When the Tiger Roars

by Graeme Cann

  Misha greeted him on his arrival with news of Loloma’s death. The grief and despair that swept over him was beyond words. Loloma his closest friend was dead. As he listened to Misha, he struggled with a swirling mix of emotions. He was angry, sad, discouraged, and afraid. But there was also an overwhelming sense of pride in his boyhood friend. He had been courageous, determined, and brave. In his absence Ofa and Loloma, two of his closest friends, arrived home from a journey that they begun two weeks before he left for Towin. They had travelled through the rainforest to the far side in search of new land where they might establish the “new Sampa.” They had had the impression that they had been guided and protected by unseen guardians, and despite the many dangers that the thick forest harboured, not the least of which was the danger of losing their way, they arrived on the other side. To their amazement, they found a valley similar to the one in which the old Sampa existed. The size of the valley was not the only similarity, however. The valley was bordered on one side by the rainforest, and on the other side by a river. Beyond the river was a range of mountains. No one lived in the valley because there was no known way to reach it but through the rainforest, and that trip was long and arduous as well as extremely dangerous. If there was a way into the valley by crossing the mountain, no one had found it yet. The valley was extremely fertile and the climate the same as their current home. They were already convinced that they had found the place for the new village, but they planned to return with four others shortly with tools to manufacture a simple craft. Their plan was to travel downstream to see where it led them. Ofa believed that the river would eventually come close to the main road which led into Towin. If that was so, they could continue to serve the same markets as they did now.

  The day after Alofa’s return to Sampa, the friends of Loloma and his family took his body from the barracks and buried him by the river. Alofa spoke of his friend’s unwavering faith in the Great Creator and the inspiration that he was to so many. They sang a song of praise and then went to their homes. Later that day, people began to arrive at Alofa’s house as if drawn there by some irresistible force. When more than fifty adults had gathered, Ofa spoke to them of the valley that he and Loloma had found, and of their intention to return to explore the river. Alofa spoke of Kadir, Muralu’s friend, and of his belief that the Mordecans would again attack Sampa in the summer. “I must return to Towin once more,” he said, “but when I return we will meet together again and plan our escape from this place. All who wish to establish a new community committed to the Covenant in the valley that Ofa and Loloma have found may come. You must prepare for a long, arduous, and maybe dangerous journey through the rainforest. We will take whatever of our belongings that we can carry and if the Great Creator wills it, we will take as many cattle, horses, sheep, and goats as we can also.”

  That night as the people slept, Alofa, Ofa, and a third man sat together in Alofa’s house in deep and earnest conversation. The third man was Dodomi, the great grandson of the Elder Domoni who gave his life in a vain attempt to protect Marita on the day she died more than 100 years before. This young man had also been a lifelong friend of the others, and like his ancestor was a strong and courageous man. He had been conscripted into the army by Kaluba as the other two men had been, and like them he now refused to serve as a soldier. They each had suffered greatly for this decision but despite beatings and a stint in prison, they resolutely defied the law. In the army Dodomi had distinguished himself as a strategist and during this late night meeting, he had proposed a daring, almost breathtaking plan.

  “Our departure from Sampa should be coordinated with the Mordecans’ attack on the village. The first five miles of our journey is on a timber-cutters’ road that has been cut into the rainforest. We will travel quickly on this road and will have reached the place where we enter thick forest before others have noticed we have gone. When the Mordecans attack, some of our people will cut the fences along the road and we will take as many livestock as we can handle.”

  He looked steadily at his friends. “The Sampian Army is weak. The Mordecans will easily defeat them. Even now there are rumours that many of our soldiers will defect to Mordeca and turn on our own people. There will be a massacre such as we cannot imagine. Men, women, and children will die by the thousands. We have warned Kaluba and his generals of this but they will not listen. We have also warned the citizens of Sampa, but they have unfailing faith in the army and believe that we are simply scaremongering. People who know about these things have told me that the battle may only last for several hours, during which time the four hamlets will be taken and occupied, the farms and gardens will be acquisitioned by the Mordecan army, and those Sampians who have been injured or captured and refuse to cooperate will be executed. The Sampians who remain will become the labour force and will essentially live out the rest of their lives here as slaves.”

  Ofa and Dodomi now looked at Alofa, waiting for his response.

  “Ofa,” he said, “there is no time for you to return to the new valley. Instead I want you to take two other men that you can trust and travel to Mordeca to gather as much intelligence as you can. The more accurately we can ascertain the exact time of the attack on Sampa, the better. Be careful. The Mordecans will be watchful, and infiltrating Mordeca will be very difficult and dangerous. Dodomi, I want you and the wisest among those who support us to continue to plan our escape. Make sure that the head of every household knows the plan and understands the role that they and members of their families must play. I will leave immediately for Towin. Muralu must share with me the last of the Great Sampian Stories, because without it our knowledge of what makes a community great is not complete.”

  Two days after returning to Sampa, he left again for what he knew would be the last visit he would make to his uncle. He left before daybreak, and travelled under cover of the forest most of the way. On several occasions he saw groups of soldiers patrolling the road and checking the horse-drawn carts. Late that afternoon he arrived at Towin and went straight to his uncle’s cottage. Muralu was lying on his bed apparently asleep, but when Alofa spoke to him he did not stir. Alarmed, the young man went to him and felt for his pulse. There was none. Muralu had died alone during the night.

  Alofa was both overcome with grief, because he loved the old man greatly, and full of regret because he knew how badly his uncle had wanted to tell him the fourth story before he died. In his mind he struggled with what he must do next. First he needed to go to the doctor and report his death and then to his sons, who would of course organise the burial service. As he rose to leave the room, something caught his eye. There on the table was a neat pile of papers, and as he picked them up, he read the bold letters at the top of the front page. They simply said, “The Fourth Story.” The next morning they buried Muralu after a short but moving ceremony in a little garden at the rear of the cottage. After the grave digger had left, Alofa returned to the house, picked up the papers from the table, settled into Muralu’s chair, and began to read.

  “After Marita’s death, the army took complete control of Sampa. Each of the Elders who refused to pledge their loyalty was replaced on the Council by men appointed by the army. There were no women on the Council, and its role was completely changed. They no longer represented their family groups, making decisions which affected the whole life of the village. Instead they became an army instrumentality, whose job it was to receive issues raised by ordinary citizens, convey them to the army, and then to relay the army’s response back to the citizens. Any action that needed to be taken on any issue would then be the responsibility of the Elders. Although they were only figureheads, they were to be accorded great honour and respect, and were afforded privileges that other citizens were denied. They were given extra land, and family members were given plum jobs and promotion up the army ranks. Rubin elevated himself to the position of chief commander of the army, and none of his subordinates dared oppose or contradict him.

  “Of all the initiatives implemented under
Rubin, the most far-reaching in its impact on village life was the decision to lift all bans on entering the rainforest. Harvesting timber and hunting was now permitted, although at first there were few takers. It was also permissible to clear land at the edge of the forest in order to increase the acreage of their pastureland.

  “At about this time, deer and antelope began to invade the pasture for the first time in 500 years. Some farmers erected fences in an effort to keep them out, and others placed watchmen on the edge of the rainforest. Some of the deer and antelope were killed by the watchmen and eaten by the villagers. However, the joy of having access to a bountiful new source of fresh meat quickly soured when farmers reported that cows and goats were disappearing from their fields, and all the evidence pointed toward tiger attacks. Humans and animals no longer lived peaceably together. People talked about the dangers of tigers in hushed tones, suggesting that it was only a matter of time before a family lost a mother, father, or a child.

  “In the meantime, Rubin was becoming more powerful by the day. He was hailed as a hero, being credited with attempting to save Marita and Domoni by killing their attacker. He was also credited with saving Sampa economically by lifting the bans on expanding their pasture into the rainforest and approving of hunting and the harvesting of timber. He was praised for being a forward thinker who was leading Sampa out of the dark ages. He introduced new marriage laws that allowed a man, after he had been married for ten years to take a second wife. After twenty years of being married, he could take as many wives as he wished. Girls as young as thirteen were forced into marriage with middle-aged men. Women, once honoured and respected and treated as equals with men in every sense, were stripped of their privileges and treated as sexual partners and common slaves.

  “One person dared to oppose Rubin. Her name was Mara, the mother of Marita and Marilla her younger sister. Unlike Marita, Marilla was not born blind but had nevertheless been a constant source of grief to Mara. As a small child she was stubborn and rebellious. In her early teens she was attracted to the ‘raise up an army group’ and particularly to its leader, Rubin. She had become Rubin’s strongest supporter even though his ultimate goal was the overthrow of her sister, the Mother-Father.

  “She had married him, despite her parents’ opposition, and before Rubin had left the Council of Elders, she had given birth to twin boys. Shortly after Marita’s death, Marilla died in childbirth. Her baby girl survived but was given to another family in Sampa to raise as their own child. Despite his estrangement from his mother-in-law, Rubin had no option but to hand the care of his twin boys to their heartbroken grandmother. Although she was very elderly and was still grieving the death of both her daughters, Mara committed herself to the task of raising her grandsons. She received financial help from the army to cover the costs of raising the boys, but when they reached twelve years of age they were ordered to live in the army barracks and like other twelve-year-old boys, commence their army training.

  “No longer able to see her grandsons, Mara became an active leader of a group of dissidents, all of them women of all ages, who had a clear list of demands that they presented to the chief commander through public demonstrations and audiences with Rubin. These were their demands:

  1. That all timber-gathering and hunting in the rainforest cease, and that there be no further clearing of the forest to extend the grazing lands.

  2. That Sampa return to the Covenant as the basis of harmony between the people of the valley and the animals of the rainforest.

  3. That authority and responsibility be returned to the Elders, and that the army become subservient to the governance of the Council.

  4. That the age of boys being conscripted to the army be raised to eighteen years of age.

  5. That women be accorded equality with men, and be given the honour and respect due to them. That they be reinstated to leadership positions within Sampa.

  6. That violence against women and children be declared a crime, and therefore punishable by law.

  7. That the marriage law that allowed polygamy and child marriage be abolished.

  “At first Rubin was amused by the activities of the women and was content simply to ignore them. But as their numbers grew so did their anger. Mothers whose twelve-year-old sons had been conscripted by the army found an avenue for expressing their anger through the group, and hundreds of women sat outside the barracks everyday in protest. Some women who were the victims of domestic violence welcomed a platform where their demands for a return to gender equality could be made. Others, whose husbands had taken a second or third wife, and brought them into the family home, joined the group because it gave them an opportunity to express their opposition to polygamy.

  “Scores of women took over the village meeting house where the Council met, forcing the elders to meet elsewhere. The women extended their protest into the home where they refused to cook food for their husbands or to sleep in the same bed. Hundreds of women who were employed to make uniforms and other equipment for the army went on strike, and soon this intentional and concentrated civil disobedience began to take its toll. Rubin was rendered powerless. He could not gaol thousands of women, nor could he banish them all from the village. Members of the Council and even officers in the army, all of whom were being personally affected by the women’s protest, began to complain, with some of them even begging Rubin to arrange a meeting with leaders of the protest group, with the hope that a compromise would be reached. The commander of the army was in no mood for a compromise and instead arrested the leaders and detained them in a facility that the army had acquired for that purpose. He let it be known that they would remain incarcerated until the strike was called off and then they would be released. Among those arrested was Mara, Rubin’s mother-in-law.

  “The next morning, one of Rubin’s twin sons, incensed by his grandmother’s arrest, stormed into his father’s headquarters, demanding her release. He was immediately arrested by the army guards, and on his father’s orders was also imprisoned. The other twin disowned his grandmother and his brother, and affirmed his loyalty to his father’s leadership of Sampa. News of the arrests quickly spread throughout the village, and almost two thousand mothers and wives gathered in the village square, singing the song that they had sung the day they had marched against the Mordecans, and calling loudly for the release of the prisoners.

  “When Rubin stepped on to the platform, it was many minutes before the women even allowed him to speak. When finally the singing and chanting stopped, Rubin, flanked by his guards, delivered news so devastating that for a few moments there was stunned silence. Those who were under arrest were to be expelled from the village, never to return. Five of them had children and the children would remain with their fathers. Any other women who continued the rebellion would be arrested and banished also. Husbands were permitted to physically punish wives who refused to work or care for their households. In the moments following the announcement, the silence was broken only by a quiet sobbing that came from many of the women. The battle had been lost. The women’s leaders would pay a terrible price, and the lot of women generally would never be the same again. Two days later, very early in the morning, twelve women, among them Mara, who was more than eighty years old, were marched briskly through the village and on to the road that led to the town. They were allowed to take no belongings, and they carried no food or water. It would take them a whole day, maybe even more, to walk to the town.

  “People lined the streets, weeping. Eight crying children, whose mothers were among the prisoners, were restrained by their fathers. The courage of these women was astounding. Several other women and some men joined the party, preferring voluntary exile than the prospect of living the rest of their lives in Sampa. Late that day, a long time after sunset, the bedraggled party limped into Towin, where a compassionate citizen arranged for them to sleep in the town hall. An hour or two later, others, many of Sampian descent, arrived with food and water. The following day women from the town brought cl
othes for them and began the process of finding accommodation for this group of refugees.

  “Back at Sampa, the young son of Rubin who had not been exiled but remained in prison was dragged before his father. He was barely fourteen years old, but already as tall as Rubin. He had black hair and brown eyes like his mother, and the strong and handsome features of his father. The same courage and determination that had distinguished him during his two years of training in the army was now displayed in the open defiance of his father.

  “The commander in chief of Sampa gave his teenage son an ultimatum: pledge total loyalty to Rubin and accept his pardon, or become the first soldier in Sampa to be executed for treason. The boy did not hesitate. The cause for which his grandmother had so courageously fought was just, he said, and he would rather die than to be part of the oppressive regime that Rubin had established. The only emotion that his father showed as his son was hauled back to his prison to await his execution was anger. The boy was placed in total isolation. No one was to visit him and he was to be given no food and water. After two days had passed, he would be given the opportunity to change his mind. If he still refused to do so, he would be immediately hung on gallows that had been erected in the army barracks. When two days had passed, three soldiers went to his prison room, only to find that it was empty. His escape had been clearly planned and executed from outside his cell by a person or persons whose identity is until this very day a mystery. In fact by the time his escape was discovered, he was already safely in Towin where he had been reunited with his grandmother.”