The Last Tiger: A Novel

by Tony Black

  “I am here,” my brother’s voice came weakly, but his pebble-round eyes shone bright as he followed close to my steps.

  We were all very tired; in the darkness we seemed to have walked a great distance and I could no longer tell if the boundary existed. I felt the wire of the fence, I touched it to guide my way along its cold edge, but I did not see the ditch. My gaze could not reach that far.

  We continued along in the darkness for some time more and then, suddenly, I felt my brother walk into my back as we stopped quickly in our tracks.

  “There is a gap – the fence, look. It has been cut, look, look, Daina,” said Father. His words sounded urgent and excited; they carried hope.

  We all crouched around Father as he sought out a match; in its glare we could see where the cutters had twisted back the wire of the fence.

  In the matchlight I saw my Father smiling broadly. He seemed bathed in glowing light, but then I watched his face change quickly to a hoary death-mask. My nerves jumped as Father called out with terror, “Jurgis!”

  Father ran to my brother. I saw that Jurgis had fallen over; he was so small that I had not heard. Father scrambled with his matches and when I saw my brother’s face his eyes no longer sparkled; they rolled up in his head.

  Jurgis’s lips turned blue with the cold. Where he lay on his back in the dampness his face looked so white that it could have been painted. I looked at my brother and he seemed as lifeless as a doll; I started to cry.

  Father stood helpless above Jurgis and then Mother ran, throwing herself to her knees by his side. “Jurgis, Jurgis,” she said over and over.

  As mother held my brother’s head close to her heart, her hand stroked violently up and down his back and slapped at his spindly little legs. “Jurgis, Jurgis, wake up,” she said, “wake up, wake up, wake up.”

  I feared my brother must die. His face looked so rigid, as if set in bronze; seeing him like this felt like a sharp blade plunged in my heart.

  My tears stopped for all of a minute as I thought of my brother, gone from us. I wondered if he was already in heaven, flying with the angels. It all seemed so wrong, I could not believe it.

  I grew dizzy where I stood, swaying from toe to heel, but I would not have my brother taken from me. I had been his protector for too long to let that happen now. I must not be without him, I must not let him leave me, I thought.

  I ran to my mother and screamed loud enough to waken death. I slapped and I slapped at my brother; his head lolled from side to side, my hands quickly became sore.

  My mother did nothing. In the darkness her eyes shone like ripe berries, her teeth stuck tight against her lips, and then she disappeared. The matchlight expired and we fell into silence. If any one of us had taken a breath or a bird flapped a wing we would have heard it. And then came the dearest sound of my entire life.

  My brother coughed. I felt him shift in my mother’s arms. Father struck another match and when the light flooded in, Jurgis’s face came alive again. My mother clung to him. She wept with joy as she stroked at his head over and over again.

  Father took off this army greatcoat and wrapped Jurgis tightly within it. “Keep warm, my boy,” he said, pressing out his chest and making a cradle of his hands, “keep warm and we shall be safe soon, I promise you, my son, we shall be safe soon.”

  As I listened to Father’s words my eyes darted towards Jurgis, and then towards my mother. She frowned as Father spoke; she thought he had spoken too glibly.

  “You cannot promise us that,” said Mother, “you cannot promise.”

  The land seemed clothed in a purple light as we made our way across the ditch and found the old exporter, but my brother began to burn with fever once more.

  Mother’s hand trembled as she touched Jurgis’s brow, wiping away the moisture with her coat sleeve. She bawled out at Father and cursed him for bringing us here. Her brows came together above her red-rimmed eyes. “Jurgis is just a boy,” she said, her words rising like thunder, “he does not have the strength for this!”

  Father stooped his head. He would not fight with her, but soon turned away to face the old exporter who led us from his counting room to a little wooden hut.

  Inside the old exporter sat us by a black stove as he filled its pot-belly with coals. Mother held tightly to Jurgis, but she did not once look at the old exporter as he welcomed us, bringing rye bread and dark tea made with cut leaves and herbs.

  It soon grew warm inside the hut and Mother wrapped camphor bandages around Jurgis’s chest, all the while patting his head dry with her coat sleeve.

  As my brother lay huddled by the fire in our mother’s arms, I went over to look at him. He seemed very weak and pale. I took up his small hand and squeezed it tight.

  Jurgis smiled at me and I smiled back, wishing him to be well soon. “Be strong, Jurgis,” I said, “we will be in America soon, where we will see the shining motor cars.”

  My brother managed another weak smile, and I felt my heart seared in two.

  In time the old exporter led us from his little hut to the grain store, where great mountains of amber-coloured grain stood piled high to the roof beams. Men shovelled the grain into burlap sacks, filling wicker crates like huge market baskets for loading onto the train. Everywhere the busy hum of activity drilled in my ears.

  The old exporter moved quickly; his heavily creased black trousers became a blur beneath him. When he finally came to a halt he ran his fingers through his fine white hair and spoke. “And this, it is the hard part,” he said through his crowded teeth, “the boy must travel alone.”

  Mother shook her head firmly; determination shone from her every pore. “The boy is too weak,” she said, clutching Jurgis to her, “he will die with the cold. Do you hear me? He will die!”

  The old exporter’s hands moved nervously once more and then he hid them behind his braces, up on the bulge of his belly. “It has to be, we know of no other way,” he said, “he must be sewn into the grain sack like all the rest; we know of no other way – there is no other way.”

  My mother held back her emotions, but I saw muscles twitching at the sides of her mouth. “He can be sewn in with me,” she said loudly, “I will keep him warm with me.”

  “No, he cannot, the sack will not shut. Please, please,” said the old exporter, “there are others too; would you have their lives be jeopardised in this way?”

  My mother had no fight left in her; tears washed quickly over her high cheekbones. “Petras, please,” she said. Mother’s words scalded my heart but my father said nothing to her; his dark eyes alone said he could not have prised my brother from her clutches with irons.

  As Father walked away, my mother’s tears streaked down her face and her delicate shoulders trembled uncontrollably.

  “Petras,” my mother said, her voice as soft as a breeze, “Petras. Petras.” She carried on with his name until her words faded into a whisper, and then she sobbed.

  I went to my mother and brother and together we waited, in fear and silence, for Father to return. When he finally appeared he held up one of the burlap sacks we had seen. He seemed born of a new enthusiasm. “Myko get inside,” he told me.

  I did as Father asked, and then he pulled up the sack, over my head.

  “See, you see, there is room enough for two of him in there,” said Father, “you see, you see, my boys can travel together. Myko can keep Jurgis warm.”

  So, it was agreed this was how we must leave our homeland – sewn within grain sacks.

  The goods train would carry us over the border and then we would be loaded onto the ocean liner like cargo. We would see no daylight for several days and when we felt the swaying of the seas beneath us, it meant we would soon be safe on America’s shores, to begin our lives over.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  My father loosed the remainder of his pack of hounds. They ran calling for my tiger’s blood and latched quickly on his hinds and neck. I beat them off with my heavy gum branch. As a waddy it appeared a sound
one; I saw my tiger flinch from its reach but the dogs kept coming back senselessly.

  The smallest of the pack latched teeth on my tiger’s throat. I felt sure this attack must soon bring the fight to an end, but then my father cruelly sought to extend his sport.

  From within a tied-fast sack Father released my tiger’s mate. She rushed to join the fray, snarling and lunging, her white fangs turning quickly blood-red. Together the tigers and I fought fiercely against my father’s dogs.

  “Get back! Back!” I shouted. My hands clutched tight to the waddy as I swung it through the air, again and again.

  The earth felt scorched around us, the air close and musty, carried the fresh smell of blood. The blackened sky became deep hued as the night’s doom closed on us. Threatening clouds gathered pace in the breeze; they did not burst, only pressed their weight upon us from on high.

  “Back! Back!” I continued to shout to the dogs, but they did not tire; they knew who to take commands from.

  All the while my father trained his eyes on the fight before him. The veins in his neck pulsed hard, followed by a throbbing in his temples which seemed to draw all emotion from his haunted eyes.

  I watched his rifle keenly as I swung out with the waddy; he held it tight in his grasp, the tendons of his fist lit all the way to the knuckles by the fire’s glow. I knew he tired of this sport – he had means to call its halt – but I must fight on for my tiger.

  I swung out with the waddy time and again, I became a machine, fighting for my tiger’s survival. Nothing else mattered to me but the fight. And then, I heard the sudden sound of a rifle’s crack sear the air.

  “No,” I called. I watched my tiger’s mate fall.

  My father had fired upon her spine, his shot was true to a hair. I knew this was a most painful way to die.

  “No. No,” I called again as I watched the tiger writhe and whine upon the ground, in her slow, cruel death throes. She raised a dust-cloud with her beating twists and turns; I could not watch her die this way.

  “Finish her,” I roared out to my father.

  My tiger’s mate fell face-down in the dirt, her defeat and agony plain to see. “Finish her,” I called again, but my father stood mute. I knew he sketched plans to coax my respect as he stood raw-boned and calmly stroked the bridge of his nose. He raised up the rifle again, but this time he trained it on my tiger.

  The fight had turned to my tiger and the last of Father’s dogs and their fierce battle showed much strength was still held within them both. But the quick shifting of their limbs and claws dragged them before my father’s aim. Until the last blow had been dealt, Father could not raise his rifle to take a shot. But, when it came, and my tiger tore the life from the defeated dog, I watched Father steady the rifle at his shoulder.

  “No,” I cried out.

  My tiger’s mate ceased her struggle on the ground below. She looked dark and shrunken, her last breaths strangled by the blood and dirt in her throat.

  Father narrowed his cold eye upon the sight.

  “No! No!” I called out to him again. I would not let him kill my tiger; he had won his fight, he had won his right to life.

  Angry vibrations met my heart and my thoughts became crowded with my father’s injustice. The atmosphere fell heavy with my hurt; not a sound came as I ran for my father with the waddy raised.

  “You will not take my tiger!” I yelled.

  I sensed my tiger caught in Father’s gaze. He knew he faced the bearer of his death, and the one who stole his mate.

  “Leave him be,” I yelled, in the few leapt steps I took towards my father.

  As I ran with the waddy raised it felt as if I ran from myself. The being I was stood calmly and watched another bring that gum branch down hard, upon my father’s head.

  “Myko,” he said softly, as he slouched to his knees, and then fell before me.

  As my father landed in the dirt, his gun cracked out and caught my tiger square on the chest. The bullet shattered bone; I heard its clacking as I watched him limp slowly back towards the forest depths.

  “No!” I roared.

  A shadow of misery fell upon my tiger as he crept timidly away, and then all was dark.

  New fears quickly awakened in me and I felt my heart’s heavy throbbing turn to stone beneath my chest. The rhythm of my breathing slowed, became shallow and silent, and then a trickle of tears began. I turned to my father, where he lay on the forest floor. In a glance, in just one brief moment where I held my father in my stare I believed the man he once was to be lost to me forever.

  My father had taken too much from me now. I could not forgive him, my blood pumped a hate within me that I had never felt. As I stood squarely before him I heard my tiger struggling beyond in the gorse and I was overcome. I raised up the waddy and ran again for my father.

  “You killed him! You killed him!” I yelled as I ran.

  Father lifted himself onto his shanks to meet me; before me his head bowed. I moved to bring the waddy down on his skull and crush out his life as easy as the lives he had taken himself.

  “Why? Why did you kill him?” I cried uncontrollably as I forced out my words.

  My thoughts and hurt rose like a continuous hammering. Tears rolled from my eyes and were whipped away by the wind as I ran. In my life, I had never before confronted my father with such harsh words.

  “You are a murderer. You killed him. You killed my tiger just as surely as you killed my brother …”

  I had let out all I stored in me.

  The words entered my father’s flesh as easily as stick-pins and the pain of them rose in his face. His eyes opened wide and white beneath the moon, but his pallor suddenly shrank dark and scaly.

  He broke sweat quickly and his skin looked smeared with a heavy yellow oil. “No, Myko,” said Father in a voice that did not seem to be his own, “no,” he said again. The words sounded coarse in his throat. “No, it is not true.”

  “Yes. You killed him,” I shouted, “you killed him. You killed him!”

  I felt my hands tighten around the waddy; the smooth red gum wood felt as solid as steel in my palms. I lifted up my weapon and swung it in the air.

  “You brought us here, you took us away. You forced us through the snow and the mud and the cold and brought Jurgis to his fever. It was you. You tied him within the sack … where I held him. I listened to his heartbeats weaken, listened to his breath growing heavier and heavier with every gasp he took. My brother died in my arms. My brother, my own brother … I felt his body turn to ice within my arms.”

  Father’s mouth opened. He reached deep for words but none came. His face turned to a tense mask of sorrow. His eyes, sunken deep and lifeless within their sockets, filled slowly with tears and then overflowed.

  “You killed him. You killed him,” I said.

  Father bowed his head between his arms and wailed before me like a child. He dropped his face into the damp earth and shook violently. He writhed before me on the ground within his misery and as I stared I felt the waddy slip from my hands.

  “You killed him,” I said. “Jurgis was my brother and you killed him.”

  I had never seen my father this way. His bleak gaze sunken far inside his face cried of deep remorse and sadness.

  “Just like you killed the tigers, just like you kill everything.”

  As I moved towards him and picked up his gun, I heard the landward waves giving in to the shore, beyond the crackling branches of the fire.

  “Here, take this,” I said.

  I threw his gun to the ground, before him where he lay. “Take this, why don’t you kill me, too? Just like you kill everything.”

  Father raised the gun I laid before him and cradled it in his arms. Stroking the gun gently he rocked back and forth, back and forth, sobbing all the while. I believed he had broken.

  The sky above became black once again, the stars low and close as the clouds glided silently beneath them. The unspoiled forest beyond the clearing looked like a sinister plac
e to me now. I felt my purpose once, but now I knew my efforts had failed. I was locked in my injuries and the hurt I felt was savage.

  I turned from my father and as I moved I caught sight of a pale complexion, an ivory skin washed-up in the fire’s light.

  My mother pinned me with her eyes; whatever thoughts she held she kept to herself. Her hair was mussed by the wind, her eyelids heavy, but she stood as straight as a mullion-bar before me.

  Slowly, she moved beyond the wattles; gnats dived on the lantern she held in her hand. I knew her fears must have driven her from the hut to follow the fire in the forest. But as I wondered how much of the night’s conflict she had witnessed, I saw her grow stronger than I would have believed.

  “You must stop,” she said. Her words passed right through me, I could see they were for my father and I turned my head back towards where he lay on the ground.

  Mother’s voice rose higher; “You must stop,” she said again; her words carried a strength I had never heard from my mother. They crashed like rocks falling from the steep cliff face. As she walked past me, Mother stood tall before my father and then, gently, she placed a hand on his face.

  “I have failed, I have failed my family,” said Father, “I should have paid my dues … I should have gone back to the Czar.”

  My mother tightly held my father’s head in her arms. “No! I told you to stay with me,” she said; her voice echoed in the opening.

  Father’s head lolled on his heavy neck; his sobs grew louder and his back stood tense beneath his shirt. Father’s great shoulders shook as he stuttered for speech. “How many have seen red snow?” he muttered beneath his tears. “How many? I have. I have seen it. Snow turned to blood, miles and miles all around, everywhere. I have seen a world washed with blood. A world washed with red from the veins of my countrymen.”

  “You must stop,” said Mother once more, “raise yourself, raise yourself – you will not break.”

  My mother lifted my father onto his feet. “Do you hear me? You must stop, we need peace now.”