The Last Tiger: A Novel

by Tony Black

  Beyond the door’s swish the wind suddenly lulled inside the hut. As I watched my tiger moving I was close enough to feel the fetch and miss of his breath. My heart stilled. I raised myself on the bunk’s edge and turned to see my mother slumped in sleep. I knew that if she woke to find my tiger, my father would be at hunt before dawn.

  Slowly, I lowered myself over the crib’s edge and stood up. I was silent but my tiger sensed me. He scratched at the boards before him and let out long, heavy grunts that came from deep inside his hollow chest.

  His neck muscles rose and tensed, and then his shoulder blades straightened. His flank now filled the length of the hut as he faced me down.

  It felt like extracting a thorn, watching my tiger stand in fear of me. I wanted him to see our paths were merged, that together we were one, like the sand in the sea.

  I moved to raise my hand and then, slowly, as I reached out to him I watched my tiger turn from me. He had little space to move about and a bony lump of flesh gathered like an ant-hill on his back.

  My tiger was uneasy. He lowered his neck like a pack hound before it strikes and I recoiled my hand at once.

  Quickly, but quietly and with little fuss, my tiger made to leave.

  For the instant that he stood atop the hearth-rug his glossy coat was umber-coloured in the fire’s dim glow; he placed an eye on me, then he darted and was gone.

  At once I ran behind him. My heart pounded heavily. The morning light blurred my eyes but I could see my tiger was glad to have his freedom. He managed his steps with precision and gave no way to fallen bough or dray in the yard. I watched him clear our stone wall in one flighty leap. And then he vanished from sight.

  Where did he go? Will he come back?

  I knew I had my chance now to lead him from this place.

  I loped after my tiger like an ape. The path was churned and caked-over where the flocks had crossed and I stumbled. The stirring mosquitos pestered me where I fell, but I caught sight of my tiger by a sassafras tree for an instant. I watched as he broke into a short, slow trot across the coastal heathland and I quickly fastened tight my bluchers and made after him.

  Where I ran, shy New Holland mice scattered at my feet. My tiger headed beyond the flowering milkmaids and wild violets towards the forest’s edge. As we reached the thick covering of the bush I kept pace with him. Now and again he turned his head towards me, sometimes raising up his snout to the air. I was careful to keep from his sight, but I wondered, does he know I follow?

  My tiger knew every inch of these woodlands. I could not mistake his home-range for that of any man. It was thick with mighty eucalypts and pines; beneath them the rain-specked man ferns and ragged purple appleberry bushes scrapped at my legs as I followed him deeper into this strange new place.

  I watched him crouch low in the shadows of the canopy and beneath the outcroppings of rock and rotting branches that lay before us on the forest floor. My tiger moved swiftly and yet he stalked these pitted tracks and muddy waterholes as though he were the hunted. I sensed his fear like it was my own.

  My tiger’s slow track through the darkness beneath the canopy was a nervy one. I saw he was a timid beast. The tiger of legend – the demon, hunted – was no more a creature to be feared than any stumbling wombat or a blowfly trapped within a bottle.

  My tiger made no noise and yet I was filled with the words he did not say. I sensed his every move. I ran behind him through the wooded plains and thickets like I had run with him all my life.

  We’re running from something, I thought. I do not know why or how I knew this, I just felt it seep into me, as clear as a damp bark roof steaming under the hot sun.

  Soon my tiger slowed. His steps turned to a peaceful trot and he stopped still. Where he stood, as I stared on feeling my breath return to normal, I saw my tiger clearly.

  The light was fully up now and I took in the sun-streaked flashes of his coat. He raised his snub nose to the air once more and the whiskers either side of his snout twitched straight. And then, out of the dense scrub beyond my tiger’s gaze, stepped his mate.

  My tiger continued a few feet towards her and then, as he stopped short of her, his mate took the extra steps to greet him with her head and tail lowered.

  I felt the air come sharp and cold in my nostrils, it carried the tigers’ heavy scent as sweetly as cinnamon to my senses. My tiger’s mate was long-legged and agile looking and she emitted a low and happy yip. Beneath her belly I saw the swell of her pouch – she now carried young. Her pouch was smooth and rounded. Soon these newborn tigers would be walking among us.

  I watched the scene unfold before my eyes with wonder. “Did my tiger bring me here, to the depths of the forest?” I asked myself, “has he shown me his own sacred lair?”

  As I watched the tigers together I saw that in this one last remote hide they had defied their tormentors. There were many hands turned against them and yet their will, their need to survive, won through.

  But as I looked upon my tiger and his mate, I understood they now had nowhere left to run. Were their cubs to survive they would need more than my tiger’s protection. I wanted to believe he had come to me for help.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  My mother bore much in the Sakiai for my brother and me. Her darkest times were like an ogre-tale we all lived through. But on New Year’s morning when Pranciskis woke us to check the branches we had placed in the snow, to tell our fortunes, I feared the worst was yet to come.

  All the branches stood upright, except for one – my mother’s. As her wan eyes drank in the scene she cried, but spoke no words.

  “Do not fear,” said Pranciskis, “it is my branch more than yours.”

  Mother grabbed my brother, and I stood close to her and stared into her face, wet with tears. I felt like I was looking deep into her, staring at the very soul of my mother, at the one piece of her that she felt sure she still possessed.

  She gathered the fold-creases of her shawl; “But, it was my branch.”

  Pranciskis placed a bony finger on her forearm. “Did I not plant it in the snow for you?” he said. “It was my hands that touched it and not yours.”

  Mother wept. Her tears ran in slow driblets down her face; both she and I knew Pranciskis only tried to win her favour. He offered out his open hand and my mother took it.

  At once my brother tugged at my shirtsleeve and pointed to our mother and Pranciskis as they joined before us. I shrugged off Jurgis where he pulled at me. I felt a tight knot come to my stomach once again. It turned and twisted like a bolt-screw with each breath I took.

  As I watched my brother withdraw from me I looked back to my mother. I wanted to shout to her, ‘Put down Pranciskis’s hand right away!’ But I did not. I dared not utter a single word. I did not want to hear my mother tell me once again that it must be this way.

  I knew that I had learned something, because I now wondered what choice she had.

  The sun shone high above our heads as Pranciskis stood proud in the yard. He held his arms out from his chest, his hands were open wide to their fingertips. He denied his crippled leg where he stood, like a whole man.

  “The coming year will be a prosperous one,” said Pranciskis, “yes, I can see we will have great fortunes this year.”

  As he smiled at my mother and repeated his prediction, I knew anything less would be an affront to Pranciskis’s new stores of pride.

  In the months that followed we all put in together, preparing the land and tilling the soil in readiness of the crops. Pranciskis toiled with us on the farm, but we knew he did not care much for our work.

  He cut short his labours. “How can this be all there is for me?” he called out, “I have more to give this land than my sweat!”

  Pranciskis came from the same peasant stock as Kazimeras and Ruta, but his pride made him speak this way; I knew he dreamed of higher things for himself.

  “I must leave,” said Pranciskis. He threw down the long handle of his hoe and went, with his strange h
irple, across the fields, bleating: “My leg ails me.”

  I looked at my brother and he shook his head. Even Jurgis saw that Pranciskis feigned this ailment.

  By day’s end the sun had all but settled. The sky kept a dark hue throughout, but at its far reaches a lavender-colour lingered, throwing down just enough light to guide us on our path home.

  We walked silently, tired out but satisfied from our labours. We each wore dark faces, blackened with soil. Around our eyes clear white circles showed where we had kept the grime from our sight.

  As Kazimeras opened the door I saw Pranciskis sitting in Father’s chair at the table, smoking a pipe. Mother cleared dishes from the table and delicately swept bread crumbs into her apron at Pranciskis’s side.

  “Daina, Daina, stop with that,” said Pranciskis, “bring food for the labourers … my brother, are you not hungry?”

  Kazimeras nodded and Pranciskis motioned him to sit at his side. We ate together and round the table there was quiet, save for Pranciskis’s little speeches.

  “I should have been an officer in the Russian Army by now, don’t you know,” he said to us boys. “Yes, yes … it was to be my calling.”

  Pranciskis leaned towards us and twirled his carefully waxed mustachios, cultivated in the style of the Czar’s generals. I believe he wished us to respond to his speech, but my brother and I sat motionless, our hands beneath our legs. We had no interest in his stories. We hoped Pranciskis would soon leave us and return to his pipe and books, the books which were in Russian, and filled with such reveries for him.

  Pranciskis stood up sharply. “Very well,” he said. He turned from us at the table and began to pound the heavy boards as he walked around us.

  A great thud was suddenly sounded as Pranciskis brought down his bony fist on the table; the pots and plates shook where they stood. “You do not know what it is to keep a man from his proper duty!” he yelled.

  My brother and I sat before him in silence; we both heard his heavy breathing and smelled the tobacco smoke on his clothing. “Go, go from my sight,” he roared at us.

  We answered his command as though marching to a bugle call in his parade; quickly we ran to our room.

  After some time my brother and I strayed from our keep. From atop the staircase we peered between the balusters together.

  “Why does Mama not come to us?” said Jurgis.

  “That is why, look,” I said, pointing.

  Beneath us we spied our mother and Pranciskis together. Mother sat by his side, rising only to stoke the fire and light thin wooden tapers for his pipe. Our mother listened patiently and smiled sweetly, averting her gaze when Pranciskis’s temper rose and he delivered an outburst.

  As my mother turned from him, Pranciskis placed a hand beneath her chin and returned her gaze to him. He was in constant demand of Mother’s attention. Every day, it seemed, Pranciskis grew more pampered and lazy.

  “Why does she stay there with him?” said Jurgis.

  I had no answer for my brother.

  “Mama does not want to come to us!” My brother was angry. His mouth became twisted as he watched our mother below us, with Pranciskis. “I hate him,” said Jurgis, “I hate him. I hate him.”

  “I do too,” I said. My answer came quickly; it required little of my thought.

  I wanted to run. I wanted to run far, far away. I dreamed of finding a new home, like the boy in fairytales who packs his goods in a kerchief, and sets off alone into the forest. But I could not leave my mother and brother.

  And then, when our fortunes seemed at their lowest, when all hope had long since passed and our days stretched before us like the frozen Nemunas and the icy pastures, my brother broke the morning stillness with an unearthly cry.

  “Look! Look, Myko,” he roared.

  Jurgis awoke the entire household, but I was the first to see my brother’s excitement. He pressed his face hard against the windowpane, the cold moisture of its surface sticking flat his blond fringe.

  “Look, Myko, look,” he said from atop the sill where he sat.

  Jurgis spoke frantically, he had no shortage of words. It was as if the riverbanks of my brother’s mind had suddenly burst and their torrent was in full flow.

  “Brother, please,” he said, pointing urgently through the window to the fields and woods below.

  I followed his excited gaze and I looked out. I stared and stared, but I saw nothing unusual save the heavy frost and the little silver wands hanging from the branches, which tinkled with the silent breeze.

  “Jurgis,” I said, “I see nothing.”

  My brother grabbed onto my head; his fingers clasped me tightly as he pointed my eyes to the far distance.

  “There,” he said, “look, there, there!”

  It was plain my brother had stronger eyes than me.

  “Do you see?” he asked, “do you see?”

  I picked up some movement. “I see … something,” I said.

  “You do?”

  “Yes,” I said. I found it hard to make out what I saw. “But what is it? Is it a man?”

  Our mother came quickly into our room. Pranciskis trailed behind her, his watery blue eyes rolled up behind his long girl’s lashes as he tried to divine what occupied us so.

  “Come now, what is all this commotion?” he said. “It is barely morning, do you expect us to rise before the cockcrow?”

  He pushed us aside and took in the view.

  The hair at the back of Pranciskis’s head stood up as straight as hitching-posts from where he had lain with our mother. His small hook of a nose touched the glass like the beak of a pigeon scratching for breadcrumbs from a kindly widow, one who welcomes such company daily, and gives in to such demanding ways.

  Jurgis stood silent beside Pranciskis and lowered his head; he was bowed before Pranciskis, but not with fear. My brother was barely ten years old and already more a man than this lame, weak and vain fool who blighted our lives. It was the shame of seeing Pranciskis standing by our mother, she and him in their bedclothes, together before us, which wounded Jurgis.

  “You discovered this?” said Pranciskis to my brother.

  I watched Jurgis nod as Pranciskis turned back to the window.

  “Good boy, good boy,” he said.

  A smile spread over my brother’s face, but I saw that he cared not an ounce for the praise he received.

  Pranciskis stood back from the sill and excitedly ran from our room, his buckled bones showing beneath his nightclothes. As he went I saw my cunning brother had taken league with the Devil, his smile turning quickly to a wicked smirk of glee.

  In the short time that followed our home became suddenly taken by a great flurry. Mostly it was fuelled by Pranciskis, who hopped quickly on his one good leg from room to room, commanding us.

  Kazimeras and Ruta stood puzzled before their excited relative. The peasants’ lower lips, it seemed to me, hung like dumb packhounds’ jowls around their necks.

  “Quick, move yourselves,” said Pranciskis, “do you want the entire Russian Army to know we live like pigs?”

  Pranciskis went to sit at the table’s head, facing the door, behind one of his military books. Mother quickly lit his pipe for him with a taper from the fire, whilst the rest of us did his bidding – moving about straightening the wall mounts, putting fresh apples in baskets and piling up logs by the fire.

  I watched Jurgis happily shift about the room, dancing like a wildflower in high wind. He knew something more than the rest of us about the Russian soldier who slowly wended his way through the frost towards our home.

  As I peered through the little red window shutters with the heart-shape cut out in the middle I saw only a stooped, slowly moving figure clad head to toe in the army’s green serge. Even the soldier’s face was shrouded behind scarves. It seemed as though the conditions outside represented a deadly threat to his health.

  My brother and I wanted to run to the soldier but Mother did not allow it. Even though to us all, as he neared our
door, the soldier seemed a pitiable figure, gripping to his walking stick and swaying with the slightest of a breeze.

  Pranciskis roared: “Be seated, both of you. You will wait out your turn. It will be me the soldier wishes to address first, surely.”

  Pranciskis’s eyes grew wild when he spoke, his tone reached higher than usual and his manners became agitated. He was an animated little terrier tied by a rabbit hole, unable to hold for his release.

  We all waited for the soldier to knock, but he did not.

  The soldier merely walked right in through the door, and why not? It was our home, and he was our father.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  When I returned home I found my tiger’s footprints everywhere. My breath quickened as I kicked fresh earth over the most visible tracks and smoothed over the ground where my tiger had been.

  “The tiger’s print is most specific, it cannot be confused with any other animal, even a dog,” my father had once told me.

  His words came back ringing in my ears. I had asked him to show me, so I might be able tell a tiger print. “The arrangement of the toes and claws is quite different … look, Myko.”

  My father showed the tiger’s two clefts in the rear of its pad. “The dog does not have these clefts, Myko. It is a simple track to follow.”

  No one who knows a tiger print could ever mistake it for anything else. I knew at once my father would soon latch upon my tiger’s markings. The thought of him returning to find these tracks so close to home set my heart crossways.

  I worked hurriedly, but I knew that my actions were in vain – Father’s dogs would surely scent my tiger’s presence. At a point so close to the dogs’ own territory, where they fed and had marked as their own, there would be mayhem roused by my tiger’s showing.

  My only hope was for Father to return heavily burdened after the dipping so that his exhaustion forced him to seek rest at once. If this happened, then perhaps my tiger would be merely chased on by Father’s dogs.

  “Dogs will not attack a tiger on their own.” My father’s words followed me as I rubbed and rubbed at the dry earth.