Bears on Wheels: Final Part

After a while, two young bears were brought from the north -- Tupa and Boy. The newcomers did not show any special talent, but they behaved well. The hardworking Pusha helped them to do their best. She nudged them with her nose and was scolded for disobedience. The youngsters began to join the circus act. Angelina almost stopped taking Kazbek for rehearsals. A couple of times, the old bear got access to the arena with his pitiful roar, but Angelina no longer paid attention to Kazbek, did not praise him and did not feed him with cookies. The poor fellow was forsaken.
The new act, “Three on Three Wheels”, was brought to perfection in rehearsals. Tupa and Boy learned to ride unicycles around the arena, chasing Pusha in a white tutu. The prima donna Pusha was rolling in compliments and treats. Angelina praised her, took pictures with the bear for the papers and promised her a great future. The bear was doing her best; she was worked to the bone.
One day, when Pusha returned after a long rehearsal, she found out that the cage opposite was empty. The floor had been washed and the straw had been changed. Only a faint scent remained from Kazbek.
The same night, Pusha had a nightmare of a carriage into which people were dragging Gerda with hooks. They were ripping shreds out of her skin, yelling, and snapping their long horsewhips ... but this was no longer Gerda, but she herself, Pusha, who was clinging to the bars of the cage with her claws. Angelina was calmly standing nearby, playing with a chain and whistling a circus march...
Opening the cage's lock turned out to be easy for Pusha. Sneaking past the sleepy watchman was like taking candy from her sister Vahmurka.
The bear was nearly overwhelmed by the sharp and terrible smells of the city. Her sensitive nose caught the bitter creosote stench of the railroad’s sleepers with the smells of gasoline and iron. She did not know the way; she could only follow the call of her heart.
For a little over two months, Pusha had been making her way forward at night, trying not to stray far from the railway. She ate whatever she could find in garbage dumps. Pusha tried not to go deep into the forest. The smells of the wild wood attracted her, but also frightened her. The bear did not remember her wild free life and did not seek it. She just wanted to go back to her enclosure at the zoo.
Three times she had to fight off packs of wild dogs, and one such fight cost her her ear. She was about to be shot, and she had got some pellets under her skin. Pusha became emaciated. The pads of her paws were rubbed to a pulp on the asphalt of the highway and gravel; her wounds festered, and her stomach ached.
She was chilled to the bone from long cold rains and more and more often fell into a doze. The air smelled of winter and death. Just a little more, and her journey would end forever.
She got caught in the suburbs. That day, Pusha was hungrier than she had ever been hungry before and broke into a bakery. She started to beg for food, stretching her clawed paws over the counter. The buyers were running away screaming, the saleswoman locked herself in the back room, and someone called the police. The troublemaker was about to be shot, but a compassionate police captain noted the unusual behavior of the bear. “She has run away from the zoo, for sure," he thought. Pusha was fed to bursting with stale bread, and made drunk with vodka mixed with condensed milk. Then they tied the sleepy bear up, loaded her into a jeep, and Pusha was taken to her zoo.
It was hard to recognize the ex-star of the zoo in the emaciated, shabby female bear, but the janitor, Uncle Micha, did. The vet examined her wounds and applied bandages. Pusha was quarantined for two weeks. There she grew fat and went into hibernation.
When Pusha woke up, she found herself next to her sister. The phlegmatic Vahmurka first slowly licked Pusha's muzzle and then went to lie in the sun, as if they had never been apart.
The tamer Angelina came to the zoo in the summer. She was looking for new bear cubs for her show and, on learning that her runaway prima donna had returned to the zoo, she wanted to take Pusha back to her circus. The zoo director refused her briefly and rather rudely, “Animals do not run away from good owners.”
Angelina shouted at him and threatened him with a court case, but in the end, she had to leave empty-handed. Angelina looked into the bear enclosure just before leaving the zoo. Pusha pretended not to recognize her ex-beloved human.
The bear became withdrawn and distrustful after all she had been through. Although she did not hurt the zookeepers, she did not obey them either. To draw her out of her cage to clean it or to carry out her physical examination was rough work with unknown consequences for the zoo staff. Only Uncle Miha could manage to get Pusha to go to the nearby aviary with the help of cookies and gentle words.
It seemed that she had lost her interest in tricks, but bravura music from the loudspeaker sometimes awakened her memories. The zoo director saw the four-legged artist was dancing and stomping to the music.
Pusha became touchingly tender with her sister; now she shared her treats with Vahmurka, slept next to her, and called her to wrestle in the dust. The marks of her wounds were hidden in her thick and shiny fur. The visitors to the zoo considered Pusha the most beautiful among bears and willingly treated her to sweets. There were always crowds of people at her cage, and photos of the club-footed sisters were posted in local newspapers many times.
Sometimes at night, Pusha put on shows for the amusement of her neighbors, the wild animals and zoo cats. She balanced on a log, juggled with an orange, danced a waltz, walked on her front paws and did other funny things. She loved the attention of the public.
Now the bear has grown old, has acquired gray hair and a paunch, but she is still considered the most beautiful. So, if you're in the mood to go to the zoo and visit the actress Pusha, don't forget to bring cookies!
THE END