The Tiger Catcher Read online

  Lord Falk and Edna and Cornelius laugh. “Of course! Listen, boy,” Falk says, “why don’t you stop talking and run along. Tell Krea to bring me some wine from the cellar. Unless you’d like to fetch it yourself. My dearest Mary, I’m ever so sorry you had to hear such drivel. I hope you weren’t offended.”

  “Not in the slightest, my lord,” Mary says, her eyes glistening. “Master Julian may be correct about the plague. He’s told us that the bubo that swells and bleeds under the skin is the last symptom—not the first—as we had all thought. By the time you spot the buboes on your body, it’s already too late.”

  “I hear you well, my lady!” Lord Falk exclaims. “I will examine your body for buboes beneath the skin.” He grins and clucks his tongue. “Very soon I will examine your body thoroughly for all sorts of things, including your virtue.” He horselaughs, motioning to Julian to scurry. “Shoo, bubo expert—go fetch me my wine.”

  In the kitchen, Krea doesn’t reply to Julian as he passes along Falk’s request, doesn’t even raise her eyes to him. “Are you all right, Krea?”

  “I’m very well, Master Julian,” she replies into her shoes. “But I have no time to banter with you. The lord needs his wine.”

  Unsurprisingly, Julian doesn’t get invited to dine with the family. He has some household loaf and old fermented ale with Farfelee. Side by side, they eat silently, discarded and glum. Krea is nowhere to be found. The tiny woman has been underfoot for weeks, but now that Julian wants to talk to somebody, she’s MIA. Only the fire is on. Collins House is saving all its candles for the upcoming wedding feast.

  It gets dark later and later these June nights. Tonight is the summer solstice. It’s still light out after supper when Mary enters the chandlery. “We would like to read some poetry,” she says to Julian, lifting her skirts off the greasy floor. “Mother is asking for four tapered candles.”

  Without saying a word, he hands her a stack. Mary’s gloved fingers graze his hand as she takes the candles from him. She nudges him to turn his gaze to her.

  “Do you now see?” she whispers, looking up into his face.

  “I saw it all before.”

  Behind Mary, Krea reappears in the kitchen. Julian watches as the maid crouches and begins to scrub the threshold in the doorway.

  “Can you give us a minute, Krea,” Mary says, without glancing back.

  “The entry is filthy, m’lady.”

  “It’s not going anywhere. But you go somewhere else.”

  Krea doesn’t move. Mary turns and steps toward the maid. “Leave, Krea. Go scrub the stove for Farfelee, go fetch more wine for Lord Falk.”

  “But the sill’s filthy now, m’lady.”

  “Leave, Krea!” Mary looms over the insubordinate maid who is still on her hands and knees. Krea creeps away in reverse, not raising her gaze from the floor.

  Mary comes back to Julian. “What did I tell you? Her contempt for me is a bottomless cup.”

  Julian stands quietly, taking her in. His eyes shine with his love for her. Her mother is wrong to sacrifice her last remaining child at the altar of the unholy.

  “The proposal you made me last night, did you mean it?” Mary asks in a trembling voice.

  His heart leaps.

  “You know I did.”

  “I will go with you.” She speaks in muted tones. He strains to hear her even though she stands at his chest. Their hands intertwine over the candles. “You said the mountains?”

  “I said the sea. But let’s go where there’s everything.”

  “We will have to leave soon.”

  “How about tonight? Too soon?”

  She chuckles. “We have to wait until he’s gone. But let’s leave the very next day, before dawn. Prepare to go. Pack your things.”

  “I’m ready now, I have no things,” Julian says. “I have nothing but you.”

  “I don’t have money, Julian, but I have jewels,” Mary says. “Lots of them. Gold rings and pearls. They must be worth something?”

  “They’re worth a lot.” He wants to embrace her.

  “If we sell them, we won’t have to hide out in London. We can set sail at once.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Julian says. “The gold dealers on Cheapside will gladly take your rings off our hands.”

  “Mary!” Aurora’s voice sounds from inside the kitchen. “Where are those blasted candles? We can’t read the words on the parchment.”

  “Memorize the poems, Lady Mother, as I do,” Mary says. “Then you won’t need the candles.”

  “Don’t be cheeky, Mary. Come, your lord is waiting.”

  “He is not my lord,” Mary whispers to Julian, making a soft kissing sound with her lips. “I’ll try to sneak down to see you tonight.”

  “All right, my love,” says Julian.

  “Mary!”

  “Coming, Lady Mother!”

  ***

  After the house has gone quiet, Julian lies in bed naked, aching and waiting for her, kneading her red beret, playing with her necklace. He reaches through the air to caress the shape of the invisible girl, so close he can feel the outlines of her hips in his hands.

  He waits a long time, and then he falls asleep.

  And in the night, he dreams of Josephine again.

  He sits at the familiar table under the gold awning, and watches her walk toward him, a smile on her face, the red beret on her head, carrying the pink umbrella, her dress sashaying. He frowns in both the dream and in life and grips the beret. There’s an incongruence he can’t reconcile. How can one beret be in both places at once, on her head and in his hands? Josephine, he mouths, why are you here? Mary and I are running away.

  For the first time Josephine speaks to him in the dream—actually speaks—but he can’t make out what she’s saying because the lunchtime crowd is obnoxiously loud. A man’s rough voice is shouting, another voice is pleading. He can’t pay attention to the pleading voice because he’s trying to lip read Josephine’s words. God, shut up! he wants to yell at the shouting man.

  “It’s not true!”

  “If it’s not true, then what are you doing here?”

  “She hates me, she’s always hated me, it’s poisoned her soul, she’s lying to you!”

  “Do you think I believed the ugly words of a scullery maid? I beat her for her impudence. She is lower than a pig to me. This isn’t about her!”

  In his sleep Julian feels pressure on his chest like concrete. He’s having trouble breathing.

  “I was trying to get to the kitchen. I was hungry!”

  “How could you do it, how could you!”

  “It’s not what you think, please—stop . . .”

  “You have disgraced the House of Falk—”

  O my God. It’s not a dream. Julian opens his eyes. He’s still on his back. It’s dark out, there’s a mere glimmer of a moon behind the fast-moving clouds. The wind is fierce. The pressure on his chest is crushing him.

  “Forgive me, my lord. I made a youthful error. No one has to know.”

  “If Krea knew, it means everyone knows. You’ve made a cuckold out of me!”

  Julian tries to jump up. He will run to the window, leap through it, kill Falk with his bare hands. He welcomes the chance.

  The nightstand topples.

  He takes one step and falls.

  “I promise you, my lord, no one knows!”

  Julian hears commotion outside. “Aha!” Lord Falk yells. “She was right—it is a wig! Oh, what have you done, you brazen harlot.” There’s a sound of flesh being slapped, a mighty struggle.

  Julian tries to stand up, but he can’t.

  Something bizarre is happening to his body. It feels as if it’s falling asleep. Not part of him, but all of him, from his feet that won’t hold him to his mouth that won’t scream. His body is falling into paralysis, the nerves and veins and muscles replaced with a million piercing needles.

  “Let go of me, my lord, let go of me!”

  Julian crawls to the window on hi
s weakened elbows, on his buckling knees. He tries to shout, but no sound comes out.

  “Not only do you dress as a man to act on a stage like a whore off the streets, but you’ve been fucking a peasant who insults me when I’m a guest in your mother’s house!”

  “You’re the fucking peasant!”

  By the force of his fighter’s will, soaked in adrenaline-fueled terror, Julian pulls himself up to the ledge and headbutts open the casement. Any moment his circulation should come back, any second now.

  But it doesn’t come back.

  The very opposite happens. His body weakens, the pain from a million stabbings becoming more fierce. Though Mary and Falk are in a brutal struggle right next to his open window, their voices grow muffled, as if he’s going deaf. He can barely see.

  “Julian!” Mary screams. “Help me!”

  I’m coming, Mary! But he’s not coming.

  He hears Falk’s growling and Mary’s gurgling cries. Are the two of them falling quieter or is Julian losing his senses, one by one? She is gagging as if she’s being choked. It can’t be! But Julian can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t fight. It’s as if he is being choked himself. He’s terrified she will die if he doesn’t get to her. The problem is, he’s dying, too.

  “Julian . . .”

  “You’ve ruined me!” Falk yells. “You’ve made a laughing stock out of me. There goes the clown whose wife pretends she’s a man by day and lets another man fuck her by night!”

  Mary, I’m coming. With a superhuman effort, a naked Julian hurls himself over the window ledge and out onto the ground. The beret falls from his crippled fingers.

  The needles that stab his body from within become boiling hot. He is being electrocuted and burned. He grasps for her beret. A flash of lightning illumines the yard. He sees Mary, pinned against the wall, slide lifeless to the ground, her hands dropping away from Falk’s hands around her throat.

  No! Julian wants to yell. His mouth opens in a silent scream. The current inside his body is set on fatal. He is frying from the inside out.

  Lord Falk turns to Julian and draws his sword. “There you are,” he says, lunging forward.

  Julian wants to stand up, to fight, to kill him, as he knows he must, as he knows he once could. But Falk, the house, the garden, Mary are fading from Julian’s view.

  Mary . . . he whispers in his last breath, the hand holding her beret stretching out to her, as Lord Falk’s raised sword flashes silver over his head like lightning and slices down through the air. Mary—

  47

  The Coat

  JULIAN OPENED HIS EYES, WITH HIS ARMS RAISED DEFENSIVELY over his head, the red beret still clutched in his fingers. But it wasn’t Lord Falk looming over him. Julian was on the floor looking up into the flummoxed face of Sweeney, the guard at the Transit Circle. Julian was surprised he could open his eyes at all. He thought he was dead.

  Clearly, Julian’s hearing had come back. With no difficulty he could hear Sweeney yelling. “What—are—you—doing? Why are you crying? Sweet Jesus—why are you naked? There’s decency laws, they’re gonna book you for public exposure! Get up. Are you some kind of a performance artist? They come through every once in a while, act all crazy. It’s not funny, mate. When did you grow a beard? Hey, what’s going on here? Stop shaking!”

  Julian couldn’t speak. He remained on the floor, his body, every bone in it feeling flattened as if by a concrete spreader. He was in agony.

  Sweeney grabbed a trench coat from the nearby closet and threw it over Julian. “That’s my coat over your filthy body,” the corpulent guard hissed. “Get up and get on out of here. You want me to lose my job? We got kids coming through on class trips!”

  Julian felt around his neck for the stone, clenched his fist around the red beret. He couldn’t get up. And didn’t want to. He squeezed shut his eyes.

  “You’ll be arrested,” Sweeney said, “but why should I lose me job because you can’t keep your knickers on? This is the Royal Observatory. A historical place built by kings. Have some respect. Take your shenanigans elsewhere. Well, what are you waiting for? I can’t help you up, I got a bad back. Come on now, before I call the police. Take my coat and bugger off. Get up!”

  Grabbing on to the railing, Julian finally managed to pull himself up. He barely swung the coat closed before a family of grandparents and small children filed through, stopping near the telescope. A tyke sandwiched himself next to Julian’s hip, struggling to sound out the words above the open door. PRIME MERIDIAN OF THE WORLD the boy read off the plaque. Julian stood with his head bent until they left. What was wrong with his body? He felt deboned.

  Sweeney resumed his rant. “What do you plan to do about paying me back for the coat? I can’t afford to give it to every souse that staggers in here. What’s wrong with you, drinking like that? It’s noon. Write your name and address in my book, I want you to send me cash for the coat, seventy quid it cost me at Marks and Spencer.” Sweeney stared into Julian’s face. “Oh, for the love of Christ. You’re gray, mate. Don’t pass out, I can’t lift you. And don’t vomit, they’ll arrest you for sure. Indecent exposure, vagrancy, vandalism in a historic building. Nice start to your God-given day. Oh, hell, just get out of here. Get yourself to the loo. What the bloody hell happened to you? One second you were standing fully dressed and the next you was down on the floor, hairy and naked. That’s not funny, mate. Not funny in the slightest.”

  “Did I vanish?”

  “Oh, so he speaks!” Sweeney said. “No, you didn’t vanish. I blinked and you was down.” The guard squinted at him suspiciously. “Why, were you . . . trying to vanish?”

  Julian couldn’t breathe. “Can I borrow a twenty?” he said finally. “I swear I’ll pay you back.”

  “You take my coat and now you want money, too?”

  “I promise I’ll pay you back, a day or two, but—please.”

  Julian threw up in the bathroom.

  Sweeney found him in one of the stalls on the floor.

  “In my coat?” he thundered. “This is how you behave yourself in another man’s coat?”

  Without the guard Julian couldn’t have gotten down the hill. Sweeney took him the back way, where the deliveries came and went, down through the Royal Garden to Crooms Hill. He hailed a cab, stuffing Julian inside. A ride to Great Eastern Road was forty pounds. Sweeney cursed loud and long before handing over another twenty to the driver.

  Julian didn’t remember getting to Quatrang. He got out of the cab and staggered inside, where a stunned Devi, serving another man, dropped the bowl of pho when he saw Julian—his hair overgrown, a full beard when just yesterday he was clean shaven, an exhibitionist’s trench coat, an expression of mania and despair on his face.

  “You’re back?” Devi said in shock. His jaw went slack.

  Julian fell and passed out.

  48

  Side Effects of Electrocution

  HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME, JULIAN SAID TO DEVI THAT night and the nights that followed. I thought you were supposed to make it better. I thought you were supposed to help me. Before I met you, I was getting better . . .

  Devi cleared his sympathetic but skeptical throat.

  I was. I was getting over things.

  Devi made another noise.

  Look what you’ve done to me. I had an unhealed wound before but now it’s raw again like it just happened. It did just happen. Do you have any idea how that feels?

  Devi was hidden in the corner, and Julian could almost swear he could hear the little man crying.

  Or was that strangled sound coming from Julian’s own throat?

  How could you not tell me she would die again?

  How would I know this, Devi replied.

  I don’t believe you. I don’t believe no one’s not come back and told you.

  There was a pause before Devi spoke. If they did, they didn’t return to me.

  Only a lunatic would come to you in the first place, Julian said. A madman. How desperate I must
have been. You took advantage of my weakness.

  I gave you hope.

  How could you send me when you didn’t know it would work?

  “But Julian,” Devi said, “it did work.”

  Julian stared back defiantly and then closed his eyes. “You’re lucky no one’s come back,” he said. “Or someone would’ve killed you by now for sure.”

  “Like you want to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Something’s wrong with your body, Julian,” Devi said.

  Julian lay naked on the table in the back. “That’s the least of what’s wrong with me.”

  But by Devi’s expression, it wasn’t the least of it.

  Basted with ointment, a towel thrown over his groin, Julian slipped in and out of consciousness, dozens of long healing needles puncturing his body. Devi washed him down with a sponge soaked in hot tiger water, held the glass filled with hot tiger bones to Julian’s mouth. Pungent incense was burning, the candles were lit. The tiny room was warm, quiet, the air heavy with grief, with wishes unfulfilled.

  After he told Devi what happened, Julian lay motionless while on a low stool in the corner, the cook twisted like a mute epileptic.

  “What, the tiger got your tongue?” Julian said, his gray eyes condemning. “Now that you need to explain things, you’ve taken a vow of silence?”

  “Maybe you should explain things to me.”

  Julian stared at the ceiling. “You’re so blasé. It’s all part of some larger whole to you. You’re indifferent to my suffering.”

  “Stop harassing me, Julian,” Devi said. “I’m well acquainted with the sorrow at the heart of life.”

  “Yes, just not with the sorrow at the heart of my life.” A brief silence followed. The harangue resumed. “You think everyone else has succeeded where I failed?”

  “As is often with you, you’ve got it exactly backwards,” Devi said. “You succeeded where everyone else has failed. They could’ve died in the caves. Or not made it over the Black Canyon. They couldn’t navigate the river. Got impaled, injured. Drowned. Never made it out. And on the other side, a thousand more things could’ve gone wrong. As far as I know, no one has survived the return trip.” Devi touched Julian’s body with his fingers as if he couldn’t quite believe the man in front of him was real, the man he had sent into the abyss from which there was no return. “I don’t know how you did it. It’s incomprehensible. Like conception. A thousand things could’ve and should’ve gone wrong.”