced at the man and the bear and then turned away.
Among the central square's rows of wooden stalls, smoking braziers, and small groups of villagers and merchants stood two gleaming new motor cars, one red, one black, a rare sight in the depths of the countryside. A crowd of admiring children stood around the cars under the hard glare of the two chauffeurs.
They’re all the same, these festivals, thought the bear; only the size changed depending on whether it was a village or a town or one of the newer, growing cities with its smoking tall chimneys and air he couldn’t breathe.
“Food first,” said the fiddler under his breath. “Fish?”
The bear, still on all fours beside him, sniffed the air and grunted.
On the square’s northern side, near the rathuis, the town hall, stood a stall with open barrels of silver and grey fish in front of a sloping trestle table filled with wooden trays holding more fish of various sizes and colours. The stallholder pointed at the bear with a filleting knife and said, “You can keep him away for a start.”
“He’s very well behaved,” said the fiddler.
“They’re wild animals,” said the stallholder’s florid wife, peering out from behind her husband. “Shouldn’t be allowed out in public. It’s a disgrace.”
The bear grinned at the woman, revealing a line of sharp yellow teeth and making her dart for cover behind her husband.
“He wouldn’t hurt a mouse,” said the fiddler, producing coins, “especially when he’s had a bellyful of fish.”
The stallholder eyed the coins, set the knife down and wiped his hands on his apron. “Well then, we’ve got pike, perch, herring, carp, trout, we got them salted, pickled, fried, fried and then pickled, salt-cured, sweet-cured—”
“Smoked. He likes smoked trout.”
“Does he now? Expensive tastes.”
The fiddler counted more coins from his pocket while the stallholder laid out five smoked fish the colour of old gold relics. The fiddler gave three to the bear and put two, wrapped in greased paper, into his knapsack. The bear sat on the cobbled square and, one by one, raised the three fish to its muzzle in his clawed paw; sniffed it with his eyes half-closed; dropped it into his maw and ate it slowly. As he ate each fish he made a barely audible low rumbling growl.
While the bear ate, the fiddler took the bottle from his knapsack, took a quick drink and swirled the meagre remains before replacing it.
The bear licked his claws. “Good fish, that was.”
“Glad to hear it.” The fiddler focussed on a gap between the last stall and the tavern over on the eastern side, then crossed the square with the bear in tow. They stopped outside the tavern and the fiddler leaned over the bear and pretended to adjust the collar. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
The fiddler threw his cap on the floor, added a few small coins so it didn’t look too empty, took his fiddle from the case and tested the tuning. Then, as the bear stretched and flexed, the fiddler tapped the floor three times with his foot and started playing. As usual, he started with a Celtic jig that he’d picked up in Brittany as a boy many years before. The bear stood up and started moving slowly at first, little more than stepping from one hind leg to the other, then adding hips and arms. As the tune weaved in and out, the bear loosened up and picked up the rhythm.
With the music echoing from the enclosed square’s walls, the bear began to move faster but still in time with the beat. Villagers and festival-goers looked over and began to drift toward the fiddler and bear. Faces pressed against the inside of the tavern’s windows, looking out.
Faster and faster went the old jig, as did the bear, until the tune ended with a final flourish. When the bear bowed to the crowd they laughed and a few more coins landed in the upturned hat. Before they could wander off, before they lost interest, the fiddler started on another fast tune, this one a Slovakian kolednica. The bow of the fiddle flew across the strings while the bear’s polka set the crowd clapping and laughing.
As the bear danced and tune followed tune, his body remembered the familiar moves without conscious thought, leaving the bear free to remember a score of previous festivals. Eyes half-closed, he relished the weak sun on his back and the rasp of the old cobbles on his hind paws. Around and around, following the rhythm, he seemed to reach a state halfway between awake and dreaming.
And as he danced, the pile of coins grew. Only when the folk dancers started their routine on the temporary wooden stage did people begin to drift away from the bear. The fiddler waited until there were only three onlookers left and then finished with a skirl and a deep bow that allowed him to scoop up his hat and its contents in one smooth arc.
“Not bad,” said the fiddler, counting the varied coins into his pocket. “Not bad at all.”
A voice whined behind him: “You could do better than that, friend, much better.”
Turning, the fiddler found the owner of the voice, a short, sallow man dressed in tweeds and wool like one of the water bailiffs who usually moved the fiddler and the bear on from the big estates. And behind him stooped a gaunt youth holding the chain of a fat, sleek-muscled black dog.
As the bear squatted tense on the cobbles, the fiddler put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and said, “Could we now?”
The sallow man nodded. “Always plenty of betting men at these festivals.”
“I suppose there are.”
“They have a few drinks, want something to spend their money on and maybe make a profit. Something exciting. Sporting.” The sallow man grinned. “Something with a bit of a bite.”
The bear felt the fiddler’s hand digging into his bristling fur. The bear’s heart hammered hard in his throat and his breath whistled through his nose. He imagined his claws around the sallow man’s throat.
And as if in answer to the bear’s thoughts, the dog whined and growled and strained at his leash, forcing the stooped youth to drag him back with both hands.
The fiddler said, “An interesting offer but I’m not a sporting man.”
“Pity. You got a good strong animal there. He’s old, mind, but still got a bit of go in him by the looks of it.” The sallow man pulled a fat roll of coloured bills from his jacket pocket, just for a moment. “We’d split the takings…”
“The answer’s no. Thanks.”
“Your call, friend. We’ll be in the tavern if you change your mind.” The sallow man smiled and then scratched the dog’s head. “Come on, Krampus.”
It took all of the youth’s strength to drag the muscled dog away. The fiddler waited until the three of them had entered the tavern before he said, under his breath, “Who the hell calls his dog Krampus?”
An appropriate name, thought the bear, remembering the half-demon, half-goat character that appeared in Alpine Christmas parades and beat naughty children, but he kept the comment to himself. As he felt the fiddler’s hand stroking his shoulder his breathing began to slow, his heart settled and he dropped onto all fours.
“Time to leave,” said the fiddler, again under his breath. “I don’t trust our new friend and his little companion.”
Following the fiddler across the square, the bear wondered where that night’s ‘sport’ would take place. Usually a barn or clearing in the wood, although some of the towns still had their centuries-old bear pits. Still used them. The bear shivered at the memories of chains and fetters, sharp teeth, and drunken men jeering.
“It’s all right,” said the fiddler, resting his hand on the bear’s swaying neck. “It’s all right now.”
Before they left the village, the fiddler used some of their new takings to buy two bottles from a stall, one of golden Apfelkorn and the other of clear slivovitz and stowed them next to the fish in his knapsack. Just before they turned the corner, the fiddler paused and stared back at the crowds, the dancers, the children.
I wonder if he misses all this, thought the bear. Family. Friends. Companionship. The bear had never asked about the fiddler’s past, never pried, but the way that the man watched the people laughing and talking convinced the bear that, like him, not all outsiders enjoyed that state.
Then the fiddler turned away, smiled at the bear and walked away from the square and toward the dark woods.
***
The bear sat with his back against a rough tree trunk, close enough to the fire to keep warm but not so close to catch an ember in his fur. Across from him, on the other side of the fire, sat the fiddler cross-legged with the depleted bottle of slivovitz resting in his lap. While the bear stared up at the stars, the fiddler watched the flames and yawned.
“They’re not so bad.”
The bear looked over. “Who?”
“People,” said the fiddler. “They’re not so bad. All in all.”
“Some, maybe.”
The fiddler grinned. “Should I take that as a compliment?”
The bear grunted.
“To us,” said the fiddler, raising the bottle in a toast and then taking a drink. “May the next town be short on dogs and idiots and long on devotees of folk dancing.”
“Let’s hope so,” said the bear but wondering again how long they could keep this up, how long could they stagger from village to village, from town to town. In this first decade of the twentieth century, people were already tiring of the old traditions. They had cars, trains, something called cinema. As for his ‘dancing’, the bear had been forced to listen to his old tired body: it took him longer to warm up and the aches and pains never quite left him. And the winters were getting harder. Much harder.
How long, he wondered, then glanced over to see the fiddler slumped asleep.
Very gently, the bear laid the fiddler out beside the fire and covered him with the single worn brown blanket. He placed the bottle within the man’s reach but away from the fire. The fiddler mumbled something in his sleep and then started snoring.
Settling back against the tree trunk, the bear wondered who would go first, the fiddler or himself? Would the fiddler survive without him? Probably. Could he survive without the fiddler? Probably not. It was complex but he’d grown fond of the (usually) pleasant old drunk. Certainly better than any other human he’d met. It was like having a pet dog or cat, the bear realised with a smile. Maybe I’ll tell him that, he thought, knowing he never would.
Glancing again at the drunken fiddler, the bear wondered what made some men gentle and fond of music and alcohol and food, while others enjoyed the spectacle of pain and blood.
As the fire faded, the bear watched the stars and relaxed. The sound of a twig or branch breaking woke him but he didn’t move. He sniffed. Listened. Waited. Then, rusty at using the old growling, guttural language, he said, “It must be cold out there in the shadows.”
A handful of seconds passed before the grey bear limped into the dim circle of firelight, dragging his left leg behind him. One arm seemed to hang slightly lower than the other. He stared across the clearing.
“Evening, grandfather,” said the brown bear.
“Evening, son.”
“You’re out late, grandfather.”
“I’m hungry, son.” The grey bear seemed to shrink in on himself. “So hungry.”
The bear moved his legs back a couple of inches so he could push himself upright. His heart beat a little faster. “There’s not much meat on this old fiddler here, he’s all skin and bone and pickled in strong drink.”
The old grey bear shook his head. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Teeth are gone, claws too, my leg, arm, no good any more. No, time has turned me into a pilferer, son, a common thief. I saw the knapsack...”
Will I end up like that? Thought the bear. God, I hope not.
“I’m sorry for bothering you, son,” said the grey bear, turning away.
“Wait.” The brown bear reached into the knapsack and found the two smoked fish wrapped in greaseproof paper. He tossed them over to the grey bear, who caught them fumbling in his one good paw. “Goodnight, grandfather.”
The grey bear sniffed the fish and closed his eyes for a moment, then smiled. “Goodnight, son.”
He started to leave but then turned and said, “I can offer you nothing in return save advice, although you might not like it.”
The brown bear waited.
“The more time you spend with them,” the grey bear said, nodding towards the fiddler, “the more you become like them and the less like yourself. I’ve seen it before.”
The brown bear thought for a moment, wondering if the older bear had read his thoughts, then said, “I can’t imagine being without him.”
The grey bear nodded. “Then maybe that’s how it should be. Again, thank you.”
With that, the grey bear shuffled into the darkness under the trees. Eventually his steps faded and the brown bear heard the fiddler murmuring in his sleep, someone’s name, a woman’s; the bear pulled the blanket up to the fiddler’s neck and settled back down by the dying fire. He looked up at the lightening dawn sky and listened to his own breathing, his own respiration in and out, while the last of the fire crackled and the fiddler snored.
The brown bear thought many times about that offered advice as the unfolding years passed like embers whirling in the breeze: hamlets became villages, villages became towns, towns cities; many men went away to war, some returned; gleaming cars crossed the land on new roads. And the fiddler changed too, became stooped and gnarled, his hair white, although he never lost that grin.
***
And then, one day in spring, the bear woke up alone beside the cold fire; when he stood and stretched he saw smooth tanned skin on his arms and legs, and fine hair on his chest and face. He climbed into the britches and boots, shirt and jacket that lay beside the fire and picked up the fiddle, finding that he could grip it now in clawless hands. He hesitated, afraid of crossing some boundary, then drew the bow across the fiddle’s strings and heard a rough but recognisable kolednica, as if the old fiddle remembered the tune itself and needed only his hand as guidance. Both bottle and case went into the knapsack which then went over his right shoulder.
Down through the forest he went, until trees became field; as he parted the tall grass he made little sound. The cleats of his boots gouged neat furrows in the moist spring soil. Where the field met the wooden roadside fence, he waited for a moment, staring down into the valley to where grey-tiled roofs and a faded golden spire broke through early morning mist. Church bells rolled through the air before the steep valley's conifers absorbed the echoes. Then he followed the road.
After a mile or so he saw farm buildings to his left and a dappled grey horse let him stroke its head. He heard barking but the two big black and white dogs in the farmyard nuzzled his outstretched hand and he felt no fear, just pleasure in their rough fur. He saw the young woman hanging out clean washing in the yard and called out, “Good morning.”
Without pausing her work, she said, “And to you.”
“Might I have a glass of milk please?”
Picking up the empty washing basket, she smiled at him and didn’t seem afraid of his own smile in return. Then, halfway to the open farmhouse door, she turned. “What’s your name?”
He thought for a moment, then realised: “Fiddler.”