But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel.
Grief struck and searching for clues to her grandfather’s final state of mind, she turns to the stories he told her when she was a child. On their weekly trips to the zoo he would read to her from a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere; later, he told her stories of his own encounters over many years with “the deathless man,” a vagabond who claimed to be immortal and appeared never to age. But the most extraordinary story of all is the one her grandfather never told her, the one Natalia must discover for herself. One winter during the Second World War, his childhood village was snowbound, cut off even from the encroaching German invaders but haunted by another, fierce presence: a tiger who comes ever closer under cover of darkness. “These stories,” Natalia comes to understand, “run like secret rivers through all the other stories” of her grandfather’s life. And it is ultimately within these rich, luminous narratives that she will find the answer she is looking for.
Reader's Guide (from Random House)
Characters
Mother Vera: Natalia's great-grandmother.
Barba Ivan: Father of the priest caring for the orphans in Brejevina whom Natalia and Zora stay with.
Dari: Leader of the family digging in Barba's vineyard.
Natalia: Doctor, granddaughter, teller of the story somewhat.
Shere Khan: Tiger in "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling. Also the name given to the tiger near Galina by Natalia's grandfather.
Nada: Wife of Barba and mother of the priest caring for the orphans.
Grandfather: Natalia's grandfather
Dariša: Darisa the Bear, hunter, taxidermist, tries to help the village by trapping and killing the tiger but is unsuccessful.
Grandmother: Natalia's grandmother
Marko Parovi: Last living member of Natalia's grandfathers village who remembers the tiger incident.
Hassan Effendi: Father of Alanna and the tiger's wife
Dominic
Bako: Nickname or name for Natalia's grandmother.
Mr. Bogdan: Taxidermist who trains Darisa the Bear.
Duré
Zóra: Natalia's friend since childhood who is also a doctor
Mowgli: Main character in "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling.
Fra Antun: The priest taking care of the orphans in Brejevina.
Fedrizzi: The Magnificent Fedrizzi!! The skull of which is purchased by Natalia and Zora for the medical classes.
Blind Orlo: A hustler and a scammer who taught the apothocary how to read people.
Zdrevkov: Village where Natalia's grandfather dies.
Gavran Gailé: Someone in Natalia's grandfather's past.
The Apothecary: From her grandfather's village, one of few who he actually liked to be around and probably influenced him to become a doctor.
Luka: The butcher of Galina who beats his deaf-mute wife.