The Tiger's Wife

would also like to place this town under quarantine until we can assess the extent of the illness.”

And here, he catches me off guard, because he says sharply, “What do you mean, tuberculosis?” He looks very distraught. And I would expect him to be distraught at tuberculosis, but I would expect a different kind of alarm— the way he looks at me, I feel like my diagnosis doesn’t suit him, like it’s inadequate, not severe enough for him.

Marek says: “Couldn’t it be something else?”

I tell him no, not with these symptoms, not with people falling dead one by one and leaving bloody pillows behind. I tell him that it will be all right, that I will send out for medicine, for nurses and another city physician to help me.

But he says: “Yes, but what if that doesn’t help?”

“It will.”

“If it’s tuberculosis,” he says. “If you’re right.”

“I am not entirely certain where this is going.”

“What if you’re wrong—what if it’s something else?” Marek says. By this time, he is very agitated, and he says, “I don’t think you understand, sir—I really doubt you understand.”

“Well, tell me about it,” I say.

“Well,” says Marek. “There is blood on our pillows. And … there was blood on the lapels of Gavo’s coat.”

“Because you shot him.”

Marek almost falls out of his seat. “I didn’t shoot him, Doctor, he was already dead!”

I am scribbling again, mostly just to look official. Dominic is sweating in frustration. I say: “I will need to speak with his family.”

“He has no family. He’s not from around here.”

“Then why was he buried here?”

“He was some sort of peddler from far away, we didn’t know anything about him. We wanted to do right by him.”

To me, this is becoming more and more frustrating—but I think: maybe that is why they are all suddenly coming down with tuberculosis, maybe he was infected and brought it in, even though he seemed perfectly healthy to them. But then, he has only been here for a short time, certainly not enough time to get the whole village sick—but obviously long enough for them to shoot him in the back of the head. “Who will give me permission to dig up the body?”

“You don’t need it.” Marek is wringing his hands. “We nailed the coffin shut, and then we put him in the church. He’s still in there.”

I look through the door again, and, sure enough, there is Aran Daric, standing at the church door, pistol in hand. Just in case. “I see.”

“No,” Marek says. He is almost crying, and he is wringing his hat furiously in his hands. Dominic has all but given up. Marek says: “No, you don’t see. People with blood on their clothes are sitting up in coffins and then there is blood on our pillows in the morning. I don’t believe you see at all.”

So there we are, Dominic and I, standing in the little stone church at Bistrina, and the coffin of the man called Gavo is there, lying at an angle from the door, as if it’s been shoved in pretty quickly. It’s a dusty wooden coffin. The church is stone, and quiet. It smells of sandalwood and wax, and there is an icon of the Virgin above the door. The windows are blue glass. It is a beautiful church, but it is obvious that no one has been in it for a long time—the candles are all out, and this fellow Gavo’s coffin is covered with a few spatters of white, which the doves that live in the belfry have been dropping down on him. It is a sad thing to see, because as far as I know, this man Gavo has done nothing to deserve being shot in the back of the head at his own funeral. Twice.

After we come in, Aran Daric closes the door behind us quickly and suddenly, and for a long time everything is quiet in the little church. We’ve come in with our satchels, and we’ve also brought a crowbar to open the coffin, and we begin to realize that perhaps we should have brought in more than just the crowbar—a team of oxen, for example, because the coffin has not only been nailed shut, but also crisscrossed with extra boards across the lid, and chained around and around with what looks like a bicycle chain. Someone, probably as an afterthought, has thrown a string of garlic onto the coffin, and the heads are lying there in their paper shells.

Dominic manages to say to me, “Shame, awful shame.” Then he spits and says, “Peasants.”

And then we hear something that is altogether incredible, something you cannot even begin to appreciate because, without hearing for yourself the way it sounded in the quiet church, you won’t believe it happened. It is the sound of shuffling movement, and then, all of a sudden, a voice from the coffin, a frank, polite, slightly muffled voice that says: “Water.”

We are, of course, completely paralyzed. Dominic Lazlo stands beside me, gripping the crowbar in a white fist. His breathing is slow and shallow, and his mustache is beginning to sweat, and he is swearing quietly again and again in Hungarian. I am on the verge of saying something when the voice—same tone, very passive, just asking— says: “Pardon me: water, please.”

And then quick, quick, he’s alive, open the coffin! Dominic Lazlo is thrusting the edge of the crowbar under the lid, and I am on my knees trying to yank off the bicycle chain. We’re hammering away at the coffin like we’re trying to pry the whole thing to pieces, and Dominic has his foot against the side and he’s heaving down on the length of the crowbar like a madman, and I am not helping by saying, push push push. And then the lid, creaking like bone, snaps off and there he is, the man Gavo lying back against the cushions with his folded purple napkin, looking slightly dusty but otherwise unharmed.

We grab him by the arms and pull him into a sitting position, which, in retrospect, isn’t something I recommend you ever do with someone who’s been shot in the back of the head, because who knows what’s kept him alive. But I think, how extraordinary. I have been expecting this man to look older, white hair, maybe a mustache.

But Gavo is young, thirty at most, and he has a fine head of dark hair and a pleased expression on his face. It is hard to believe that a man who has just been pulled out of a coffin where he has spent several days can look anything short of exuberant; but that’s the extraordinary thing, he just looks very pleased, sitting there, with his hands in his lap.