The Tiger's Wife Read Online Free PDF

loudly. When the child said nothing, Nada told her, “Come in for a cookie.”
    Barba Ivan leaned back in his chair and reached into the cupboard behind him. He emerged with a tin of pepper cookies, lifted the lid and held it out to the child. She didn’t move. Nada returned from the sink and tried to ply her with a glass of lemonade, but the child wouldn’t come in: a violet pouch had been tied around her neck with frayed ribbon, and this she was swinging with her free hand from one shoulder to the other, occasionally hitting herself in the chin, and sucking back the green streams of snot that were inching out of her nose. Outside, we could hear people returning from the vineyard, dust-hoarsed voices and the clink of shovels and spades dropping to the ground, feet on the downstairs patio. They were setting up to have their dinner outside, at the table under the big olive tree, and Nada said, “We’d better finish up here,” and started collecting our utensils. Zóra tried to stand and help, but Nada nudged her back into her seat. The commotion outside had roused the interest of Bis, the dog who charged out with his ridiculous, ear-swinging lope, nosed the child in the doorway with mild interest, and then got distracted by something in the garden.
    Barba Ivan was still holding out the cookie box when a thin young woman swept by the door and swung the child into her arms. Nada went to the door and looked outside. When she turned around, she said, “They shouldn’t be here.”
    “Sweets aren’t much good for children,” Barba Ivan said to Zóra, confidentially. “Bad habits before dinner, rots their teeth and such. But what else are we supposed to do? We can’t eat all this ourselves.”
    “It was ridiculous to let them stay,” Nada said, stacking the dirty plates on the edge of the table.
    Barba Ivan was holding the cookie box out to me. “There was a time when I could eat a whole nut cake, by myself, just sitting around in the afternoon. But my doctor says, careful ! I’m getting old, he says, I have to be careful.”
    “I said this would happen—didn’t I?” Nada said, scraping the smeared leftovers of the potatoes and chard onto a plate, and lowering the plate to the floor. “Two or three days—it’s been a week. Wandering in and out all hours of the night, coughing on my sheets.”
    “They’ve got all kinds of rules now,” Barba Ivan was saying. “Don’t eat butter, don’t drink beer. This much fruit a day.” He held his hands apart, indicating a small barrel. “Eat your vegetables.”
    “Each one sicker than the next.” This Nada said loudly, leaning toward the door. “Those children should be in school, or at the hospital, or with people who can afford to put them in school or in the hospital.”
    “I tell him, listen. I eat my vegetables. Don’t tell me about vegetables: you buy them at the market, I grow them at my house.” Barba Ivan opened his hands and counted off tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, green onions, leeks. “I’m a man who knows vegetables—but also I’ve eaten bread every day of my life. My father, too, and he had red wine with every meal. Do you know what my doctor says?” I shook my head, fixing a smile.
    Nada said: “I told you, and I told Antun, I don’t want them here—and now the doctors have come, and they’re still here, doing God knows what up there, overturning the whole damn vineyard. It’s indecent.”
    “He says it’ll help me live longer. Look, God—why would I want that?”
    “Tell me it’s not dangerous,” Nada said, touching Zóra’s shoulder. “Tell me, Doctor. Ten of them in two rooms—five to a bed, and all of them sick as dogs, every single one.”
    “Why would I want to live longer if I have to eat—rice, and this—what do they call it? Prunes.”
    “Not that I am suggesting everyone from up your way sleeps like that. Sleeps five a bed—I’m not saying that at all, Doctor.”
    “The hell with your prunes.”
    “Have you ever