Moon Tiger

Laszlo visits Claudia in the hospital. She is feeling particularly weak. Sylvia arrives while Laszlo is there. Claudia pretends to fall asleep, thinking that it is her right to opt out of the awkward encounter at this point in her life.

When Claudia next wakes, Lisa is there. She thinks it is just a few hours later, but Lisa tells her that two days have passed. Claudia makes Lisa uncomfortable by apologizing for being an “inadequate” mother.

Claudia recalls that there were years when she lived in terror of the next war as conflicts erupted in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere. She half expected that the world would end before Lisa could grow up. Claudia muses that, throughout history, some crisis is always on the horizon, yet people continue living their lives.

Claudia’s thoughts drift to her final conversation with Gordon, two days before he died. He regrets that he won’t know the outcome of the latest political conflict. As an economist with a long career advising governments, Gordon was still giving evidence in hearings a week before his death. In their last conversation, he stirs up a political debate with Claudia. She participates in the argument because she knows that’s what he wants. Their arguing, as always, upsets Sylvia. Claudia silently tells Gordon how much she loves him.

Claudia wakes again in the hospital. Laszlo is there again. More days have passed without her realizing it. She upsets Laszlo by saying that she is dying. Claudia responds by telling him that if she can accept it, he and Lisa must too. Claudia asks Laszlo to bring her a brown envelope from her apartment—it is Tom’s diary, which she wants to read again before she dies.

Claudia contemplates her relationship with Laszlo, thinking that he has been a source of affection and entertainment. To her, his exuberance and his emotional swings demonstrate a powerful investment in his own life. Lisa, Claudia reflects, finds his volatility embarrassing. That thought triggers a memory: a celebration of Claudia’s 70th birthday with Laszlo and Lisa.

At dinner, they discuss an article that Claudia has recently published about her time in Egypt. A photo of Claudia in the desert is printed with the article. Laszlo and Lisa are both interested in the article and the photo, because Claudia is usually tight-lipped about that time in her life. Claudia deflects their questions, reeling from having recently received Tom’s diary in the mail.

A nurse brings Tom’s diary to Claudia’s room; Laszlo dropped it off while she was sleeping. Claudia re-reads the diary.

Tom’s diary entries are undated. He can’t include many details, as any details would be censored by military officials. He notes that he wants to record “what it was like. For C” (195). “C” is what he calls Claudia throughout the diary. Tom’s entries describe his fear, the harsh conditions of the desert, and his fatigue. He mentions thinking of Claudia often. He writes about battles and the deaths that he witnesses. He fantasizes about a future, after the war, which seems completely out of reach to him.

In one notable entry, Tom describes a restless, terror-filled night before a battle. In the battle the next day, the gunner in his tank has a panic attack. Their crew makes it out of the battle alive, but Tom feels that his own fight with terror the night before, and the gunner’s surrender to terror on the battlefield, are a good example of what it feels like to be at war.

In his final entry, Tom writes that his tank needs repairs and that he will be taking it to the workshop. He’s relieved to have something to do and to be moving away from the front for a few days.

Tom’s sister has written a note in the diary under Tom’s last entry, stating that Tom was killed in an air attack while driving the tank to the workshop. Tom’s sister sent Claudia the diary after reading Claudia’s article in the paper and realizing that Claudia must be the woman to whom Tom refers.

Claudia’s final coherent thoughts are of Tom. She grieves that he has been frozen in the past while she has continued aging, meaning that he would not recognize the person she’s become. She struggles to align Tom’s personal account with the tidy sequence of documented history.

Claudia’s breathing is labored. After a rainstorm, the sun emerges to cast beautiful colors around her room. Sometime while the sun is setting, Claudia dies. Her death is described as an inanimate stillness in the room. The radio turns on to play the news, as it does every night at 6:00.