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reports on the Tudara tribe. The savages evidently created a
unique form of coexistence with the East Siberian brown
bear, otherwise hostile towards men. Both were gatherers,
loners and highly unapproachable. The Tudara did not
know language use, basic communication was established
through an incomprehensible code of signs with no
apparent structure or consistency. Their incomprehensible
thinking, at least in Humboldt’s view (
Undenken
, notes
Humboldt), acquired the outline of logic and sense only in
a peculiar dialogue with bears. They responded to the
occasional bear roar with a distinctive kind of muffled
singing, which recalled, more than anything else, the
buzzing hive of wild bees.
It’s always possible to interpret the real as the exorcist of
pain from words. Unresponsive, with the calloused skin of
invented meanings, but only apparently. Oh, just whip
them, break them, put them on the rack, roll them through
solitary confinement. Everything is merely deception. No
shot into the temple of a revolutionary, no rusty nail deep
in the palms of a martyr will do. They must be concealed
with a trick, comprehended by the unthinkable, tolerated
fearfully like plankton. What has happened will happen
time and again, but as if in a broken mirror. Inside it a rock
lies motionless for 36 years. But that’s enough for a new
body to grow from the green stains.