The Tiger's Wife

all right they have given up, she has not, and she wants nothing from me but to understand that she is not ready to go.”

I do not say anything.

The deathless man continues: “I give her the coffee, I look inside the cup. And there it is: a journey beginning. All the dregs point to it, they make a little path away from her, and she is very sick, very weak. But still she does not give up, even when I tell her the news, when I tell her I am never wrong. She does not strike me or tell me to get out; instead, for three nights she clings like this to her refusal while I do what I can to make her comfortable.” He is quiet for a while, and then he says, “It does not take me three whole days to fall in love with her. Only one. But on the third day I am still there while her anger keeps her alive, and fills me more and more with despair and with love. She is so weak that when I tell her to break the cup, I have to hold her wrist while she does it, and she has to hit the cup three times on the side of her bed before it breaks, and even then it is a clumsy break.”

For a little while, he doesn’t say anything, he just sits there behind the wall, shuffling quietly. I say: “Your uncle, I suppose, is furious after that.”

“Furious, yes,” the deathless man says. “But not as furious as he is going to be later on. He warns me, you see. He says, ‘What you have done is despicable, and you have betrayed me. But as you are a young man, and very much in love, I will turn my head just this once.’ ”

“That seems generous.”

“It is more than generous. But of course, as it turns out, my love did not just fall ill. She was ill. And after we have fled together, after we have begun to build a life, it happens again, the same way over. She is in bed. I give her the coffee. I see what is there, and it is written as plain as a ticket or an agreement at a bank. But still I help her break the cup. What is there for me without her? Then my uncle comes. And he says: ‘You are a fool, and not my brother’s child. I indulged you once, but I’ll not do it again. From this day on, I’ve no need of you, and no want. Your time will never come, and you shall seek all the days of your life and never find it.’ ” Here, the deathless man laughs, and my head is filled with a dreadful kind of silence. “You see, Doctor,” he says. “At that moment, my uncle takes my woman anyway, and so for years I go about my life believing that this is what he is talking about, that I will never find her again, or someone like her again. But it is only when six or seven years have passed that I notice my face, my hands, my hair have not changed. And then, I begin to suspect what has happened. Then I confirm it.”

“How?” I say, slowly. “How do you confirm it?”

“I throw myself from a cliff in Naples,” he says, quite flatly. “At the bottom, there is no Death.”

“How high is the cliff?” I say, but he does not answer this.

“I still have the cup, though, and I go about my business, convinced that my uncle will forgive me in time. Years and years go by, and I find, suddenly, that I am no longer giving my cup to those I hope will live, but instead to those I think are certain to die.”

“Why is that?” I say.

“I find myself,” he says, “seeking the company of the dying, because, among them, I feel I will find my uncle. Except he never lets me see him. The newly dead, however, I see for days. It takes me a long time to realize what they are, for, of course, as a physician I could not see them, I could not see the dead. But my uncle, I think, does this on purpose, and I begin to see them standing alone in fields, near cemeteries and crossroads, waiting for their forty days to pass.”

“Why crossroads?” I say.

He sounds a little surprised at my ignorance. “Crossroads are where the paths of life meet, where life changes. In their case, it changes to death. That is where my uncle meets them once the forty days have passed.”

“And cemeteries?”

“Sometimes they are confused, unsure of where they are going. They drift naturally toward their own bodies. And when they drift this way, I begin to gather them.”

“Gather them how?” I say.

“A few at a time,” he says to me. “A few at a time, in places where many of them come together. Hospitals. Churches. Mines, when they collapse. I gather them and keep them with me for the forty days, and then I take them to a crossroads, and leave them for my uncle.”

“Got any with you right now?” I say.

“Really, Doctor.” He sounds disappointed.

I feel a little ashamed of making light of the dead. I say: “Why do you gather them if they are going to him anyway?”

“Because for him it makes things easier,” the deathless man says, “knowing that they are safe. Knowing that they are coming. Sometimes, when they wander, they do not find their way home again, and become lost after the forty days have passed. Then it is difficult to find them, and they begin to fill up with malice and fear, and this malice extends to the living, to their loved ones.” He sounds sad saying this, like he is talking about lost children. “Then the living take matters into their own hands. They dig up the bodies to bless them; they bury the dead man’s belongings. Money for the dead man. This is sometimes helpful. Sometimes, it brings the spirit back, and then it will come with me to the crossroads even if it has been years and years since its death.” Then he says: “I confess, too, that I am hoping, all this time, that my uncle will forgive me.”

I am thinking here that, if this is true—which it is not—he has come up with a good way to tell the story so that he seems generous in it, and helpful, too, when in fact his help is ultimately intended for himself. I do not say this, of course.

Instead, I say: “Why do you tell them that they are going to die?”

“So they can prepare,” he says right away. “That, too, is supposed to make it easier. You see, there is always a struggle. But if they know—if they have thought about it—sometimes the struggle is less and less.”

“Still,” I say, “it does not seem fair to frighten the dying, to single them out for punishment.”

“But dying is not punishment,” he says.

“Only to you,” I say, and suddenly I am angry. “Only because you’ve been denied it.”