The Bedtime Story

I will ask you for one thing only. No matter what you hear about me, no matter how much they try to drag my name through the dirt, you must never, not for a moment, ever think poorly of my mother. She is sweet, stewed sugar plums and gentle wrinkles from gentle smiles, hair as white as the Siberian snow in the Russian village where she grew up. Port Baikal, she said. It makes me happy to imagine her as a little girl standing by the docks, waiting in wonder as boats emerged through the mist. Lake Baikal was the deepest lake in the world, she would tell me, her voice full of pride. It was as if, because she was from there, Lake Baikal’s depth and beauty was a part of her too, and as if its freshwater, clean and pristine, ran through her very veins. Maybe it did. I never saw my mother bleed. Only cry - and how was I to know if there was salt in those tears?

The point is, Maria Baskakova was a good woman. She tried to raise me right, to be a proper gentleman, fit to run a home of his own, to find a good wife, to raise spritely little children, to own a jolly old dog, to go to work with a sense of cheer and to have a quick after-hour drink with my dear pals before coming back in time for a wholesome, hearty, warm and delicious dinner of potatoes and meat and fish and bread and cake and cream. The problem was not in my poor mother’s words or actions, it was not in her bedtime stories. Please, I must beg you not to think that way, however tempting it may be. The problem was always, will always be in me, in the way I listened. I saw things in a sick way. A terrible way. I couldn’t explain it you. But let me try in any case.

It was summer and I was 7 years old. We were splashing about in a small pool nearby our flat - it was no Lake Baikal, but my mother liked it enough. For one thing, it wasn’t as cold. So she could dive beneath the surface like a gleeful seal, spinning about, dragging me under, bobbing me up and down and in between the world of light blue and chlorine and the blurry reality of above water. For some reason, one day, as I sat by the pool edge and adjusted my goggles, I paid particular attention to her pale, exposed legs while she did breastroke laps accross the pool. I became fixated with the way her pink, knobbly knees would bend, how her calves would swerve in and out, how her thighs would carve a path through the pool. I noticed the stripes, the lines, that ran accross her sturdy hips, light markings that told the subtle story of how a small shrimp of girl became a grown woman. I didn’t know that at the time, so the stripes perplexed me.

I thought about it all day, but I didn’t dare ask her about it, mainly because my hypothesis was an unpleasant one. It was only at nighttime, as my dear mother tucked me in for bed and kissed me on my forehead, that I felt safe enough to ask the question that had been tormenting me for hours on end.

“Mama. Are you a tiger?” I ask, my voice quiet and uncertain.

She laughs like thunder, my mother - her otherwise soft and delicate tone because deep and rich. It always catches you offguard, when she laughs. No matter how many times you hear it, it surprises you. “No. I am not. Why do you ask my sweet?”

“I saw your stripes. The ones on your legs. And you have orange fur.”

Before her hair was Siberian snow it was yellowish orange, like spring flowers.

“Stripes and orange hair do not a tiger make, my darling,” she told me, “You see the way tigers get their stripes is very different to people. Entirely distinct.”

“How so?” I asked, relieved that my mother was not a ferocious carnivore but now newly curious about the true nature of the tiger. Like all charming people, Maria Baskakova knew how to say very much with relatively little. She was telling me she had a story, a wonderful tale that would draw delight from even the dullest and most sullen of children.

“Well, all tigers, from the noble Siberian ones who live in snow and ice and thrive in the unforgiving chill, to the rowdy Southern cats who creep amongst green mazes of jungle, jumping over branches and rolling about in warm pools of mud, all of them are born without stripes. They look like funny little fools, bright orange sillies leaping about with little dignity, with little chance of camouflage against the dark mangroves or the nothern pines. Absolutely hopeless. It is only when a tiger hunts its first meal, catches its first prey, be it a slow hare or a child strayed too far from home, that it gains its first stripe. Everytime a tiger catches its next meal a new stripe will appear, again and again until the furry fellows are all covered in them and finally become decent.”

She was smiling brightly, my mother, taking great joy in the whimsical falsehood she had spun for her child, certain that she had filled my head with enough fantastical nonsense to last a night full of dreams. After she finished her tale she kissed me goodnight once more and left me to sleep. Sleep I did not.

Instead I lay awake, pondering the significance of my mother’s tale. The tiger is dignified because of its stripes, without them it is nothing but an overgrown, overrated cat. And yet, these markers of worth, these indicators of value, could only come about through death. Through the act of killing. Only in murder was that bright, neon idiot of a tiger able to gain the stripes necessary to hide, to survive, in the wild wilderness of the world.

A week later I saw a small, helpless kitten, who had, through some misfortune, fallen into the pool my mother and I so loved. I was annoyed that this dirty stray was contaminating our waters. Using the poolside cleaning net I tried to scoop up the kitten. It was a great effort for a 7 year old with weak, wobbly arms. But I was determined to get the bugger out. When I finally caught it in my net, I noticed it was still breathing. Suddenly I remembered the tiger. I remembered what was necessary. So without a moment’s hesitation, I lowered the net back into the water, kitten still inside, and waited a few more moments.

I can’t tell you why I did that. All I know is I felt very accomplished. Afterwards, I went upstairs and searched all around the house for my mother’s razor. I had seen her use it in the living room once before she had to leave in a rush. She was a working woman and I was often left to my own devices. She regretted the fact, but I never held it against her. She did what she did for me, after all. It’s my fault I used my time alone in such nefarious ways. Finally I found it tucked in the back of her bathroom cabinet. Slowly, delicately, but with full intent, I made a tiny line, a little scratch next to my ankle, where my mother wouldn’t notice so long as I wore socks. My very first stripe.

I felt so proud. The same kind of pride my mother had when she talked about Lake Baikal. Just as her childhood memories were a part of her the story of the tigers were a part of me. It was interwoven in my soul.

I think you can anticipate where this goes. Slowly but surely I began to accumulate my stripes, and soon I wanted bigger ones. I knew I would only deserve them if the prey was of an appropriate size, and unfortunately the largest animals that I could hunt in my proximity were, well, you know.

I know you are horrified. But you must understand, I did not grow up in the beautiful wilds of Lake Baikal, with seals and deer, I did not get to hunt fat juicy monkeys and lemurs. I grew up in a city, and the most populous and satisfying prey was, unfortunately, and I say this with real, genuine regret, people.

My mother found out the same time as the press. She was horrified. Digusted. She wrote me a letter stained in tears, which I did not lick to test for salt out of absolute respect, telling me she never realised how greatly and severely she had failed as my parent.

That broke my heart. I don’t want you making this worse by telling the world I am this way because of her story. Like I said, it was me. Any other child would’ve laughed, fell asleep and forgot about it. I don’t know why I couldn’t do that. I don’t know why I became obsessed with self-mutilation, the accumulation of these scars, these precious stripes. All I know is that they mean the world to me and they make me who I am. All I know is I am nothing without them.