“I wonder…” He was incapable of making promises of any sort.
His last visit was after the old ladies had died and the house was turned into a museum of torture, for which he was to serve as curator. I was by then too old for our little games.
That time, too, a hired car came to take him to the station—spotless, black and impressive. He tripped on the front stairs, and when I went to help him he thanked me in a raspy voice. I caught a whiff of his favorite cologne.
It shocked me to realize that he suddenly seemed old—so frail that the slightest push would have sent him tumbling. The body I had felt when I’d gone searching for my hidden presents had been sturdier; and though I had always thought of him as tall, he was now much shorter than me.
I realized I had no idea how old he was—I suppose I’d thought that something as mundane as age could never apply to him.
“Give my regards to the tiger,” I said, leaning in the car window. He nodded, but it was unclear whether he had heard me. “My regards to the tiger,” I said again. He had no other family in the world, as far as I knew.
He waved with his usual theatrical flair, like a king bidding farewell to courtiers. When the car finally pulled away from the curb, I could see him through the rear window, thin and frail and growing smaller in the distance.
“Well then,” said my father, turning to go back into the house. My mother followed him, nodding and muttering. I stayed behind to watch until the car was out of sight. He never turned around.
* * *
The funeral was over quickly. Only a few people had attended, and no one cried. They just took their turns lighting incense in front of the family altar, looking a bit lost. Not lost in grief; they seemed to be lost in thought, wondering perhaps what they were doing in such a place.
“They said he wasn’t murdered but he died of asphyxiation,” I heard someone whisper. “It seems odd.”
“He was terribly weak,” said another voice. “A wardrobe fell and trapped him underneath.”
“I bet someone pushed it over. He had plenty of enemies.”
“They said he was nothing but skin and bones, he would have starved to death anyway.”
His troubles had started when one of his neighbors told the police that he was bringing underage girls into the Museum of Torture and doing indecent things to them. In fact he had been involved with an eighteen-year-old woman, a beautician, who had moved into the museum. But she never filed a complaint against him and the whole thing had eventually blown over.
“I’ll bet he was torturing her,” my father said.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, a bit shocked.
“The place was full of that stuff. What else could they do with it?”
But almost immediately after that affair was over, the police arrested him for embezzling from the old ladies’ estate. He had apparently gone through quite a bit of their money in the few years since their deaths, and so, for a second time in his life, my uncle found himself in jail.
Worse still, they closed the museum while he was away and he lost his home.
He had asked me repeatedly to come visit him while he worked there, but I never managed to make the trip. I’m not sure why; I didn’t dislike museums in principle and I wasn’t trying to distance myself from him. I suppose I was preoccupied with my studies and extracurricular activities, and in the end I missed my chance.
He sent me a card every Christmas with a photograph of himself posing in front of the museum displays. Bow tie, starched shirt, his chest puffed out. He was usually pointing at one of his treasures, smiling happily; he seemed to be assuring the viewer that the device was a genuine instrument of torture.
* * *
I saw him for the last time in February, after he had been let out on parole. The clouds were low and the wind had been blowing hard all day. I had wandered for a long time, hands in my pockets, head bent in the wind, searching for his apartment. What I found at last was practically a ruin: a long, squat building with two lines of unadorned windows. No flower boxes, not even laundry hung out to dry. The walls were stained, the gutters pulled loose in places, the banisters crooked. It was perfectly silent except for the mewing of a cat hiding in the weeds near the door.
I checked the mailboxes to be sure I hadn’t made a mistake. My uncle’s name was written in magic marker on the box for number 201—though the characters were shaky and smeared by the rain. Peering in the box, I saw nothing but darkness, not a postcard or even an advertising flyer.
I opened the door to the apartment. “Uncle!” I called. “Uncle! It’s me!” From somewhere inside, I heard the sound of labored breathing. I took off my shoes and slid open the inner door, but then I froze, unable to find a place to set my foot. The entire apartment was filled with a mound of garbage—though “garbage” wasn’t exactly the right word for it. These were objects that had once been useful but were no longer so. A mountain of random things, with no discernible connection between them.
“Oh, you’ve come.” His voice sounded weak, muffled as it was by the mound of clutter. “Well, don’t stand there all day. Come and let me look at you.”
“I’d like to, but I’m not sure how,” I said.
“Not to worry,” he said. “Just come past the refrigerator, by the radio, slip behind the chest, and you’re there.” Following his instructions, I made my way cautiously into the apartment.
Worn-out socks, barbecue utensils, a set of encyclopedias, pieces of a clarinet, cans of cat food, pots without handles, dried-up bars of soap, a microscope, a marionette, a stuffed weasel … The sheer variety of items made me dizzy. Tightly packed in a giant mass, they filled the entire room, covering the windows and piled nearly to the ceiling. But somehow I managed to find him inside of it all.
“It’s true, you’re really here,” he said. “But come closer. My eyes are bad and I want to get a look at you.” He was stretched out in a tiny space near the middle of the room, all but buried in his things. His trembling hand reached toward me. I took it and held it to my cheek.
“I remember that face,” he said. “And those soft hands. You haven’t changed a bit.” He, however, was nearly unrecognizable. He had grown terribly thin, his collarbone and shoulders jutting out sharply. I held tight to his hand.
“Thanks for the Christmas cards,” I said.
“I don’t send them to anyone else anymore.”
I hesitated a moment, but then I decided to push back the things near his head and I knelt beside him.
“How are you getting along?” I said. I wanted to talk to him about the disaster in his apartment, but I didn’t know how to broach the topic.
“I can’t complain. Though the cold makes my neuralgia act up.”
He was wrapped in a thin blanket, more a towel really, and so filthy that its original color was impossible to guess. There was no sign of a heater anywhere—but I had the feeling that this mass of objects gave off a warmth of its own.
“You haven’t come to see us,” I said.
“I know, there’s always something…”
“Are you eating?” I asked. “You have to keep up your strength.”
“All of a sudden you’re grown and worrying about me, instead of the other way around. Seems like yesterday you were just a little boy.”
“I’m at the university now.”
“What are you studying?”
“French literature,” I told him.
“Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful.” He closed his swollen eyes and squeezed my hand, apparently on the verge of tears.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I brought you a present. Can you guess where I’ve hidden it?” Not wanting to see him cry, I forced myself to sound jolly. He let out a sound that was something between a cough and a laugh, and I produced a box of chocolates from the inner pocket of my jacket. “Weren’t these always your favorites?”
“They were indeed,” he said. “Thank you. But I never thought I’d see the day when you would bring me presents.”
/>
I balanced the box on a toaster, resting on a tricycle, and almost immediately it blended in, becoming part of the pile.
As I studied the mass more closely, I began to feel that it was not the product of random accumulation but that it actually had a coherent form all its own; and while the individual items were dirty and deteriorating, taken together they were like a strange piece of art.
Something else became apparent: many of these scraps of wood and chains and leather were, in fact, the remains of exhibits from his museum. A twisted belt with buckles nearly torn off might have been used to bind the wrists; a whip with a broken handle; a rusted weight that could have crushed bone. But they were ruined, no longer suitable for causing pain; the devices themselves almost seemed to be the victims. They looked exhausted, ready to die.
I looked down at my feet and realized I was staring at the brace. The feeling of suffocation came back to me in an instant—the sweat under the collar, the plate against my back. Then I saw that he was lying next to a knot of old braces that looked impossible to untangle.
“I remember those,” I said, and my uncle seemed to know what I meant without even turning his head.
“You do?” he said. “That was a great invention, even if it didn’t sell. I still get New Year’s cards from clients who are taller thanks to those braces. They think of me as their benefactor, and when I see them, I feel as though my life hasn’t been a complete waste.”
He closed his eyes, pulled his blanket up to his chin, and curled into a ball. When he coughed, a shudder ran down his back.
The wind blew outside, rattling the windows. A tiny creature—a mouse or a cockroach perhaps—scurried along the edge of my vision before disappearing into the instruments of torture. There was a quiet rustling and then silence again.
“Take one with you, if you like. I have plenty. Who knows, it could still help.”
“Thanks,” I said.
The kitchen was at the back of the apartment, but there was no sign that it was in use. The sink was filled with dozens of empty cologne bottles.
“Whatever happened to the tiger?” I asked.
“He died in the garden,” he said. “It was a beautiful death.”
We were quiet then for a moment. The only sound was the wind at the window. His arms reached out from under the blanket. I took his hands in mine, and it seemed to me that we were praying for the tiger.
* * *
“It’s started to snow,” he said sometime later.
“How can you tell?”
“The wind has died.”
“Do you have a heavier blanket? You need to keep warm.”
“I’m fine like this,” he said. “You’re the one who’ll catch cold. You should wear this home,” he said, plunging his hand into the mound next to him and pulling out a fur coat.
“It’s wonderful,” I said. “You should use it for a blanket. I don’t need it.”
“Don’t say that. I want you to have it. It’s the only thing I have to leave you.”
“Well then,” I said. “Thank you.”
He closed his eyes again and a look of satisfaction spread over his face. A few minutes later his breath fell into the regular rhythm of sleep.
* * *
Where had it all come from? Outside, the world lay under a blanket of white, just as my uncle had said. The air was still, and large snowflakes drifted out of the night sky. The street was empty, and the cat that had been lurking near the entrance had disappeared. I walked gingerly over the unmarked snow. When I turned to look back, the window was dark.
Thanks to the coat, I didn’t feel the cold at all. I felt as though I were being embraced by big, strong arms, and with each step I caught a whiff of my uncle’s cologne. The fur was so soft, I found myself rubbing it against my cheek.
I wasn’t sure how to get back, and the snow had covered and obscured all landmarks, so I could do nothing but walk straight ahead. The flakes that fell on the fur melted almost immediately. I turned one last time, but the building had vanished, and a trail of my footprints in the snow stretched back into the darkness.
Then I realized that the left sleeve had fallen off the coat. As I picked it up, I noticed a loose string hanging from it—and a large black stain on the lining. Before I knew what was happening, the right sleeve dropped off, too, and the cold crept in. I walked along, clutching the sleeves, but then the seams at the sides began to come apart as well. The collar came loose and the pockets fell off.
The fur shimmered in the white snow as I knelt to gather up the scattered bits of the tiger.
THE LAST HOUR OF THE BENGAL TIGER
I left the bypass and followed the road south along the river, then hesitated just as I was about to cross the bridge. If I turned and headed downtown, I could be at her apartment in just a few minutes.
It was a stifling afternoon. The breeze had died and the trees along the avenues seemed to wilt in the heat. The air shimmered above the burning asphalt; the sunlight reflected from the oncoming cars was blinding. Even on full, the air-conditioning did little against the heat coming through the window. The steering wheel burned my hands.
I had been playing a game with myself from the moment I left the house. If the next stoplight was red, I would make a U-turn and go home. If the silver sports car passed me, I would keep going. If the terrier puppy I’d seen yesterday in the pet shop window had been sold, I’d turn back. If there were more than three buses parked at the terminal around the next corner, I would go on to her apartment.
I’m not sure why I found myself hoping that the sports car would turn off, that the cage would be empty. I seemed to believe it still possible to turn back, despite my apparently firm decision to confront her.
Just before I reached the bridge, the traffic suddenly slowed to a crawl. It was probably an accident, since they had closed one lane. I turned on the radio, but the reception was so bad I turned it off again. I rode the brake as we inched forward.
What was I going to do when I saw her? It was a question I had asked myself a thousand times. Slap her? Scream insults? Demand she give my husband back? How ridiculous. It would be better to lose him than look so utterly foolish.
Good afternoon. I would probably just wish her “good afternoon” like an idiot, as though she were a teacher at my daughter’s kindergarten.
My husband had left for the United States three days earlier to attend a medical conference. I would never have found the spine to do this if I thought I might actually catch him at her place, so I waited until he was gone before setting out. I wasn’t really looking for a confrontation with the two of them, and I don’t think I would have been especially upset even if I had found them naked in each other’s arms. That was, after all, what they had been doing in secret all along. That much was obvious. I simply didn’t want to make things more complicated than they already were, so it was better to see her when he wasn’t there, when the two of us could sit down and discuss matters calmly and equitably. Or so I had been telling myself.
What was the name of his conference? I’d forgotten. My husband’s specialty is respiratory medicine, specifically the treatment of a syndrome called pulmonary infiltrates with eosinophilia, though I don’t really know what that means. He hasn’t bothered to explain it to me, and I’m not particularly interested in finding out. But I suspect she knows. She’s a highly regarded secretary at the university hospital.
I know it’s ridiculous to be jealous about the name of a conference, but not about seeing them naked together, but that’s just the way it is. Jealousy seems to make me suffer in the most unexpected ways.
* * *
The traffic crept along. A family was having a cookout under the bridge, and the smell of roasting meat wafted down the road, making the heat seem even more oppressive. Some seagulls were preening themselves, perched on posts in the sandbar. The river was dotted with windsurfers and small fishing boats. At the sound of an impatient honk the gulls fluttered up into the air. As I squinted int
o the sunlight I could see the ocean shining in the distance.
A truck had overturned on the bridge. It was probably going too fast and had hit the median. At any rate, the cab on the driver’s side was crushed, and a tire had come loose and jumped the guardrail. An ambulance and a wrecker and several police cars were pulled up at the scene with emergency lights flashing.
I was pretty sure the driver was dead. His bones and organs would have been crushed by the steering wheel. But somehow this seemed less shocking to me than the fact that the surface of the road was covered with tomatoes. Not that I realized what they were right away. At first I thought I must have driven into a field where an unfamiliar red flower was blooming. Or that the driver’s blood was covering the whole road.
But it was tomatoes—flawless, ripe ones—shining in the sunlight. A workman with a shovel was trying to gather them up, but he was making no visible progress. A number of people stood near the accident looking dazed, and some men were trying to cut open the cab of the truck with an electric saw.
Some tomatoes rolled in front of my car and must have been crushed under the tires, but I could barely feel them. They offered no resistance, as though they had wanted to be smashed all along, smeared across the road.
The other cars swerved to avoid the tomatoes, but I decided to try to hit as many as possible. If I got more than ten, I would go on, I would follow the road where it led. In the rearview mirror, I could see a strip of crimson stretching out behind the car. Did hitting tomatoes feel the same as hitting a person? I began to count: one, two, three, four, five …
* * *
I’ve seen her only once, from a distance. My husband had forgotten some research notes he needed for work, and when I went to take them to him, I stopped by the secretarial pool and peeked in. I knew right away which one was his girlfriend, even though I had never seen any of them before. I knew because she fit so perfectly in the various scenes I had imagined on the nights he failed to come home—a room in some apartment, a table at his favorite restaurant, the deserted lot behind the hospital.