“Ah, Tomasso,” he whispered. “What are we come to, my Tomasso?”
Hackenschmidt licked the blood that trickled from his lips.
He smiled.
“Help me up, Joe.”
He stretched out his great hand. Joe took it, felt the great weight of Hackenschmidt as he raised himself painfully from the floor.
“Good lad,” whispered Hackenschmidt. “Aren't we lucky to have found a boy like you in a place like this?”
“It was meant to be,” said Corinna.
“Yes,” said Hackenschmidt. “Not luck. It was always meant to be.”
They all sat together on the sawdust floor beneath the twinkling candles, and they leaned close to Nanty Solo as she began to speak.
“In the deepest of the deep, in the darkest of the dark,” she said, “there lived a tiger. Ah, it was a thing of tale and rumor. An impossible thing of stripes and cruel cold eyes and great curved teeth and claws and a tongue that could lick flesh and skin from bone. It was longer than the length of a man and higher than the height of a boy. Such a creature, a creature of the foulest terror and the finest beauty, could surely not exist. It padded only through the tales brought back into this world by ancient travelers. It lived alongside their dragons, their sea monsters and unicorns. It prowled only in our dreams, only in the hidden corners of our minds. It roared deep inside our secret hearts. We did not expect to see this thing, even though we had come to love it, even though we were terrified by it. Paltry souls, we could not imagine the power of the earth and the air and the seas and the sun to bring such a creature into being.”
She smiled, and reached out to touch Joe and then Corinna, who sat on each side of her.
“Then, at an unknown time on an unknown day in the distant past, one of us stepped into the forest. Who was it? Someone who understood that what we imagined could also be something that we touched. Someone who understood that as we stepped into the forest we stepped into the unknown fringes of the mind. Someone like you, Corinna. Someone like you, Joe Maloney. As you walked, you began to smell it, the hot, sour breath, the stench of its pelt. You felt the animal wildness on your tongue, in your nostrils. The tiger moved toward you through the forest, as if it knew you, as if it was drawn to you. You heard its footpads at your side. You heard its long slow breath, the sighing in its lungs, the rattle in its throat. And then it stepped out from the forest and stood across your path. The cruel eyes stared into you. The hot tongue, harsh as sandpaper, licked your arm. The mouth opened, the curved teeth were poised to close on you. You couldn't move. You prepared to die… But you didn't die. You stood before the tiger and you didn't die….”
There was movement in the darkness of the performers' tunnel. Joe looked. Nothing. Then he saw the two clowns there, holding some great burden across their arms. Corinna touched Joe's forearm tenderly. Nanty touched his hand.
“We brought the tiger out, Joe Maloney. We
carried it out of the darkness into the light. We carried it across the earth. We carried it across seas and over rivers and along tracks and roads. We brought it to the open spaces beside great cities, to tiny villages beyond high hills, we brought it to places like Helmouth. And how they rushed to see this wonder! How they hurried to the great blue tent that glowed between the sky and the earth! How they shuddered! How they gasped to see this thing of dreams that had become so real! How scared they were. How overjoyed.”
Joe looked again toward the tunnel.
“You're scared,” said Nanty.
He nodded.
“Y-yes.”
“So was the tiger when it stepped out onto the path, Joe. So is the tiger now, now that it becomes once more a thing of dream and imagination and memory.”
Her white eyes glowed in the candlelight.
“The forests are almost empty of their tigers, Joe. Our secret hearts are almost empty.”
The breath rattled in her throat.
“We are paltry souls, Joe. Will we ever be able to imagine our tigers again and make them step out onto our path?”
Her sightless gaze rested on him. No way of answering her. He stammered. She smiled. Her touch was gentle.
“Don't worry,” she whispered. “Yours is the bravest soul of all. The tiger has chosen you to carry it out of the glowing blue tent and into the forest again.”
Joe trembled.
The clowns moved out of the tunnel toward the ring. They laid their burden on the sawdust and unrolled it.
It was a tiger skin, huge and heavy and wonderful. It lay there spread out on the sawdust, the place where it had once leaped and roared and clawed the air.
Hackenschmidt sighed.
“Touch it, Joe,” he said.
Joe touched. The fur was so dense. The skin itself felt leathery, ancient. He spread out his hand beneath the pelt and lifted and felt the great weight of it.
“Isn't it beautiful?” said Corinna.
Joe nodded.
“It was the last of our tigers. Died long before I was born. We've carried it with us, always and everywhere.”
“Put it on, Joe,” said Hackenschmidt.
Joe flinched.
“Go on. Put it on.”
Joe looked up to the wheeling galaxy. He saw his mum in his room, looking down at his empty bed. He
heard the cruel triumphant yells of Joff and Stanny Mole. He looked at the tiger skin, and knew that somehow he had always known that he would put it on.
Hackenschmidt lifted the skin from the floor as if it was a cape. Joe looked into the deep shadowed space between the skin and the sawdust.
“Go in there,” said Hackenschmidt.
Nanty Solo smiled. Wilfred and Charley Caruso nodded at him: Yes, go in. Corinna crouched at his side.
“I'm here, Joe,” she said. “I won't leave you.”
Joe closed his eyes. He crawled on all fours into the shadowed space. Hackenschmidt laid the tiger skin across his back. Joe sighed as his body took the weight. The pelt spread out around him, and Joe knew how puny he was compared with the creature that had once inhabited this space. The skin of the head fell down across his face. Through the eyeholes he saw the candles twinkling, Hackenschmidt looking in at him. He saw Wilfred, Charley and Nanty Solo leave the ring.
Corinna's voice:
“I'm here, Joe. I won't leave you.”
“Just breathe,” whispered Hackenschmidt. “Just be yourself, Joe Maloney.”
Joe breathed. He hung his head. He felt the skin draped over his own skin. He waited. No one spoke. No one moved. He waited. He waited.
The tigerness swelled, as if from that chip of bone he'd eaten all those hours ago, as if from an ancient secret darkness in his heart. It came slowly, like a vague scent carried on a breeze blowing through him, like the echo of a roar inside some distant cavern. It came closer, closer, as if it had waited always for this moment. He felt fur breaking through his skin. He felt heavy paws and lethal claws. He felt the power of his muscles, his bones. His breathing deepened, sighed from deep new lungs. He felt the heart, his tiger heart, drumming in his chest. He heard the roar that echoed from his throat. He clawed the air. He bared his massive fangs. Memories rushed through his blood, his bones, his flesh, his brain: he ran through hot forest, with deer running before him; he prowled the shadows of ancient trees. Beneath the pelt, beneath that curious tent of skin and striped fur, Joe Maloney danced a tiger dance, was transformed by tigerness, became a tiger.
He fell to the sawdust floor. His body jerked and trembled. Hackenschmidt lifted the skin away.
“Joe,” said Corinna. “Joe. Joe.”
She took his hand, helped him to his feet.
They stood in the flickering dark, candles and canvas like the whole universe spinning about them. They waited. They waited.
And they heard it in the ring beside them, the footsteps, the breath. They caught the scent of its breath, its pelt. It circled them. They caught sight
of it—its stripes, its glittering eyes—as it moved through the edges of their vision.
“Tiger!” said Corinna.
“On the last day,” said Nanty Solo. “On the last of all days…”
“Go on,” said Hackenschmidt. “Take it out.”
He went to the door and held the flap of canvas aside. Joe and Corinna went together. They stepped into the glistening night. They moved across the wasteland outside Helmouth, and the tiger padded in their hearts and at their side.
A full moon had risen over the Black Bone Crags. A perfect ring of light. Stars clustered above the horizons. Cold light fell to the dark green earth over which they walked, Joe, Corinna and the tiger. They headed for the motorway. Sometimes a car's headlights streaked the night there, but they were soon gone, over the northern or the southern horizon. As they walked, they heard noises on the earth and in the air: scratchings, flutterings, short sharp calls and whistles, breath. They heard their own footpads, the swish of grass. At times there was no tiger, but then Joe and Corinna just glanced at each other and walked on, and there it was again, the shimmer of its coat, the glow of its stripes, its breath, its footfall, and its eyes glittering bright as any star. They didn't speak. There were distant yelling and laughter from Helmouth, and Joe thought of his mother there, and
her fear, but they didn't turn. They moved through Joe's familiar places, the lanes and ancient paddocks and ruined streets of what had existed long before. At the far edge of the Field of Skulls, they walked through a broken chain-link fence and climbed up the embankment. They stood on the thin grass by the hard shoulder, stood dead still as a car swept past them. They looked left, looked right, and then ran across the first roadway. They leaped the crash barrier, and waited again on the median strip. The tiger stood panting gently. Another car, coming from the north. The great coned beam of its headlights lit them. As it passed, they saw the face of a girl looking out at them, her eyes and mouth wide open as she yelled. The car swerved, slowed, regained its momentum and headed off as quickly as it had come. Joe watched the taillights disappear, imagined the voice of the driver: Nonsense. Silly girl. Grow up. Go back to sleep.
They ran again to the other side and down the embankment. Through another ripped fence. They climbed through meadowland toward the Silver Forest. Here the grass was knee-high. Blooms of wild-flowers caught the moonlight. The night air was heavy with scents, with pollen. Their breathing deepened as they climbed. They paused, just before the edge of the wood. Joe and Corinna looked at each other in wonder. They looked back toward
Helmouth and saw it sparkling. The blue tent softly glowed. The tiger lay in the long grass close by and returned their gaze. Trembling, Joe crouched beside it. He reached out to touch. He laid his hand on the dense fur and felt the tiger's heat, its beating heart. He felt again the beauty and savagery of the tiger in himself. He stood beside the tiger and stared into its eyes. You were in me, he thought. And you came out of me. And you walk beside me in the night. Then Corinna took his hand. They walked on and led the tiger into the Silver Forest.
There was no marked pathway. They walked upward, between the trunks and stems. There were slender birch trees with flowers and long grass and ferns beneath and alternating shadows and moonlight. There were great beech trees with dry earth beneath and a canopy of deepest dark above. Huge oak, their trunks almost as wide as a circus ring. There were stirrings all around. Birds' warning calls. A barn owl screeched. Bodies shifted in the undergrowth, in the shadows. Wings flickered against the stars. The tiger padded onward, this thing of dream, imagination, truth. It carried ancient sweltering forest deep into the heart of this English wood.
They came to the stream after an hour or so of walking. It tumbled over mossy stones. Little waterfalls and glinting pools. Moonlight and starlight shimmered in it. They all crouched there, Joe,
Corinna and the tiger, and they drank the sweet cold water.
Then the tiger growled, stood up, stared across the stream.
And Joe shuddered, suddenly knowing the awful thing that lay there on the opposite bank.
He stepped across the stones. The body lay curved in the grass. Velvety black. Much smaller than the tiger. The size of a girl, a boy. Joe touched. He watched the shape of his pale hand moving on the black coat. The body was cold and still.
“What is it?” Corinna's voice, coming across the running water. “Joe. What is it, Joe?”
He ran his fingers through the dense fur. He remembered Stanny's threats and promises. He saw the glint of claws in the panther's feet.
“Joe?”
There was no head, of course. Just congealed blood, a dark stain on the dark grass. He closed his eyes and felt sharpened steel ripping at his throat. He gagged, opened his eyes again.
“Panther,” he whispered.
The tiger watched from over the water, then turned its head, deeply breathed the night air.
Corinna crossed the water. She crouched beside Joe, and shook her head, turned her face to the sky.
“Bastards,” she said, through her tears.
“I know who did it,” said Joe.
The tiger softly growled.
“These people,” she whispered. “These people you live with!”
She ran her fingers through the black coat.
“Let's find them,” she said.
Her eyes sparkled.
“Let's kill them, Joe. Let's bloody kill them.”
Joe said nothing. He watched the panther. This could have been his own work, if he had come out here carrying knives and hatchets with Stanny Mole and Joff.
The tiger growled again, began to move uphill again. They followed the stream. The crags began to tower over them. The dark peaks were jagged against the sky. Something flew from them on great slow heavy wings. As they walked, they stared into the deep shadows of the trees, looking for the sleeping bodies of their prey. The tiger moved quickly, purposefully, drawing them onward, through the narrowing gap the stream formed between the trees. Then they caught the scent of fire, saw its embers glowing. It burned in a place where the bank widened, a circle of grass surrounded by tall trees, overlooked by the crags. The moon shone down into this glade.