by Amitav Ghosh
But even that brought me no peace of mind: it was as if I were tumbling down a rabbit hole of mathematical uncertainty. I fell into a kind of paralysis, a state of drawn-out, perpetual panic.
In my occasional moments of lucidity it would occur to me that the only thing that could lift me out of this funk – or depression, or whatever it was called – was to talk to Cinta. But months and months went by and there was neither a call nor a message from her – and the embarrassment and guilt of having reneged on my promise to visit her in Venice weighed so heavily on me that nor could I bring myself to call her.
Sometimes when my phone rang I would glance at the screen, hoping to see the code for Italy. But it was always either a bill collector or a recorded message from some huckstering politician, or a robo-call in Chinese.
But then one day my cellphone rang, and there it was, the code for Italy: + 39. I snatched up the device thinking I would hear Cinta’s voice at the other end.
But no: to my great surprise it was Gisa, Cinta’s niece.
After we had exchanged a few pleasantries Gisa told me that she was working on a new documentary, commissioned by a consortium of television channels. It was about the recent wave of crossings into Italy, across the mountains and from the far sides of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic.
‘You have been following, yes, how thousands of rifugiati are coming across the sea, in boats, from Libya and Egypt? Some have been rescued but many have died.’
The truth was that I had paid scarce attention to the news of late and was only dimly aware of this phenomenon. ‘I don’t know much about it I’m afraid.’
‘Over here, in Italy – no, in Europe – everyone is talking about the rifugiati and immigrati. Our new right-wing government came to power because they promised to be tough on migration. This has now become the biggest political issue across Europe, so everyone wants to know about it. Why are the migrants coming, in such dangerous circumstances? What are they fleeing? What are their hopes? That is why a documentary is necessary.’
‘I can see that it’s an important project,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sure that I can be of any help.’
‘Oh yes you can,’ said Gisa. ‘You see – I need a translator and Cinta suggested you. It was she who gave me your number; she thought you might be able to do it.’
‘Me?’ I said in surprise. ‘But I don’t think I have the necessary languages. Aren’t the refugees mainly from the Middle East and Africa?’
‘Most of them are, yes,’ said Gisa. ‘But there are also many from Pakistan and Bangladesh. In realtà last month Bangladeshis were the second largest group coming into Italy.’
‘Really? I had no idea.’
‘And you speak Bangla, vero?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘Yes, Cinta told me. This is why I called you. I have already done many interviews around the country but now I am going to Venice and I was thinking that you could join me there.’
Her train of thought baffled me. ‘I don’t follow. Are you telling me that you need a Bengali translator in Venice, of all places?’
‘Yes. In Venice there are many, many Bengalis. Tantissimi!’
I was dumbstruck. ‘Is that true? There are many Bengalis in Venice?’
‘Yes, it is true. Bengalis have been settling in the Veneto for a long time. Earlier they came to work in the shipyards of Mestre and Marghera. But now many more have come and in Venice they do everything – they make the pizzas for the tourists, they clean the hotels, they even play the accordion at street corners.’
‘Amazing. I had no idea.’
‘So will you come? Of course we will buy your ticket and pay for your services. There is also a per diem for hotels, meals and so on. But Cinta said you could stay in her apartment so you will not need to spend that money. Altogether it will come to maybe as much as…’ She named a sum that sounded positively princely to me. ‘And maybe you could come early and have a little time to yourself in Venice, so that you can look around and get over jet lag?’
I was so moved that my eyes filled with tears.
‘How could I possibly say no to that? And I hope Cinta will be there too?’
‘Purtroppo, no! Unfortunately she is teaching for the next few weeks. But Padova isn’t far and I’m sure she will join us at some point.’
‘Wonderful! Thank you for calling, Gisa. This is the best phone call I’ve had in years.’
She laughed. ‘A presto!’
The ticket arrived next morning, by email, and I boarded a plane a few days later. I had reserved a window seat for myself, as usual, even though the flight was a red-eye.
The sun was up when the plane began its descent and when I turned to look out of the window I found myself gazing down at a sight that reminded me of the patch of Bengal countryside that I had glimpsed on my last flight out of Calcutta, a little more than two years before: an estuarine landscape of lagoons, marshes and winding rivers.
From that height it was possible to mistake the Venetian lagoon for the Sundarbans.
Part II
Venice
The Ghetto
That there is a strange kinship between Venice and Varanasi has often been noted: both cities are like portals in time; they seem to draw you into lost ways of life. And in both cities, as nowhere else in the world, you become aware of mortality. Everywhere you look there is evidence of the enchantment of decay, of a kind of beauty that can only be revealed by long, slow fading.
The kinship of the two cities is nowhere more apparent than in Venice’s getto: the walls that surround it, the narrow entrances that lead to it, and the slender, crooked houses – all of this reminded me of a part of Varanasi that I particularly love: the area around the Bindu Madhav temple, near Panchganga Ghat. There too you find seclusion and serenity in the midst of noisy multitudes; there too you have a sense of being amidst a community that follows age-old customs, unobserved by the world.
But there is one important difference: the Ghetto of Venice really is an island within an island, surrounded by water on all sides. An arched wooden bridge leads to a tunnel-like entrance, and this in turn opens into a large piazza, enclosed by tall houses and a wall. This square is relatively uncrowded; small groups of tourists sweep through from time to time, like leaves in a gale, but otherwise the place gives the impression of being home to many full-time residents. Washing can be seen, fluttering on lines that stretch between windows, and children of all ages are much in evidence, careening around on bicycles and skateboards.
Sitting on a bench, in a corner, I made an effort to imagine the square as it might have looked, three and a half centuries earlier, trying to envision it as it would have appeared to a traveller from Bengal. I tried to think of the Gun Merchant treading on those cobblestones, surrounded by people in red and yellow headgear – the colours enjoined on the inhabitants of the Ghetto by Venetian law, to mark them out as non-Christians. Warmed by the sun I began to daydream and suddenly the Gun Merchant seemed to appear before my eyes, tall, broad-shouldered, with a yellow turban, walking unhurriedly past on some errand. He glanced at me as he went by and his eyes were clear and un- troubled. I could see why he would feel safe here, beyond the reach of Manasa Devi and the creatures and forces that she commanded. This, if any, was a place that would seem to be secure from non-human intrusion: apart from a few ornamental trees and plants there was almost nothing in sight that was not made by human hands. Here surely the Gun Merchant would have known himself to be beyond his tormentor’s grasp – yet, here too Manasa Devi had managed to reach him.
How?
What sort of wild creature could intrude upon a place like this?
As I was asking myself these questions a strange thing happened; I seemed to slip through an opening, or a membrane, so that I wasn’t looking at the Merchant’s predicament from his own point of view but rather from the perspective of his pursuer, the goddess herself. And then the pursuit no longer seemed to be a story of an almost incomprehensible vindict
iveness but something more fraught, and even tender, a search driven by fear and desperation.
I remembered my readings of the Merchant legends of Bengal and how inapt the word ‘goddess’ had seemed to me in relation to the depiction of Manasa Devi in these epics. ‘Goddess’ conjures up an image of an all-powerful deity whose every command is obeyed by her subjects. But the Manasa Devi of the legend was by no means a ‘goddess’ in this sense; snakes were not so much her subjects as her constituents; to get them to do her bidding she had to plead, cajole, persuade. She was in effect a negotiator, a translator – or better still a portavoce – as the Italians say, ‘a voice-carrier’ between two species that had no language in common and no shared means of communication. Without her mediation there could be no relationship between animal and human except hatred and aggression.
But an intermediary must, after all, command the trust of both the sides for which she is mediating. How can a translator do her job if one side chooses to ignore her? And why would her constituents obey her if they knew that those she was addressing on their behalf – the Merchant and his fellow humans – had refused to acknowledge her voice? Hence the urgency of her search for the Merchant: for if he, and others like him, were to disavow her authority then all those unseen boundaries would vanish, and humans – driven, as was the Merchant, by the quest for profit – would recognize no restraint in relation to other living things. This was why the Merchant had to be found; this was why his attempts at concealment had to be thwarted at all costs …
My daydream was interrupted by a ball that rolled up to the bench and bumped into my shoes. Picking it up I tossed it to the little girl who was running behind it – and then it was as if a spell had been broken. I couldn’t understand why I was sitting there, conjuring up imaginary scenarios based on nothing but some garbled fragments of a fable and a few random incidents and coincidences. It was nothing less than absurd for me to be indulging in this childlike fantasy; here I was, in one of the world’s most beguiling cities, and I was wasting time on a daydream instead of sitting in a piazza, drinking a spritz, and reading James’s Aspern Papers.
A burden seemed to slip from my shoulders now: I rose to my feet and stretched my limbs, as though I were waking from a long night’s sleep. It was a moment that I wanted to remember so I took out my phone and snapped a few pictures. When my phone suggested that I post the pictures on a photo-sharing site, tagged with the date and location, I hit the send button without hesitation.
Then a wonderful aroma of garlic and olive oil came wafting through the air, stirring my appetite. I saw that lunchtime was approaching and decided to find something to eat.
* * *
There are two parts to the Ghetto of Venice: one is called the New Ghetto (Getto Nuovo) and the other is the Old Ghetto (Getto Vecchio). As with everything in the city, the relationship between the two is very complicated: predictably, the New Ghetto is actually the older of the two.
A narrow lane, with tall houses on either side, leads from the New Ghetto to the Old. That day one of the houses in the lane was under repair: a grid of scaffolding was attached to the facade and the sound of hammers was echoing through the lane.
The scaffolding occupied half the width of the lane, leaving just about enough space for one person to squeeze past it at a time. I had almost made my way through when a shout of warning burst on me, from above: ‘Shabdhaan! Careful!’
The word triggered an instinctive response and I froze. A moment later a slab of masonry came crashing down in front of me. Had I not stopped in my tracks the chunk of plaster would almost certainly have hit me on the head. I stood there shaking, knowing full well that I would probably be dead if I had taken another step.
I was gazing speechlessly at the shattered masonry, frozen in horror, when it struck me that the warning that had saved my life had been shouted in Bangla.
But how was that possible, here in the Ghetto of Venice?
I turned my gaze towards the scaffolding, and found myself looking into the dark face of a worker in a hard hat: he was perched on a crossbeam some two storeys above me.
‘Was it you who dropped this?’ I shouted in Bangla.
He nodded; his eyes were panic-stricken and he looked utterly aghast.
‘What would have happened,’ I asked, ‘if I hadn’t understood your warning?’
‘Maaf korben – forgive me, sir,’ he said in a faltering voice.
He was young, just a boy, with a mop of shaggy black hair spilling out of his red hat.
‘You could have killed me!’ I said.
‘It was a mistake, sir – I’ve just started this job…’
By this time several other workers had clambered down from the scaffolding. Gathering around me they began to talk at once, in Bangladeshi-accented Bangla, murmuring apologies, trying to mollify me, and scolding the fellow who had dropped the masonry.
‘Sir, you won’t report him to the questura, will you?’ one of them beseeched me.
A silence fell as they waited for my answer. In their eyes I could see an anxiety that bespoke an existence of extreme precariousness: I understood that an untoward word to the authorities could lead to the unravelling of their lives.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I won’t complain, but…’
They looked hugely relieved and one of them took hold of my arm.
‘Why sir, you’re still shaking – you should sit down somewhere and have a cup of tea or coffee.’
The miscreant was now pushed to the front. Tall and thin, he stood in front of me with his shoulders hunched, quailing.
‘Go on,’ said one of the older workers, elbowing him in the ribs. ‘Take the gentleman to Lubna-khala’s place. She’ll give him some coffee and set things right.’
The youth raised his eyes now and we looked each other full in the face for the first time. His eyes widened and then he flinched and glanced away – and that was when I noticed the downturned corners of his mouth and his long-lashed eyes.
I was about to say his name when he silenced me with a beseeching glance.
* * *
It was only after we were out of earshot of the others that I uttered his name. ‘Rafi?’
He was wearing the most banal of urban clothes – a T-shirt, jeans, windbreaker and sneakers – yet something still remained of his feral quality.
‘Is it really you?’
He gave me a sheepish smile. ‘Yes, it’s me,’ he said. ‘But I’m glad you didn’t say anything back there.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I would have had to explain that I had met you back in India. And then there would be many more things to explain as well.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you see,’ he said, after an awkward pause, ‘the others don’t know that I grew up in India. Everyone here thinks I’m Bangladeshi. It’s best to leave it like that.’
We were crossing an arched wooden bridge now and suddenly my knees began to wobble, as if in delayed shock. I recalled the sound of that slab of masonry crashing down upon the paving stones, right in front of me. It was as if a warning, or a message, had been delivered to me – but from whom?
Suddenly I remembered my exchange with Tipu about that mysterious Sanskrit root bhu, which means simultaneously ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ and much else as well. It seemed to me then that only a word derived from this root could account for our presence in the Ghetto: Rafi and I were both bhutas in the sense of being at once conjunctions and disjunctions in the continuum of time, space and being.
My breath became laboured and I came to a stop, leaning heavily against the side of the wooden bridge.
‘Are you all right?’ said Rafi.
‘Just give me a minute,’ I said. ‘I need to catch my breath. This is all too much for me … that accident … seeing you here … it’s so strange.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Why do you say that? Why is it so strange to see me here?’
‘Don’t you find it strange?’
‘That I�
��m here? No. I’ve been here for some months already. Why is that strange?’
His indifference shook me, making me wonder whether I was making too much of this encounter. My eyes wandered down, to the canal below, and to the fortress-like walls of the Ghetto, and I suddenly remembered a phrase that Rafi had himself used to describe one of the recurrent motifs in the Gun Merchant’s shrine – two concentric circles.
‘Do you remember, Rafi, that day when we met, how you talked about an “island within an island”? What if I told you that this is exactly where that island was, and that the Bonduki Sadagar had actually been here himself?’
Rafi answered with a nonchalant shrug. ‘That’s just a story,’ he said. ‘And anyway what does it matter to me? I’m here to work and I don’t want to lose my job.’
I could see that he was getting impatient but I wasn’t quite ready to move on yet.
‘And what about Tipu? What’s his news?’ I said.
Rafi’s eyes flared for an instant and then his face hardened.
‘Why are you asking me about Tipu?’ he said testily. ‘What makes you think that I would know where he is?’
The look in his eye warned me off from pressing him on this subject.
‘And how about you, Rafi? What brought you here? How did you come to Venice?’
He shrugged and started to walk away, at a brisk pace. ‘There’s no time for all that now. It’s a long story.’
* * *
Stepping off the bridge we entered a maze of narrow lanes. I had no idea where I was but Rafi seemed to be very sure of the way. I had trouble keeping up with him as he turned from one alley into another.