Release the Tiger Read online

  Dorit Ginzburg

  Release the Tiger

  Senior Editors and Producers: Contento De Semrik

  English Translation: Daphna Levi

  English Edit: BookMasters Group

  Illustrations: Avigail Zilberman

  Copyrights © 2011 by Contento De Semrik and Dorit Ginzburg

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be translated, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the author and publisher.

  ISBN: 978-965-550-010-3

  International sole distributor:

  Contento De Semrik

  22 Isserles, 67014 Tel-Aviv, Israel

  [email protected]

  www.Semrik.com

  The book is dedicated to

  Yuval Marciano and Ofir Izen

  who helped me write it

  and to Mia and Zoe Zilberman -

  I love all of you so much

  A Circus Comes to Town

  "The circus! The circus is coming." I was sitting on the lawn with my granddaughter Mia when we heard the children's cry. I could see the sparkle in her eyes.

  "Is it a real circus?" she asked.

  "Totally," I said.

  The circus visited our country only once a year, and this time it came to our own little northern town.

  Every afternoon the children were sitting outside, on little blankets on the front lawn of the building, together with their dogs and cats, mothers and grandmothers.

  Mia likes to go outside with her new silent whistle hanging from her neck on a pink shoelace. Her blue eyes wander out first, and then her heart-shaped chin, and only then the rest of her. By her side there's a hairy bearlike white dog, and on her other side, a spotted tricolor cat.

  "Are we all going?" asked Sarah, who was Mia's age. She was busy rubbing one palm against the other, like a fly clinging to a window. She noticed that everyone else had gone to wash their hands and prepare for the attack on the leftovers on the table.

  Mia examined Sarah with the same look she gives her pets, then looked around at all the other children and said: "Your mother will buy tickets for the circus, but your father will be upset and punish you. He won't let you go to the circus."

  Sarah was scrubbing her sweaty palms, removing bits of dead skin the color of mud, but Mia was already gazing at someone else. On the lawn sat a boy called Jonathan, his German shepherd lying beside him with his giant paw resting in the boy’s lap. "You too won't go to the circus," she said.

  "Me? Why not?" asked Jonathan in despair.

  "You will be disappointed and won't want to go," said Mia.

  Jonathan's face turned red, and then white. He wanted to reply, but kept opening and closing his mouth with no sound coming out.

  Shirley, a little redheaded runny-nosed girl, was sitting there with her tabby cat. She was stroking it, but did it as if she was trying to bury its entire face in her palm, as if the cat didn't need to move or breathe. Mia said, "You will go to the circus."

  It was hot outside. Mia wanted to rearrange her ponytail and let her hair down. The sun caressed her hair, and when she held it up again, it was shining.

  Panda, Mia's dog, lay down beside us. She seemed to be all tail—a huge, impressive white flaglike tail that had this white hairy dog connected to it, with two brown, beady eyes. She stuck her tongue out. I thought she was thirsty and said so to Mia.

  "She's not thirsty," said Mia knowingly. "This is how she cools her body."

  "You think that little tongue can cool this big body wrapped in a thick fur coat?" I wondered.

  "Of course," said Mia. "Her tongue and her quick breathing do the job."

  Suddenly, as if the green lawn were hit by lightning in the middle of summer, I noticed some commotion. The children were running around trying to persuade their parents to let them go to the circus.

  "Mummy, Mummy, can we go to the circus, pleasssssssse," asked Sarah, worried. "Mia said I couldn't."

  "Don't worry," said Sarah's mother, "you shouldn't believe such nonsense. Mia doesn't know what she's saying. I’m going now to buy our tickets."

  Sarah was happy and stopped scrubbing her sweaty palms and peeling off bits of dirty skin. Her excitement caused her to sweat even more and her cheeks were burning red. She ran inside and went straight to the bathroom to wash her hands, but couldn't find a towel. She went inside the kitchen, quickly, trying to avoid dripping on the floor so her mother wouldn't be angry and punish her.

  At exactly that moment her father came home from work, and as he does every day after work, he also went into the bathroom to wash his hands. The corridor was all of a sudden too crowded. Sarah came out running and bumped into her father. He was trying to clear the way but hit the dresser.

  The blue porcelain Chinese vase, the one with tall women bathing in the river painted on it, wobbled a little and fell straight on Sarah's father's head. It slipped into Sarah's hands. For a tiny moment, she thought she could save the vase, but her hands were still wet, and the vase fell on the floor and broke into a dozen pieces. The bathing women were scattered on the floor, drowning in a little pool of water.

  "Why can't you look where you're going?" shouted her father. The vase was the only thing he inherited from his late mother. It was also the most valuable item they had in the house.

  "But I... I was just..." Sarah was gasping.

  "Not a word from you! You are grounded for a week. Stay in your room—

  that will teach you not to run around the house like that."

  "But Dan," said her mother. She had just returned from the mall, her red hair uncombed and parts of it stuck in her ear. "I have just bought tickets for the circus..."

  "The circus? I will show you a circus! It was a circus here all right, just a moment ago, when I was hit on my head with a vase! You know how important this vase was to me..." said Sarah's father. Sarah began scrubbing her palms again, peeling dead bits of skin.

  "But, Dan, I went and spent all this money..." Sarah's mother was trying to calm him down. "We can't get a refund... and your mother, bless her, is no longer with us."

  "The child shall remain in her room for a week! She must learn to be more careful!" Sarah's father was fuming.

  Chai, Mia's cat, was arching her back and rubbing against those who stayed sitting on the lawn. One of the neighbors held her and wanted to stroke her. She wagged her tail. It wasn't exactly wagging, more like waving, as if she wanted to scare away some flies.

  "Look how happy she is," I said to Mia, cheerfully.

  "Oh, but she's not," said Mia. "Chai is signaling that she doesn't like what's happening to her."

  "How can it be?" I wondered. "I thought tail wagging is a happy sign in animal language."

  "It is — in dog language. Cats are just the opposite." Mia sulked and looked the neighbor straight in the eyes. "I told you, every family has its own private language." The neighbor let go of Chai.

  Jonathan went to call his girlfriend and ask her to come with him to the circus."My mother got us tickets for the circus; will you come?" he said joyfully.

  "What about David?" asked his girlfriend. "You know, he’s my guest."

  "I am sorry," said Jonathan, disappointed. "I only asked her to buy tickets for you and me."

  "Can't you buy another ticket?" asked his girlfriend.

  "It's sold out," said Jonathan. He was hoping she would forget about this other boy.

  "So maybe you can give me your ti
cket too, and I shall go with my guest from England?"

  "What? And miss the show?"

  "Well, I can't offend David," she said, offending Jonathan instead.

  "Of course not. God forbid. You can't offend the honorable guest from the United Kingdom!"

  "If that's the way you see it, you better not call me again."

  "What?!"

  Jonathan was shocked. Does 4 months of dating mean nothing to her??? So what were all her text messages about?

  Jonathan returned to the yard. You could tell he was feeling upset. He looked like a beaten puppy.

  And what happened to runny-nosed Shirley? The moment her father came back from work, the little redhead freckled girl sat in his lap, held his neck with her tiny hands, looked into his loving eyes, and declared, "Daddy, you'll take me to the circus, won’t you?"

  The Prophet Mia

  Mia loves spending time outdoors. If only her parents would allow it... she would like to sleep on the lawn, eat the carob fruits straight from the tree, drink water from the garden faucet, and never ever bathe or change her clothes again.

  I was sitting with Mia under the huge carob tree. "How did you know?" I asked.

  "It's very simple," she smiled. "You need to understand animal language."

  "But these were children... not animals," I protested.

  "They act pretty much the same. Each one of us resembles a different animal," she speculated. "I can see which animal they are by watching the way they treat their pets."

  "What kind of language is animal language?" I asked.

  "Sarah..." she began teaching me.

  "The girl with the sweaty palms?" I hesitated.

  "Yes. She sweats when she is nervous, and her palms get sticky, like a fly. When she heard that the circus came to town, she got very excited, and it was clear her moist hands were an accident waiting to happen."

  "How did you know the other boy was going to be so sad?" I wondered.

  "Have you seen the way his dog drags him around? It's as if he's the one being led on a leash." Mia was excited. "Have you seen the way his dog rests his paws in his lap? Jonathan is the dog, and the dog is Jonathan."

  "He lets his dog control him, so you knew he would let his girlfriend treat him the same way?" I asked, although I already knew the answer.

  Mia nodded and whistled.

  "Do you know what a woman that can predict the future was called in ancient times?"

  "A fortune-teller?" guessed Mia.

  "That's what we call them today. In biblical times, they called them a prophet," I said.

  "Most people hide the animal that they are," Mia let me in on another little secret. "But when the circus comes to town, those animals inside them long to meet the real animals of the circus, and just burst out of their bodies."

  Mia wanted to do her animal dance, but thought of something, so she turned to me and said, "A long, long time ago, in a faraway country, there lived a prophet." She pretended to read from an imaginary book.

  I had to ask her about the girl with the runny nose.

  "Ah... Shirley," said Mia. "That was extra easy. Can you guess?" She gazed straight into my eyes and I realized her gaze was identical to the one I saw in her tabby cat Chai's eyes.

  "Here's a clue," added Mia. "How did she treat her cat?" Her question suggested I should pay attention to the smallest details.

  "She wrapped its face," I said. "She was very confident. She wasn't at all worried about suffocating it or hurting its eyes."

  "She was confident indeed," added Mia. "She told her father he was taking her to the circus, and that was that. Because she said so."

  Mia was reflecting. "Usually I don't let others know what I see." She peered at me from behind her long hair, which broke free again from her ponytail and almost covered her eyes completely.

  It wasn't the first time Mia knew exactly what was going to happen, but it was the first time she said something to the other children. Everyone–including myself–was amazed. Mia went away. I stayed behind and taught the children what a prophet was. From that day onward, Mia was known all around the block as The Prophet Mia.

  Block 7

  Block 7 was a part of a working-class neighborhood in a small northern town. A minuscule town. Eighteen families lived in Block 7, crowded together in three floors of three row houses. In the front a path cuts through a lovely garden and the green lawn. Sometimes parents sit here, on their blankets, spending time with their kids. On other occasions, the children play by themselves. The block is built on the mountainside. Behind it, the slope leads to a creek, covered with wild greenery, and at the end of every winter you can find there puddles full of frogs and daffodils.

  I was born in Block 7. This is where I learned to know dogs and cats and bees and metal-green flying beetles and ladybugs and flies and mosquitoes and birds and butterflies and turtles and carob fruits and acorns. And plants with names like Calicotome villosa or Retama and autumn crocuses. I danced with cyclamen and anemones and poppies. Why did we name the hibiscus "the red rose of China"? Only His Highness the Emperor knows.

  We were a great bunch of happy, noisy children. At home, I had my family, and outside, I had my gang. The children of Block 7 were the first to hear the stories I was writing. They used to gather around me and listen.

  That gang is long gone. My parents gave me their apartment, and when time came, I gave it to my son. Whenever I came to visit my son and his wife, I had to walk along the path, climb the three flights of stairs, and knock three times on the door on the right, where the sign said, "Mor," and enter. But I am no longer a child, and I can't play hide-and-seek in the front yard or go mushroom hunting in the backyard, and there's no one running toward me and asking me to read them a story. It's as if my childhood were erased. That's how I felt until Mia was born. My son's daughter. Mia. Mia Mor. And if you knew Italian, you'd understand that it actually means "my love." I wish everyone could speak Italian.

  All grandmothers tell their grandchildren stories. It's one of their most important duties. These stories are called old wives' tales. When Mia was born, I was so looking forward to telling her my stories, but something very strange happened: My granddaughter began telling me stories and even taught me a whole new language. She taught me a wordless language. My words were left there, hanging to dry on Block 7's clothesline. Mia taught me the heart-shaking language I would like to teach every grandchild in the world.

  There I was–thinking stories are the best, prettier than the world itself. Until Mia taught me better. She showed me how to understand a language that had no words. She showed me how to understand the language of animals.

  Would you like to learn it as well? You should sit tight and listen carefully. Listen to what happened to Mia when she went to the circus... you'll understand.

  The Headhunter

  Mia left Block 7's front yard, just as she did every afternoon, and whistled with her silent whistle. A silent whistle is no ordinary whistle. It doesn't go trruuuuu. People can't hear it, but animals can. When the whistle went Tsssssss, all the dogs and cats, ravens and pigeons, sparrows and bees, and even cockroaches gathered around Mia. She walked up the creek, and they followed. She was tssss-ing them her secret music, and they came from all over the place and followed her.

  Mia started dancing, and so did the animals: right foot sideways, stomping with her left foot, crossing both legs, and then again, only backward.

  She turned around and saw all the animals dancing with her, and she clapped her hands. They all turned and turned and danced, waiting for her tssss-ing cue that only they can hear... that's what she did every afternoon, with all the dogs and cats and ravens and cockroaches dancing around her on the path.

  "Hey, little girl? What's your name?" asked a stranger, and Mia felt someone poking her shoulder. It was an oddly dressed man. O
n his feet he wore pointy wooden sandals that had a curved sole with a rectangular heel. He wore a short black jacket that had two, long tail bits at the back, like wings, like a raven's tail which he gathered in his hands every once in a while, before letting it drop again.

  The man kept poking her shoulder with his fingers and said;"Listen, little girl, that is one fabulous show you have here." He chewed each word like bubblegum. "It is real magic. Would you like to join our circus?"

  "The circus?" asked Mia, and her blue eyes opened wide like the deep ocean.

  "Yes, the circus. Would you like to join the circus? I can make it happen. I forgot to tell you who I am. I am the headhunter..."

  "You hunt for heads?" Mia was appalled.

  "God forbid... I hunt for talents," said the man.

  "I didn't know you could hunt talents," said Mia, surprised.

  "It's only a figure of speech, my darling." His laughter was dry and short. "I look for people with special talents. That's what I do."

  "Nice to meet you. I am Mia."

  "The big question," he went on poking her shoulder as if he were searching for his answer there. "The big question is: Can you do whatever you just did in front of an audience in the circus?"

  Joining the circus–it's every child's dream! It used to be my dream too, when I was little, but my mother said, "There's only one thing you could do in the circus–to be the sponge–a dorit." I thought she invented that word only to mock me, but when I asked her, she explained that's a Yiddish nickname for a cleaning lady, and oddly enough, it included my name–Dorit. But who wants to be the cleaning lady in the circus? So I gave up that dream.

  Mia's eyes lit up like two torches flooding the headhunter with light. Yes! She wanted very much to join the circus.

  "I can do it again in front of an audience," said Mia in calm confidence.

  "Tomorrow I shall take you to meet the manageress, but first we have to sign a contract."