When he poured the first shot glass of whiskey into the German's cut, the whiskey washed into the German's eyes.
'Ooops!' said Freud.
'I'm blind! I'm blind!' the German sang.
'Nein, you're nicht so blind,' Freud said. 'But you should have shut your eyes.' He splashed another glass in the wound; then he went to work.
In the morning the manager asked Freud not to perform with State o' Maine until after the Germans left -- they were leaving as soon as ample provisions could be loaded aboard their large vessel. Freud refused to remain attired as a doctor; he insisted on tinkering with the '37 Indian in his mechanic's costume, so it was in such attire that the German found him, seaward of the tennis courts, not exactly hidden from the main hotel grounds and the lawns of play, but discreetly off to himself. The huge, bandaged face of the German was badly swollen and he approached Freud warily, as if the little motorcycle mechanic might be the alarming twin brother of the 'Herr Doktor Professor' of the night before.
'Nein, it'z him,' said the tanned woman, trailing on the German's arm.
'What's the Jew doctor fixing this morning?' the German asked Freud.
'My hobby,' Freud said, not looking up. My father, who was handing Freud his motorcycle tools -- like an assistant to a surgeon -- took a firmer grip on the three-quarters-inch wrench.
The German couple did not see the bear. State o' Maine was scratching himself against the fence of the 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, Herr Doktor?' 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.