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THE FLIGHT OF THE DANCING BEAR
MARK RASCOVICH
The Flight of the Dancing Bear was originally published in 1959 by Doubleday & Company, Inc, Garden City, New York. All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
To Flosy...without whose devoted help
this story could not have been told
1. SCANDAL IN MOSCOW
Ur Kamaks world came to an end on a gray winter afternoon last year when he reported to the directors office at the Ministry of Culture. He had been there often before but always as an important person, a successful person, and one of those rare citizens of the Soviet Union who need fear neither importance nor success. He had often entered that huge office with a certain smug feeling of security which he knew very few others enjoyed.
On this day he had been received with courtesy and even the deference due a man holding the Order of Artists of the Soviet Union. But there was a tinge of embarrassment in the reception. The director, Sergei Ilyanovitch Branoff, was the kind of official who had a great deal of trouble in unbending unless he was drunk, in which case he would become coarse and boisterous. A trace of that coarseness remained even when he was sober. He was a swarthy hulk of a man who contrasted sharply with the waspish, moonfaced little Uzbek seated in front of him. After polite small talk the director had cleared his throat and fingered a folder on his desk as if very unwilling to get down to business. So Ur helped him:
Comrade Director, I will come to the point....Natacha and I have not received our contract yet. I presume the season is opening on the usual date here in Moscow?
Oh yes, of course, the director quickly answered, then coughed and looked out of the window.
Let us not bandy words. Natacha and I are not included this year. Is that not so, Sergei Ilyanovitch?
The director continued to stare out of the window and his expression became as wintry bleak as the scene on the other side of the glass. Yes, that is so, Ur Baltarovitch....It pains me to inform you we are forced to exclude your wonderful act.
Urs Asiatic face did not betray a flicker of the sudden agony he felt. With an even voice he asked: Why?
The director abruptly got up out of his chair and moved around the massive desk. Natacha has been active for almost thirty years. That is a long time. She is getting old. Too old, I think.
Natacha is beloved, Ur stated flatly.
Natacha is a legend. Let us not spoil it by allowing her to publicly display the senility and decay of old age. Then, suddenly struck by the harshness of his words, the director paused and tried switching to a lighter tone: After all, last year she fell off her bicycle in front of virtually the entire Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.
Even that she carried off well.
In a pathetic way, yes. If you find it funny to see an old lady fall off her bicycle in front of a large crowd. Obviously he did think it funny, because a chuckle rumbled up from under his bulging vest. But at the same command performance she bit a colonel of the Red Army.
A drunken soldier who molested her, Ur protested.
My dear Ur Baltarovitch! A colonel of the Red Army is never a drunken soldier regardless of how drunk he may be. And biting him is no laughing matter. At least not officially. Unfortunately we now must deal with Natacha officially.
Ur sighed deeply and rose from his chair with a shrug. We are not here to beg, Comrade Director, he said, and started to move toward the door.
But the director blocked his way. Do not think us ungrateful, Ur Baltarovitch! You are both members of the Order of Artists of the Soviet Union and are due every respect.
Ur said: Thank you, then tried to push on toward the door. But the director, who towered above him, continued to block his way.
The Ministry will make special arrangements for you to replace Natacha, he said with an expansive smile. We will allow you ample time and money to lavish your genius on a new Natacha.
Ur squinted up at the director with a stony expression, but his twinkling little eyes suddenly glowed with hatred. No, thank you, Comrade Director, he said, and firmly pushed his way to the door and opened it.
Wait! the director commanded.
Ur stopped on the threshold and waited, but without turning around.
We do wish to do Natacha honor, the directors voice intoned with an officious affability. The committee has passed a resolution which will guarantee her place in the annals of Soviet artistry. She will have a permanent niche in the Great Hall. We shall have her mounted!
Ur spun around and stared at Branoff, his impassive face suddenly wrinkled with alarm. Mounted? he echoed with a high-pitched voice. You mean...stuffed? With hay and sawdust? Bent into some idiotic pose with glass eyes staring back at stupid, morbid throngs who come to gape at her death?...Is that the honor you have prepared for my Natacha?
The directors olive complexion drained to a bilious white and he started to swell like an angry bullfrog. Comrade Kamak! You are profaning something reserved only for our very great! Then the door slammed in his face.
Ur Baltarovitch Kamak stalked past the startled secretary in the reception room and out into the marble corridors of the Ministry. He walked with quick determined steps down the enormous staircase leading to the main vestibule with its ornate columns. He hurried through the crowds of visitors who were heading for the Artists Museum in the Great Hall, but before leaving the building he suddenly veered off and went into the toilet located behind the huge bronze of Lenin. There he stepped into one of the booths and carefully unpinned from his vest the Order of Artists of the Soviet Union and dropped it into the bowl. Then he relieved himself and flushed it down.
That very night Ur Kamak and Natacha were slated to perform at a reception at the British Embassy. Usually Ur very much enjoyed these affairs, and he preferred the Western diplomatic functions to those of the satellite countries, who were always reluctant to make any show of luxury before their Russian masters. The functions at Spasso House, the American Embassy, were often the most lavish but they were conducted with a complete disregard for protocol and formality. Even the ambassador himself would usually walk about in an ordinary business suit slapping his guests on the back. Ur had the orientals liking for luxury attended by a certain formality and therefore he preferred the British parties. Also the British seemed tremendously fond of Natacha and would in fact abandon their reserve in her favor.
