The Tiger and the Acrobat Read online

  The

  TIGER

  and the

  ACROBAT

  The

  TIGER

  and the

  ACROBAT

  SUSANNA

  TAMARO

  Translated by

  Nicoleugenia Prezzavento

  and

  Vicki Satlow

  There is a light that shines beyond all things on Earth,

  beyond us all, beyond the heavens,

  beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.

  This is the radiant light that shines in the heart of man.

  Chandogya Upanishad, 3.13.7

  Contents

  Chapter One: A Sliver of Light

  Chapter Two: Lessons in Survival

  Chapter Three: A Voice Will Call You

  Chapter Four: I Must Tell You about Mankind

  Chapter Five: The Man-Tiger

  Chapter Six: What Will Become of Her?

  Chapter Seven: To the East

  Chapter Eight: The Tiger of Nothing

  Chapter Nine: I’ve Been Waiting for You

  Chapter Ten: A Hand and Its Glove

  Chapter Eleven: Wanderers in the Taiga

  Chapter Twelve: That Fateful Day

  Chapter Thirteen: Welcome to the Circus!

  Chapter Fourteen: The Little Acrobat

  Chapter Fifteen: I Want to Learn to Fly

  Chapter Sixteen: In the City of Humans

  Chapter Seventeen: The Rag-Man

  Chapter Eighteen: Towards Freedom

  Chapter Nineteen: The Wall to Climb

  Chapter Twenty: The Walnut and the Shell

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Young Ibex

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Towards the Sky

  Chapter Twenty-Three: The Dance of the Crows

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Beyond the Breach

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  A Sliver of Light

  Little Tiger was ushered into the world on a bed of leaves deep within a den, welcomed by the earthy scents of her mother and the forest.

  Little Tiger was not Shere Khan: she knew nothing of the gauzy mists of the tropics or the carefree laziness inspired by that climate. She was born in the Far North, between the Arctic tundra and the snowy forests of the taiga, which stretches out from the West to the Far East, where the sun has risen since the beginning of time. She was more familiar with the huts of the Siberian shamans than with snake charmers.

  Her mother had long, thick fur, extraordinarily long whiskers and a soft, warm body. There was nothing to fear as long as she could hear her mother’s deep, regular breathing.

  For the first few days, Little Tiger did nothing but suckle, curled up against her mother’s side. There was someone else close to her who suckled just like her, and to whom she clung every night in her sleep.

  One morning, as Little Tiger roused from her sleep, something incredible happened. A sliver of light appeared in the darkness that had engulfed her since birth. It was faint, but was just bright enough to show her that as well as the Inside there was also an Outside. An Outside made of shadows, of dark shapes and silhouettes.

  Something out there was moving.

  The silhouettes soon turned into shapes and these shapes had a face. The face was that of her mother, who was licking her with her huge, rough tongue, almost flipping her over.

  ‘Where am I?’ was the first question Little Tiger asked.

  ‘You’re in our den,’ Mother replied.

  ‘And where was I before?’

  ‘Before, you were inside my belly, with your brother.’

  Inside the den, everything was familiar: the fallen tree trunks that made up the roof, the soft bed of leaves under her belly, the light that filtered through the tangled roots. But while the leaves and trunks were always there, the light came and went as it pleased. Sometimes it was there, sometimes it wasn’t.

  ‘Why does it do that?’ she asked her mother.

  ‘Because there is a time for the sun and a time for the stars.’

  ‘Is the sun a tiger?’

  Mother remained silent for a while. ‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘because the sun is the King of the Sky.’

  ‘Are we Kings too?’ Little Tiger asked.

  ‘Yes, we are Kings and Queens. The sun rules the sky and we rule the taiga.’

  ‘So what?’ Tiger Cub pressed.

  ‘Everyone fears us and we fear no one.’

  The third thing that Little Tiger discovered were her ears. One morning, as the sun seeped into the den, her attention was captured by a series of wonderful sounds.

  To better understand where they came from, she got up on her wobbly legs and started tottering towards the light. As she was about to peek outside, her mother’s imposing body blocked the entrance.

  ‘Why aren’t you inside with your brother?’ she roared, grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and carrying her back to the rear of the den. ‘You’re not allowed outside without me!’

  Disappointed, Little Tiger cowered among the leaves.

  Just a few days later, however, Mother decided it was finally time to let them out. That morning, Little Tiger’s heart was racing.

  Finally, she would see! Finally, she would know!

  They lined up. First Mother, then her little brother and, lastly, her.

  ‘Do not stray away from my tail!’ Mother roared before leaving the den.

  And so they left.

  The sun shone high in the sky, so bright that the cubs’ eyes were almost hurting. They advanced cautiously, squinting.

  It was a beautiful spring day; new leaves were sprouting on the highest tree branches, and at the bottom of the trunks the first flowers were just beginning to bloom. The ground beneath their paws was soft and wet. The birds were singing above their heads, while other, smaller animals scampered off as soon as they saw them.

  Then suddenly they heard a scary noise, far away at first, then closer and closer. The two cubs stopped, uncertain, with their tails straight and their whiskers and noses tensed, to try to understand the sound.

  ‘It’s the river,’ Mother told them, turning. ‘Soon you will see it too.’

  And, indeed, a vast expanse of shimmering water soon appeared before their eyes. Large tree trunks crashed against white, glossy sheets of ice, producing the noise that had so frightened them moments before.

  ‘There should always be a river in your Kingdom,’ Mother said. ‘We tigers need to drink plenty of water. Remember that!’

  While the cubs timidly approached the river to drink, Mother kept talking. ‘As you can see, the river is made of water, but when the stars are in the sky longer than the sun, the water turns into a hard surface called ice. You can’t drink the ice and it can be your enemy.’

  ‘It’s not afraid of us?’ Tiger Cub asked.

  ‘We can’t eat it,’ Mother replied calmly.

  ‘But it can’t eat us either!’

  ‘It can eat you even if it has no mouth. If you walk over it and it breaks, it’ll drag you under. Then, if no trunks float by to cling to, it’s very hard to get out of its grip.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lessons in Survival

  The day after their first outing, Mother brought the pair of cubs a hare to eat in the den.

  ‘You will start by hunting these,’ she said as they were feasting on their first meat. ‘After that you will move on to foxes, deer and then even larger creatures.’

  The change of diet made them stronger and more confident in their steps every day, and so they were able to start exploring beyond the boundaries of their home.

  The river was a good place to go hunting.

  ‘Everything that can walk will need to drink sooner or later,’
Mother had explained to them. ‘So just lie low and wait. Lunging and Surprise are the arts you must master.’

  As they explored the riverbanks and the birch woods, Mother also taught them the diversity of smells. The smell of mouse, the smell of hare, of ermine, fox, badger and boar. Everything that could run had a smell, and everything that had a smell could be eaten.

  She also taught them that time isn’t always the same. There is the short time made of very long days, and the very long time when days become short. If the day is short, the night is long; and when the night is long, snow and ice fall over the world.

  Snow changes everything.

  It changes the way predators must hunt and track their prey and, as a result, changes the way they return to their dens too.

  ‘Follow the tracks, but never leave any – this is the secret of our kin. When a tiger moves, nobody should be able to work out their direction. It’s easy when there’s no snow, but the presence of snow makes things harder. Nobody should ever find out where your den is.’

  ‘Why?’ Tiger Cub asked.

  ‘Because your den is where you will keep the most precious thing.’

  ‘What?’ Little Tiger persisted.

  ‘Yourselves,’ Mother replied, nuzzling them both.

  ‘If we’re Kings and Queens, what should we be afraid of?’ Little Tiger wanted to ask, but the question got stuck at the back of her throat.

  It was on a snowy day that they explored their first field. Mother hid behind a large trunk and sent them both off into the taiga to hunt. Little Tiger was better at it than her brother and soon reappeared with a rabbit in her mouth. It had been easy and fun, and the flesh seemed tastier than that of the hare Mother had brought them.

  In the days that followed, Mother began to wander off, leaving them alone in the den.

  ‘Do not go outside!’ was her strict order every time.

  She would stay away for one, two or even three days.

  In the boredom of confinement, Little Tiger wondered about her mother’s warning. Why weren’t they supposed to go outside? If they really were Kings and Queens, what on Earth did they have to fear? They had already met the enemy that was Ice. Were there others too, perhaps?

  Sometimes Tiger Cub wanted to play inside the den, but she didn’t feel like it. She had seen the Outside, and now felt nostalgic for everything that happened in the sun.

  Mother’s return was always a cause for celebration. She would peer inside the den with her jaws clamped around a very big catch, which they would then drag down to the river together.

  The first time, both cubs were in awe of such large prey. A hare or a mouse was easy to eat, but that huge buck? Where were they supposed to begin?

  Mother gently nudged them towards the hind legs. ‘Start from there, then keep eating until you feel full.’

  The three of them ate in silence, side by side, for quite a long time. Every now and then they would peel themselves away from the carcass to go to drink from the river.

  Some crows cawed loudly from the surrounding trees.

  ‘Why do they do that?’ Little Tiger asked, looking up at them.

  ‘Because they’re hungry.’

  ‘When will they eat?’

  ‘When we allow them to.’

  Some of the smaller prey could be devoured in the time between sunrise and sunset, while others – moose or big deer – weren’t stripped clean even by the time darkness fell. Then Mother and cubs would cover the carcass with branches and leaves and, instead of returning to the den, they would lie there, watching their meal closely. They soon learned that the crows were not the only creatures in the taiga that fed at the expense of others.

  One sunny day, while they were devouring what remained of a moose, a male tiger appeared in the clearing. All three of them raised their muzzles from the carcass. Instead of leaping at his throat, Mother walked over to greet him, tail straight, and brushed her nose against his.

  ‘Say hello to your father,’ she told the cubs.

  A little intimidated, Little Tiger and Tiger Cub ran over to rub their faces against his.

  Their father stayed with them for three days, until not even a shred of meat was left on the moose carcass. At night they lay next to each other, lazily flicking their tails, engrossed in the sounds of the Great Forest breathing.

  Father got up at the crack of dawn on the fourth day.

  Eyes blazing, he told them: ‘Remember! As long as you are true tigers, you will have the world at your feet. But if you allow another Spirit to possess you even for one moment, the world will notice and will turn you into a laughing stock.’

  Whose Spirit? Little Tiger wanted to ask, and what is a laughing stock? But she didn’t have a chance because Father rubbed his muzzle against theirs and then vanished into the silence of the taiga as suddenly as he had appeared.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Voice Will Call You

  Little Tiger and Tiger Cub were growing up fast.

  They were not yet as large as their mother, but they no longer looked like cubs either. When all three were asleep in the den, between all the legs and tails there was hardly any room left.

  They had continued their training throughout the long winter in the taiga. They had learned to walk on any terrain without making noise. Be it ice, mud or a carpet of leaves and branches, every step was to be shrouded in the deepest silence. They had learned to smell the air and read all of its messages. They had learned to listen to the wind and recognize its invisible words.

  They had learned how to leap.

  ‘Leap further and with more power!’ Mother repeated relentlessly. ‘Sneak up behind, jump on the back of your prey and go for the throat in one smooth and continuous movement.’

  Such was the hard work of a tiger.

  One evening, as they were returning to the den, Little Tiger, shaking the snow off her thick fur, asked her mother:

  ‘How long will I be little for? My tail is almost as long as yours now.’

  Mother smiled as only a tiger can – from the bottom of her heart. Many seasons earlier, she had asked the same question of her own mother.

  ‘You will be little for as long as you stay with me.’

  ‘And how long will we stay?’ Tiger Cub asked.

  ‘Until the day the taiga calls you.’

  ‘But we are already in the taiga!’ Little Tiger said.

  ‘But the Kingdom where you live is mine. One day you will leave to conquer your own.’

  ‘I’m happy here!’ Little Tiger said.

  ‘A day will come when that will no longer be true.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘One morning, a voice will call you.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then you will start running. And you will keep running and never turn back.’

  ‘Won’t we see each other again?’ Tiger Cub asked.

  ‘Enough now. Be quiet!’ Mother said, resting her head on her front paws as her eyes closed wearily.

  ‘We will meet again in the Taiga beyond the Sky,’ she whispered, before drifting off to sleep.

  One summer had already passed and another was almost over, when Little Tiger realized that life was not as simple as it had seemed during her first forays out of the den.

  There were practical difficulties: walking on ice, finding prey. But there were also all kinds of other difficulties that were much harder to define.

  Father’s parting words kept echoing in her mind, but she had no answers.

  Would she be a true tiger, or something else?

  And what else?

  A wild boar, a deer, a wolf, a crow?

  What would she risk turning into if she were unable to become a true tiger?

  ‘Always be true!’ Mother kept repeating.

  One night, in the warmth of the den, Little Tiger asked her what it meant to be ‘true’.

  ‘A tiger must be fully tiger,’ she replied.

  Then they had slept, side by side. Or rather, Mother
had slept while Little Tiger remained awake, wide-eyed in the darkness of the den. She had seen old trees in the forest: their trunks were full of cracks, with mushrooms growing inside the deep cavities. Were they still trees, or were they fungus-trees?

  Could such a thing happen to her too? At some point, if the integrity of her fur were breached and an opening created, would another nature be allowed to enter? Or would her own nature simply flow out?

  Where would it go to?

  How could she possibly know?

  And how could somebody else’s nature take over her? If she wasn’t true, then some day would she turn into a rat or a hare? Instead of hunting, would she be hunted? Is there a difference between how things appear and how things really are? she wondered.

  As the dawn light began creeping into the den, Little Tiger thought she had got only one thing clear in her mind: life truly was full of mysteries!

  Over time, her mother began to notice that Little Tiger’s hunting skills were not as promising as they had been in the beginning. While Tiger Cub lunged without hesitation, Little Tiger would often get distracted midway through the motion. Her body was present but her mind was not, and in that split second her prey was able to get enough speed to escape, and she lost it.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Mother asked her after a few resounding failures, but Little Tiger was unable to respond.

  She should have said she was thinking, but tigers do not know what thinking means. Then Mother reminded her that nobody would ever be able to hunt in her place. Some day soon, her own survival and that of her cubs would depend entirely on the power of her legs.

  Little Tiger nodded.

  Yes, she understood.

  Mother closed her eyes for a moment. That little one, of whom she had been so proud, now worried her. If she went on like that, what would become of her? As she watched her walk away against the blinding white of the snow, her tail swaying rhythmically with each step, Mother lowered her eyelids and prayed to the most powerful Spirits of the taiga.