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FATIMA felt the cool yellow waters of the river—a sheet of burnished gold in the dying sunglow—flow sluggishly around her. She clung to the bank and moved further along until she stood waist-deep in a shallower part of the river. The wet sarong clung to her plump, brown figure and accentuated the full breasts and womb of a pregnant woman. The round, high-cheekboned face, so typical of the Malays, had been drained of its dark sensuality, and instead an ethereal melancholy in the black oblique eyes gave her the expression of one brooding over some pulsating vision within herself.

With a quick toss of her head she unloosed her black, glossy hair, and let the wind whisper gently through it. From where she stood she could neither hear nor see the village obscured by the creepers and trees at the bend of the river. In front of her stretched an unbroken expanse of lalang grass, tall trees, and a bewildering luxuriance of foliage. The languid stillness of the evening was occasionally disturbed by the cry of a lonely water fowl, or the sinister flap, flap of night birds stirring from their sleep. Now and then a rat dived with a gentle splash into the river, while timid, nervous animals rustled their way through the tall grass and creepers. The air was full of the scent of wild flowers and mud and grass. A feeling of loneliness and desolation came over her, as though she had stumbled into a world still in the dawn of creation, when the earth was an oozing swamp in which wallowed a host of hideous monsters.

Hence when she heard the low, vibrant growl of the tiger it only heightened the illusion, until the tiger broke into a dull angry roar and convinced her that it was not a creature of her imagination.

Framed by the lalang and low to the ground were the massive head and shoulders of the tiger, not more than twenty yards from her. The sun imparted a wicked glint to its staring, yellow eyes, and its ears drawn back warningly. It turned its head and snarled, revealing its red tongue, and the yellow fangs looked like tree stumps.

Fatima was hypnotized into a helpless fear by the glaring eyes of the tiger, and the sudden stillness that fell around her numbed her mind. She dared not move or take her eyes away from the watching animal, which too was still as if it had been rendered motionless by the unexpected meeting with a human being.

Fatima and the animal watched one another, she frightened and it suspicious. Except for occasional growls, which became less menacing each time, the tiger showed no signs of really wanting to attack her. Instead, after a while the animal took a diminishing interest in her. Its huge paws, stretched out in front, now and then dug its claws into the damp grass. Except when she moved the animal’s attention seemed to be nowhere in particular. The glare of its eyes had changed into a sullen and frequently bored expression, so that Fatima noticed the surprising changes of mood in the animal’s eyes.

Meanwhile the dusk which had crept from over the hills had obliterated the colorful scene of a moment ago, and replaced it with gray shadows which drifted imperceptibly into darkness. A faint mist had risen from the river and had spread itself over the land. The shrill scream of a cicada and the distant hoot of an owl signaled the transition of the day into night.

Now that she had only a quiet fear of the tiger, she felt exhaustion creep over her. She shivered with cold, and as the tiger showed no signs of going away, she grew desperate. Her hands wandered over her stomach, and the realization that she was a being of two lives engendered in her a fierce determination to escape. She could still discern the shadowy form of the tiger by the failing light. Fatima had studied the animal very carefully and could sense when it would turn its eyes away from her. She waited, her body tense in the water and radiating a feeling of fearful strength. Then with a desperate movement she dived under water, so that she scraped the riverbed as she swam. Fatima made for the opposite bank and in the direction of the village, coming to the surface only when she felt that her lungs would burst for air. She felt bewildered and lost in the middle of the river, but when she heard the faraway growl, a fear which she had not felt even in the presence of the tiger seized her.

She swam frantically towards the shore until she saw the twinkling oil lamps of the village.

*  *  *  *  *

The village was in a panic by the time Fatima’s mother had spread an exagerated version of the story her daughter had told her. The women, ducking like hens at the sight of a wheeling hawk, gathered the children into their arms, and having bolted their flimsy doors called out to the men to do something about the marauding tiger. The men rushed around, anxious about their cattle and goats, while the old men munched betel-nut and demanded what the fuss was all about.

Fatima lay exhausted on a straw mat when the village headman and a crowd came to question her as to the whereabouts of the tiger. Fatima’s mother proceeded to give a graphic and noisy tale of her daughter’s encounter with the ‘hairy one’ until the headman, with an impatient gesture, commanded the old lady to hold her peace for a while. He then turned to question Fatima. There was impatience in her voice as she answered his questions. For some reason, unlike the anxious villagers around her, she was averse to having the tiger hunted and killed. The headman frowned.

“Allah!” exclaimed the old lady, wishing to be the center of interest once more. “It was the providence of Allah which snatched my daughter away from the jaws of the ‘hairy one’.”

She threw up her skinny brown hands in a gesture of thanks to Allah. The headman shrugged his shoulders.

“Perhaps it was,” he said, “but the next time Allah will not be as merciful. A tiger, perhaps by now drunk with the scent of human flesh, is not a pleasant thing to have roving near our village. For the peace and safety of the women and children the beast must be hunted down and destroyed without delay.”

He scanned the faces of the men, silent and nervous. They were fully alive to the dangers of tracking down a tiger at night, especially when the dense, shadowy lalang afforded it an advantageous position from which to strike quickly and silently.

”Well!” said the headman.

The men regarded the floor in silence. The headman’s face twitched and he was about to upbraid them for their cowardice when Mamood, his youthful face afire with excitement, came in with a gun slung across his shoulders.

“What is this I hear?” he asked eagerly. “The women told me that a tiger has attacked our Fatima. Is it true?”

While the headman told him the facts, briefly and accurately, Mamood fingered his new, double-barreled gun with all the impatience of one whose hunting spirit had been aroused. He was all for hunting the tiger at once, simply because he loved hunting. The fact that his quarry was a tiger made him all the more eager.

“That’s true,” said Mamood, when the headman had finished. “We have to think of the women and children. The poor creatures will never move an inch out of their houses until they know that the tiger is dead. It is the duty of the menfolk to protect them. Now who will come with Mamood and help him slay the tiger? As surely as I am the son of my mother I shall drag home the carcass of the beast before sunrise, if you will help me.”

After some hesitation, a dozen men volunteered, encouraged by the words of Mamood and the knowledge that he was a good shot.

“Good!” exclaimed Mamood, running his fingers along the gun-barrel. “I knew I could rely on you.”

Then he and the men left.

“Believe me, daughter,” said Fatima’s mother, as she bolted the door after the men, “that boy Mamood is a wild tiger himself.”

Fatima rose up from her mat and looked out of the narrow window. The moon cast a mellow radiance over everything it touched, and she could see the moon, broken like molten silver, through the rustling coconut fronds. Men moved about calling out to one another in stifled, excited voices as they prepared for the hunt. Fatima stared sullenly at the men.

Then the men left until at last there was only the gray-garbed trees and the whisper of the fretful wind. Straining her ears she heard the faraway chuckle of the river.

Somewhere, she reflected, was the tiger about which she had wondered the whole evening. She hoped that it was far out of the men’s reach.

“O Allah!” wailed her mother, pounding some areca-nut in a wooden vessel, “tonight is the night for death. Think of those men groping for a beast as cunning as a hundred foxes and which can measure its distance in the darkness. Sure enough there will be the cry of mourning before the night is over.”

“They should have left the tiger alone,” said Fatima, still looking out of the window.

“That’s a crazy thing to say,” said the woman. “Somebody has to kill the tiger before it kills us. That’s sense.”

“Perhaps it would have gone away of its own accord.”

“A tiger which comes near a village does not go back until its purpose is accomplished,” croaked the old woman. “They are generally killers which venture near a village.”

“But this one didn’t look like a killer,” protested Fatima.

The old woman snorted contemptuously, but said nothing.

“The tiger was not more than twenty yards away from me and it could have sprung at me easily,” said Fatima, “but it didn’t. Why? Can you explain that, Mother? It kept watching me, it’s true, but then I was watching it too. At first its eyes glared at me, but later they were gentle and bored. There was nothing fierce or murderous about it…”

“Now you are talking the crazy way your father used to,” said her mother fiercely pounding the areca-nut. “He used to say that the wind sang songs to him. Heaven forgive me that I should talk so of your dead father, but he was a crazy man sometimes.”

Fatima scowled out of the window and listened. There was an unearthly silence over the village as though enveloped in a funeral shroud. Her hands, swollen and fleshy, were clenched tightly as she strained the silence for some revealing sound. The pound, pound of her heart kept pace with the jabs her mother made into the areca-nut vessel. Then a sharp pain shot through her. Her hands went over her stomach.

“What is it, Fatima?” said her mother looking up.

“Nothing,” answered Fatima between pressed lips.

“Come away from that draught and lie down,” cautioned her mother.

Fatima stood by the window and felt the pain rise and fall. She closed her eyes and pictured the tiger crouching in the lalang, its eyes now red and glaring, now bored and gentle.

Then she heard the faraway crack of a rifle. Then another shot followed. Fatima quivered as if the shots had been aimed at her. Then came the roar of the tiger; not the mild growl she had heard that evening, but full of pain and defiance. For a few seconds the cry of the animal, long drawn out in its agony, seemed to fill up her heart and ears. She wanted to re-echo the cry. Her face was tight with pain and her body glistened with sweat. A moan broke between her shut lips.

“Allamah! Allamah!” cried out the old woman. “You look ill. What is it? Come and lie down. Is it…?”

“I’ve got the pains, Mother,” gamed Fatima.

The old woman led the girl towards the mat and made her lie down.

“Oi, oi, it’s a fine time to have a baby!” cried her mother, a little frightened. “You lie down here while I get you some hot water to drink. I’ll have to wait till the men return before I go for the midwife. Ay, this is a fine night for a poor old woman!”

Fatima lay on the mat, her eyes shut tight while her mother boiled the water and muttered.

“Listen,” said the old woman, “the men are returning. I can hear their voices.”

The air suddenly was filled with the excited voices of men and women outside.

The old lady opened the door cautiously and called out to someone.

“Hurrah for Mamood, Auntie,” cried a youth rushing in. “He’s shot the tiger and they have dragged the beast home. It’s a big animal. No wonder it put up a good fight before it was killed. After it was shot twice they had to spear it before it was really killed. And then what do you think happened?”

Fatima looked attentively at the youth. The old lady turned her tiny shriveled head impatiently towards the youth.

“Well, what happened?”

“They said,” explained the youth, lisping slightly, “that after they had killed the animal they heard noises. Then by the light of the hurricane lamps they saw three of the tiniest tiger-cubs. Their eyes were scarcely open and Mamood says that they could not be more than a few hours old. No wonder the beast fought like one possessed. Mamood says that he could sell the tiger-cubs for a good price.”

Fatima moaned in pain. The sweat glistened like yellow pearls on her forehead.

“Mother!” she cried.

The old woman pushed the astonished youth towards the door.

“Get the midwife, boy,” she shouted. “Quick! Go! The midwife.”

The youth stared, gasped and then ran for the midwife.