Read Online Pilgermann by Russell Hoban - Free Book Online Page A

am being now. When I had my proper parts I must have been blind and deaf, the world had not come alive for me, I had never talked with Christ, had never put my feet into the footsteps of my road away, had never, alone in a dark wood, seen the light of Now. So, Pilgermann, let your heart have balls, and on to Jerusalem.
    Under the sun, under the rain I trudged on. On the bank of theriver I saw a man hanging a bear from a tree. Not bear meat but a whole live bear. He was hanging it with a rope passed over a branch and a hangman’s noose on the end of it the same as if he were hanging a man. A big brown bear and it was coughing and moaning as its own weight slowly strangled it. The man was lean and ragged, his beard was full of twigs and leaves and rubbish, it looked as if it might have birds nesting in it. As he braced himself with his feet against the trunk of the tree and pulled on the rope he cried, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!’
    Before I could think what I was doing I had cut the rope with the knife given me by the second Sophia. The bear crashed to the ground and lay there without moving. The man turned on me in a fury. ‘You murdering fool!’ he screamed, ‘You’ve killed God!’
    I said, ‘I didn’t mean to kill him.’
    ‘But you
have
killed him!’ he said. ‘God was everything to me, he was big and strong and shaggy, he was like a bear.’
    ‘He
was
a bear,’ I said.
    ‘Of course he was,’ said the man. ‘God can be whatever he likes, completely and divinely; he always used to find me honey trees. And you’ve killed him, you’ve killed God.’ There were a bow and arrows and a hunter’s pouch lying on the ground; he picked up the bow and fitted an arrow to the string, aiming it at me. At this moment the bear stood up on his hind legs. He began to low and grunt, making gestures with his paws like a man making a speech.
    ‘Lies!’ shouted the man. ‘Lies, lies, all lies!’ He aimed his arrow at the bear.
    The bear made a few more remarks; he put one paw over his heart and shook his head sadly, then he made a gesture clearly expressing that everything was over between him and the man. What a wonderful bear that was! How I wished that I could have him for a friend, what a travelling companion he would be—he clearly had a profound understanding and was one of those people who know when to talk and when to be quiet. While I was thinking this he dropped on to all fours and hurried off towards the trees. The man swung round to loose his arrow, I threw out my hand to knock him off his aim but there fell across my arm something as hard and heavy as an iron bar, a blackness came in front of my eyes and I fell down.
    When I came to myself the bear, shot full of arrows, was lying dead and the man was sitting on the ground throwing dirt on his own head and crying, ‘O my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!’
    I said, ‘Don’t be such a fool, he hasn’t forsaken you—you’ve killed him.’
    He said, ‘I killed him because he forsook me.’
    I said, ‘How did he forsake you?’
    He said, ‘He wouldn’t show me any more honey trees.’ He sat there rocking to and fro in his grief. It was that sort of a hot still day when one seems particularly to hear the buzzing of flies. I left him to his lamentations and went on my way.
    I was thinking about the bear, how good it would have been to have him with me, how I should have heard the padding of his feet and seen out of the corner of my eye his shaggy brown back rocking along beside me through the long miles. Big and strong he was too, a match for half a dozen men in a fight; one would feel easy anywhere with such a friend. Perhaps he might even have danced a little now and then for our supper and a night’s lodging. Pilgermann and his bear would have become famous on the pilgrim road.
    There was a low chuckle in my ear and a hard hand clapped me on the shoulder in great good fellowship. It was that bony personage who had been riding