Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage.
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect.This strategy, as combative as it seems, is motivated by pragmatism,
not bravado. Like any of us, Smirnov is using the tools at his disposal,
and his include the same bestial ferocity that kept him alive in the army
and on the back streets of Moscow. Smirnov is a protector of the forest
and an admirer of tigers, but he has had to find a way to live within the
confines of their domain. He summed up this dilemma with a poignant
rhetorical question: “So, that tigress—she wanted to kick me out of the
taiga. But where would I go?”
Markov, Ivan Dunkai, and their hermit neighbor all shared the same
predicament—along with just about everyone in Sobolonye—and each
had to make his own accommodation with the tigers. Smirnov had no
doubt that Markov’s accommodation had involved killing them. “I knew
that he was catching tiger cubs,” said Smirnov. “He ate the meat and sold
the skins. I was trying to hunt him down myself. If it weren’t for the
tiger, I’d have gotten him sooner or later. The tiger beat me to it.”
This tiger, with his appetite, confrontational attack style, and growing
comfort in the world of men, now combined elements of both human and
animal predators. And so did Smirnov. Each, in his way, was a
traumatized refugee caught in a limbo between the human and animal
worlds. That limbo had now become a death zone, and Smirnov, perhaps
more than anyone else on the team, was ideally suited to function within
it.
Along with Vladimir Shibnev, Smirnov also worked with Yuri Pionka.
Pionka is an Udeghe from Krasny Yar, an expert hunter, boat builder, and
ski maker who knew the Bikin as well as anyone around. He was the only
native on either team, and his role was complicated by something his
father had impressed upon him since he was a boy: “The tiger is your
god.”
Until now, this fact had never posed a problem. “I never got involved
in any conflict situations with tigers,” Pionka explained. “Udeghe people