The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna [43]
After an hour’s skiing, the group had split up into a long broken line: the military attachés, apart from the Brazilian, were still keeping up with Vatanen; the women and the other members must have stopped off somewhere farther back for coffee.
After another hour’s smooth skiing, there was a surprise.
They came to the bear’s former sleeping place, and the bear was still there! It had dug itself a sort of den under the snow and was apparently sleeping down there. Vatanen hissed his discovery to the nearest men, and the word was passed along. The hare sensed danger again and ran around in terror at Vatanen’s feet.
The group organized themselves into a firing position. Then they stood waiting for the women and the rest of the tail end. About half an hour later, the women staggered up, perspiring. The lady from the United States sat down on her skis in the snow and lit a cigarette. She was completely exhausted; her eye makeup had run down her cheeks. She looked pretty miserable, that was sure. Her Swedish sister was in better shape, but she, too, was tired.
Vatanen entrusted the hare to the Swedish lady’s arms and asked her to look after it for a while. Then he skied nearer to the lair. It was a weird feeling, complete with butterflies in his stomach. There it was, the bear: exactly how fierce, no one knew. Vatanen had not done anything like this ever before. He’d never hunted purely for pleasure. Now that he was part of it, he felt both shame and fear.
Vatanen bellowed in horror. A film camera began to hum.
The bear woke with a jump but was at once alert to danger. It tossed the detritus aside and made a dash at Vatanen. Vatanen hit it on the head with the butt of his rifle, so hard he split the wooden butt. The bear darted through the cordon and turned to the women. Two shots rang out. Neither hit.
The bear reared in front of the Swedish lady and paused on its hind legs, apparently astounded at the sight of a woman hugging a hare in her arms. The bear sniffed the hare and then hugged the woman: three creatures in one embrace. The hare and the woman squealed with terror, alarming the bear. It hurled both of them away—the woman five or six yards, the hare still farther. And right away the bear took off in full flight.
Several shots rang out after it. One may have hit, for the bear let out a great roar and turned toward its enemies; but then it continued its swift lope and had soon disappeared from sight.
A couple of soldiers skied off after the bear, though the pursuit now looked pointless. The rest of the party gathered around the Swedish lady, who was hysterical, weeping in the snow. Hardly surprising, after an ordeal like that.
They radioed for a jeep. A couple of hours later, they were all back at Läähkimä Gorge. In front of the cabin was a heavy air force helicopter; the women were helped into it. The Swedish woman had been holding on to the hare the whole time. Its coat was wet with her tears, and now she was taking the hare into the helicopter with her.
Vatanen objected.
“Come on, now,” said the foreign minister’s private secretary. “You’re a big man. Can’t you see she’s in a state of shock? You must let her hang on to it.... The foreign minister’ll make it up to you. Anyway, you can get yourself a thousand hares in this forest, can’t you?”
Vatanen refused to give up his hare. From the helicopter the lady sent word: she couldn’t ever think of parting with the hare; it had shared the most horrifying moments of her whole life. The private secretary found himself anxiously negotiating under the helicopter blades in the bunkhouse yard. He tried a compromise, but his diplomatic skills weren’t cutting it with Vatanen; they were getting nowhere.
The lady announced she could not, under any circumstances, leave this poor little hare in this