The Hotel New Hampshire

tennis court—making deep, thrusting scratches with his back against the metal mesh, groaning to himself and rocking to a rhythm akin to masturbation. My mother, to make him more comfortable, had removed his muzzle.

“I never heard of such a motorcycle as dis,” the German told Freud, critically. “It’z junk, I tink, ja? What’s an Indian? I never heard of it.”

“You should try riding it yourself,” Freud said. “Want to?”

The German woman seemed unsure of the idea—and quite sure that she didn’t want to—but the idea clearly appealed to the German. He stood close to the motorcycle and touched its gas tank and ran his fingers over its clutch cable and fondled the knob to the gearshift. He seized the throttle at the handlebars and gave it a sharp twist. He felt the soft rubber tube—like an exposed vital organ among so much metal—where the gas ran from the tank into the carburetor. He opened the valve to the carburetor, without asking Freud’s permission; he tickled the valve and wet his fingers with gasoline, then wiped his fingers on the seat.

“You don’t mind, HerrDoktor?” the German asked Freud.

“No, go on,” Freud said. “Take it for a spin.”

And that was the summer of ’39: my father saw how it would end, but he could not move to interfere. “I couldn’t have stopped it,” Father always said. “It was coming, like the war.”

Mother, at the tennis court fence, saw the German mount the motorcycle; she thought she’d better put State o’Maine’s muzzle back on. But the bear was impatient with her; he shook his head and scratched himself harder.

“Just a standard kick starter, ja?” the German asked.

“Just kick it over and she’ll start right up,” Freud said. Something about the way he and Father stepped away from the motorcycle made the young German woman join them; she stepped back, too.

“Here goes!” the German said, and kicked the starter down.

With the first catch of the engine, before the first rev, the bear called State o’Maine stood erect against the tennis court fence, the coarse fur on his dense chest stiffening; he stared across centre court at the 1937 Indian that was trying to go somewhere without him. When the German chunked the machine into gear and began, rather timidly, to advance across the grass to a nearby gravel path, State o’Maine dropped to all fours and charged. He was in full stride when he crossed centre court and broke up the doubles game—racquets falling, balls rolling loose. The player who was playing net chose to hug the net instead; he shut his eyes as the bear tore by him.

“Earl!” cried State o’Maine, but the German on the throaty ’37 Indian couldn’t hear anything.

The German woman heard, however, and turned—with Father and Freud—to see the bear. “Gott! Vut vilderness!” she cried, and fainted sideways against my father, who wrestled her gently to the lawn.

When the German saw that a bear was after him, he had not yet got his bearings; he was unsure which way the main road was. If he’d found the main road, of course, he could have outdistanced the bear, but confined to the narrow paths and walkways, of the hotel grounds, and the soft fields for sports, he lacked the necessary speed.

“Earl!” growled the bear. The German swerved across the croquet lawn and headed for the picnic tents where they were setting up for lunch. The bear was on the motorcycle in less than twenty-five yards, clumsily trying to mount behind the German—as if State o’Maine had finally learned Freud’s driving lesson, and was about to insist that the act be performed properly.

The German would not allow Freud to stitch him up this time and even Freud confessed that it was too big a job for him. “What a mess,” Freud wondered aloud to my father. “Such a lot of stitches—not for me. I couldn’t stand to hear him bawl all the time it would take.”

So the German was transported, by the Coast Guard, to the hospital at Bath. State o’Maine was concealed in the laundry room so that the bear’s mythical status as “a wild animal” could be confirmed.

“Out of the voods, it came,” said the revived German woman. “It must haf been incensed by der noise from der motorcycle.”

“A she-bear with young cubs,” Freud explained. “Sehr treacherous at this time of year.”

But the management of the Arbuthnot-by-the-Sea would not allow the matter to be dismissed so easily; Freud knew that.

“I’m leaving before I have to talk with him again,” Freud told Father and Mother. They knew that Freud meant the owner of the Arbuthnot, the man in the white dinner jacket who occasionally showed up for the last dance. “I can just hear him, the big shot: ‘Now, Freud, you knew the risk—we discussed it. When I agreed to have the animal here, we agreed he would be your responsiblity.’ And if he tells me I’m a lucky Jew—to be in his fucking America in the first place—I will let State o’Maine eat him!” Freud said. “Him and his fancy cigarettes, I don’t need. This isn’t my kind of hotel, anyway.”

The bear, nervous at being confined in the laundry room and worried to see Freud packing his clothes as fast as they came out of the wash—still wet—began to growl to himself. “Earl!” he whispered.

“Oh, shut up!” Freud yelled. “You’re not my kind of bear, either.”

“It was my fault,” my mother said. “I shouldn’t have taken his muzzle off.”

Those were just love bites,” Freud said. “It was the brute’s claws that really carved that fucker up!”

“If he hadn’t tried to pull State o’Maine’s fur,” Father said, “I don’t think it would have gotten so bad.”

“Of course it wouldn’t have!” Freud said. “Who likes to have hair pulled?”

“Earl!” complained State o’Maine.

“That should be your name: ‘Earl!’” Freud told the bear. “You’re so stupid, that’s all you ever say.”

“But what will you do?” Father asked Freud. “Where can you go?”

“Back to Europe,” Freud said. “They got smart bears there.”

“They have Nazis there,” Father said.

“Give me a smart bear and fuck the Nazis,” Freud said.

“I’ll take care of State o’Maine,” Father said.

“You can do better than that,” Freud said. “You can buy him. Two hundred dollars, and what you got for clothes. These are all wet!” he shouted, throwing his clothes.

“Earl!” said the bear, distressed.

“Watch your language, Earl,” Freud told him.

“Two hundred dollars?” Mother asked.

That’s all they’ve paid me, so far,” Father said.

“I know what they pay you,” Freud said. “That’s why it’s only two hundred dollars. Of course, it’s for the motorcycle, too. You’ve seen why you need to keep the Indian, ja? State o’Maine don’t get in cars; they make him throw up. And some woodsman chained him in a pickup once—I saw that. The dumb bear tore the tailgate off and beat in the rear window and mauled the guy in the cab. So don’t you be dumb. Buy the Indian.”

Two hundred dollars,” Father repeated.

“Now for your clothes,” Freud said. He left his own wet things on the laundry room floor. The bear tried to follow them to my father’s room, but Freud told my mother to take State o’Maine outside and chain him to the motorcycle.

“He knows you’re leaving and he’s nervous, poor thing,” Mother said.

“He just misses the motorcycle,” Freud said, but he let the bear come upstairs—although the Arbuthnot had asked him not to allow this.

“What do I care now what they allow?” Freud said, trying on my father’s clothes. My mother watched up and down the hall, bears and women were not allowed in the men’s dorm.

“My clothes are all too big for you,” my father told Freud when Freud had dressed himself.

“I’m still growing,” said Freud, who must have been at least forty then. “If I’d had the right clothes, I’d be bigger now.” He wore three of my father’s suit pants, one pair right over the other; he wore two suit jackets, the pockets stuffed with underwear and socks, and he carried a third jacket over his shoulder. “Why trouble with