In Search of the Blue Tiger

by Robert Power

  ‘Which parent has not had heartache and difficulty in nurturing their loved ones? Why, not all went well for the original couple. But don’t take my word for it – let’s turn to God’s Word. Genesis, chapter four.’

  Another rustle of pages, another close-up of the scab.

  ‘Let us read verses one through nine,’ continues Brother Pearson, smoothing down the page of the Bible on the lectern before him.

  ‘And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bore Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bore his brother, Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?’

  I had forgotten about the big white sheet on the wall. So when the collective Bibles close and I look up, I’m surprised to see a picture filling the screen. The slide shows two small, bedraggled children, a boy and a girl. Their clothes are ragged; they have no shoes. They stand in a muddy street, in front of a makeshift hut. One of them has a cigarette in his mouth. I want them to hold each other, but they stand apart.

  ‘All families have problems,’ says Brother Pearson. ‘The very first family in the Bible had terrible problems, problems which led to murder and deceit. And it is the same through all generations. Just look at these two children in the picture,’ he says, pointing to the screen. ‘Nearly two thousand years later and families are still rent asunder. As some of you know, Sister Anita and I spent a blissful year witnessing in Colombia. Sadly, street children like these were everywhere. Abandoned, directionless, thrust into a dangerous and violent world. Stripped of their innocence, denied the fun and wonder of being a child.’

  Not so much the filthy, torn clothes, the blackened feet, but the look on their faces, that’s what I see. Dull, flat, tired. Like war veterans who have witnessed enough, too much. Worn out and worn through. Two small children staring down at me from the screen. They know I know. The look in their eyes sends an arrow to the hollow place inside me. These are my brothers and sisters.

  ‘If we love and protect our children,’ implores Brother Pearson, ‘guide them justly and fairly, nurture their hopes, embrace their fears, show them the way of the Truth, then the paradise Jehovah promises us will be here on earth…’

  The slide has changed. I can barely believe what I am seeing. I am transfixed. I no longer hear the voice from the stage, am no longer aware of my surroundings. There, filling the screen, is a drawing of a small boy, kneeling beside a tiger, hugging the huge cat’s neck. The tiger is lying in the long, lush grass. Above, in the tree-tops, exotic birds nest. Brightly coloured butterflies float by. In the background adults are carrying huge platters of sumptuous fruits. They wear crisp white clothes and smile happily. Nestled in a hill-top is a beautiful house, surrounded by a wonderland of plants and flowers. Then I realise the boy is me. He has short, parted hair, flat to his head. His face is peppered with freckles. He loves the tiger and the tiger loves him. He doesn’t need the adults coming up the hill with the feast. The tiger will protect him and give him all the nourishment he needs.

  I climb into the picture. The sun is warm on my face. I can hear the men and women singing as they make their way up the gently rising path. There is a stream bubbling somewhere in the distance. The birds fly down from the trees, a butterfly lands on my arm. Most of all, the tiger is by me. I sense and smell his presence, wallow in the softness of his fur, listen to the subtle rise and fall of his breathing.

  The picture changes. I am back in my seat. Next to me is Carp. Ahead of me, Brother Pearson. Behind him on the screen, a blown-up cover of the most recent Watchtower magazine.

  ‘My message to you,’ concludes Brother Pearson, ‘my message from God’s Word, is that children are a gift. Each is rare. We parents are but trusted servants given the privileged task of overseeing their growing, to gently guide them through the trials, the challenges, but, most of all, the joy and the wonder, the sheer bliss, of childhood.’

  The audience applauds. Brother Pearson bows his head slightly, smiling the smile that makes me feel warm and well inside.

  As he comes down from the stage I feel compelled to speak to him. I stand up, waiting for him to come past our aisle. All around me people are getting up, chatting and putting on their coats.

  ‘Brother,’ I say, aware Perch and Carp turn and stare at me as I speak.

  ‘Yes, young man?’ he replies, standing close to me.

  ‘The picture … the picture you showed,’ I say quickly, trying to get it all out while my nerve holds. ‘The tiger and the boy. Is it really true? Will they play with each other in paradise, will people and animals be peaceful and happy with each other?’

  He smiles again. ‘Yes, yes, indeed. It is all there in the scriptures. Paradise will be on earth, Jesus will reign for a thousand years and all the animals will be at one with man.’

  ‘Tigers and boys?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Tigers and boys.’

  Music is playing. Carp tugs on my sleeve, handing me a hymn book, pointing to number twenty-five.

  ‘We’re Jehovah’s Witnesses,’ I sing along with the congregation, with gusto, with conviction.

  ‘We stand out for righteousness,

  our’s is the God of true prophecy.

  What he foretells comes to be.’

  Across the road, Barney Butcherhook can hear the sound of singing coming from the picture house. The shop is shut. His mother is upstairs, washing her apron in the bath. He takes the tiny heart, plucked from the blackbird he tormented in the wood, and places it in the mouth of the pig’s head resting centre-stage in the shop window. Inside the picture house we continue singing, oblivious to the outside world.

  ‘But let’s go on,

  bravely press forth,

  advancing truth be our light.

  Thus says Jehovah,

  I’ll comfort and save you,

  triumph for truth and for right.’

  My Bible study will help me change from being a Worldling to being in the Truth as one of Jehovah’s people. It is like changing from one thing to another. Perch and Carp tell me I will be reborn. I hope I can be a blue tiger, but I haven’t asked them that yet. Then, one thousand years later, we will be tested again, by Satan, the Fallen One. Satan is a demon and Perch and Carp tell me to look out for signs of demons in Tidetown. I’m learning so many things from them. They think I might be a demon myself. They say I may be possessed and that all my family, all the House of the Doomed and Damned, may be involved in Demonism. They say all the were-animals are devils. And I must avoid them and give myself to Jehovah. Only Mrs April is good and kind: I must witness to her. I need to pray to Jehovah.

  Dear Jehovah,

  Help me to find a way to save Mrs April from Mr Fishcutter, whatever form of were-animal or demon he is. I will, like your own son, sacrifice myself if needs be. Not on a cross, because no one else can do this, even Peter went upside-down when he was crucified, so as not to be too much like Jesus. Though the Twins tell me it was a stake and not a cross, which is a pagan symbol the Roman Catholics allowed so everyone would be a Catholic. They did this (hung Christians on a stake with their hands above their heads) so the blood would drain down and the vital organs would stretch to the ground. This was so the soldiers could pie
rce their side, like Jesus’ wound in his ribs, not just for Thomas to poke his finger in, but also to make sure he was dead. Like in the film I once saw: not so much the vinegar on the stick as the spear. What a mess!! Anyway, not like that, but any other sort of sacrifice you decide.

  In Jesus Christ’s name,

  Amen.

  The Bible Study is so good. It is makes sense now. It was hard reading it to myself in the cellar. Now I will grow in the Truth. For my homework the Twins have given me a list of all the places where the word ‘sacrifice’ appears in the Bible. Before next Thursday I’m to look them up, read them all and prepare a two-minute talk. This is what Perch and Carp say happens at the Kingdom Hall on Wednesday at something called Ministerial School. Brothers and Sisters, for we are all Brothers and Sisters, take it in turns to talk about a topic. Though I’m nowhere near being a Brother, Perch and Carp say it will be good practice for when I am, and we can practice when we’re together.

  Notes for practising talking and being a Brother:

  Obeying is better than sacrificing (1 Samuel 15:22)

  Sometimes God will sacrifice his enemies, especially if they come from the North (Jeremiah 46:10) (Tidetown is in the North!).

  God wants love more than sacrifices (Matthew 9:13)

  It is better to be a living sacrifice than a dead one (Romans 12:1) (But I bet it hurts more)

  God lets animals feed off sacrifices that have been given to him (Ezekiel 39:17)

  Jesus sacrificed himself for all our sins, once and for all, and if we sin once we know the Truth, no sacrifice can take away our sins (Hebrews 10:12)

  We must not make sacrifices like Worldlings who burn children for their Pagan Gods (Deuteronomy 12:31) (Did the Father and Mother and Great Aunt burn the baby for a pagan god. Is there a pagan god of the horse?)

  Everyone will be purified by fire, just as a sacrifice is purified by salt (Mark 9:49) (Was the Great Aunt Margaret’s baby purified in the coach-house?).

  If you know a soldier who’s been to war, don’t be the first person to come to their house or you’ll be sacrificed (Jude 11:31)

  If you give sacrifices to God, make sure there’s some left over for the priest (Daniel 9:27)

  The moon is high. The church spire points out the stars for any to see. But all the townspeople are asleep. It is the dead of night. An owl turns its head in a deserted barn. It winks one eye; the other is covered by feathers. The clusters of houses nestle together, lights out and no reading. But one candle burns on. In the corner of a room, beside the big wicker bed, barely lighting their twin heads on the duck-down pillow, quietly whispering in each other’s ear, Perch and Carp keep their own counsel.

  ‘Sacrifice’, whispers Perch.

  ‘Like Isaac,’ whispers Carp.

  ‘The sins of the father.’

  ‘Recompense, in sure hope of the resurrection.’

  ‘When the tombs will open and give up their dead for the thousand-year reign.’’

  ‘The prince of peace.’

  ‘Our witness to him.’

  ‘To free our father from the sin of the flesh.’

  ‘Kill the demon in him to give him life.’

  ‘And we will take the demon and skewer him to the tree.’

  ‘Which tree?’

  ‘The big tree.’

  ‘The big tree by the babbling brook.’

  ‘And his blood?’

  ‘His blood will run, his blood will flow.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To the sea.’

  ‘To the ocean, never to dry.’

  ‘And if he screams for mercy?’

  ‘No mercy, the demon.’

  ‘There can be no mercy.’

  ‘No mercy where redemption’s due.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The fishcutter’s knife, from the wooden block.’

  ‘Cut from oak.’

  Who will do the deed, the cut and the thrust?’

  ‘The boy.’

  ‘Which boy?’

  ‘The Oscar boy.’

  ‘Oscar.’

  ‘Oscar.’

  The moon sends a wind through the open window. Out goes the flame from the candle. Asleep goes Perch. Asleep goes Carp.

  FOURTEEN

  THE PLAY TAKES SHAPE

  ‘The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.’

  Reverend Caleb Colton

  ‘Have you thought?’ says Perch, the two of them at the back of the class, Mrs Teachwell scratching out theorems on the blackboard.

  ‘Of her?’ whispers Carp, copying out the omegas and betas, sigmas and deltas.

  ‘The wicked Stepmother, in disguise, to corrupt him.’

  ‘The she-devil.’

  ‘Satan, the devil.’

  Mrs Teachwell looks back over her shoulder, the chalk still moving in one hand, a geometry book flapping in the other. She glowers over the top of her glasses, but is unsure what her radar has picked up. Satisfied that a generalised mine-sweep will do, she scans the sea of expectant faces and returns, with a dusty cough, to the chalkface.

  ‘She made him do it,’ says Perch, her voice as soft as a scratch on the wooden desktop.

  ‘Everything was good before she came,’ replies Carp without moving a muscle.

  ‘Sent by Lucifer to be his wife.’

  ‘The devil for a phantom mother.’

  ‘Suckling the demons at her breasts.’

  ‘Her three breasts.’

  ‘I’ve seen her, in the bath.’

  ‘Six nipples.’

  ‘Six, six, six.’

  ‘The sign of the beast.’

  Mrs Teachwell turns from the blackboard. She has a chalk mark on her chin. All the children see it. Each one notes it for jokes at playtime. Each, except for Perch and Carp. Distractions are of no interest to them. They have their own world to deal with.

  Mrs Teachwell closes her book with a bang and readjusts the glasses on the end of her nose.

  ‘So then,’ she says, an outstretched arm pointing to the sea of lines and symbols festooning the board. ‘Where do two parallel lines meet?’

  Today, 29th November, we remember the dead sailors of Tidetown. We have a Religious Assembly and Mr Manning, the Headmaster, tells us stories of all the famous shipwrecks off our coastline and all the brave acts done by sailors.

  I love the story of Billy Bones, the cabin boy, who gave his own life to save the ship and all aboard. He climbed the main mast in the eye of a thunderous storm and secured the rigging of a broken sail that threatened to drag the ship under. On his way back down he was hit by a monstrous wave and swept to a watery death. A memorial was erected to him in the town square, as the fair-haired boy who sacrificed his own life so others could live on.

  At Assembly we sing ‘For those in peril on the sea.’ For years I thought it was a place, like ‘Clayton-on-Sea,’ where all the souls of the dead sailors gather. Once I asked the teacher where ‘Peril-on-Sea’ was and could we visit it. She looked confused and then explained it was not so much a place as a danger, and I wondered if it was a dangerous place, but then she was distracted by some children in a corner of the playground and said she would explain later. But she never did and for a long time, until I saw the word ‘peril’ in a comic, I was scared of ‘Peril-on-Sea’ and for once was glad my parents never took me anywhere in case we might end up there on a holiday.

  Later in the playground, hoops try to escape their masters and mistresses, balls bounce frantically to clear the high brick walls. Children point to chins and bums and laugh. Small chunks of slate are thrown to the ground and hop is scotched. The sky has that yellowing quality presaging snow. The gulls squawk above the heads of the children to remind them they are there. In the shelter next to the caretaker’s house sit the Twins, duffel coats buttoned up to their chins, hoods pulled tightly over their heads.

  ‘The stepmother must live to see Armageddon.’

  ‘To die at Armageddon in the fla
mes and the floods.’

  ‘When all living unbelievers and sinners will descend to the graves of Hades.’

  ‘Never to know the peace of His presence, when all the demons are cast away.’

  ‘Death and Hades to be her judgement.’

  Like a spirit, a solitary hoop-la wheels past them. Two young boys, short trousers, snake belts and scabby knees, follow in hot pursuit. A whistle is blown, everyone freezes. A second shrill on the whistle releases the children. Lines begin to form at the entrance to the school building. In unison, Perch and Carp rise from their bench and walk in step towards the afternoon.

  All the children’s heads turn to the sky as the first snowflakes of the winter flutter gently earthward.

  Mrs Fishcutter sits at the kitchen table. It is just before dawn, an hour before her husband will set off for the quayside to meet the boat, full of whitebait, in from the North Sea.

  She is reading her Bible, imagining the apostle John on the tiny island of Patmos receiving the Revelation. As she often does, she comforts herself in the knowledge Jesus will soon be coming back to earth to free his Witnesses from their trials and tribulations. All the signs of the last days are here. The wars and rumours of wars, Communism, false religions, floods, famines and droughts. The Watchtower magazine has been running a series on the fulfillment of prophecy, ancient and modern. The signs of the times to witness the last days, blighted with godlessness and Satan worship, the plague and pestilence.

  Each morning she reads something from the Watchtower and something from Awake, the other magazine produced by the Brothers in Brooklyn. She flicks through the new edition of Awake, settling on a piece headed: ‘Nothing new in Jehovah’s World’. She reads and rereads the scripture highlighted in a box straddling the double pages.