by Joslyn Chase
Taslima purchased the makings for an offering. She would visit the temple today and perhaps Father Lohar would be well enough—or sick enough—to discuss vaccinations for the children. She gathered an armful of fresh blossoms and cast a radiant smile upon the flower merchant.
~~~~
Sanjay, the flower seller, grinned back. He’d just heard a bit of good news. Father Lohar was as good as dead.
~~~~
Bangladesh, Land of the Tiger.
Elizabeth smiled, remembering how frightened she’d been to walk these forested paths. Every splash of sunshine filtered through darkened fronds seemed to be the coat of a massive tiger, stalking through the trees. And she knew tigers were dangerous.
As a pre-med student, she’d learned about “tickling the tiger” in chemistry class. Dr. Hammond likened certain chemical experiments to teasing a sleeping tiger. He claimed that those types of experiments which involve the gradual adding of one element to another to determine the maximum amount which can be added before a violent reaction occurs are like seeing how many times you can poke a tiger before he chews your arm off. He made the point to emphasize the department’s safety procedures and he backed up his argument with a graphic video presentation. Elizabeth maintained a healthy respect for both tigers and chemicals.
No surprise, then, that at first she’d not liked the primitive isolation of the villages and the thick undergrowth along the trails, imagining them rampant with tigers and other hazards. But she learned to treasure these walks, the serenity and equilibrium they brought to her days. Vibrant life, lush beauty, and bursts of color struck a balance with the stark environment of the clinic. She always packed a lunch and although autumn marks monsoon season in the region and it was often raining, she made a point of leaving the clinic to eat it. Discouragement was a constant battle she fought and from these small pilgrimages, she drew her strength.
The overseas assignment had appealed to her sense of glamour. She tried not to reveal, even to herself, how shattered she was by the ruthless reality. Working conditions were deplorable, living conditions worse. Local doctors sometimes resented the intrusion and their attitude was as contagious as the illnesses they treated. Language barriers presented difficulties and the sheer misery and terror brought on by disease was a drain on Elizabeth’s energy and sensitivity. She wanted to respect these people, with their peculiar beliefs and customs, but she could not understand them. She brought them proven protection in the form of smallpox vaccinations, but many refused the proffered help. The Hindu goddess, Shitala Mata, cast smallpox among the people and they lived or died at her command.
Above the high-pitched and percussive bird sounds of the jungle, a man-made noise arose, a shout transmitted on an urgent frequency. Elizabeth began to run. She was greeted by a breathless entourage composed of Jana, the village girl who’d been helpful in running errands for the clinic, and two lab techs.
“Dr. Mason!” Jana’s face twisted in a curious expression, from the effort to catch her breath, or from the news she had to tell. “Father Lohar is dead!”
Elizabeth felt blank, unable to mirror or even comprehend the emotional upheaval which rode on the air like a heavy scent. She took Jana’s small hand in her own, falling back on her training for the right words, the proper tone.
“I’m sorry to hear this, Jana. Smallpox is cruelly impartial. His death saddens me but it does not surprise me, except in its swiftness. I would have expected Father Lohar to last a few days longer.”
“Smallpox did not kill him, Dr. Mason,” Jana’s dark eyes nearly swallowed her face and the flicker which danced within them grew still and solemn. “He was smitten by a pillar of fire.”
~~~~
Peter poured her a cup of tea. He’d been at the scene of the crime, summoned by the police from Patuakhali to answer questions. Much of the tea had missed the cup and Elizabeth swabbed at the saucer with a napkin.
“Head smashed in by a shivalingam,” Peter explained. “That’s a sort of ornament, made of heavy stone, they keep at their shrines. It represents a pillar of fire…among other things.”
“He was killed in the temple?” Elizabeth was aghast.
“Not exactly. His quarters are on the temple grounds and he was found there, in his personal shrine.” Peter sat, forehead resting in the palm of his hand, fingers burrowed into his gingery hair. “The police asked me to examine the body. The medical examiner was delayed and they wanted time sensitive information. Elizabeth, there was something very strange.”
Peter looked up and his eyes were wet. His Adam’s apple quivered as if struggling to hold back the words that were forming. When they spilled out, they hardly made sense. She didn’t understand what he was telling her.
“There were no pustules, no pox, no sign of disease. He was clean.”
~~~~
During the next two weeks, the police from Patuakhali spent a lot of time in the village, digging for motive and opportunity and finding plenty of both. Sanjay, the flower vendor, owed a great many debts to Father Lohar, both monetarily and in terms of secrets kept. Some of those secrets came out as a result of the investigation, and word of Sanjay’s indiscretions spread. He was mortified, but no charge of murder was brought against him.
Ravi Ghosal was unabashedly glad that the priest was dead, would almost like to take credit for killing him, but several of the villagers provided him with an alibi. Any number of devout Hindu parents, including the beautiful Taslima, considered the priest an obstacle to their children’s safety and might have taken steps to remove him.
The police were stymied. The problem, from their standpoint, was in putting it all together and making it stick. Nothing seemed coherent enough to take to court, and the case stalled.
In the clinic, Elizabeth and Peter had terminated the treatment trial and were focused now on cleaning up the aftermath and pushing the lifesaving vaccinations. Taslima Majhi was the first to come, bringing her children. Elizabeth stood in the doorway and watched for a moment as the staff inoculated the incoming crowds.
She watched whole families gather in a circle around the hot seat, taking turns at receiving the life-saving serum, and she thought of her father. He’d spent his life ministering to such families and finding contentment in that. Standing in that doorway, a million miles away, Elizabeth envisioned her own family circle, with their medical training and influence, intertwining with circles of families around the world. She missed them, suddenly, with a bite that sunk deep.
Pulling away, she returned to the supply room where she’d been packing the unused trial medicines for return to the stateside headquarters. The drug was in powder form which was dissolved in a saline solution and dispensed intravenously. The packets were marked with anonymous numbers, consistent with a double blind study, but when mixed with the fluid the treatment had a slightly different appearance than the placebo solution. This constituted another flaw in the disastrous trial, but had allowed Peter and Elizabeth to draw certain conclusions about the drugs. Those patients with the worst symptoms were nearly always connected with the treatment drug, rather than the placebo.
Elizabeth began packing a new box with the plastic medicine packets, then paused, frowning. Turning to the clipboard on the counter beside her, she consulted the inventory sheet. Several packets of the drug were unaccounted for. She went back and counted again, then a third time. Her mind scrambled, attempting to attach meaning and explanation, and produced an intuitive leap of black and orange stripes, a smoking chemical shattering of glass and charred flesh.
Someone had tickled the tiger and she thought she knew who—and why.
~~~~
“It’s utterly unprofessional and so wrong, Peter! How can you expect me to condone such a thing?”
“I don’t expect you to condone it—only to understand it. Our mission is to eradicate smallpox, a disease which inflicts unspeakable suffering, indignity, and death. We’ve been up to our elbows in it, Elizabeth. Yet, around the world, it has almost
been conquered, wiped out, defeated. Only here, because of ignorance and undue religious influence, has the disease found its last stand. Are we to sit and do nothing? Remember your ethics courses, Elizabeth. I meant to serve the greater good.”
“Remember your oath, Peter. First, do no harm. A man is dead.”
“Many men are dead!” Peter rammed his fist against the fly-specked wall. “And many women and children, as well. Needlessly!”
“But, Peter, this man was murdered, his skull fractured by a heavy, blunt object. And you’re claiming service to humanity!” Elizabeth felt on the verge of spiraling out of control. She pressed her lips together, closed her eyes, and took slow, measured breaths. Opening her eyes, she looked at Peter, saw his misery and his ruin.
“How?” she whispered. “How is this done?”
“God help me, Elizabeth,” Peter’s eyes connected to hers like twin beams of light, almost blinding her with the intensity of his pleading. “I didn’t do that. I could never do that. I never had any physical contact with the man, I simply doctored his tea. I didn’t intend for him to die. I only wanted to teach him understanding, to persuade him to cooperate with our efforts here.”
“Then who...”
Like wind over a barren plain, Peter’s sigh swept through the bleak space between them and ended in a moan. Two lines of pain stood like sentinels between his brows.
“Taslima Majhi came to see me, to ask what might be done. She was angry and frightened and, frankly, so was I. It just seemed so...so stupid to have the means of relief right in our hands and not use it. I told her to bring the children in secret or that I would come to the house. She said it was more than that, bigger somehow. She wanted all the children, all the people of the village to feel free, to come without restraint. She was frantic, almost incoherent. It seems she saw Father Lohar as a symbol of, and yet the obstacle to, freedom and salvation for her people. A hopeless paradox, as long as he was alive. I told her to go home, that I would figure out something to help the village.”
Peter was pacing now, moving with jerking steps across the floor. “I thought about the immense suffering I’ve seen here in this clinic. I considered my conviction that much of it was caused, rather than alleviated, by the trial drugs and I began to ponder an idea. If Father Lohar became ill and his goddess of the pox left him to suffer, would he reconsider his position on vaccinations? I endeavored to make him sick. During his temple oblations, I slipped into his hut and laced his tea leaves with the powdered medicine. It worked well and quickly. The next day he was visiting you.”
Elizabeth’s lips were pressed together. She opened them and said, “Unfortunately, the day after that, he was dead.”
Peter collapsed, drained now of the energy that had animated his speech. Drained of vision and ambition and the expectation of a life spent making a difference. Elizabeth felt herself soften. She touched his shoulder, dropping into a crouch to reach and catch his eyes, to staunch the bleeding hope.
“Peter,” she spoke his name. And then more urgently. “Peter! All is not lost. You made a mistake, perhaps a bad one, but please don’t give up hope. Some good may come from this and we’ll sort it out later. Right now, we must go and see Taslima.”
He rose and followed her. The sun sunk rapidly behind the tall trees as the two figures wound along the path to the widow’s hut. Following, unseen, was the shadow of the tiger.
~~~~
Elizabeth and Peter waited while Taslima put the children to bed. She lingered in the kisses and caresses, savoring the sweet ritual of motherhood. Slowly, she wrapped a shawl around her thin shoulders and beckoned her visitors to the front porch. One rickety chair sagged next to a rusted TV tray. No one sat in it.
“Taslima,” Elizabeth began. “I think you told the police that you did not see Father Lohar on the day he died. Is that the truth?”
“No.” With a voice soft yet strong, Taslima spoke. “The whole village knew that Father Lohar was sick with the pox. I nursed my husband. I’ve seen the pain, the horror of it. I thought the suffering might cause Father Lohar to soften his resolve. I went to visit him, to persuade him to lift the ban. I wanted myself, my children, everyone to get the medicine, to be safe.” She stopped and there was finality in her voice as if, in her mind, that was the end of the story.
Elizabeth gently prodded. “What happened, Taslima, when you met with Father Lohar?”
She lifted her eyes, stared with wonder. “He was not sick.” The simple statement shifted a gear, lifted the curtain on a terrible scene, and now the words tumbled furiously, gushed as blood from a nasty wound. “He was well and whole and he blessed the name of Shitala Mata, wonderful goddess, merciful and good. She who bestows the curse, she who dispenses death or healing. We must all wait upon her, wait upon her wisdom and her will. He bowed before the shrine and I saw that his devotion was complete and unshakeable. And then he was dead. The shivalingam was in my hand and there was blood and hair upon it. I did it.” The spring had uncoiled, the energy gone. “I killed him.”
There was nothing to say. Elizabeth clutched the woman’s shaking hands, held onto them, as the three stood in silence. Presently, Taslima raised her head.
“I’m not sorry.” She pulled her hands from Elizabeth’s grasp. “I did it for Vijay and Neirah and I’d do it again. My children are protected and I will never be sorry for this.”
~~~~
It was monsoon season. The worst floods in fifty years struck the country with the ferocity of a tiger’s leap. Hundreds of thousands of people fled the low-lying villages near the coast and riverbanks. Panic and confusion flooded the area in conjunction with the rain and Taslima, under police custody, set up a raucous protest, insisting that the children accompany their flight. The authorities, over-taxed with evacuation procedures and the urgent saving of lives, might be absolved for overlooking the escape of one suspected murderess, not yet convicted, with her two children. In any case, records were lost, destroyed in the flood and there were bigger things to worry about. Such as the spreading smallpox.
The government demolished the slums created by the flood refugees, forcing them to return to their ruined villages. They brought smallpox with them and the disease exploded across the country, preying upon the most susceptible and spreading in plague-like proportions. Shitala Mata called out the troops in force. The president declared a national emergency and the World Health Organization marched into the fray with needles in hand, overruling priests and religious hold-outs. On November 14, 1975, the EIS declared victory over smallpox in Bangladesh.
Elizabeth and Peter celebrated over dinner. With the accomplishment of their mission came a transfer call that would separate them. Peter was headed to Africa, Elizabeth back to the States. They spoke eagerly of the future but the past loomed, ponderous, between them. They had never revisited the subject of the missing drug and, in fact, none of the trial medication had made it back to the states, another casualty of the flood. Working side by side in a dangerous and emotionally charged environment to achieve a common goal, they had become quite fond of each other. Yet they shared the bond of a heavy weight borne between them and it proved cumbersome in sustaining a relationship. Each was mildly relieved to be parting.
And somewhere, in another coastal village or perhaps a thriving city, was a beautiful widow with two small children. She would marry again and raise her little ones, watching over them as good mothers do, vowing never to regret her sacrifice.
And always, lingering in stripes of dark and light, waits the tiger.
NOTES
I have a fascination for epidemiology and pathology, the study of diseases, where they start, and how they’re spread. The scariest book I’ve ever read is a non-fiction called The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston, about the ebola virus. Movies like Outbreak are right up my alley.
The idea for this book was spawned when I read Maryn McKenna’s captivating book, Beating Back The Devil: On The Front Lines With The Disease Detectives of The Epidemic Intellige
nce Service. She includes a chapter about how the villages along the Ganges were the last holdouts against the World Health Organization’s assault on Smallpox, due to the influence of Shitala Mata, goddess of the disease.
I had my setting. I did some more research, developed my characters and motivations, filled in the story gaps, and voila—Tickling The Tiger. Based on actual events.
The Sodden Spectators
____________
Mystery novelist Cathryn Harcourt
never met a mystery she couldn’t solve…
in the pages of her own books.
Faced with a real-life puzzle, on which hangs the
happiness of two young lovers,
will she be able find a solution?
Join Cathryn as she travels from Kentucky
to Brazil to unravel this mystery in true
Agatha Christie style.
“The old woman’s body was upstairs in the bedroom. She’d been dead for twelve hours.”
Margot Cummings stirred sugar into her tea, tapping the spoon against the rim of the cup with more force than was necessary.
“But Aunt Cathryn, you said she’d just been scrubbing the front steps. Two of the neighbors saw her an hour before the body was discovered.”
“You needn’t take out your frustration on my fine china, dear.” Cathryn Harcourt took a cautious sip of tea and blotted her lips with a rose-colored napkin, a prim smile showing in her tawny eyes. “It’s simple, really. The neighbors never saw her that day.”
“Aunt Cathryn,” Margot’s tone held a faint reproach. “I just finished reading your latest chapter this morning, and you made it quite clear that both Mr. Bunter and Mrs. Cunningham saw the old lady.”
“Oh, they testified they’d seen her and, really, they thought they had. They saw what they expected to see, because they’d seen it every morning—rain, shine, in the blast of heat, or flying snow—the old woman scrubbing obsessively at the front steps. The murderer had only to await the moment, put on the apron, pull the cap down over his own hair, and scrub at the steps, making sure to be seen. Then he went into the house, put the cap and apron back on the body, bundled into a bulky coat with a scarf wrapped round his head, and left.”
