The Tiger's Wife

  “Let’s suppose my uncle is Death.” He says this like he is saying my uncle is Zeljko, my uncle is Vladimir. He lets it hang between us for a while, and then, when he doesn’t hear me say anything, he says: “Are we supposing?”

  “All right,” I say eventually. “All right. Let’s suppose your uncle is Death. How is this possible?”

  “He is the brother of my father.” He says this naturally. Cain is the brother of Abel; Romulus is the brother of Remus; Sleep is the brother of Death; Death is the brother of my father.

  “But how?”

  “That’s not important,” the deathless man says. “The important thing is that we are supposing.”

  “We are, so we’ll keep supposing. Being the nephew of Death, I assume you are then born deathless?”

  “Not at all.”

  “It does not make much sense to me.”

  “Even so, that’s how it is. I am hardly the first nephew of Death, and those before me have not been deathless.”

  “All right.”

  “Now. Let’s suppose my having this uncle entitles me to certain rights. Let’s say that when I turn sixteen, my uncle says to me, ‘Now you are a man, and I will give you a great gift.’ ”

  “I understood it was a punishment.”

  “It is. The gift he is talking about is not deathlessness. That comes later. He says to me, ‘Anything you want.’ And I think very hard. I think for three days and three nights, and then I go to my uncle and I say: ‘I should like to be a great physician.’ ”

  This doesn’t seem very plausible to me, asking Death to make you a doctor. I tell him so. “Your business would be putting him out of his,” I say.

  “That does not matter to my uncle,” the deathless man says. “Because in the end, even if I heal every man who comes my way, the last word in all the world falls to him. He says to me, ‘Very well. I will give you this gift—you will be a great physician, and this you will do by being able to tell immediately whether or not a man is going to die.’ ”

  “That would make you the first,” I say. “Physician, I mean, who can reasonably predict whether or not he is going to lose a patient. Truly, after you, there have been no others.” I am smug about saying this.

  “We’ll not get anywhere with you interrupting to make smart remarks,” the deathless man says. “You’ve asked me to tell you about myself, and now you are laughing at me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because it is rare to hear him so impatient. “Please, continue.”

  I hear shuffling, and he is doubtless getting into a more comfortable position for his story. “Now, my uncle gives me a cup. And he says: ‘In this cup, the lives of men come and go. Give a man coffee from this cup, and once he has had it, you will see the journeys of his life, and whether he is coming or going. If he is sick, but not dying, the paths in the coffee will be still, and constant. Then you must make him break the cup, and you must send the drinker on his way. But if he is coming to me, the paths will point away from the drinker, and then the cup must remain unbroken until he crosses my path.’ ”

  “But we are all dying,” I say. “All the time.”

  “I’m not,” he laughs. “But then, I am the only one for whom the cup shows nothing at all.”

  “But really—don’t the paths toward your uncle Death appear in the coffee cup of every living man? Isn’t every living man a dying man as well?”

  “You are determined to make me look useless, Doctor,” he says. “The paths appear in the cups of men for whom Death is fast approaching. It is as if, having stepped into a room, a man can no longer see the door through which he has come, and so cannot leave. His illness is absolute; his path, fixed.”

  “But how is it that you still have the cup?” I say. “If you were meant to break it when the patient was well?”

  “Ah,” he says. “I am glad you asked. Whenever a patient breaks a cup, a new one takes its place in my coat pocket.”

  “Convenient,” I say, with some bile, “that you are telling me this from behind a wall, and cannot demonstrate your endless, regenerating cups.”

  “A demonstration wouldn’t prove a thing to you, Doctor,” he says. “You would only say that I am a magician, another trickster. I can see us now: you, flinging cups to the floor; I, handing you new ones from my coat pocket until you can no longer think of a name bad enough to call me. Smashed crockery everywhere. Besides”—Gavran Gailé says this last part good-naturedly—“what makes you so sure you’d be lucky enough to be breaking your cup tonight?”

  And though I do not believe him, Natalia, I feel cold all over. Then there is silence, and after a while he says: “By God, I should really like some water.” I tell him there is nothing I can do about that, and he says, “Never mind, never mind. So, off I go with my cup, a great physician now, able to tell a dying man from a living one, which, I can tell you, was a feat back then. First, the people who come to me are villagers, people with small ailments and terrible fears, because everything they do not understand frightens them. And some die, and some live; but what surprises them is that, sometimes when other physicians tell them they are certain to die, I tell them, against all the odds, that they will live. And they fuss and fear, they tell me, how can I live when I feel as terrible as ever? But eventually they get well, and then they thank me. And I am never wrong, of course, about this kind of thing, and pretty soon the ones who will get well do not doubt at all, and this, in and of itself, is a kind of medicine for them.”

  “Certainty,” I say.

  “Yes, certainty,” Gavran Gailé says. “And then, as time goes by, even the ones whose fates are sealed are calling me a miracle worker, saying, you saved my sister, you saved my father, if you cannot help me then I know I am meant to go. And, even though I am a very young man, I am well known, and suddenly craftsmen are coming to me, then artists—painters and writers and players of music—and then merchants, and after them, town magistrates and consuls, until I am seeing lords and dukes, and, once, the king himself. ‘If you cannot help me,’ he says, ‘then I know I am meant to go,’ and they bury him six days later, and he goes to his grave smiling. And I realize, even though I have not known it, that when it comes to my uncle, all their fears are the same, and all their fears are terrible.”

  One of the sleepers begins to cough, and then he is silent again, breathing slowly through his mouth.

  “But the greatest fear is that of uncertainty,” Gavran Gailé is saying. “They are uncertain about meeting my uncle, of course. But they are uncertain, above all, of their own inaction: have they done enough, discovered their illness soon enough, consulted the worthiest physicians, consumed the best medicines, uttered the correct prayers?”

  I say, “That is why they come to this place.”

  But the deathless man is not paying attention: “And all the while, out of their fear, I am becoming a great and respected man, known the whole kingdom over as a healer, and an honest physician who will not take money if the situation cannot be helped.”

  “I have never heard of you,” I say.

  “This was many, many years ago,” he says, undeterred. It is incredible.

  “And how does this perfect profession go wrong?”

  “I make a mistake, of course.”

  “It wouldn’t happen to involve a woman?”

  “It would—how did you guess?”

  “I think I’ve heard this kind of story before.”

  “Not like this, you haven’t,” he says to me cheerfully. “This time it’s true. This time, I am telling it. Yes, it is a young woman: the daughter of a wealthy silk merchant has fallen ill and the physicians are saying she is as good as dead. She has fallen ill quite suddenly, they are saying, and there is no hope. A terrible fever, a terrible ache in the neck and the back of the head.”

  “What was the matter with her?” I say.

  “Back then, there were fewer names for illness,” Gavran Gailé says. “Sometimes, when there was no name, you simply died of Death. She i
s well liked, this young woman, and about to be married. Her father, I see, has brought me there so he may resign himself, tell himself he has done all he could. The young woman, she is very ill and very frightened. But she has not given up. Though all those around her want me to tell them it is all right, it is all right they have given up, she has not, and she wants nothing from me but to understand that she is not ready to go.”

  I do not say anything.

  The deathless man continues: “I give her the coffee, I look inside the cup. And there it is: a journey beginning. All the dregs point to it, they make a little path away from her, and she is very sick, very weak. But still she does not give up, even when I tell her the news, when I tell her I am never wrong. She does not strike me or tell me to get out; instead, for three nights she clings like this to her refusal while I do what I can to make her comfortable.” He is quiet for a while, and then he says, “It does not take me three whole days to fall in love with her. Only one. But on the third day I am still there while her anger keeps her alive, and fills me more and more with despair and with love. She is so weak that when I tell her to break the cup, I have to hold her wrist while she does it, and she has to hit the cup three times on the side of her bed before it breaks, and even then it is a clumsy break.”

  For a little while, he doesn’t say anything, he just sits there behind the wall, shuffling quietly. I say: “Your uncle, I suppose, is furious after that.”

  “Furious, yes,” the deathless man says. “But not as furious as he is going to be later on. He warns me, you see. He says, ‘What you have done is despicable, and you have betrayed me. But as you are a young man, and very much in love, I will turn my head just this once.’ ”

  “That seems generous.”

  “It is more than generous. But of course, as it turns out, my love did not just fall ill. She was ill. And after we have fled together, after we have begun to build a life, it happens again, the same way over. She is in bed. I give her the coffee. I see what is there, and it is written as plain as a ticket or an agreement at a bank. But still I help her break the cup. What is there for me without her? Then my uncle comes. And he says: ‘You are a fool, and not my brother’s child. I indulged you once, but I’ll not do it again. From this day on, I’ve no need of you, and no want. Your time will never come, and you shall seek all the days of your life and never find it.’ ” Here, the deathless man laughs, and my head is filled with a dreadful kind of silence. “You see, Doctor,” he says. “At that moment, my uncle takes my woman anyway, and so for years I go about my life believing that this is what he is talking about, that I will never find her again, or someone like her again. But it is only when six or seven years have passed that I notice my face, my hands, my hair have not changed. And then, I begin to suspect what has happened. Then I confirm it.”

  “How?” I say, slowly. “How do you confirm it?”

  “I throw myself from a cliff in Naples,” he says, quite flatly. “At the bottom, there is no Death.”

  “How high is the cliff?” I say, but he does not answer this.

  “I still have the cup, though, and I go about my business, convinced that my uncle will forgive me in time. Years and years go by, and I find, suddenly, that I am no longer giving my cup to those I hope will live, but instead to those I think are certain to die.”

  “Why is that?” I say.

  “I find myself,” he says, “seeking the company of the dying, because, among them, I feel I will find my uncle. Except he never lets me see him. The newly dead, however, I see for days. It takes me a long time to realize what they are, for, of course, as a physician I could not see them, I could not see the dead. But my uncle, I think, does this on purpose, and I begin to see them standing alone in fields, near cemeteries and crossroads, waiting for their forty days to pass.”

  “Why crossroads?” I say.

  He sounds a little surprised at my ignorance. “Crossroads are where the paths of life meet, where life changes. In their case, it changes to death. That is where my uncle meets them once the forty days have passed.”

  “And cemeteries?”

  “Sometimes they are confused, unsure of where they are going. They drift naturally toward their own bodies. And when they drift this way, I begin to gather them.”

  “Gather them how?” I say.

  “A few at a time,” he says to me. “A few at a time, in places where many of them come together. Hospitals. Churches. Mines, when they collapse. I gather them and keep them with me for the forty days, and then I take them to a crossroads, and leave them for my uncle.”

  “Got any with you right now?” I say.

  “Really, Doctor.” He sounds disappointed.

  I feel a little ashamed of making light of the dead. I say: “Why do you gather them if they are going to him anyway?”

  “Because for him it makes things easier,” the deathless man says, “knowing that they are safe. Knowing that they are coming. Sometimes, when they wander, they do not find their way home again, and become lost after the forty days have passed. Then it is difficult to find them, and they begin to fill up with malice and fear, and this malice extends to the living, to their loved ones.” He sounds sad saying this, like he is talking about lost children. “Then the living take matters into their own hands. They dig up the bodies to bless them; they bury the dead man’s belongings. Money for the dead man. This is sometimes helpful. Sometimes, it brings the spirit back, and then it will come with me to the crossroads even if it has been years and years since its death.” Then he says: “I confess, too, that I am hoping, all this time, that my uncle will forgive me.”

  I am thinking here that, if this is true—which it is not—he has come up with a good way to tell the story so that he seems generous in it, and helpful, too, when in fact his help is ultimately intended for himself. I do not say this, of course.

  Instead, I say: “Why do you tell them that they are going to die?”

  “So they can prepare,” he says right away. “That, too, is supposed to make it easier. You see, there is always a struggle. But if they know—if they have thought about it—sometimes the struggle is less and less.”

  “Still,” I say, “it does not seem fair to frighten the dying, to single them out for punishment.”

  “But dying is not punishment,” he says.

  “Only to you,” I say, and suddenly I am angry. “Only because you’ve been denied it.”

  “You and I are not understanding one another,” he says. He has said this to me before, and he is always so patient when he says it. “The dead are celebrated. The dead are loved. They give something to the living. Once you put something into the ground, Doctor, you always know where to find it.”

  I want to say to him, the living are celebrated too, and loved. But this has gone on long enough, and he seems to think so, too.

  “Now, Doctor,” says the deathless man, with the voice of someone who is getting up from a meal. “I must ask you to let me out.”

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “You must. I need water.”

  “It’s impossible,” I say. “If I had the keys to let you out, don’t you think I would have given you water by now?” But I am wondering it a little myself, wondering whether or not I would let him out if I had the keys. I’m not saying what I really think, which is that I am glad he cannot come out, glad he can’t take the book from me, even though I still do not believe that I lost my bet. Even though I believe he would take it unfairly if he took it now. Then I say, “I wonder, assuming I believe you—which I don’t—how could I be responsible for letting out the man who is here to gather my patients for the grave?”

  The deathless man laughs at this. “Whether I am in here or out there, they are going to die,” he says. “I do not direct the passage—I just make it easier. Remember, Doctor: the man with the cough, the man with liver cancer, and the man who appears to have indigestion.”

  It is like we are playing Battleship with the dying. I tell him this, hoping th
at he will laugh a little, but all he says to me is, “Remember for next time, Doctor, that you still owe me a pledge.”

  I sit for a long time by that door, and then I am convinced he has fallen asleep. I get up and I continue my walking, but Natalia—I am telling you this honestly—that night they go, one by one: the man with the cough, the man with the liver cancer, and the man who appears to have indigestion. They go in that order too, but by the time we have lost the last one, the monks have returned and are helping me, performing the rites, closing the eyes and crossing the arms, and the dying all around are in distress, in fear, feeling themselves all over and asking me, it’s not me yet, is it, Doctor?

  By the time I go back to see the deathless man, the monks have already opened the cell and let the drunks out to the morning, and he is long gone.

  WHEN LUKA AND JOVO RETURNED FROM THE MOUNTAIN, carrying with them the gun of the fallen blacksmith—about whose fate they lied through their teeth, and whose final moments they played up to such an extent that stories of the blacksmith’s skill and fortitude were being told in surrounding towns long after the war had ended—my grandfather was relieved to discover that the hunt had not been successful. In the long afternoon and night while the hunters were away, he had contemplated his encounter with the tiger in the smokehouse. Why had the girl been there? Had she been there the whole time? What had she been doing?

  He knew for certain that her purpose had not been to harm the tiger, that she had smiled knowingly at him when it became obvious that the tiger had escaped. My grandfather considered what he would say to the girl when he saw her next, how he could ask her, knowing she could not reply, about what she had seen, what the tiger was like. They were sharing the tiger now.

  My grandfather felt certain that he would see her at the service to honor the blacksmith. Sunday afternoon, and he stood in the stifled back of the church, with its hanging white tapestries, and scanned the frost-reddened faces of the congregation, but he did not see her. He did not see her outside afterward, either, or later that week at the Wednesday market.