Memoirs of a Polar Bear

by Yoko Tawada

  We lay beside the lake, our bodies wet, showering in the tiny, gentle particles of light cast by the evening sun. Christian was also pale like me, and it was inexplicable to me that I had never before noticed this. I told him of my distress, and he told me the story of the Ugly Duckling. Christian was proud of the town of his birth, Odense, which was also home to the author of this fairy tale. A strange gaiety came over me, our eyes met, and I laid my paw-hand on his head. He slowly bent down and pressed his snout-nose against my breast. While we were flirting, the sun descended the last few steps and disappeared into the basement. The three of us lay there together: Christian, me, and the night.

  Christian said he didn’t want to marry me in a church because as drugs go religion was outdated. We celebrated our marriage within our own four walls. Just like that I got pregnant and gave birth to twins: a girl and a boy. The boy died before he had been given a name. I named the girl Tosca.

  •

  While I was copying out these passages from the book, I entered the story being told as its protagonist. I wanted to adopt what was being told as my own life story and live it myself, down to the last punctuation mark. I read every sentence aloud and copied it down, but at some point I stopped looking at the pages — a voice from inside the book was whispering the story to me. I listened and wrote. This activity cost me a great deal of my life force.

  •

  My husband and I graduated from the vocational school, adding the crowning achievement of finding work with a watchmaker (him) and as a nurse in a doctor’s office (me). My husband soon joined the Tradesmen’s Union, engaged himself politically, and never got home in time for dinner. On weekends, instead of resting, he would fight even harder for the workers’ cause. Our daughter Tosca grew up raised by me alone. She was a cheerful creature, a source of joy, but she sometimes also brought me embarrassment. She would dance and sing on the street, and when passersby would enthusiastically applaud, she would refuse to stop. One day my husband surprised me with a suggestion: “Let’s flee to the Soviet Union.” An incurable disquiet crept into me. It had cost me so much effort, so much suffering, to leave my native land behind me. What would happen if I were to be recognized there as a traitor? When my husband learned of my worries, he stopped talking about emigrating. I was relieved and thought that the topic of exile had been settled once and for all. My love for Canada was great, though I don’t want to overemphasize this love, since I also loved the United States, or at least the pancakes that were produced there. One week later, I realized I had underestimated my husband’s tenacity. He approached me with a different proposal: “Let’s flee to East Germany! They don’t know anything about your past there. We’ll submit our applications as Canadians and say we want to contribute to the creation of an ideal state. I love Canada as much as you do, but the entire first world is at an impasse. I already told you that my mother in Denmark lost her job because she participated in a leftist demonstration. She came with me to Canada and was soon murdered here by her neurotic lover. If we stay here, we’ll have to keep slaving away and will never earn any more than we do now. We won’t be able to give Tosca a first-class education. She’s extraordinarily talented. In the East, she would receive specialized training for free. She can become a figure skater or a ballet dancer.” When I heard that, my decision to go to East Germany with my family was virtually assured.

  •

  Out of relief, I sighed, threw myself into bed and let my ear sink into the soft pillow. I lay there like a croissant, embracing Tosca, who had not yet been born. She was still a part of my dream as I gently slept. One thing was certain: one day my daughter would stand on a theater stage, dancing the lead in Tchaikovsky’s Polar Bear Lake. Later she would give birth to a son who would look so adorable that everyone would immediately want to cuddle him. I would call him, my first grandchild, Knut.

  •

  I gaze out at the wide field: not a house, not a tree, everything is covered in ice all the way to the horizon. With the first step I take, I realize that the ground is made of ice floes. My feet sink along with the floe I’ve just stepped on, already I’m up to my knees in ice-cold water, then my belly is wet, then my shoulders. I have no fear of swimming, and the cool sensation of the icy water is rather pleasant, but I’m not a fish and can’t stay in the water forever. There’s a surface I took to be an edge of the mainland, but the moment I touch it, the entire thing tilts to one side and disappears into the sea. I stop looking for the mainland — just a substantial chunk of ice will do. After several disappointments I finally find an ice floe sturdy enough to bear my weight. I balance on top of it, staring straight ahead, feeling the ice melt away from second to second beneath the warm soles of my feet. This ice island is still as large as my desk, but eventually it will no longer be there. How much longer do I have?

  II

  THE KISS OF DEATH

  My spine stretches tall, my chest broadens, I tuck my chin slightly and stand before the living wall of ice, unafraid. It isn’t a struggle. And in truth this ice wall is really just warm snowy fur. I gaze up and discover two black pearl eyes and a moist nose. Quickly I place a sugar cube on my tongue and stick it out as far and as high as I can. The polar bear bends down toward me slowly. She bends first at the hip, then at the neck, balancing on her hind legs. She exhales forcefully, and the smell of snow streams powerfully from her throat. Then her tongue swiftly and skillfully snatches the sugar from my mouth. Has one mouth touched the private interior of the other or not?

  The audience holds its breath, forgetting to clap, frozen at that moment — one thousand eyes are fixed in terror on the polar bear Tosca — for no one in the audience knows that she’s not a source of real danger. To be sure, my life would instantly end if Tosca, standing nearly ten feet tall, were to deal me a blow with her powerful paw. But she won’t. Danger will arise only if the ensemble of nine polar bears ranged behind her in the background were to cease to be harmonious. It would take just a single one of them getting twitchy, and that minuscule flame could ignite the others’ latent agitation and quickly flare into a major blaze, engulfing the entire stage and burning us all up. For this reason, I keep a close watch on everything, the bears standing behind me included. My entire body is a feeler — each pore is an eye, my back covered with eyes — and each hair on the back of my head is an antenna, monitoring the shifts in power among the bears. Not for an instant does my attentiveness flag, except when Tosca and I kiss. At that moment, our mouths claim all my attention, and I can’t keep track of the ensemble. My left hand, which holds a whip, gives a brief flick at the moment of the kiss.

  The audience believes my whip ensures my dominance over these beasts of prey. In reality, this leather snake is as innocuous as the little baton a conductor uses to beat time. No musician in the orchestra is afraid of being struck and injured by the baton. But that thin little stick is the embodiment of Power, perhaps because it’s always one step ahead. That’s just how it is with my whip and my animals.

  I am the smallest, weakest, and slowest of all the creatures onstage. My sole advantage is that I can precisely anticipate and gauge the fluctuations of mood among the bears. If the balance of power among these nine bears were to shift, if two of them were to suddenly attack each other, I would be unable to stop the fracas using my own strength. For this reason, I send my whip whistling through the air and shout to distract the bears whenever I sense even the faintest enmity stirring. Such a conflict might quickly escalate to the point of no return.

  •

  Nine polar bears stood upon the Drum Bridge, resembling mythology’s Naga, the nine-headed snake. One head swayed like a grandfather clock’s pendulum; from the depths of the second’s throat, a deep voice rose. All these heads were waiting for it finally to be their turn to receive a sweet reward.

  My skirt was short, my boots tall, and my long curly hair was tied back in a ponytail. I was 5'2", and no one could tell I was already over forty. Bec
ause of my appearance, it occurred to the circus director, Pankov, to develop this number. “One little girl has ten enormous bears in her power — ravishing! I have goose bumps already. We’ve really needed something more sensual in our program. Polar bears are much larger than brown bears, and because they’re white, they look even bigger. If you line them up in a row, it’ll look like a gigantic icy cliff. Magnificent!” Pankov’s hoarse voice resounds in my ears to this day. His cigarette consumption knew no planned economy. “So what do you say? Are you up to the challenge? Why not give it a try? Don’t be afraid of failure. Even if it bombs, I won’t fire you. You can go on working here as a janitor.” A malicious laugh. For years I mucked out the circus’s stables until I got my hands on the keys to my present career. Pankov knew this perfectly well. He was testing me. Maybe he wanted to see if I’d lose my temper and blow up at him.

  I’d had no experience with polar bears beyond a single failed experiment — one, however, that represents a brief but unforgettable phase in my life. At the time I was training a troupe of big cats, and one day I was forced against my will to accept a polar bear into the ensemble. I love all mammals, but I hated the popular circus numbers that put various beasts of prey onstage together. More specifically, I abhor the human stupidity and vanity that takes pride in forcing tigers, lions, and leopards to sit nicely side by side. It reminds me of the government choreography that displays brightly garbed minorities in a parade, minorities granted a crumb of political autonomy in exchange for providing an optical simulation of cultural diversity in their country of residence. But wild animals (as opposed to humans) form groups according to species to enjoy specific benefits. Wild beasts of prey maintain a mutual distance to avoid having to pointlessly fight and kill. Human beings lock these creatures up together in tight spaces so it looks like a page in an encyclopedia of animals. I often felt ashamed to be standing onstage as a representative of Homo sapiens, that idiotic species.

  My boss and his boss decided that my wild-animal number would lack interest without a polar bear. In retrospect it’s clear to me that they themselves were living like beasts of prey in their own political ensemble, each constantly afraid of being devoured by some other functionary. After the death of Stalin in 1953 it became difficult to predict who would be the next to get gobbled up, or by whom. Increasingly we had the sense that it was impossible for a privately run circus to survive. We felt a new sort of uncertainty. No one knew if we could go on working like this or whether a storm would suddenly tear our circus tent from its foundations.

  By merging to become the national circus of the German Democratic Republic, in 1961, the three circus companies Busch, Aeros, and Olympia were successfully reborn. I hoped that this national circus would decide to drop the mixed wild-animal act, since its primitive brutality was not in keeping with a modern state’s notions. But my request to establish a peaceful lion family number was soundly rejected in the circus world. The audiences were clamoring for dangerous assortments of predators.

  •

  At the time I wasn’t yet certain whether or not polar bears were creatures as peace-loving as lions. Besides, I had the suspicion that Pankov had made his suggestion only because he wanted to make trouble for me. In the end, though, I decided to accept his proposal. I didn’t want to close a gateway to my own advancement.

  By the time I met my husband, Markus, his glory days as a bear trainer were already behind him. I’d been one of his bear act’s many admirers for several years. Under his guidance, the bodies of the bears flowed across the stage like particles of light — bright, weightless, resplendent. At the time when I fell in love with Markus, he was in crisis. I happened to be in the room during one of his rehearsals. He was surrounded by interns who worshipped him. His hair was always carefully combed, and although this was only a rehearsal, not a performance, he wore English riding trousers and elegant boots. He stood there like a master with years of experience, but in his face I saw signs of bewilderment and the beginnings of fear. A brown bear refused to obey one of Markus’s commands, and I even thought I glimpsed contempt in the bear’s eyes. Brown bears have the ability to ignore the presence of human beings when it suits them. Even when the bear finds himself in closest proximity to a human, he can continue to behave as if he were alone. Animals compelled to share their cramped living spaces with others grow wise in this way. It lets them avoid unnecessary conflict. I’ve heard that Japanese office workers — who must ride to work each morning in overstuffed subway cars — possess this same wisdom.

  But no brown bear can ignore a person who is goading him. Markus had unintentionally provoked the bear, and this was a serious error of the sort no bear trainer can allow himself. Was I the only one among those present who noticed? Markus was experiencing an existential crisis: he could no longer understand the bears. At the same time, though, he opened his heart to human beings, something he’d never done before. After the rehearsal I sat down beside him on a bench. Both of us were breathing in the same rhythm, which rapidly decreased the distance between us, and it wasn’t long before our marriage was inscribed in the state registry. It was my second marriage. Markus made no reply when I told him that my daughter from my first marriage lived with my mother. He didn’t flinch when I told him my first husband had also been a bear trainer.

  •

  Markus was planning to present a new number featuring a Kodiak bear in the coming season. The new bear was not yet acclimated and kept looking at us petulantly, as if to say that he wouldn’t so much as waggle an ear for a whole bucketful of sugar. When Pankov put in an appearance at rehearsal, Markus would crack his whip several times in quick succession to make it look like he was working. With every passing day, he became more disheveled. He showed up for rehearsal barefoot, in a faded old dark-blue tracksuit; his thin, sweat-moistened hair was no longer combed.

  There was still plenty of time before the premiere, no need to rush things, but it was worrisome that he didn’t notice the bear’s anger until it bared its teeth at him. He was like someone trying to bluff his way through a conversation in a language he doesn’t speak. I broke out in a cold sweat and wanted to shut my eyes.

  Markus was relieved when Pankov suggested handing off the Kodiak bear to an animal psychologist for a while, since the creature’s behavior was problematic. “Instead,” Pankov said with a grin that none of us understood, “we’ll get some polar bears.” Horrified at first, Markus calmed down when Pankov said he wanted to see me onstage with a polar bear act.

  My husband was in a very different place in his life than I was: he neither wanted a large audience nor was he hungry for a new career. Deep in his heart, the desire to leave behind the role of wild-animal trainer forever was taking root. Unfortunately you can’t just jump off a speeding train unless you want to end your life. But if someone had commanded him to transfer from the commuter train to the polar bear express, he’d probably have preferred to jump out the train’s window instead. Polar bears were considered particularly aggressive and unpredictable.

  In those days he would suddenly start screaming in the middle of the night, still caught in his nightmare — screaming like a little boy who’s been bitten by a large dog. I knew this scream well. As a child, I was once forced to witness a friend of mine being attacked by a dog.

  Apparently Pankow already had a fairly clear picture of this new number in his head. He wanted me to wear a headband to expose my forehead, put on a short skirt, and then breezily order the polar bears about with the effortlessness of a fairy. Markus was to stand in the wings keeping an eye on the bears to shield me from any danger. The audience would probably just think he was my assistant. In truth, though, he would be the locus of power controlling everything from the shadows. Pankov chose his words carefully, not wanting to offend my husband, while Markus himself enjoyed a deep sense of relief with no qualms. Finally Markus asked in a cheerful voice: “So how many polar bears are we getting?”

  “Nin
e of them,” Pankov replied.

  Markus remained silent for the rest of the day.

  Later I learned the backstory: The reason Pankov was so desperate for a new idea was that he’d just received nine polar bears as a gift from the Soviet Union. Never before had our circus received so generous a present. Everyone was secretly wondering what had prompted this superpower to give such a gift to its insignificant German neighbor. Perhaps the gift’s giver was afraid of being abandoned by its recipient in favor of her former partner, West Germany. Or else the Soviet Union was trying to compete with an Asiatic neighbor who kept expanding his circle of friends by handing out panda bears left and right. In any case, the commodity in question (the polar bears) was immediately forced on our circus.

  If someone gives you a cake, you should eat it as soon as possible. If the gift is a painting, you should hang it on the wall. This is how the recipient of a gift displays good manners. The nine polar bears weren’t knickknacks to be placed on a shelf, they were professionally trained dancers. According to the letter that accompanied them, these polar bears had graduated from Leningrad’s Academy of Arts with excellent marks and thus were qualified to appear onstage starting immediately. The government bureau responsible for overseeing the gift was applying pressure: before the next state visit from the Kremlin, Pankov was to put together an unforgettable show, with the nine polar bears as the highlight of the evening. As with earthquakes or storms, it was impossible to predict exactly when the next Kremlin visit would come. Pankov was in a panic, he had to get the new show up and running as soon as possible.