Copyright © 2011 by Tea Obreht
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Portions of this book appeared previously in
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Obreht, Tea.
The tiger’s wife: a novel / Tea Obreht.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-60436-5
1. Women physicians—Fiction. 2. Orphanages— Fiction.
3. Grandparent and child—Fiction. 4. Family secrets—Fiction.
5. Balkan Peninsula—Fiction. I. Title
PS3615.B73T54 2011
813?.6—dc22 2010009612
www.atrandom.com
Jacket design: Anna Bauer
Jacket illustration: Mary Evans Picture Library
v3.1
Contents
Chapter 1 - The Coast
Chapter 2 - The War
Chapter 3 - The Diggers
Chapter 4 - The Tiger
Chapter 5 - The Orphanage
Chapter 6 - The Fire
Chapter 7 - The Butcher
Chapter 8 - The Heart
Chapter 9 - The Bear
Chapter 10 - The Crossroads
Chapter 11 - The Bombing
Chapter 12 - The Apothecary
Chapter 13 - The River
Then there is the popcorn cart, the umbrella stand, a small kiosk with postcards and pictures. Down the stairs and past the aviary where the sharp-eared owls sleep, through the garden that runs the length of the citadel wall, framed with cages. Once there was a king here, a sultan, his Janissaries. Now the cannon windows facing the street hold blocked-off troughs filled with tepid water. The cage bars curve out, rusted orange. In his free hand, my grandfather is carrying the blue bag my grandma has prepared for us. In it: six-day-old cabbage heads for the hippopotamus, carrots and celery for the sheep and deer and the bull moose, who is a kind of phenomenon. In his pocket, my grandfather has hidden some sugar cubes for the pony that pulls the park carriage. I will not remember