Makena

I guess that giving away anything would mean, well, giving away too much. So I'll just leave it that way.

Makena

The call came early in the morning, waking him from a dream that was lost as soon as he gripped the telephone on his bedside cabinet.

“Yeah,” he managed.

“Sam, this is Carlo. Something happened. We need you here.”

“Give me a second.”

He put the telephone on the cabinet, next to the picture of his late wife, and sat up straight on the edge of the bed that had been way to big for him for almost five years now. He put on the bedside light. The clock on the wall said it was half past five. He took the receiver after he´d shaken off the last fragments of the dream he was having; something about hospitals, long corridors and bad news, he remembered then.

“What is it, Carlo?”

“Sam...,” Sam waited, suddenly wide awake.

Carlo said: “It's serious. It's about Makena.”

“I'll be there. Give me ten minutes.”

“Okay. And Sam?”

“Hm?”

“Don´t forget your rifle.”

He drove and he drove fast.

He'd only had time to slip into his flannel shirt, his blue jeans and his working boots, feed the cat and look into the mirror. He´d looked rather old; but how can one expect to look fresh when you were woken up by such bad news at 5.30 pm?

There was not much traffic in the city, which was a good thing, since he did not even stop to wait for the traffic lights to turn green. He was desperately craving a coffee, his legal drug of choice. He´d make someone get him one once he arrived.

He turned left and reached the parking area for the visitors. He did not stop but simply sped on towards the main gate, where he came to a halt.

Carlo was waiting for him. He looked tired and shocked. If the situation was as bad as he'd said on the phone, he had every reason to be shocked, Sam thought, as he got out of the car.

“Sam, you're here, finally.” There was no reproach in his voice, he looked relieved to see him.

“I made it as fast as I could,” said Sam.

Carlos nodded, “I wanted to send Lukas to meet you here, you know, but he... well, he kind of fainted.”

“He fainted? Is he all right?” Sam asked. Lukas was their new apprentice. A nice enough guy and not one to faint quickly.

Carlos said, ”He's all right now. Come on, we´ve got to make this quick.”

They went through the entrance area; passed the flamingos, the meerkats and entered the ape house. Sam noticed that the animals seemed restive; he´d observed that behaviour before and he took it as proof of the animals' sensitivity to their surroundings. They sensed that something was wrong.

Inside the ape house, where the visitors can stay and marvel at the various monkeys through thick glass panels (something that Sam also likes to do " even though he's been familiar with the monkeys for such a long time), there was another door marked “PRIVATE”.

It was Sam´s office and he had long since stopped wondering why it was located next to the monkeys´ enclosure. It was sparsely furnished, dominated by a cupboard.

Adam Friedland, the zoo´s director, was standing in his office.

He was over 60 years old but still in good trim; with his grey beard and still thick hair he looked capable of climbing a mountain or of completing a marathon.

He looked Sam in the eye, tired but decisive.

“Sam, good that you're here.”

Sam nodded, suddenly feeling awkward.

He took the rifle from the cupboard, loaded it and hesitated a moment. He said, speaking to Adam more than to Carlo, who stood at the door, looking out of place, “Can you tell me what happened? Carlos only told me... the most important things.”

Adam took a breath. He seemed to want to get it over as fast as he could. But he saw that Sam should get as much information as he could get beforehand. He said: “It was at about 5 am. Makena is fed at this time each morning, as you know. This time it was Robert´s duty. Martina told us what happened, she was at the bears´ enclosure at the time. She did not see it exactly. When she came to the tigers´ enclosure because she...”

He hesitated.

“Because she heard the scream, she saw Makena sitting on Robert. He was dead five seconds later. It went really fast. You know tigers, Sam. I don´t have to tell you the details.”

Sam knew. He had once seen a tiger attacking his prey. They jump at their victims and immediately bite into their neck. Their natural prey does not die immediately after the first attack but Sam knew that for a human, a bite in the neck was more than enough. Robert must have been dead immediately.

Sam also knew that if this had happened 5 years earlier, Adam would taken care of the matter himself. Like everyone else working in the zoo (and many other people " it had been in the papers) Sam knew the story. 15 years ago, when Adam began his career as the director of the zoo, he had been present when a child fell into the alligators' enclosure. Adam was eating a Hot Dog (so the story goes) when it happened, threw it away, jumped over the fence (that part is a proven fact " proven by various eye witnesses) and into the alligators´ pool, where he tried to pry open the alligator´s mouth.

He was not able to save the kid but nonetheless was celebrated for his courageous behaviour. It had been a few years before Sam´s time in the zoo but he knew there had been much discussion about what to do with the alligator afterwards. Adam had decided to kill it and he had done it by himself. It had taken 6 shots and about one hour.

Sam said, ”Did Robert have any family?”

Carlos, at the other side of the room said, ”Yes, he had a wife. And...” he trailed off.

Adam, losing patience, said: “What is it?”

Carlos was on the phone, Sam had not noticed before, listening with growing disbelief. He disconnected without saying goodbye, looked at them and said:

“She is on her way.”

No one knew who had informed her. There was no emergency plan for such situations but Sam thought that informing the wife had been a bad decision. He rushed through the zoo heading straight for the tiger´s cage, followed by Adam and Carlo. The animals were awakening around him. The tiger´s cage was in the middle of the zoo; the main attraction for many visitors. The enclosure had been refurnished recently and there was only one tiger in the enclosure at the moment; Makena had had a partner, but Tayo had died one month ago. Like almost every other animal, tigers are supposed to have a partner but the directors had not been able to get a partner for her yet. So Makena had been alone. She had been acting strangely for two or three weeks and Sam had had a bad feeling since then. He had been right as it turned out.

When they arrived at the cage, they found a small crowd had gathered around the cage. Sam recognized most of the people: There were a few keepers from other enclosures, some cleaners. He should consider himself lucky that they had not yet informed the press, he thought bitterly. Respectfully the crowd parted as they moved on. Then he saw her. Makena was sitting lazily in her enclosure, and " although he knew that the thought was macabre - he had to think of his cat after a meal. Robert´s body was lying near her.

Luckily they had called Sam early enough; Makena had not been hungry because Robert had only just finished feeding her when he was killed. It looked horrible enough, though. It was only then that she saw a woman that had not seemed to be aware of their approaching. She was staring at the tiger and at Robert.

I am not prepared for that, he thought as he went up to her, then hesitated.

They had come to a halt and for a long moment no one moved.

The tiger eyed them.

Sam had been dealing with animals long enough to know that trying to interpret their facial expressions is a rather shaky business; most of the time you see what you want to see in their eyes. This time, he was not able to read anything in Makena´s eyes. She just looked at them.

Adam moved first and Sam respected him all the more for that. He approached Emily (that was her name, he had once heard Robert talk about her " Robert, now lying face down and with a broken neck in the tiger´s enclosure). He approached Emily and put a hand on her shoulder. Now Sam saw that she was crying, without making a sound, only the shoulders moving a little.

He knew enough about anger and grief to be able to predict that she wouldn´t be always that quite. There will be outbursts of anger, maybe accusations. He remembered looking at his wife in the hospital bed, not being able to believe that he was looking at a dead body, not at the woman he had lived, argued, laughed and slept with for more than 20 years.

He gripped the rifle tightly and stepped towards the enclosure.

The tiger focussed on him.

Sometimes, when tigers look at you, you start to feel your own inferiority; an inferiority now only being compensated by the rifle in his hand. They have a way of examining you, estimating, coming to the conclusion that you are no danger for them.

This time, Makena got up, walking elegantly towards him.

Sam knew, without turning around, that everyone was watching them.

There was a double door system to protect the visitors. He passed through one of the doors and from there he would be able to shoot through the grids.

Makena now was only two meters away from him, only separated by a large-meshed fence.

Makena looked straight at him, upright and alert. Sam felt inferior again. What was he doing? We transport animals to zoos and then we kill them when they act upon their instincts. That was a way of seeing it and its logic could not be denied. But there was another way of seeing it, he did not have to turn to Emily to know that other way of seeing it. When someone we love dies, we start looking for someone to blame.

He raised the rifle and looked into Makena´s eyes, which spoke mockery, fear, contempt, sympathy and regret; it was the look of an infant being treated unjustly, the look of a cold blooded killer, the look of a friendly cat, the look of a noble warrior who´s lost the will to fight, the look of a hideous murderer; all at once and nothing really.

There was no choice. He pulled the trigger.