In Search of the Blue Tiger

by Robert Power

  ‘Please God, please sweet baby and manhood of Jesus,’ she begs of me, clinging to my shirt, as the horses crash in the stalls, flaying their skin in panic. Explosions of heat crack saddle and harness, wheel-hoop and leather.

  When the night is done, on these nights, exhausted and spent, she climbs the stairs to the bedroom to find some comfort.

  ‘All in cinders. All in cinders. The horses, the coaches, the baby and all.’

  Sometimes, the young couple sense her coming up the stairs to where they sleep, wrapped in each other’s arms. They even feel the tug on the bedclothes as she pleads for an end to her suffering.

  ‘Spare my baby, cradle my baby,’ she weeps. Her tears fill the room. Her sorrow is the air. Maybe they wake and maybe they sleep. But in the morning they remember the cries in the night, the lick of the flames, the tug on the sheets, and the heavy sadness of loss.

  Then just we two: myself and Great Aunt Margaret in the empty room. The couple and four-poster bed have disappeared. She wears a wedding dress that trails forever. She holds the baby lovingly to her chest. Her daughter. The tiniest of bejewelled crowns on her baby head and a sceptre of purest gold nestling in her arms.

  ‘You can’t save me, Oscar,’ says Great Aunt, as the flames engulf her and her baby, ‘save yourself.’ And through the flames she smiles and through her smile I feel light and free.

  I have wings. Huge wings of a condor, an angel. Icarus. The roof opens out to the sky and I soar upwards and away.

  I float high above Tidetown. In the distance is a huge blue kite. I follow its trail as it dives and then nestles in the treetops.

  In the clearing is the house in the woods. The Twins are standing by the front door, stock-still, awaiting the flash of the bulb from the hooded camera, steadied on its tripod.

  It is a still day. There is a thin film of cloud in the early morning sky, but it is warm. Hives hum with the sounds of the bees shaping the perfect honeycomb cells, secreting the wax to form the impervious walls. Perch and Carp wear the black veils of the beekeeper. Perch holds the smoke-gun she uses to dull the bees so she can take the honey from the hives. Each twin performs her task expertly, taciturnly. Carp lifts the lid from the chosen hive; Perch sprays clouds of smoke into its interior. The bees quieten, the rhythmic humming decreases.

  Through their veils Perch and Carp exchange smiles.

  ‘No smoke without fire,’ says Perch.

  ‘Little striped beasties,’ says Carp.

  ‘Anaesthetised.’

  ‘Subdued.’

  ‘Their duty performed.’

  Like a trophy, a prized capture, Perch lifts the shiny panel of honeycombed syrup from the hive. It glistens in the breaking sunlight, dripping and bleeding. Licking the honey from the back of her hand, she stretches out her arm, offering her honey-laden fingers to her twin. Like a wolf cub at her mother’s teats, Carp sucks each finger, one by one.

  I wake, my head awash with images. I look around to acquaint myself with the here and now, to anchor myself in something that is real. I turn towards the light from the window and my altar.

  The wax from the candle has melted and solidified at the base of the photo. The two women, veiled once more, stare out at me from behind their masks. The pocket watch hands are silent at two and five. I lie still, the smell of my dream on the pillow. Snatches, no more. The sun streams through the window. I hear the voices of the monks in the gardens.

  ‘The ship,’ says one. ‘It’s in the bay.’

  ‘Tell the others. Gather up the honey pots, the fruit, the vegetables. There’ll be trade for us today.’

  I get up and look out the window. Monks are running hither and thither, excited at the news.

  It’s a beautiful pink dawn. The light is crisp and clear with a delicious taste of the sea on the breeze.

  There’s a knock at my door.

  It is Mrs April. She is dressed in a crisp white blouse and a floral skirt. She wears a huge floppy hat and carries a canvas parasol on her arm. Her snow-white gloves reach to her elbows and she has a silver bracelet on her wrist. Slung over her shoulder is a buckled satchel.

  ‘Look, Oscar, the boat is waiting for you,’ pointing to the huge galleon anchored in Open Bay, its snow-white sails billowing in readiness.

  ‘Do you remember when you first came to the library?’ she asks.

  ‘Of course,’ I say, how could I forget.

  ‘Back then I told you the story of how the Himalayas were formed. That once upon a time in Nepal all the mountains had wings and they could fly. Well, I’ve had a lifetime of reading stories and I know all things are possible, if we believe they can happen. We can find meaning and purpose in our lives and we can live happily ever after. If only we are not afraid to move on, and, instead of being stuck to the ground, we turn our faces to the sun and spread our wings.’

  What is it she is offering me? Is it the message from the Father: the words I couldn’t hear in my dream, even though he repeated them over and over again as he hammered the board to the mast of the ship?

  ‘But what of Mother?’ I say. ‘And the Great Aunt?’

  ‘Oscar,’ she says quietly, placing her hands gently on my shoulders, looking straight into my eyes, ‘they will be okay. You saw them yourselves. They have each other. You need worry no longer.’

  ‘But my things. My scrapbooks? My altar?’

  ‘Don’t you worry about them. I promise you I will pack them away and store them in the library here. The monks will take good care of them. You know that. Carpe diem! Carpe diem! Seize the day!’

  With that she takes me by the hand. We walk past the strawberry patch. And there are the new plants, free and verdant. She leads me to a bench overlooking the bay.

  Something deep and barely knowable inside me tells me my time has come and that I should trust the day to unfold. That, small and young as I am, I, like Haydn on his way to Vienna, can allow myself to leave this place of my childhood and make my way into the world.

  We sit together and watch in wonder as the ship prepares for its voyage. Crates of oranges, apples and pears, beautifully coloured blankets, barrels of wine and water, tables and chairs, are loaded onboard by sailors in blue-and-white hooped tops, their gloriously glittering earrings shining in the sun. Cows and sheep, chickens and rabbits, are led to their pens by deckhands who cajole and chivvy them, just like Noah and his wife of old.

  Suddenly, the wind picks up and the water in the bay waves a ripple of applause. In the wake, the galleon, magnificent and solid, turns its prow towards me and I see the figurehead. It is the torso and head of a tiger, painted brilliant shades of blue to match the decoration and gilding of the ship’s hulk. I can barely believe my eyes: the ship’s figurehead is a blue tiger! The wind swirls and the boat shifts again on its anchor, the tiger’s eyes set on the open sea.

  ‘The time is nearly here for you to set off on your journey,’ says Mrs April, holding my hand in her lap.

  ‘You see, Oscar,’ she says, looking back down to the galleon, ‘you can run away to sea, after all. It’s never too late. You can be the cabin boy, the first mate. You can be the captain, if that’s how it turns out. Oscar, you don’t have to stay here, living out other people’s lives, other people’s ideas. Here’s a secret: there are no demons or were-wolves or time travel, but there is chess and kites and goodness and hope. Little Oscar,’ she says, squeezing my hand. ‘We all deserve a life of our own. You do, too. Reach out and grasp it. You know, Oscar, and here’s a really big secret: nightmares can turn into fairytales.’

  We look deep into each other’s eyes, this beautiful woman and I.

  The last case of pickled cabbages and onions is packed safe and snug in the hold. The sails are full with wind, yearning for the open seas. The captain checks his charts as the flying fish leap a course to the mouth of the bay. The sun reflects a smile on the face of the clear blue waters as the ship strains on its anchor, eager for its maiden voyage.

  ‘All ashore that’s going ashore,
’ shouts the first mate, an old sea dog, grizzly white beard and earring the size of a door ring.

  Mrs April smiles at me.

  ‘Oscar, are you ashore or aboard, the past or the future?’

  The gang plank is still down.

  ‘Hop aboard, young fellow me lad,’ chimes the old sea dog. ‘If you’re up for adventure … we need help in the galley.’

  He looks down at Stigir.

  ‘And if he’s game, we need a ship’s dog, so he comes along too.’

  Mrs April opens her satchel.

  ‘I have something I would like you to have,’ she says.

  She hands me a beautiful book.

  ‘Take a look at the first page,’ she says.

  And this, in Mrs April’s immaculate handwriting, in luscious blue ink, is what I read.

  My Favourite Tiger Fact

  While in south-eastern China, an American missionary, the Reverend H. R. Caldwell, described a clear sighting of a tiger coloured deep shades of Maltese blue. At the turn of the century, Caldwell was in the Fujian Province watching a goat. One of the Chinese guides noticed a tiger. At first glance Caldwell thought it was a crouching man dressed in a blue cloak. A second look told him otherwise, ‘I saw the huge head of the tiger above the blue which had appeared to me to be the clothes of a man. What I had been looking at was the chest and belly of the tiger.’

  The man of God raised his gun to fire, but several children were playing between him and the tiger. By the time he had altered his position, the blue tiger vanished. Caldwell described the tiger as having a Maltese base colour that changed to deep blue on the undersides. Although he never saw the tiger again, villagers confirmed the presence of blue tigers roaming the lush forests and deep valleys of the area.

  (H.R. Caldwell. ‘Blue Tiger: a memoir.’)

  ‘A blue tiger!’

  ‘Yes, Oscar, so there are blue tigers in the world.’

  I turn the rest of the pages. They are blank.

  ‘For you to record your future,’ says Mrs April with a smile. ‘Come back to Tidetown when your book is full. When I’m an old lady and you’re a tall strong young man. You can sit by my fireside and read to me of pirates and the Azores, of love and exotic places. And we will eat buttered toast and drink tea.’

  ‘And play chess?’

  ‘Yes, Oscar, and play chess.’

  And she leans forward and kisses me on the forehead and time stands still to seal the moment and my future slows down to savour the memory.

  ‘Time to make your own magic, young Oscar,’ she shouts to the wind, her words echoing around the cliffs and gullies of the headland.

  My head feels like the pea, the future will come even if I stay here. The future, the ocean ahead. The present, all any of us really have. With the sails catching the wind, I walk up the gangplank.

  Here I stand on deck with Stigir, the newly appointed ship’s dog, by my side. I’m happy to be setting off on my own special journey into the future, not knowing what adventures await me, but sure that adventures there will be. The lookout, in the crow’s nest above, trains his silver telescope on the distant horizon. The anchor is heaved aboard and the heavy ropes released from their moorings. There on the quayside, waving me off, is Mrs April, a tear and a smile on her face. Just like the day she waved to her husband as the ferryboat sailed towards the battleship waiting in the sound. Whoever knows what life holds for any of us: Mr April, the eager young sailorman, watching the battleship grow larger on the horizon, the buttons still shiny on his uniform, off to war; me, a young boy, taking my chance in life, not knowing the future, but sure that it is not the past.

  Mrs April waves to us as the ship gathers speed. I wave back and Stigir wags his tail.

  ‘Chocs away!’ I shout to the freshening wind, as the huge and glorious vessel, freed from its ties and weights, speeds to the open sea and the world of oceans and jungles beyond.

  Robert Power was born in Dublin and now lives in Melbourne, as an Australian citizen, with his wife and his youngest son. He freelanced as a journalist in London for a decade, appearing regularly in newsprint and magazines including The Guardian, New Society, New Statesman, Radio Times, Time Out, City Limits. An earlier version of In Search of the Blue Tiger was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2008. He has just completed Swansong, a literary thriller and is currently working on a sequel to The Blue Tiger.

  Robert has worked in HIV prevention for many years, travelling to all continents as a consultant and publishing over 100 academic journal articles, appearing on TV and radio in Australia and abroad. He paints in oils and acrylics and has had five solo and four group exhibitions and numerous commissions.