Night Visitor, cont'd.
The Tale of the Night Visitor in the Garden,  © 2008, Ramona K. Silipo. All rights reserved.

When I woke up, at about five o’clock, I looked down at the garden from my bedroom window. The tiger was sound asleep, and the food was gone. He’d awakened in the night, eaten, and stayed.. But how long would he remain? Would I have time to find out where he’d escaped from? Would I have to ring the police?  And I was concerned about his condition. Well, time to worry about all of that when other people started opening up their offices. Right now, I needed to get more food for the tiger.
Hugo was accustomed to phone calls at odd hours. He was, after all, a solicitor, my solicitor. He sleepily mumbled, “Can’t this wait just three hours or so?”
I didn’t apologize. I said, firmly, almost motherly, “No, Hugo. I need you to get up now, go to the market and buy twenty kilos of meat.”
“What!?” he half-exploded, fully awake now.
“Any kind of meat, offal, fat, scraps, whatever. Twenty kilos. And bring it here right away.”
“Where is here?” he asked tiredly. I could visualize him sitting up in bed, with that exasperated expression he often has when talking with me.
“My house, of course,” I said rationally. “I shall explain it when you get here. You won’t believe me if I tell you now.”
“All right. I shall be with you in about an hour,” he acceded. He always did what I asked. His firm had had quite a lucrative client in my father, and I’d seen no reason to change firms, even after Hugo’s father had died a few years ago.
We rang off, and I got to work on my computer. If there had been an escape, they were being very quiet about it. There had been nothing in the newspapers or on television. I searched for animal parks and zoos, even circuses –anywhere the tiger might have been. I found a dozen places to ring as soon as I thought they would be open.
I looked outside periodically to see if the tiger was still there, but I needn’t have. He was sleeping as though catching up on days and days of lost rest. After I’d put my call list together, I returned to the terrace, where I sat and watched him for a long time. What a gorgeous thing he must be when in good health: glossy flame-coloured fur, shot through with stripes black as night, with feet and underside of snowy white.
Covered in dried blood and mud, thin and exhausted, he seemed  just an overgrown moggie, home after a fight with the neighbouring tomcat. I wondered if he would allow me to look him over, to treat the cuts. Maybe that wouldn’t be very wise, I thought. I didn’t know how well trained he was, or if there were special techniques to use, or anything along those lines. Nevertheless, I wanted to find out if the cuts were infected. I wanted to get a look at those feet as well.
As I was trying to work out how best to try to assess his wounds, I heard Hugo’s rapping on the front door. I went through and found him holding four carrier bags full of meat.
“There’s more in the car,” he said without preamble.
“Oh, thank you, Hugo. I’ll take these. Can you bring the rest in?”
Hugo went back to the car and brought another four full carrier bags straight through to the kitchen. “Now,” he demanded, “are you going to tell me what this is about?”
I motioned to him to be quiet and follow me and took him out onto the terrace.
“Oh, my God, where did you get him from?” Hugo predictably half-bellowed.
“Ssssh,” I hissed, but too late.
The huge head popped up. But all he did was sniff thoroughly, his nose moving fast and furiously, his ears pricked up, his eyes burrowing into Hugo’s face. Then he looked at me, sighed, and put his head back down. He didn’t sleep again, but said quite articulately, in the way that cats do, that he wasn’t ready to move.
“I didn’t get him from anywhere,” I told Hugo, back in the kitchen while I dumped the meat out onto a tray. “He just walked up from the stream last night. He was hungry, tired and injured. I think he just needed a place to rest. He hasn’t moved since I left him there at about half past nine last night.”
“Well, you must ring the police immediately,” Hugo clicked into solicitor mode.
“No, I mustn’t. I must ring all of these places first,” I said, handing him the list. “He has to be from someplace. Tigers don’t just turn up here, you know.”
“This isn’t a good idea, Lillian,” he said in his most conciliatory voice. “We need to get the authorities involved straight away.”
“No. I want to try this first. If we don’t get any results from these phone calls, then I shall ring the RSPCA. All right?” I could be conciliatory, too.
He grudgingly agreed. I brewed coffee. Since I’d cooked all the eggs for the tiger, I offered muesli and fruit for breakfast. Before we sat down to eat, however, I took the meat out to the tiger. Hugo followed.
I put the meat on the ground about six feet from the tiger. His head popped up again, and his nose started working hard and fast. He licked his chops. But he made no move to go to the food.
“This isn’t good,” I mumbled toward Hugo.
“What?”
“Well, he’s obviously famished, but he seems too exhausted or ill to get up to eat.”
For a few moments I watched the tiger. His head was down, but his nose was still working, and I could see saliva glistening around his mouth. He was terribly hungry.
I decided in a split second and was suddenly sitting on the ground, feeding chunks of meat to this huge jungle beast. He gulped the food, licking my hands and arms after each bite. His tongue was about three inches wide and rough like a house cat’s.
As I kept my eyes on the tiger’s head, I said quietly to Hugo, “See if you can get a look at his feet. I think they must be burned or cut or something.”