The White Tyger

by Paul Park

  “Quiet,” whispered de Graz, and they could hear the Gypsy smashing on ahead, snapping the dead sticks under their feet. She even called back to them, called Miranda’s name; de Graz seized hold of her forearm and held her. “Idiot fool,” he muttered in the common tongue, and Miranda knew what he was talking about. There were soldiers in these woods.

  Soon the girl had disappeared ahead of them. They stood in marshy ground amid a stand of dead trees. Above them the sky had lost almost all its light. There was no wind. The air was damp and cool.

  But among the dark beech trees there shined a light, the green glare of a phosphorous match. De Graz cursed and pulled Miranda back. They stepped up onto drier land and crouched in a thicket of thorns. “Mademoiselle,” whispered de Graz, “je vous en prie …” And he was begging her to leave the girl, who was obviously insane; Miranda shook her head. The light of the match dwindled and went out. It was maybe fifty yards away. Then the Gypsy must have struck another match, which flared up, dwindled, and went out.

  De Graz held Miranda with his wounded hand. The gun was in his left. Now he seemed to hear something and he stood up. A third match burned itself out. “No more,” Miranda murmured, and there was no more. Instead they heard a sound like the popping of a bag. De Graz whispered another curse, and he stepped backward. He reached down to grab Miranda again, this time by the ball of her shoulder, and he tried to draw her up the slope behind them. He tried to draw her away from the sound, but Miranda knew what had happened. She’d heard that noise before. And she didn’t have a choice anyway. She twisted away from Pieter de Graz’s bandaged hand. She had no choice as she stumbled into the dark woods until she found the place where Ludu Rat-tooth lay.

  The girl had fallen onto her back. She was on the bare ground under a tree. And because Miranda’s eyes had not been blinded by the burning matches, she could see the Gypsy’s eyes were open. Her cheek was against the dirt. Miranda pulled her hair back from her face, and she could feel the girl’s wet hair and skin. Her lips were wet with some liquid. Miranda felt an itch or a shiver between her shoulder blades. There was no point thinking about danger, though. It was a horrible thing to be shot or wounded in the mouth, even though the liquid in the girl’s hair was sweet, thin, and cold under Miranda’s fingers as she combed the coarse hair back. It was not blood. “Get up,” she whispered. “Can you get up?”

  Where was de Graz? There was some crashing in the trees back where she’d come. Someone cried out. Ludu Rat-tooth tried to speak, and Miranda put her cheek down to the girl’s lips, where she could smell the sweet smell of the juice. And was it her imagination, or was there some glow or sheen upon the girl’s lips? “Oh, miss,” she said.

  Maybe if they were still and quiet, the soldiers wouldn’t find them in the dark. Maybe if she crouched down like this in the undergrowth, in the thicket of small trees. Miranda found the Gypsy’s hands and they were also wet.

  “Can you get up?” she whispered. But the girl couldn’t answer any questions. She was squeezing Miranda’s hands. And her eyes were open. There was a purple sheen on her lips. “Miss,” she said, “don’t leave. Jesus help me. It’s so dark.”

  “I won’t leave you. Can you walk?”

  But there was a noise of someone crashing and blundering in the trees, and then the heavy thud of her father’s pistol—Miranda recognized the sound. Two gunshots close by, and then a coughing scream. The Chevalier de Graz was there, his bandaged hand around her upper arm. “Je vous en prie.”

  He lifted her up, dragged her away, but she resisted. Ludu also had grabbed hold of her. Ludu was squeezing her hands. And the girl’s shuddering whisper was more powerful than any exhortation, at least at first. Miranda had no choice.

  “What are you doing? Leave her! Come!”

  There was a light near them, a guttering red flare behind the trees. De Graz crouched over her and pulled at her hands, but she resisted. “This is not the way after all this,” he muttered next to her ear. “You have no right to be shot down like a dog.”

  “Can you walk?” whispered Miranda stubbornly. But already she knew the answer, and she knew why she was asking; the girl’s hands were slippery and wet. But it wasn’t possible to pull away from her and leave her here alone. Miranda thought she was not strong enough to pull away. The girl’s eyes were open and her mouth was open. Miranda could see the sharp edge of her tooth. At that moment, suddenly, she seemed horrible to Miranda, her chapped, spotted skin, big features and uneven teeth, gleaming in the filtered light of the red flare.

  “Don’t leave me,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me.” De Graz had let go of Miranda and was crouching nearby, his gun held out. Now he turned back, and she could see his disgusted look. She could hear a sobbing sound come out of her, but she closed her mouth, choked it back down. Now she pulled her fingers from the Gypsy’s grip, pried herself loose as the girl clutched at her: “Oh, miss!”

  Miranda left her. As the red light faltered and subsided, she crawled forward on her hands and knees. At first de Graz was behind her, and then he was in front of her, guiding her across the marshy ground. This was the open swale between the thicket where Ludu lay and higher ground to the south; they staggered up past the evergreens where they had rested and continued up the slope. Though there was dead wood everywhere and scratching undergrowth, de Graz led them quickly, bent almost double in front of her. Miranda thought of how she’d followed Peter Gross through the woods on Christmas Hill when he was younger, uglier, and sweeter, and he wasn’t a man yet, and he was missing his right hand. She also had changed.

  She felt her body shaking, heaving with dry sobs. At first she’d clenched her mouth shut, breathed through her nose. But soon she was guzzling all the air she could, and then the sounds came out of her, mixing with her ragged breath. De Graz’s pace was hard, relentless, punishing as he achieved the ridge and led them among outcroppings of rock beside the river. De Graz was punishing her, but not for the right reasons; Miranda stumbled over a downed tree. The moon had come up somewhere.

  De Graz didn’t wait. She could scarcely see his gray shirt up ahead, flitting through the saplings like a ghost. Her lungs were blazing and the dry sobs broke from her. Surely he wouldn’t leave her as she’d left the Gypsy, alone here in the dark?

  She fell and barked her shins. She fell forward on her hands and knees, and when she looked up she could see he’d stopped. A silhouette against the gray-black sky, he stood between two trees, the muzzle of his gun pointing above his head.

  Then he walked back toward her and helped her up and put his arms around her. They stood for a while, breathing, snuffling, and listening. The night was warmer now. Miranda’s arms and face were wet with sweat.

  And they could hear the sound of barking dogs not far away, maybe half a mile. Or else not barking exactly, but the baying of a pack of hounds.

  Miranda laid her head against the collar of de Graz’s shirt. She closed her eyes and thought of Ludu Rat-tooth lying in the dark.

  After a moment, de Graz spoke. “Mademoiselle. Perhaps this would be a time for some of the conjuring your aunt used to speak of. Since I swore my service to your father, I have seen miraculous things. All of them, I think, were ways to help you or protect you. I wonder if you know any of those tricks … .”

  He had been speaking in French, his voice odd, stilted, harsh. But now he finished with an English phrase, something he might have said in Massachusetts. “Now might be a good time.”

  It brought tears to her eyes to hear him use those words. She could feel his stiff hands behind her back. One held her father’s pistol, and one was thick with bandages. She could feel him flex it once, twice, three times.

  “Sure,” she said, because she had to say something. In the hidden world she had a tyger’s power. Here, not so much.

  She laid her cheek against his collarbone. She brought her hand up and laid it on his chest, feeling the swell of his breath, the shudder of his heart. “Abracadabra,” she murmured softly.
>
  She had lost her shawl, left it with Ludu Rat-tooth. The afternoon had been damp and chilly, but the night was suddenly warm. And surely the police or the soldiers had found the girl by now. And surely they had a doctor with them who could help her better than Miranda could. She had been conscious, talking, not badly hurt. Surely the dogs hadn’t found her.

  Pieter de Graz was telling her important things. “From here you go downhill to the river. You’ll find it shallow here. Wade in the water upstream. We’ve led them past the place. When you find the cattails and the three flat rocks, that is the place your father showed me. I think there is some old stonework under the surface that diverts the flow, forces it deep. You will see the eddy turn, and it is shallow and easy all the way across. A strong man can cross if he has to. In the spring the water is too high. Tonight it will be possible for you.”

  Slowly his breath was coming back to normal, and hers, too. “You still have your money. That’s enough. Hide the bracelet. There are towns as soon as you cross out of the preserve. You’ll see their lights along the shore. And many small hotels along the river road, but go on into town as far as you can. My mother has a house on Lake Herastrau. There is a fig tree. Seven steps to a door painted red. I will meet you there or send a message. And if not, then you will look for Lieutenant Prochenko. I left him in Chiselet. There are many old soldiers who remember your father. Many others who will fight against the Germans for your sake …”

  On and on. At some point he had switched back to French. “What about you?” Miranda murmured, and she felt him shrug. The dogs were closer now.

  “I’ll make a circle back toward Mogosoaia. You’ll be safe. I’ll leave a message … .”

  He meant he intended to lead the dogs away. “Take this,” he said, and she could feel her father’s pistol flat against her back between her shoulder blades.

  “You keep it,” she whispered against his neck. And she was in his arms, and she could feel the club of his bandaged hand against her back. He bent down and kissed her on the lips. As if the kiss had liberated it, she could smell the bitter smell of his sweat, feel the scratch of his unshaven face, the sharp hair around his mouth.

  “Stop,” she said after a moment. Her eyes were full of tears.

  “Mademoiselle.”

  “I’ll see you again.”

  “I don’t doubt it. In a few days I’ll leave a message. Good luck.”

  And he was gone, striding upright down the hill, breaking twigs and branches now. As she watched, he paused to urinate against a tree. Something for the dogs to smell. Embarrassed, ashamed to leave him, she turned away and ran down the opposite slope toward the water.

  Now there was a moon. She pushed through the undergrowth until she stood on the pebbly shore, looking at the lights across the way. The river was wide and quiet here. Dutifully she scuffed away her footprints and went down and stood in the water, a few inches deep around her leather boots, which leaked. She listened to the yapping of the dogs. It came in waves. Sometimes it seemed far away, then close, and then it trailed off.

  Dutifully she turned upstream. The water had receded from its banks, leaving a narrow beach. Close at hand, trees and bushes overhung the water, and she kept close beside them as she waded. Sometimes she had to clamber onto the bank again, and sometimes the water rose over the tops of her boots; it didn’t matter. She would be drenched soon enough.

  Because this was a difficult task—slipping in the mud and clambering over rocks as she fought her way upstream in the dark—she didn’t ask herself what she was doing. As was her habit, she concentrated on each tiny thing, one after another in a chain. And she listened to the music of the dogs, and she worried about the obstacle in front of her. Would she recognize the three flat rocks among the cattails, the old stonework? A strong man could cross if he had to. What was that supposed to mean?

  But she could feel a constriction in her throat, the tears she was swallowing down. Sometimes she wiped her eyes and nose with her wet hands. People had died to keep her moving forward. Aegypta Schenck had died, Dinu Fishbelly had died. And his daughter lay alone in the dark woods, and Peter also … The dogs were louder now. So it was the least she could do to stumble forward step by step. And even if she didn’t know where she was going (the river road? Lake Herastrau?), still—first things first. She would find Andromeda, Lieutenant Prochenko now.

  In Mogosoaia, in St. Mary’s cave, Miranda had found a key to a hidden world. But in this world also there was a key if she could discover it, something to unlock the mysteries of her unhappy country. It was her duty to search for it, her duty also to preserve and justify the faith of other people—that she’d been somehow chosen by a fate that transcended her own ordinariness. If she kept going, kept striving and fumbling in the dark, then maybe she would find the pressure point, or else a small stone she could struggle to dislodge. Everyone she spoke to claimed the rocks were insecurely piled, and that even a small shift might bring them tumbling: foreign armies, a government of murderers and thugs …

  With cold, failing fingers she clambered over the wet boulders until she found herself standing in a shallow pool, the water about her shins. Above her loomed a rocky cliff, and all around her there were cattails. She saw three flat stones in a line, and lights across the way. The river swirled in a great eddy. Miranda stood in a detritus of sticks and foam. She had all her money, her purse of gold coins, which Ludu had sewn into the waist of her riding pants. Doubtless now if she escaped, she could find some dry clothes and a bed. Then what? She would lie in it and think, stare at the ceiling.

  She climbed onto the nearest of the flat stones, then hopped out to the farthest. She saw no sign of the old dam or bridge or whatever it was, and the water where she stood looked smooth and black and deep. But Peter had led her to this place, and she owed it to Peter to continue on, to try. She owed it to all of them, to Aunt Aegypta, to Great Roumania. “Expedite the inevitable,” as Stanley, her adoptive father in Berkshire County, might have said.

  The baying of the dogs had died away. But now it surged back close at hand beyond the black rocks that loomed above her. And she heard gunshots, too.

  Expedite the inevitable. In an instant, without thinking, she was stumbling back through the pool, through the cattails. She was clambering onto the bank and then along the small path that led upstream and back through the overhanging rocks.

  Her boots were full of water. She squelched and slipped through the tall grass. But now she found her way uphill under the trees, and the dogs were barking, and there was some new light beyond the crest of the hill. When she reached the top she could hear voices and see the lights between the tree trunks, a glare below her in an open place. She climbed downhill as quietly and delicately as she could, until she stood under the big oak trees and saw the glare of the lanterns.

  For a moment she remembered the scene on the Hoosick riverbank when Captain Raevsky had taken her prisoner. Now men in dark uniforms had pulled the dogs away. Leashed, still they jumped and barked. And in a broken circle of soldiers, Miranda saw Peter on his knees, head to the ground, hands behind his back. An officer was standing over him and had bent down to talk, a tall red-haired man with silver buttons on his jacket as Miranda saw when he stood up, frowning and obviously dissatisfied. He had a whip in his left hand, which he must have used to beat away the dogs. And he had picked up a pistol from the grass, the gold-chased pistol of Prince Frederick Schenck von Schenck. He glanced into the chamber and pulled the hammer back. Then he pressed the octagonal muzzle against the back of Peter’s head and would have killed him, murdered him, Miranda thought, if she hadn’t spoken, hadn’t stepped out from the shelter of the tree, hadn’t cried out and then murmured, “I give up.”

  4

  Sasha Prochenko

  BUT IN THAT world each living creature has its analogue. In that world the dead will find each other once again, not in these bodies but transformed. This will happen both for better and for worse, because evil men and women al
so die. There will be fights and struggles. But just as there are places, accidents, and mental habits that dissolve the boundaries between that world and yours, so also there are points of access between that place and another one, above it and beyond, and one beyond that, until we rise up to the throne of all the gods. And underneath those thrones we will be rarefied and distilled. I say this not because I know it, but because I have faith that it is so. And I offer it to be a comfort, my dear girl, when everything seems dark. For through those holes and dissolved places when they are aligned, there comes a light that filters clear down from the top. It is an analogue to sun and moon and starlight, which is the same in all those places under heaven … .

  These words of Aegypta Schenck’s, written before her death, had not developed out of any practical experiment or test. Instead they had derived from drawings she had seen in books, as well as a complicated metal astrolabe that had once belonged to Isaac Newton. Now a citizen of the world she had imperfectly described, perhaps she would have wanted to revise this passage in particular.

  At noontime on the day Miranda was taken prisoner, while Radu Luckacz was bumping toward Bucharest in his motorcar, a feverish young man stood on the high street in Chiselet under a bright sun. A soldier like the Chevalier de Graz, he also would have rejected with disgust Aegypta Schenck’s model of the universe, her nesting spheres around a source of light. He knew the truth without thinking. He knew it in his irradiated bones: The sun shining above him on this unseasonably cool summer day bore no resemblance to the secret sun. They were not aligned, did not partake of the same essence. In the hidden world, black rags of clouds blew across a bloodred sky.

  He was thirsty. The sweat was dripping down his arms in the hot air. In the hidden world his tongue lolled out and he was panting. The pads of his feet were sore. Stiff-legged, he stood on the high street of Chiselet among the burning buildings. Patches of his fur had fallen out.

  He limped along the road looking for water and a place to rest. But there was no refuge for him. In the singed fields outside the town the water had dried up. And in the town the intact buildings were full of animals. Nor had the catastrophe—the explosion of the train and the resultant fireball—brought any reaction of kindness or solidarity among the creatures of the town. More than ever they’d divided into struggling factions. The older inhabitants had turned against the new arrivals: industrious and energetic rats that had been multiplying all over central and eastern Europe.