The Sultan's Tigers (15 page)

I could worry about that later. First I had to get out of here.

But how? I needed both hands to hold on. The tiger wouldn't fit in the pockets of my jeans, and I couldn't hold it with my teeth. So what was I going to do?

In the end, I put the tiger in the only place that it would go.

With two million dollars tucked in my pants, I scrambled up the wall and out of the hole. I rolled onto the ground and lay on my back for a moment, delighted to be alive. Then jumped to my feet and ran.

Out of the inner sanctum. Through the temple.

The elephant was straining against his chains but couldn't pull himself free.

Sorry, pal. Gotta go.

Once I got outside, I was shocked by how big the fire had grown. The flames must have rampaged over the dry wood. The air was thick with smoke. I couldn't feel the heat of the flames, but I could see their orange glare against the sky. The stones were warm under my feet, but that heat must have come from the sun, not the fire.

People were running back and forth. Some were shouting. A kid was standing alone, screaming. He must have been separated from his parents.

A chain of men and women were passing buckets back and forth along the corridor, full buckets going in one direction, empty ones returning in the other. The cobblestones were slippery from all the spilled water. I looked at their sweating faces and felt terrible about what I'd done. This wasn't what I'd intended. I wasn't planning to mess up their lives. I just wanted to get rid of those guards and buy myself some time. What should I do? Help them? Grab a bucket and make good my mistake? I wanted to. I really did. But I had a tiger in my pants and I had to get him out of here. Imagine what they'd do to me if they found out who I was—the guy who not only started this fire, but stole their treasure, too. They'd massacre me. I had to go.

As I came closer to the gates, the crowd thickened, bodies squeezing together to fit through the narrow doorway.

I was carried along by the flood of people rushing down the stairs, trying to escape from the smoke and flames. Ahead of us, I could see a single person pushing the other way, heading up the hill rather than down. We were almost face-to-face before I realized who he was. He must have recognized me at the same moment, because he stopped in the middle of the steps, apparently unaware of the bodies buffeting past.

“You are fine?” asked Ram.

“Yes, yes, I'm fine.”

“Good.” His eyes flickered over me. I searched for any sign of suspicion, but all I could see was concern. “You must go. Get away from here. The fire is dangerous. You understand?”

“Yes.” I stared at him, words formed on my lips, an apology, an explanation, but I couldn't say any of it. I just stood there helplessly, the stench of smoke in my nostrils.

“I must go,” he said. “I have to help. Goodbye, Mister Tom.”

“Bye,” I muttered back, and then he was gone, striding up the hill toward the temple.

Had he suspected anything?

Did he know what I'd done?

I took one final look at the temple. I glimpsed what might have been the back of Ram's head, and then he was gone, swallowed up among the mass of bodies pouring down the hill. The flames were rising ever higher, carrying a cascade of sparks into the sky, and I thought about Ram, and I felt terrible. I could have gone after him and helped deal with the fire.

No, not
the
fire.
My
fire. The one I'd started. The one that was going to tear down his temple, his work, his home.

Shouldn't I help put it out?

Shouldn't I join the chain of men and women passing buckets from the pool to the heart of the flames?

I would have if I hadn't had a tiger down my pants. I'd shoot down the hill, I told myself, and give the tiger to my uncle, or find a decent hiding place for it, then come back up again and help clean up the mess I'd made.

I sprinted down the hill,
taking the stairs two at a time, my bare feet slapping against the crooked stone steps.

I arrived at the bottom to find a crowd of a hundred people, maybe many more, gazing upward, watching the flames on the top of the hill. Suddenly I heard my uncle shouting, “Tom! Tom! Over here! Tom!”

He pushed through the crowd to meet me. Tanya followed just behind. They both overflowed with questions, wanting to know where I'd been and what I'd seen.

I couldn't tell the truth with Tanya there. “It just happened so quickly,” I said, trying to sound shocked. “Suddenly the whole place was full of smoke.” I shook my head as if the experience had been too much for me.

Tanya was completely taken in. She gave me a hug and promised everything was going to be fine. My uncle didn't seem suspicious either. He patted me on the shoulder. “Come on, kid. Let's get out of here. Apparently there's a good hotel in Srirangapatna. We'll go and check in now. You'll feel a lot better once you've had a shower.”

I tried to get a moment alone with Uncle Harvey, but it was impossible. Tanya wouldn't let go of him. He wouldn't let go of her, either. The two of them walked arm in arm down the street, Uncle Harvey trying to persuade Tanya that he should be allowed to carry her rucksack, and her giggling, saying she was stronger than he was, she could carry her own bag and his too.

“We'll arm-wrestle for it,” said Uncle Harvey.

“Here? Now? I'm ready.”

“We need a table. Let's have a competition when we get to the hotel. Loser pays for dinner.”

“I will beat you both,” said Tanya. “You have to remember, Harvey, I'm an Israeli. I do my national service. I know how to fight.”

“So do I,” said Uncle Harvey.

That would have been my moment to say,
Wait a minute, let's go back up the hill, I want to help the priests put out the fire
, and I wish I'd said exactly that, but I didn't. I still had the tiger in my pants. I wanted to get him out, and even more important, I wanted to tell my uncle that I had it. I couldn't say anything in front of Tanya. I glanced back at the temple and thought about Ram, and felt bad, then ran after my uncle.

Suresh had been waiting with his rickshaw. He was staring anxiously at the sky, watching the plume of smoke rising from the temple. As soon as he saw us, he hurried forward, unable to keep back his questions. “What is happening? How big is the fire?”

I told him as little as I'd told the others.

“What of the temple?” he asked.

“What about it?”

“It is hurt? It is OK?”

I could hear the panic in his voice and saw tears streaked through the dust on his face.

I wished I could convince him not to care so much about the imaginary god in its hole.
It can't possibly help your mom
, I wanted to say,
because it doesn't even exist. Forget it. I've got some good news for you. There's a tiger in my pants that is worth a couple of million dollars, and once we've sold it, I'm going to come back here and give you some money and you'll be able to pay for your mom's chemo yourself.
But I kept those thoughts to myself and simply said that the fire had only been in one small part of the temple, far away from the inner sanctum.

“You are sure?” he asked, suddenly hopeful.

“I'm sure. Your god's safe.”

He wiped away his tears and tried to smile.

There was just enough room for all three of us in the back of the rickshaw, Tanya in the middle with a Trelawney on either side, her rucksack and my uncle's bag at our feet.

My uncle called out, “Home, James, and don't spare the horses.”

“Excuse me, sir?” Suresh was puzzled.

“Don't take any notice of him,” I said. “He's just being an idiot.”

“No problem. But where to go?”

“That hotel in Srirangapatna,” said my uncle. “The one you recommended.”

“Ah, yes, sir. Right away.”

Suresh turned the key in the ignition. The engine coughed to life. Some startled birds flew out of a nearby tree. And we were off, bouncing down the road and chugging all the way to Srirangapatna.

Forget the hotel
, I wanted to say.
We've got much more important things to do. We've got to go to Bangalore and sell this tiger for two million dollars.
But I kept quiet. I didn't want Tanya to know what we were doing. I didn't know her, and certainly didn't trust her. I didn't think she was a spy of Marko's—although the thought had crossed my mind—but I didn't want her knowing our business anyway. Much more important, I never wanted Suresh to discover what I'd done.

I leaned out of the rickshaw and looked behind us. No one was following us. On the top of the hill, a faint orange glow silhouetted the walls of the temple.

Sitting back down, I got a glimpse of Suresh's face. He looked haunted, even frightened.
Don't worry about the temple
, I thought.
That temple never would have helped your mom. She needs chemo and a decent doctor. If all goes well, I'll be back here tomorrow to get her exactly that.

Sixty bone-juddering minutes later, we chugged into the center of Srirangapatna and stopped outside the Hotel Krishna. Even there, I couldn't talk to my uncle. He rushed inside and negotiated a price for two rooms, then arranged to meet Tanya in an hour to wander around town.

A porter had come out of the hotel to carry our baggage, but Uncle Harvey waved him away. “We can carry our own bags.” Disappointed, the porter slouched back inside.

Suresh was waiting patiently to be paid. He was a different person to the one who had picked us up earlier in the day. Then he'd been cheerful, optimistic, ready for anything. Now he was about to cry again.

I don't know if my uncle took pity on him or was really impressed by his skills as a chauffeur, but he pulled out a bundle of notes from his wallet. “Here you go,” he said. “Thanks for everything.”

Suresh's face lit up. He grabbed my uncle's hand. “Thank you, Mister Harvey. You are a very good man.”

“Don't mention it,” said Uncle Harvey.

Suresh grabbed my hand and thanked me, too, which raised my guilt levels.

He stuffed the cash into one of his pockets, then pulled something from another. “Please, you will take my card. If you need one more driver, you will call me.”

I took Suresh's card, which was actually just a scrap of paper scribbled with his name and number. I stuffed it in my pocket, promising to call him if we ever came back to Srirangapatna. I didn't tell him why I'd really be calling him; I didn't want him to get too excited. But I was sure I'd be on the phone in a day or two, talking to Suresh, telling him that I wanted to know where to send enough money to make his mom well again.

He jumped in his rickshaw and drove away. I suppose he couldn't wait to present Uncle Harvey's cash to his mom. How much medicine would it buy? Enough to help her? Or just enough to stop the pain for a few days?

I remembered my mom's friend Sandra, the one who died of cancer. I only met her a couple of times, but one of her kids was good friends with Grace, so we got constant updates. Mom talked about her a lot, always in the same hushed tone.

Her daughters set up a website in her memory. They organized a five-mile fun run and sent an email around, asking people to sponsor them. I gave Grace fifty cents a mile. On the site, there was a photo taken while Sandra was lying on her hospital bed. She looked like someone had stuck a tube down her throat and sucked the life out of her.

I followed my uncle into the hotel and up to our room, which was small and cold and smelled as if the last person staying here hadn't flushed the toilet.

Uncle Harvey dumped his bag on the bed. “You need a shower,” he said. “Your face is covered in soot. Your clothes, too. We're going to have to buy you some more.”

“And shoes.”

He looked at my bare feet. “Where are your shoes?”

“In the temple. You have to take them off when you go inside.”

“I'll buy you some nice new sandals. You can borrow a shirt of mine. You'll have to wear those same jeans and go barefoot for now. My shoes won't fit you. Have a shower, put this on, and we'll go out with Tanya to buy you a new wardrobe.” He offered me the shirt that he'd pulled from his bag. “You're lucky she's here. She'll pick some nice stuff. Here, take this.” That was when he noticed what I was holding in the palm of my hand. “What's that?”

“What does it look like?”

“I don't know. What is it?”

“Guess.”

“A stone.”

“Guess again.”

“I don't like these games. Just tell me what it is.”

“Can't you guess?”

“I just said no.”

“Try.”

“Fine. Here. Let me have a look.” He took it out of my hand. “It is, um . . . Oh, I don't know. A stone covered in gunk.” He scraped off some of the dirt with his fingernail. “That's funny, it looks like . . .” His voice faded away. He glanced at me. Then back at the shimmering jewel that his cleaning had just exposed. Now his voice was more serious. “What is this?”

“You still can't guess?”

“Don't mess about. What is this?”

“It's a tiger, Uncle Harvey.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From a hole on the top of a hill.”

“This hole—was it in that temple?”

“Yes.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“No. That's why I had to start the fire. To get everyone out of there.”

“You started that fire?”

“Yes.”

“You set fire to the temple?”

“Yes.”

“I don't believe it,” said Uncle Harvey.

“I didn't mean to,” I explained. “I just started a small fire to distract the guards. I didn't think it would turn into that towering inferno. I just wanted to make a blaze that was big enough to make them panic. It worked, too. The guards came running. So did the priests. They left the inner sanctum unguarded. So I shot in there and grabbed the tiger and got out of there before anyone noticed anything.”