Tiger
von Andrea Tallarita (Copyright)
Lord Humphrey Birdscott of Yale was taking his tea. It was a delightful morning, and he could hear the birds chirping elegantly in the branches outside. Lord Birdscott was reading in the paper of news from home; the Parliament’s most recent decisions, trouble in South Africa, and a few stories about the Queen. He was grumbling sceptically as he always did when he read the paper, depreciative of those spineless little men that were running his country. What a waste of time, these Liberals! The old royal blood had been lost, that much was clear.
Payel, his Indian servant, came in, and said:
“The post has arrived, sir,” Payel was a well-educated Indian (Lord Birdscott would never take a vulgar plebeian as his servant).
“Thank you, Payel,” retorted his master. As a way of making conversation, he added: “Have you seen what a mess these Liberals are making, down in the Southern Black Continent?”
“No sir,” replied Payel.
“The whole mess that’s going on down there, with the Boer War and what not. There’s a war, I tell you.”
“The Boar War? Is the empire fighting animals now?”
“No, no, you clod. I meant the Boers. B-o-e-r-s. A bunch of grunts in South Africa.”
“Ah. I understand.”
“A most disastrous occurrence. These liberals are messing it all up.”
“I thought that the Conservatives were in power now?”
“That’s a different question. It’s politics, not the kind of stuff you Indian people would understand.”
“Yes sir.” The man stood there. The birds chirped a tad more, until Lord Birdscott looked up over his spectacles, and said:
“Did you want anything, Payel?”
“Permission to speak, sir.”
“To say what?”
“I have some information concerning tigers which might interest you.”
“Ah,” exclaimed Birdscott, “now that is interesting!” He turned his chair suddenly towards his servant, and allowed his newspaper to fall on the table with class. Unfortunately, the process didn’t come out just as Lord Birdscott had expected, and the newspaper dislodged the teacup and catapulted its contents over the Lord’s trousers.
“What is it?” he asked, even as he began cleaning his trousers and cursing under his teeth. “Tell me, quick.”
“It is almost a legend, they say. But the village of Kulya Binthai has apparently managed to tame a tiger, and they use it for hunting.” A brief pause ensued.
“They have what?” asked Lord Birdscott, in disbelief.
“They’ve tamed a tiger. It gets them meat.”
“Tamed a tiger?… why, but! But it’s ridiculous! Absurd!” Payel watched as his master stood up and began trodding all over the place. “To tame a tiger!” he was blurting, “this is the most senseless thing I’ve ever heard in my life! Great Scott! How could anyone have such an idiotic idea? Ah, but they’re Indians of course. Englishmen would never do such a thing.”
“Of course not, sir. Tigers eat the Englishmen.”
“I didn’t mean that! But what’s the point of taming a tiger? Tigers are made to be hunted, not tamed!”
“Well, it does help them in their own hunting…”
“Help them in their hunting! Using the prey to help the hunt! Hah! Have you ever seen me meet tigers with a tamer’s whip?”
“I’ve seen you meet them with a sniper’s rifle…”
“No, you cow-faced dingo! Oh, but you’d never understand, of course. You’re Indian. Tiger hunting is a fine sport. One for gentlemen. It enlightens the mind and keeps the body fit. It’s the reason why I came to India in the first place, aside from the fact that English weather is as agreeable as a rich aunt who can’t find her way to the coffin. Taming tigers. Shivering timbers.”
Having said that, Lord Birdscott sat down again at his table, munching angrily his toast. Payel watched him for a while, then silently left.
*
The hunting party needed a break. They had all been going for various hours now, and had lost enough sweat to last an average well-educated man his lifetime (or almost as much). Red-faced and panting, because the Indian sun was quite tremendous, the hunters reached an open space. The party consisted mainly in some twenty or thirty Indian servants, and two or three English gentlemen, who spent most of their time on the elephants. As well, of course, as Lord Birdscott himself, with his fine, polished, varnished rifle.
“I say, Payel,” wheezed the Lord, “is there any place anywhere close by where refreshments might be found? Our guests are tired.” The other gentlemen nodded and passed a few handkerchiefs on their reddened foreheads.
“I say,” one of them began, “where’s this tiger of yours? We’ve been looking for it for quite a while now.”
“Tigers don’t just show themselves as if nothing was happening,” snapped back Lord Birdscott. “Especially if we gallop after them on elephants and play trumpets.” How ignorant some of these gentlemen were. Hunting tigers was not a trifle matter.
“Well, it’s most unfortunate,” the young imbecile continued.
“Yes, it is. Payel?” The Indian servant, who always thought these conversation-exchanges to be most amusing, could finally answer the question:
“Yes, there is a resting place close by. There’s the village of Kulya Binthai less than a mile from here.”
“Kulya Binthai,” repeated the Lord, thinning his eyes. “Methinks I’ve heard this name already, have I not?”
“I was telling you about it in April,” explained Payel, who had a marvellous memory. “It is the village where they tamed the tiger, if you remember.”
“Ah, yes,” the Englishman’s face lit up in simultaneous hindrance and disgust. Disgust, I say, because he still disliked the idea of a tamed tiger.
“It might be the Queen’s Royal Circus and tame ducks, as far as I’m concerned,” wailed a gentleman from an elephant. “I’d give a pound for a cup of water. And two for a horse! This elephant smells.”
“I’m sure the elephant would also give two pounds for you to take a horse,” added Payel, but his joke was not picked up on.
“Right,” said Lord Birdscott, placing his rifle back in one of the packs. “I think we might as well divert our course for a little while, even though we have to visit this bunch of… tiger-tamers.” The way he said it, he expected everybody else to laugh, but no one did. He waited for the laugh to come, but as everybody looked at him, all he heard was the insects buzzing. Becoming quite grumpy, Lord Birdscott waded on through the leaves and towards the village.
Finally he reached the clearing where the little huts stood, fragile and small. The village was a modest one, and the arrival of such a large party was enough to attract the entire places’ attention. The gentlemen were not surprised by this, and immediately erected themselves in adequately noble poses. The Indians were very amused, especially at the man with a large moustache. “What do they do with those large moustaches they’ve got?” the children asked. And all kinds of theories were made.
Perhaps at home their wives turned them head-over-heels and used them to swipe the floor. Perhaps they held pens and pencils inside there. Perhaps it filtered bad breath. Lord Birdscott, rifleless and proud, was leading the party. He walked straight into the village, his chest swelling, and was looking very serious when a tiger suddenly hopped from a roof and landed precisely before him. The Lord shrieked and leapt for the closest bush like a frog. When he got up, he saw that the tiger was sitting gently next to a twelve-year old lad, and staring at him with an elegantly puzzled expression, as if incapable of understanding why this man had been rolling himself inside the bush which hid the cows’s shitting place.
The trouble, however, was not Lord Birdscott, but his fellow gentlemen. As soon as they saw the tiger, they worked themselves up into a frenzy, began shouting and shrieking and running for their rifles, which were stored at the back of the elephant. One of them literally dove for his weapon in a way not unlike a lover’s from a cliff, but tragically, he did so precisely while the elephant was turning sideways. As a result, he flew out of the elephant’s flank with a yell and landed with a loud whump on the floor, flat like butter on a tart. All of the Indians clapped, thinking that this was a way of entertaining the hosts with acrobatics.
The other gentleman was more cautious, but not quite enough: He fumbled for his rifle, found it, and leant it on his cheek, taking aim. He fired and fell on the ground with a howl, as the explosion had propelled the rifle back into his mouth like a ram. In the meantime, his fellow gentleman collapsed, as the shooting man’s aim hadn’t been very accurate. Hardly a minute had passed before England’s most noble blood was lying crumpled on the floor.
“It was savage,” one of the gentlemen later reported. “A pack of tigers leapt out of the jungle, probably instigated by the barbaric men that lived there, and took us on until nightfall. Were it not for our bravery and skill with arms, I doubt we’d be alive.”
As for the Indians and the tiger, they all stood still in confusion. No one had understood what exactly had happened. Perhaps it was an introductory rite that the English traditionally passed through when presenting themselves. Lord Birdscott was the first to recover, with his usual presence of spirit. Boldly taking the reins of command, he shouted:
“We must reorganise. Payel!”
“Yes sir?”
“Reorganise.”
“Yes sir.”
The Indian men laid out the English in a few, improvised beds. The savage attack that they’d been forced to live through had resulted in one man with a slightly serious head injury, one having lost three teeth, and one with a pellet in his leg. Lord Birdscott looked at them stoically, knowing that his forces had been reduced. Given the kind of forces he was with, this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it annoyed him that no one would see him shoot the tiger down. There they were, lying unconscious on the little beds.
“Payel,” he called again, and the Indian servant arrived. “I want you to bring Lord Perlsman back home as soon as possible, as he needs urgent treatment, so use the elephant. Get a few men to carry Lord Cleavel, and leave Lord Bushthworpe here, since he is likely to recover very soon.” The Indian man looked confused.
“I am not so confident with the names, master.”
“Just get Perlsman on the elephant, Cleavel with the men, and leave Bushthworpe here.” He said this while gesticulating, trying in vain to get his point across.
“I still don’t understand. Is Cleavel the one with the face like a pig?”
“No, that’s Perlsman. Cleavel’s a face like a walrus.”
“What is a walrus?” asked Payel, because they didn’t get walruses in India.
“A walrus is one of those animals with more hair under its nose than it has under its armpits – ” began Lord Birdscott, and immediately broke off as he saw the three Lords’ eyes fixed on him. His heart jumped into his throat. Goddamitt, weren’t they asleep? Lord Birdscott walked out, muttering something to Payel that he knew what he had to do.
When he got outside, he saw the enormous tiger rolling around with the children, purring and playing with them. It was hard to get used to the idea that these men had actually tamed a tiger. He had often fantasised about tigers “playing” with some of the noble pests he knew back in England, but certainly not in that way.
“Ah, Lord Birdspots,” began the village-chief, with a wide smile. The smile was very benign and what not, but the teeth looked like ancient Roman ruins. “I see you’ve already met Mahra, our local tiger.”
“I have indeed,” retorted the Lord. “One fine beast it is. Female?”
“Oh, no. It’s a male. And in the bloom of its years.”
“It’s a male? Then why’d you give it a feminine name?”
“What, Mahra? Mahra isn’t feminine.”
“It’s about as masculine as Sugary Georgina. We don’t tame tigers in England.”
“Of course not. Tigers eat the Englishmen.” Lord Birdscott glared at him. ‘At least we don’t revel in cowshit,’ he thought to himself as he walked away.
It was half an hour until Lord Birdscott could finally get back on his journey, and he spent it conversing with the Indian about Mahra. Apparently, Mahra was an authentic phenomenon when it came to hunting. It could take down anything from deers to rabbits, and bring all the food it caught back to the village. It was capable of tracking any animal in India.
That was when Lord Birdscott had his brilliant intuition. If this beast could track any animal on the globe and out of it, then why might it not help him find his own tiger? The one that he was originally hunting with his fellows? He had been tracking it for a while, and by the size of the paw, he was sure it wasn’t Mahra himself. He finally proposed it, and to his dismay, found that he had to actually ask the tiger, not the people.
“What do you mean, ask the tiger?” he grunted in disbelief.
“I mean go there and ask her.” Lord Birdscott was dubious. He approached the tiger like a Catholic Puritan would approach cannibalism, and sort of began muttering:
“Mieow mieow mieow… Here here, pussy cat”. It was an unusual beginning, indeed. Both the tiger and the Indians looked immensely confused. “Cheery cheery oh, little pussy cat. Will you be a good little pussy cat for today, and do what papa tells you?”
“Er, master,” whispered Payel. “I don’t think you’re doing it the right way.”
Lord Birdscott snapped back in irritation:
“Fine, then you try. Perhaps amidst animals it is easier to communicate.” Payel approached the animal with a sample of leaf on which their prey had brushed its fur, and Mahra immediately stood up. She began trotting casually towards the jungle.
“There she goes,” said the village-chief. “Follow her.”
“Follow her? What, just like that?”
“Of course. But move it, man, or you’ll lose her.”
Lord Birdscott resented being called “man” by a mere peasant, but he didn’t like the idea of losing his prey, so he shouldered his rifle and was off. Following the tiger was complex, but fortunately Mahra’s pace wasn’t too fast. Lord Birdscott was sweating more than he’d ever had before. It was infernally hot in the jungle. After more or less a quarter of an hour, as the Lord caught up with the tiger after it had – for the millionth time – left him behind, it found it staring intently into the bushes. What had it seen? Suddenly, the animal leapt! Lord Birdscott saw her disappearing in a frenzy of shaking leaves and branches, and was after her immediately. For what was only a few seconds, but seemed like an eternity, Lord Birdscott ran around in the jungle, trying to follow the tiger’s noise. The tiger seemed to be running in arches in the jungle, which allowed for him to keep up with her by going in a straight line. The beast went to the left – he would follow to the left. The beast would bolt to the right – he would run to the right. It was a fantastic game of cat-and-mouse, a true moment of predator-prey uncertainty. ‘You want to play this game,’ thought Lord Birdscott to himself, ‘Well I can play it too’. And he loaded his rifle, his eyes gleaming.
At a certain point, he was sure that the tiger’s rushing was coming towards him. Not just somewhere in his direction, but straight towards him. He stood straight, legs wide, rifle on his shoulders, and got ready to shoot the animal as soon as it came out of the bushes. A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead as the noise gradually came nearer, nearer…
A tiny hare bolted out of the bush, and sped its way through Lord Birdscott’s legs.
“What on earth?…” began Lord Birdscott, when Mahra, in hot pursuit, followed on to the hare. The tiger exploded out of the vegetation at sixty miles per hour, and tried to follow the bunny’s steps through the Lord’s legs. Unfortunately, the tiger was quite too large for such a feat, and the Lord found his legs flying somewhere in the air at eight feet from the ground, as he performed an impeccable somersault and landed on his back. He looked up with a groan, and the tiger was sitting there, again watching him with that annoying expression of curiosity.
“Have you been chasing this bunny all the time?” asked Lord Birdscott, with a note of irritation in his voice. The tiger’s eyes seemed to be laughing. “Why, you…” began the Lord, getting up and braining himself on a low branch, thus ending up as flat on the floor as he’d been a few seconds before. When he got up again, he found that the tiger was off again, trotting behind some scent… and this time, in a direction opposite to that of the bunny.
Perhaps, then, the stupid animal was following the right prey after all? Lord Birdscott got up and followed the tiger once again. This time, following it was a more lengthy business. It took them around half an hour before anything happened, and by then Lord Birdscott was panting like a diplodocus. By the time Mahra, for the second time, seemed to have smelled something, Lord Birdscott had seen some tiger footprints, and he knew the the prey was right.
“Easy now,” he told the tiger, and the dumb beast sprinted as if hearing the sound of a starter pistol. “You dumb thing!” yelled the man, and followed in a run. Unfortunately, this time it was no curving trajectory. This was a straight run, beginning to end, and there was no way that Lord Birdscott could keep the two tigers’ pace. He just followed the tracks. He ran and ran, wheezing until he could no longer stand it, and reached a clearing with a river… And there they were, those two idiots, just next to the stream, two beautiful tigers, going at it like mating rabbits. Lord Birdscott gaped at them. So this was the reason why Mahra had been following the other tiger all along – because the prey was a female. Goddamitt! Stupid animal. Lord Birdscott lifted his rifle, aiming at the female. A few flies buzzed in the air. This wasn’t right, was it?… Shooting at two mating animals. He put his rifle back, annoyed, and walked back towards the village.
“Did you find it?” was Payel’s immediate, inevitable, annoying query.
“Yes,” replied the red-faced Lord.
“What, you didn’t shoot it?” Payel seemed surprised: his master wasn’t carrying the tiger’s skin. “Your rifle’s still loaded!” he exclaimed, even more surprised.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” replied Lord Birdscott angrily. “Mahra’s is not.”