The Cage Read Online Free PDF Page B

especially, but it would get her no matter what she did.
    A month later, on a bulletin board at the office, she saw aflyer about the polar bear expedition in the fall. Her magazine contract would end in time. She thought if she didn’t do it right away, she never would. She applied for the job.
    Beryl knew why she’d been chosen, why size was an issue, why the cage hadn’t just been made as big as possible, big enough for a whole group of male photographers running from one side to the other, holding their cameras out in front, excited by the nearness of their quarry, the number of their prey, yelling scores to one another, a radio playing in the center of the cage.
    Natural Photography
didn’t want her there. The bears didn’t want her there. Most importantly, the pictures could not show her there at all.
    A photograph of nature must always appear as if there were no humans, not even a photographer, within a hundred miles. The viewer must feel that the picture captured the animal and its world without people, urban sprawl and toxic runoff. Here, the world glimmered, pristine and natural, wild and dangerous.
    The point was to take up as little room as possible so the bears would act normally, ignoring her. She was there simply to recognize the truth, point the lens, push the button. To be silent, still and small. She felt sure the magazine would have preferred to rig up a radio-controlled camera rather than have her interfering with the polar bears, in the cage, at risk. But
Natural Photography
was famous for its photographs. The pictures could not be less than perfect. Instead of the radio-controlledcamera, the magazine had settled for the most compact, quiet photographer it could find.
    Two nights before she left, a friend, Sara, had invited Beryl to a party during which she toasted Beryl for her “bravery.” During the toast Sara had called Beryl “the bear woman.” If it had been just one or two strangers there, Beryl wouldn’t have minded the label, but there were at least twenty people in Sara’s living room, not many she knew, and both the women and men stared at Beryl as though she were an artifact the expedition had brought back. The air in the room seemed very close, very warm. Beryl longed to get outside, to cool down. After Sara had made the toast there had been a pause and the people had continued to look at her.
    Beryl was obviously supposed to do something. In this kind of situation her father would always tell a joke, something old and hackneyed that half the audience already knew. People would laugh, bound together by embarrassment, and the party would start again. With mild horror, she heard herself start a joke about three priests in a boat in front of all these people. She didn’t often tell jokes. She wasn’t sure she even understood this one. Once started, though, she staggered on through it, trying to remember the important details. The crowd listened to her, heads tilted, waiting in its judgment.
    Just before the punch line a man interrupted her: “Anyone want another drink?” He rolled his hand out toward the kitchen. The crowd looked over at him.
    Beryl stopped talking, the momentum lost. The women lowered their eyes in embarrassment.
    Another man said, “Yes thanks.”
    Beryl waited for a moment, then tried to speak again.
    The second man added, “Any dark beer.”
    Now a tall blond man leaned down in her direction and insisted that she tell the punch line. He apologized for the rudeness of his friends.
    Beryl said, “No thanks.” She knew it wouldn’t work now. The man insisted. He put his hand on her shoulder. His eyes were earnest and determined; perhaps he thought he was being kind. She told the punch line. The humor was lost and only a few of the women laughed, out of pity.
    She tried to imagine the three men in white fur suits trekking across the frozen sea, their rudeness as some age-old ritualized sparring