The Shadow of the Bear: A Fairy Tale Retold (7 page)

“That’s why you found us, Bear. You’re one of those kinds of people. You
know
,” Rose told him solemnly. “You could be a handsome prince in disguise.”

Bear said nothing for a moment, looking up at the ceiling. When he looked back down, he said teasingly, “And are you two girls princesses in disguise?”

Blanche and Rose exchanged glances. “I don’t think so,” Blanche mused. “I feel too ordinary.”

“But maybe real princesses feel ordinary,” Bear said.

“Oh, I don’t think so. How could a princess feel ordinary? I think we’re too plain. We’re probably just peasant maidens,” Blanche said.

“Of course, either one of us could have a marvelous destiny in store for us,” Rose added, twisting a strand of hair around her finger.

Bear accepted Mother’s offer of the last cookie and asked, “So what other extraordinary people have you found in the world, aside from nuns and grease monkeys?”

“Well, there’s Mr. Freet with his silk waistcoats and walking sticks,” Blanche said. “Even though they’re out of place in our age, he doesn’t look funny in them. It’s as though he’s dropped out of another era into ours. He doesn’t fit, if you know what I mean.” Blanche glanced at Bear and caught a look of interest in his eyes.

“Yeesss,” Rose meditated upon the empty cookie plate. “He doesn’t fit. And yet, in another way, he does.”

“What do you know about this guy?” Bear asked casually, scratching his head.

“Well, Dr. Robert Freet is our principal,” said Rose, scraping crumbs from the plate and eating them, unconcerned by her breach of etiquette. “Mr. Edward Freet is his brother. I think he owns an art gallery, and he comes by our school every once in a while to argue with the nuns and scowl at people. He’s quite an enigma.”

“He says art is about form, not truth,” Blanche said, adding as an explanation, “I overheard him say that today to the office manager.”

“Art’s about truth,” said Bear. “Truth and beauty go together.”

“But it seemed to make sense when he said it,” Blanche argued, but feeling that Bear was right. “Art’s almost always beautiful—”

“Because beauty is truth,” Bear said.

“But not always,” Blanche thought she had at last found a point to contest. “What about beautiful witches and siren songs?” Blanche dug in. “And the beautiful girls in bad advertising and things like that? Evil things often look beautiful.”

“But that’s because they’ve stolen the beauty from the good.” Bear was looking uncomfortable. “Evil isn’t beautiful on its own.”

“Well, good people are sometimes ugly—” Blanche said at last.

“I don’t know about that. Not really,” Bear shook his head. “If the good’s there, and you look for it, you’ll see it in some way.”

“I think Bear is right,” Rose said decidedly. “Fairy tales teach you that. No one who’s
really
good ever stays ugly. It’s always a disguise or an enchantment.”  She ruminated. “At least Mr. Freet is a lover of beauty, whatever he believes about it.”

“I don’t like his eyes—” Blanche said, “They’re too cold.  He’s got a very—small soul. I think.”

Rose giggled at her, but Bear looked thoughtful. “You may be right, Blanche.”

“But I think there’s something large about him too,” Rose said. “He seems like someone who would understand the deeper meaning. We should try to chat with him sometime.”

Blanche didn’t agree, but she felt she had been talking too much and remained silent.
If only Dad were here…
She stood up and started clearing off the table.

“Blanche!  Don’t take my plate!  There’s still crumbs on it!” Rose protested.

“I should be going,” Bear got to his feet.

“A double blow,” Rose said in dismay, but stood up as well. “I’m glad you came over, Bear. I really enjoyed talking with you.”

“Thanks, I did, too.” He looked around at all of them. Blanche met his eyes briefly and went to the kitchen with the mugs.

“You’re welcome to come by again,” Mother smiled at him. “Any time.”

“And don’t just vanish on us,” Rose begged. “We’re starved for company. Come by tomorrow if you can.”

Blanche came back into the room and saw that he was looking at her, a bit uncertainly.
He knows that he makes me uncomfortable,
she realized, and felt guilty for her ungracious attitude earlier.

“Yes, please come again,” she said.

To her surprise, he smiled back at her. “I will. Thank you.”

“Oh, good!” Rose said. “Come by tomorrow if you can.” She went to get his coat.

Bear chuckled at her. “All right.  I’ll take you up on your offer.” He took his coat from Rose and said good night. Blanche followed after her mother who had walked him to the door. As before, he bounded down the steps and vanished into the shadows of the City.

 Once again, he seemed part of the wildness outside, and Blanche couldn’t help but be glad when her mother closed the door and locked it firmly.

Chapter 4

DESPITE BLANCHE’S misgivings, she began to look forward to what became Bear’s frequent evening visits to their home. She never saw him on the school grounds any more, and she began to wonder if he might have reformed. There was certainly an aura of trustworthiness—or just plain
worthiness
about him. And he appeared to enjoy all stripes of their talk—both their deep discussions and their girlish silliness. At least, he tolerated the latter.

As for Rose, she had felt an implicit kinship with Bear from the first moment she saw him—or so she claimed. She didn’t discount her sister’s occasional doubts about his character, but she found them much less threatening than Blanche did.

“Well, beggars can’t be choosers,” she would say when Blanche cautioned her. “You’ve got to admit that Bear is about the closest thing to the only friend we have in this city.”

Which didn’t make Blanche feel much better, even though it was true.

One Friday night a few weeks later when Bear came by, he looked a bit more mysterious than usual. “An odd thing happened on my way over here,” he said. “I was passing by the theater on the way to the subway, and this frustrated guy pointed to me and said, ‘Hey, do
you
want these tickets? I’m ready to give them away!’ He would have just thrown them at me, but I gave him some money for them.”

“Tickets to what?” Blanche wondered.

Bear flushed again. “Standing-room-only tickets at the Met. They’re doing
The Marriage of Figaro
tonight and I was wondering if you all wanted to go.”

“Oh!” Rose had jumped to her feet, eyes shining. “Oh, Mom, may we?”

“My, my,” Mother said with a smile. “That’s a pretty upscale show, Bear.”

“There are three tickets, so you all can go.”

“Why don’t you just take the girls, Bear? They’d love the show, and I’m a bit too tired tonight. It’ll be a rare treat for them,” Mother said. “They’ve never been to the Met.”

“Would you want to?” Bear asked the girls.

“Sure thing! Oh boy, should we wear gowns?” Rose danced around, all in a tizzy.

“Not for standing-room seats. Just wear what you have on,” Mother advised.

“Oh, but that would be too ordinary! Can’t I just go change, Bear?” Rose begged. “One doesn’t go to the opera every day!”

“Yeah, but hurry! The show starts in a half hour, and it’ll take us twenty minutes to get there on the train,” Bear urged.

Rose raced up the stairs and Blanche followed her.

Blanche put on her favorite royal blue sweater and brushed her hair back into a loose ponytail while her sister wildly threw clothes out of the closet onto the bed. “Oh, if only I had a black dress!” Rose lamented. “That would be
so
appropriate! How does this look?” She whipped out a purple dress and hung it in front of herself. “Too fancy? Okay, how about this one?”

“Rose, there’s no time for going through your whole closet,” Blanche insisted. “Here, just wear your black sweater.”

“Yes! With a pink turtleneck and my grey silk skirt and black hose! Perfect! I knew I kept you around for some reason.” Rose started changing at a lightning pace, then stopped and moaned. “Oh! Rob Tirsch said he’d call me tonight!”

 “Well, too bad.  Mom’ll tell him. Hurry up and get dressed!”

It was amazing that they managed to get downstairs and into their coats within the next five minutes. They hurried out the door with Bear, Rose issuing a stream of orders all the time to Mother about what to tell Rob. Blanche was thankful when they at last got outside into the cold and dark. Heavy white flakes were sifting down from the sky, and even though Christmas was long over, there was holiday in the air.

They had to run to keep up with Bear’s long stride. “There should be a train leaving in about a minute. It’ll be close—do you have tokens?” he said over his shoulder.

Blanche held up two tokens in her mittened hand. “Yes. Do you?”

“Yes! We’re set, then. Be ready to run when we get down the subway. Follow me!”

He pounded down the steps, avoiding all the people coming up, and took off running for the train.

“Augh! He didn’t tell us he would run so fast!” Rose wailed, dodging after him through the Friday night crowds in line for tokens. Bear whipped through the turnstile with such velocity that Blanche had to hold it still a moment before she could go through it.

They flew after him down to the lower level where the train to Manhattan had paused, its lights flashing and the “close doors” signal sounding. Bear got onto the packed train and held the doors open for them with his hands as it started to pull away. Blanche and Rose dove beneath his arms and were safely on the train as it began to move in earnest. They stood beside him, gasping for breath and laughing as the train plunged into the tunnel.

“Do you know, I always imagine that the subway trains are dragons,” Rose said to Bear as they clung to his coat for support in the swaying car. “Tearing back and forth across the city in their underground caves, devouring people and spitting them out at random destinations.”

“Well, they certainly are as loud as dragons,” Bear said. He winced as another train passed them in a deafening roar.

“Hey, weirdo,” someone said to Rose, poking her in the back. She went pale, her eyes flashing green. But when she turned, she gasped and the color came back into her cheeks. “Rob!”

It was the man himself, his blue eyes and black brows snapping at her beneath a ski cap.

“What are you doing out here tonight?” he grinned at her. He and his buddies were sitting in a row on the other side of the train, an army in sports jackets and hooded sweatshirts.

“Going to the opera. What are you doing?” Rose wanted to know, turning to face them. She had forgotten all about Bear and Blanche.

“The oh-per-ah!” Rob mimicked. “Getting some culture shock, are you?”

“I thought you were going to call me tonight,” Rose said.

“Well, I can’t. You’re not home, are you?” he said teasingly.

“Yes, but—So where are you going?”

“Ah, over to Lisa’s house for a party. Want to come?”

“No, I’m going—”

“To the oh-per-ah! Yeah, you said that.”

Bear watched Rose talking animatedly with Rob and bent down his head to Blanche. He said in a very low voice, “So this is the famous ‘Rob’?” One couldn’t talk to Rose these days without hearing some allusion to Rob.