QUITA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 113, 22 August 1941, Page 47

QUITA

(By

MARGARET

JEFFERY

UITA, the old polar bear, paced miserably up and down the white concrete platform made to resemble the ice of his natural home. He had been in the Zoo for many years, but he had not been so lonely before his mate Zara died. Now she stood, a stuffed animal in the local museum, and he was desperately alone. From their opposite pit, the little Malay sun-bears tried to comfort him. He could see their flat brown heads, with the half-moon shaped mark beneath their throats, as they stood against the pit-side, reaching for the peanuts people threw them. "Cheer up, Quita," they called, "Let us enjoy this lovely day. See, here is the keeper with our food!" Quita only looked at the bits of uneaten fish and meat that lay about his cage. Flies buzzed everywhere, and the air was hot and sultry. He dived disconsolately into the water, splashing the white concrete stalactites and stalag-

mites, that people said looked so real. How did they know? Had they ever seen his real home, the glittering icicles, the endless tracts of ice, the deep blue shadowed crevasses, or heard the wondrous hush of the whole great white world? Only the seals knew of this land, and they were far away on the other side of the Zoo, where he could hear their excited barkings when they were given fish. How he wished he could talk to them! Near Quita’s cage was that of the huge red Orang-Outang. He was a hideous © beast as he swung on his trapeze. Some. times he would sit picking long threads from a sack in the corner, winding them around his fingers. Then he would sleep. Quita didn’t mind him much; but he hated the monkeys. Their enormous cage was filled with incessant chatter from sunrise to sunset. They fought and played, searched each other for fleas, screamed with laughter, and called out insulting remarks to Quita. For months they had taunted him about Zara. "She is stuffed," they would call. "She stands in a big glass case, fancy being stuffed!" They would go into peals of shrieking laughter. "Our wives aren’t stuffed, see how beautifully they hang by their tails!" Quita began to feel more and more miserable. Nearly all day he padded sadly up and down, "How thin the polar bear is getting," people remarked. They flung down peanuts to him, but he paid no attention. He was too unhappy. "Look at old Quita doing his exercises," yelled the monkeys. "He wants to get out, but he can’t. Ha! hal hel" That night Quita felt very weary. He walked ponderously to his cave, and lay down. The faint afterglow of the sunset reminded him of the Northern Lights of his own country. Even the painted stalactites and stalagmites looked almost real. He fell asleep. Next morning the monkeys were asti1 early. They screamed to Quita; but there was no reply. Neither was there a white restless form pacing the ice. But the little Malay sun-bears, pressing their faces against the pit-side, could see that Quita was lying still, and some how they knew he was dead. They turned sorrowfully away, and ate no peanuts that day.