Tiger, Tiger

He slipped into the cool shade, setting down his feet on the chill rocks with great precision. Now, he realized why the smell had seemed so familiar to him. Against the back wall of the cave, where the ceiling curved down low to meet the ground, he could discern the long striped back of a tigress lying on her side. It was his other, older mate, Seti.

Haji uttered the habitual coughing growl of welcome that tigers use, but she made no reply. She was lying with her head turned away from him and seemed to be resting, though she should surely have woken at the sound of his voice. Haji was unsettled by the strangeness of her behaviour and nervously he called her again, but she remained silent. He stood for several long moments, debating what to do. The unfamiliar smell was frightening him. In it, he thought he detected something that spoke of birth and his suspicions were confirmed when he spotted a tiny cub stretched on the ground beside Seti. He stepped forward and nuzzled it, but it did not move or make a sound. Now he crept fearfully up to Seti and saw that a second cub lay nearby, but that too was strangely still and silent. Then he saw that a third cub lay half in, half out of Seti’s body, the tiny wrinkled face and paws immersed in a sea of congealed blood. A thick mantle of flies buzzed greedily over the area, settling, flying up, resettling.

With an angry growl, Haji moved forward so he could nuzzle at Seti’s face. She was lying stretched out, her dry tongue lolling from her open mouth, which seemed to hold an expression of pain. At first, Haji thought that her eyes were closed for he could see no glimmer of light from them. But then he realized that she had no eyes, for the thieving magpies had stolen them and that was why she was so still and quiet. He knew now that the third smell was the awful stench of death, and he shrank back from it in fear, hugging the wall of the cave as he crept away. He turned back once or twice and cried fearfully for the cubs to follow him but then he realized that the death-smell was on them too and anyway, they had been so young they could barely crawl to their mother’s milk. As she was blind in death, so had they been in life, however brief that was.

Haji reeled out into the sunlight, frightened, bewildered. He knew now that Seti and the cubs could never emerge from the cave, that the death-smell had bound them there forever. He would never encounter them on the trail again and though he could not really understand grief, there was an anxiety in him at the loss of his old companion and his inability to fully comprehend what had happened to her. He paced up and down, walking faster and faster, and working himself into a kind of frenzy, for he could still feel the stench of the death-smell in his nostrils and he was torn between a natural impulse to run away and a powerful desire to stay with his mate. But the image of her blind eyes kept coming back to him, telling him that it was useless to stay and risk the death-smell, for she could never find him now.

At last he articulated the frenzy of conflicting emotions within him into a great shattering roar, which he flung to the wind. It echoed from the crags of rock, seeming to multiply in volume and duration until the entire jungle for miles around throbbed to the sound of his confusion. Flocks of birds scattered skywards, deer raced into jungle, milling in confusion, troops of monkeys shrieked feeble insults in return. But the roaring continued, all through the long morning and late into the afternoon.

Harry stepped out of the taxicab onto the crowded pavement of one of the main streets of Kuala Trengganu, the state capital. He handed the driver a five-dollar bill and waved away the change. The taxi accelerated off into a melee of cars and bicycles all reassuringly ploughing a path down the left-hand side of the road. Harry glanced quickly about. Kuala Trengganu, like most sizeable Malay towns, was a riot of sounds, smells, and visual peculiarities. Harry didn’t make the trip very often, but the only real shops were here and he had something special in mind. He noticed a couple of bedraggled beggars advancing towards him with their arms outstretched, and he wisely took to his heels, striding purposely past the ranks of Chinese emporiums and eating places, each with their own garish advertisements for drink and cigarettes displayed on tin boards outside. It was not that he begrudged the beggars a few cents, but he had learned from experience that news of a generous Englishman could spread amongst the begging community like wildfire and then the wretched creatures would appear as if by magic, crawling out of every nook and cranny. In such instances, it was simply impossible to give everybody something, there were just too many of them; and so, one played a kind of cat-and-mouse game with them, only rewarding those who showed uncanny persistence in staying the distance.

Harry headed for a certain area, where a row of Chinese merchants operated stores that specialized in watches, cameras, and radios. As he struggled through a crowded market, he felt a sharp tugging at his sleeve and glancing down he saw that a Tamil beggar was standing beside him. At first, he thought the man was very short, because he stood no higher than Harry’s elbow.

‘Please, Tuan, please!’ He gazed imploringly up, one hand extended for coins.

‘No, I’m sorry, I haven’t any …’ The excuse died in Harry’s throat, for, glancing down, he saw that the man was suffering from elephantiasis. His body was perfectly normal but his legs had degenerated into two vividly coloured stumps of bloated, clublike flesh, spreading out at the base into wide formless trunks from each of which a single yellow toenail protruded. Harry felt nauseated, humbled. He glanced back at the man’s face which was a portrait of suffering.

‘Please, Tuan …’

‘Yes … yes, of course.’ Harry fumbled in his pocket and pulled out what change there was, and thrust it into the man’s hand. Then he moved on, not wanting to see those hideous legs again. From behind him came the man’s profuse thanks.

‘Terima kasih, Tuan! Terima kasih …’

His head down, Harry hurried onwards. Lord, this country of mixed experiences. Just when a man was beginning to think that he was inured to shock, along came something like that to put him firmly in his place again. Sometimes he wondered if the white man really had any place out here. Perhaps it was a good thing that the colonial system was finally falling apart … and yet, from his middle youth onwards, it was the only life that Harry had known. He would stay on now. He would have to.

He climbed up the steps by the monsoon drain and onto a raised pavement. This was the area he had been heading for. After a few moments, he came to the particular shop he wanted. He had long ago learned that it was good policy to frequent one particular shop. After a while, the trader got to know you and recognizing that regular trade was a good thing, he would start his bartering at a much more realistic level than he would with the average passing tourist. The shop was packed tight with electrical goods and ranks of glittering watches were displayed beneath glass counters. It was on this selection that Harry fixed his gaze.

In an instant, the proprietor, a tubby bespectacled little Chinese man called Hong, had bustled over to greet him.

‘Hello sir! You look for something special?’ He indicated the watches. ‘Good watches, sir. Best in Trengganu. Best in Malaya!’

Harry smiled. The man was evidently very proud of his shop.

‘Well, let me see now …’ Harry knew that it was best to make the transaction slow. A man who bought on impulse was likely to end up with a bad deal. ‘I am looking for a watch. A good watch, you understand. A gift for a very good friend.’

‘Ah! You want special watch! I show!’ He indicated some beautiful Japanese chronometers. ‘These best in world,’ he announced. ‘Fine made, got two-year guarantee …’ He was already removing them from the glass case, but Harry shook his head.

‘These are, indeed, very good watches. But not what I’m looking for.’

‘No?’ The man looked quite amazed by this revelation. ‘Ah! You want good Swiss watch?’

‘How about an English watch?’ ventured Harry.

Hong grimaced. ‘The English not make good watch,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘Go wrong all time. I not sell English watch. But Swiss very good! See here, twenty-one jewel, shock-proof, water-proof, anti-magnetic …’

‘Hmm.’ Harry rubbed his chin, scanned the ranks of glittering merchandise. ‘It’s still not right. I want something simple, easy to understand. It’s for a young boy, you see …’

‘Ah! Young boy! I got good watch for young boy. This one! Shock-proof, dust-proof, water-proof, anti-magnetic, one-year guarantee …’

‘No. It’s still not quite … ah, now that looks the sort of thing!’ He pointed to a simple silver pocket-watch on a leather fob. ‘Let me see that one,’ he said.

‘This watch, sir?’ Hong could scarcely believe his eyes. ‘You want this one? But this one not show date! This one not carry guarantee, not dust-proof, water-proof …’

‘Yes, well, I’d like to see it anyway.’

‘OK, sir.’ Hong bobbed down behind the counter, extracted the watch, and, as Harry had expected, reemerged with a whole new point of view. ‘Here you are, sir. This very fine watch, very rare. Swiss mechanism. Twenty-one jewel, shock-proof, water-proof, two-year guarantee …’

Harry suppressed a smile.

‘I thought you just said it didn’t have any of those things.’

Hong spread his hands and smiled sheepishly. ‘But sir, that was when I didn’t want you to buy this watch.’

In spite of himself, Harry had to laugh. It was an outlandish explanation, but it held good for all the merchants in this town. He picked up the watch and examined it critically. It looked robust enough, a simple silver pocket-watch that showed the time clearly and looked like it could take some rough handling. ‘Alright,’ murmured Harry. ‘How much?’

Hong gazed at him for a moment with an inscrutable smile on his face.

‘This watch, sir. I sell you for … twenty-five dollars.’

‘Twenty-five!’ Harry registered disgust and made as if to walk off. ‘Hong, it’s time I started going to some of the other shops,’ he said.

‘Just a minute, just a minute!’ Hong smiled again, broader than before. ‘You good man … I good man. I make you special price. Twenty dollars.’

‘Twenty? That’s still robbery. I’ll give you … six dollars for it.’

Now it was Hong’s turn to be outraged.

‘Six? You want watch for six? If I sell for that much, I go out of business. Six … you give me fifteen dollars, I can not go less.’

‘Eight dollars!’

‘Twelve!’

‘Well … alright, ten dollars, my last offer.’

‘Ten dollars! Madness! Twelve my lowest price!’

‘You said that about fifteen. I’ll give you ten.’

Hong shook his head adamantly.

‘Sorry, sir. Twelve. Cannot go lower.’

‘Then I don’t want the watch.’ Again, he made as if to walk away.

‘Alright, alright, alright!’ Hong was tearing at his hair. ‘I give you for ten.’

‘Eight?’ ventured Harry with a grin, but Hong’s look of horror told him that this was clearly not playing the game. ‘Alright, only joking.’ He counted out the notes and put the watch into his pocket.

‘Now sir, you want anything else? Binocular? Got very nice, very cheap. Radio, pick up all English station? Record player, new from Japan? Good. Identity bracelet? Cassette recorder …?’

Harry retreated from the onslaught with a brief wave and set out again into the crowds. News of his kindness to the deformed cripple had evidently got around, for suddenly there seemed to be an awful lot of beggars in evidence – lame men, people missing limbs, women with tiny howling babies. Harry slipped smartly around the corner and strode quickly away in the other direction. When he was in Kuala Trengganu, he usually sought one little luxury that was not readily available at home. He went to a small barber shop where he had a haircut and a beautifully close shave that was administered with a horrifying looking cutthroat razor. As he sat back in his chair, he brought out the silver watch and examined it carefully.

‘Nice watch,’ observed the barber. ‘How much you pay?’

‘Ten dollars.’

‘I can get watch like that for six dollar.’

Harry nodded.

‘This shave is costing me one dollar,’ he said. ‘If I were a Malay, I could get it for twenty-five cents.’

And the barber threw back his head and laughed merrily, his dark eyes twinkling. Harry laughed along with him. No further explanation was necessary.

The afternoon sun was still fierce. Bob Beresford felt the heat of it on his neck as he brought the Land Rover to an abrupt, squealing halt on the stretch of road that ran alongside Kampong Panjang. He clambered out of the vehicle, collected his rifle from the back seat, and slinging the weapon carelessly over his shoulder he headed into the village. The kampong was a jumble of rattan and corrugated iron dwellings, all of them supported three or four feet above the ground on a series of stout posts, a practical necessity in a land that swarmed with venomous snakes, scorpions, and centipedes. The village seemed to have been constructed with no particular sense of order, one building encroaching close upon the next, with just a well-trampled muddy walkway in between. As Bob approached, he was quickly spotted by groups of children who flocked around him excitedly, pointing to his gun, and jabbering in Malay. As soon as they divined that he had some purpose in coming here, they fell in behind him like a platoon of miniature troops. Bob could barely speak their language and could only gaze at them enquiringly and repeat over and over, ‘Penghulu?’ Somebody had told him that this was the Malay word for the village headman. Perhaps his pronunciation was bad, because it took some considerable time to make his wishes known. At last, with wild exclamations, the laughing children took the lead and drew him deeper and deeper into the village. Finally, they deposited him outside a dwelling that looked no grander than the others and the children began to shout and yell, until a little, wizened monkey of a man, dressed in a red sarong, emerged from the interior of the house and clambered down the stairs. He growled something at the children and their noise subsided abruptly. Then the penghulu smiled apologetically at Bob and lowered his head in a polite bow.

‘Good day, Tuan. Can I be a help?’ His English was surprisingly fluent. The children began to giggle. The penghulu gave a shout and stepped menacingly towards them, at which point the children scattered in every direction, leaving the two men to their own devices. The penghulu turned back and raised his eyes briefly heavenwards, an expression that said, ‘Ah, these children! What can a man do with them?’ Then he enquired politely, ‘Will the Tuan take some tea?’

‘Ah … no, thanks very much. But I could use some help. I came about the tiger …’

The penghulu looked puzzled. Evidently, he had not come across the word before.

‘Harimau,’ prompted Bob, who had taken the trouble of finding out a few easy terms from some of his pupils.

‘Ah!’ The penghulu nodded gravely. He eyed Bob’s rifle curiously. ‘You want shoot him?’ he murmured.

‘If I can. Can you show me the place where he took the cow?’

The penghulu smiled, nodded. He turned back to the house and shouted something in his native tongue. After a moment’s silence, the sound of a scolding woman’s voice emerged from within, a long stream of words that seemed to contain not one pause for breath. The penghulu grimaced, winked slyly at Bob, and then chuckled.

‘Women,’ he murmured. ‘Why do we marry them? Come!’ He led Bob away from the house, ignoring the barrage of invective that was still emerging from there. They could hear the woman’s complaining voice for some distance.

Bob took out a packet of English cigarettes, offered one to the old man, who accepted it gratefully, and then put one between his own lips. He lit both cigarettes with his silver Ronson. The penghulu gazed at this admiringly and then strolled happily beside the Australian, puffing ostentatiously on his cigarette, aware that people in the surrounding houses were observing him. He was a curious-looking fellow. No more than five feet, three inches high, his legs were quite short in proportion to his body and rather bandy, emphasizing the apishness of his appearance. As well as the sarong, he was wearing a grubby white short-sleeved shirt and a pair of blue rubber flip-flops. His large, rather discoloured teeth were liberally dotted with bright gold fillings that tended to reflect the sunlight whenever he grinned. It was impossible to guess at his age. His tiny, excessively lined face suggested an octogenarian but he was as agile and wiry as a gibbon as he trotted along through the village.

‘Is it far away?’ enquired Bob.

‘Not far, Tuan. Si-Pudong take cow on road, out by kampong. Then he carry ’way. No man know where to. Herd-boy very frighted, but Si-Pudong not touch him. He read words on boy here!’ The penghulu tapped his own forehead and smiled. ‘So, Si-Pudong ’fraid to eat boy. Take cow ’stead.’

Bob did not understand this at all and resolved to ask somebody else to explain it to him in the near future. The two of them moved out of the outskirts of the village and onto the road. Several children ventured to follow them, but the penghulu shouted for them to stay put, which they did, rather reluctantly, staring glumly after the two men as they strode away.

They walked for some distance in silence, glancing occasionally into the thick jungle that flanked the road. It was oppressively hot at the moment, and Bob felt the tickle of sweat as it ran down his neck, beneath his khaki shirt. After a surprisingly short distance, the penghulu announced, ‘Cow killed here!’ He pointed to some scrape-marks in the hard dirt surface of the road and, peering closer, Bob could see some patches of dried blood. Now the penghulu pointed to the right, where behind a screen of ferns and scrub, the ground declined sharply into a monsoon ditch. ‘Ha – Si-Pudong, he come up out of ditch, attack from behind,’ explained the penghulu. Bob glanced at him suspiciously. He had the distinct impression that the old man had been about to say harimau, the normal Malay word for tiger, but he had stopped himself, almost as though he was afraid to say it. Just exactly what Si-Pudong meant, he would have to check up later. Bob moved over to the ditch and slid down into it, closely followed by the penghulu. The ground was comparatively moist here, and after some searching about they found a series of pugmarks.

‘Ai!’ exclaimed the penghulu, pointing. ‘There were two of them! See, Tuan.’ He indicated a pair of large, squarish prints. ‘Man-cat stand here. Go up bank to kill.’ Now he pointed out some smaller tracks, a little distance back. ‘His woman wait here, while he do all work.’ He thought to himself for a moment, then added, ‘Just like my wife.’

Bob smiled, scratched his head. He certainly hadn’t expected two tigers. He moved along the ditch a little way until he reached the place where the cow had been dropped down the bank. The grass was visibly crushed and flattened and there was a long deep furrow, presumably where one of the creature’s horns had gouged deep into the soil. There was a little dried blood matted into some tufts of grass, and from here a distinct trail led off through the undergrowth. Bob gazed after it for a moment, then turned to the penghulu and indicated that he intended to follow. The old man looked far from eager, so Bob took out his cigarettes and lighter, handed them to the penghulu and suggested that he should wait up on the road. With a grateful nod, the penghulu scrambled up over the bank and Bob set off into the jungle.

It was as though somebody had switched off the sun.

The instant he passed into the shadow of the trees, it seemed that the heat had simply evaporated, and he was immersed in a chilly world of green-dappled mystery. As he moved further onwards, the trees high above his head formed a thick dark canopy through which the rays of sunlight could only occasionally stab. But the trail he was following was easy enough to find. The drag marks led through the midst of lush ferns and tangled vines, around the gnarled roots of balau trees, along winding cattle trails, and deep through the heart of seemingly impenetrable bamboo thickets. Bob followed silently, glancing nervously this way and that. It was his first experience of entering real jungle and the dank humidity of it made him feel very claustrophobic. He started once when a pig-tailed monkey scuttled away from his advance with a shrill shriek of alarm, but he kept doggedly onwards, even when the trail stretched on much further than he would have believed possible. He marvelled at the sheer brute strength of the tiger. From time to time, he came across the chafed roots of trees and bushes, where the horns of the cow had evidently lodged for a time. The torn shredded bark suggested that the cat had exercised prodigious power in pulling the carcass free, and Bob began to wonder if the penghulu had been right about the second tiger. Surely it must have taken two strong animals to move the body this far.

Bob had no impression of time. He had forgotten to put on his wristwatch that morning and now it seemed like hours that he had been walking in this way. The trail led on through green shadow. Bob’s nerves began to get the better of him. On two distinct occasions, he had the vivid impression that something was gliding intently along behind him. Each time, he snapped fearfully around, his rifle ready to fire, only to find nothing but the empty jungle mocking him. He was on the verge of giving up and retracing his steps, when unexpectedly, the trail culminated at the edge of a sluggish-looking stream of water. It was a disappointing end to his search, for there was nothing here but a sorry-looking pile of bones and offal. It was obvious that no tiger would bother to return to this particular meal.

Bob came to a halt, mopped at his brow, which was sweating profusely despite the comparative cool of the jungle. Instinctively, he reached into his pocket for cigarettes and then remembered that he had given them to the penghulu. He swore vividly, shrugged his broad shoulders and turned back, retracing his steps.

If it had taken him a long time to come this far, the return journey seemed to take twice the time. He saw not a living thing on the way back, save for a brilliantly coloured tree snake hanging from an overhead limb. It had a glossy black body marked with a series of green and red spots, and he gave the creature a wide berth, not being sure whether it was poisonous or not. After what seemed like an uneventful eternity of trekking, he emerged into sunlight again.

The penghulu was sitting beside the road, smoking a cigarette and humming happily to himself. He glanced up in surprise as the Australian’s head appeared above the bank. Then he smiled, his gold teeth throwing out a dazzling welcome.

‘Ah, Tuan! You find Si-Pudong, yes?’

‘No.’ Bob clambered up onto the road and flopped down to rest for a moment. He accepted his lighter and cigarettes gratefully. Opening them, he found that there were only three left. He glanced disapprovingly at the penghulu, who smiled sheepishly and spread his arms in a gesture of regret.

‘You gone long time, Tuan,’ he said defensively.

‘Aww, that’s alright.’ Bob lit himself a smoke and inhaled deeply. ‘The cow was all eaten up,’ he announced. ‘If I’m going to shoot that tiger, I need to be onto the kill much quicker than this.’ He thought for a moment and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a notebook and pencil. ‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘I’m going to write the address of my house down here. Can you read some English? It’s only a mile or so away from here on the Kuala Trengganu road. Now, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you twenty dollars …’