Gun Island

by Amitav Ghosh

  I had not gone far when I sensed that someone had fallen in step beside me, someone much taller than myself. Glancing sidewise I caught a momentary glimpse of a green baseball cap and a pale, stubble-covered jawline.

  With a jerk of my head I wrenched my gaze away and kept on walking, looking fixedly ahead.

  ‘Hello, mister. How are you?’

  His English was fluent but heavily accented. I noticed now that there was a tattoo coiled around his forearm, of a python.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

  ‘Enjoying Venice?’

  ‘Yes. I am.’

  ‘But you are not tourist I think.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I see you all the time talking to Bengali ragazzi. Is there something you are looking for?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I too am a Bengali, like them. I find their stories interesting. That’s all.’

  ‘You like stories, eh?’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  ‘Be careful. Sometimes stories can be dangerous.’

  I still couldn’t bring myself to look at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Maybe you’ve heard, mister? There is a story called Morte a Venezia?’

  He made a sound that was something between a laugh and a growl. ‘Enjoy Venice, mister. Have a good time but remember to stay safe.’

  His voice faded slowly, and I kept on walking, without looking around.

  Strangely I no longer felt panicky now; instead a kind of numbness had begun to set in, a feeling of not knowing what I was doing or where I was. I wasn’t even sure whether I had really spoken to that man or whether I had imagined it.

  At a certain point I looked up and saw that I was in the Ghetto, walking past a small bookstore. I had almost left it behind when something caught my eye and brought me hurrying back.

  Taped to the store’s window was a flyer for an exhibition. My pulse quickened as I stared at it; I could hardly believe that I hadn’t known about this exhibition.

  The show was about one of the rarest and most valuable books on earth: the Aldine Press edition of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a fifteenth-century allegorical text. The Aldine Press edition is widely thought to be the most beautiful book ever printed: it was produced in Venice in 1499 (which makes it technically an incunabulum, or ‘early book’) and the printer was none other than the great Aldo Manutius, who spent much of his life in the city and died there in 1515.

  The very sight of the name was a tonic to me. Sometimes referred to as the ‘Michelangelo of print’, Aldo Manutius was, after Gutenberg, probably the most influential bookmaker of all time, a man whose legacy permeates our lives to this day. He designed the prototypes of some of the most widely used fonts of our day, including Bembo, and Garamond (my personal favourite); it was Manutius who invented italics, introduced the semicolon and gave the comma its distinctive hooked shape. As if this were not enough, he also created the ancestor of the modern paperback, because of which he is credited with forever changing our relationship with the written word: it was only after Aldo Manutius that people began to read not for instruction, or edification, or for purposes of piety, but purely for pleasure.

  Looking more closely at the flyer I saw that the exhibition was at the Querini Stampalia Library. This name too had many resonances for me: when I had last come to Venice it was for a conference at this very library.

  This sealed the matter and I set off at once.

  As I made my way down the narrow, winding streets I remembered other details from my earlier visit to Venice. I recalled especially Cinta’s presentation at the Querini Stampalia. She had described Venice as the ‘publishing capital of the early Enlightenment’; for the first two centuries after the invention of the printing press, she had said, no less than half of all the printed books in existence had been published here; Venice had been the world centre of the book trade; it was here that the first printed Quran, in Arabic script, had appeared, in 1538; here too were published the earliest printed books in Armenian, Greek, and a variety of Slavic languages and scripts, including the Glagolitic (how I had marvelled at the ease with which that word skipped off her tongue!).

  It had been amazing also to follow Cinta around the city, stopping at the places where bookshops had once stood, listening to her as she explained that ‘books’ in those days were merely printed broadsheets; buyers purchased the uncut sheets and then chose the binding in consultation with booksellers.

  Now, as I walked towards the library, it struck me that many of those old shops and printing presses would still have been in operation when the Gun Merchant was in Venice: walking through these streets he would have seen, all around him, a universe of books.

  And even as these impressions were passing through my mind, I had the strange feeling that they were no longer thoughts but memories, so vivid as to be dreams.

  * * *

  On my last visit to Venice I had spent many hours wandering around the Querini Stampalia Library. A labyrinth of gilded reading rooms and sleekly modern courtyards and galleries, it offered distractions at every turn. But today I had no thought for anything but the Hypnerotomachia exhibition.

  On walking into the gallery I was surprised to find myself alone. Evidently rare books were not of interest to many tourists.

  The incunabulum was in a large vitrine at the centre of the gallery. Arranged along the walls were many other vitrines and several screens. Some of the screens displayed translations of the text in different languages; others provided information on its historical background and the controversies over its authorship (which was generally attributed to a Franciscan monk by the name of Francesco Colonna).

  I stopped in front of a screen that featured an English translation published in 1592, under the title The Strife of Love in a Dreame. Scrolling through the pages I began to remember bits of the story: it was told in the voice of a man who sets off to search for an always-absent beloved and finds himself lost in a forest where he is surrounded by savage animals – wolves, bears and hissing serpents. He wanders on and on until he falls into an exhausted sleep and dreams a dream in which he is dreaming a dream at once terrifying and erotic, filled with fantastical creatures, sculptures and monuments, some of which are engraved with cryptic messages in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. In this dreamt-of dream voices and messages emanate from beings of all sorts – animals, trees, flowers, spirits …

  As this started to come back to me I had an uncanny feeling that I too had lost myself in this dream; it wasn’t so much that I was dreaming, but that I was being dreamed by creatures whose very existence was fantastical to me – spiders, cobras, sea snakes – and yet they and I had somehow become a part of each other’s dreams.

  It was as if in a dream that I went at last to look at the incunabulum, which was lying open in a velvet book cradle. Displayed around it were beautiful facsimile reproductions of some of the illustrations that graced the pages – the volume’s fame rested in large part on these magnificent woodcuts (thought by some to have been executed by Mantegna).

  As I circled around the vitrine, looking at those mysterious, cryptic illustrations, I began to feel that I knew some of them, that I had seen their like somewhere not long ago. Suddenly I remembered the images on the walls of the Merchant’s shrine and then at once the conviction began to grow in me that the Merchant had seen these very pages, these illustrations, that this was the book in which he had seen the face of Manasa Devi. Then I came to an image of writhing snakes and all doubt disappeared. I was sure of it, sure that I, like the Gun Merchant, had entered the dreamtime of the book; that he was somewhere near me.

  So much was I within this dream that I did something I would never have done had I been in my right mind. I began to struggle with the vitrine, trying to open its cover.

  An alarm must have gone off although I wasn’t aware of it. When I looked up again it was to find myself surrounded by uniformed guards, librarians … they were staring at me just as
intently as I had been staring at the book.

  The next I knew I was being hustled off, quite roughly, possibly to a police station or even a jail. The shock of it helped me regain my wits: I cast a quick glance over my shoulder and caught sight of a bespectacled woman. She had the look of a librarian – there comes a time when one learns to recognize them – and I cried out: ‘Wait! I can explain … I’m a friend of Professoressa Giacinta Schiavon … I’m her guest.’

  It was fortunate for me that Cinta was well known to the staff of the Querini Stampalia. Her name worked like a magical mantra: the librarian had a quick talk with a policeman, who had appeared out of nowhere, and then a phone call was made. An animated conversation ensued after which the phone was handed to me.

  Cinta was at the other end and I tried, as best I could, to explain to her that it was all a mistake; I hadn’t meant it; I would pay if the vitrine had been damaged … and so on.

  ‘Calmati, Dino,’ said Cinta. ‘It’s all right. I have told them about you. There is nothing to worry about. You’re probably just disoriented from travelling. You should go back to the apartment and rest now.’

  ‘Thank you, Cinta,’ I said.

  I was about to hand the phone back when I remembered Piya’s call.

  ‘Cinta, there’s something else you should know. You may have an infestation in your apartment.’

  ‘An infestation?’ she said, sounding puzzled. ‘Of what?’

  ‘Spiders. I’ve been seeing them around and a friend told me that they could be poisonous.’

  There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end. ‘Orribile! I will ask Marco to check at once. Anyway, you must not worry – I will come home myself tomorrow.’

  ‘I am so glad to hear that, Cinta.’

  ‘A presto, caro. Ciao ciao ciao!’

  * * *

  Marco, the portinaio, materialized in front of me just as I was about to slip away upstairs. He was a burly man with a bushy moustache and a big belly. I had made his acquaintance on the day of my arrival – it was he who had handled my paperwork and given me the keys to Cinta’s apartment. I had run into him several times since and on some of those occasions I had tried to speak to him in Italian. But he wasn’t having any of it – I was a tourist as far as he was concerned and was therefore fit only to be spoken to in English.

  Now, I could tell, from his expression, that he had been waiting for me and was none too pleased that I had come back late.

  ‘Ah, mister,’ he said, holding up a hand. ‘Wait, one minute!’

  ‘Yes? What is it?’

  ‘Is true, no,’ said Marco, ‘you see something in Professoressa Schiavon’s appartamento? Insect? Spider?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I saw a venomous spider there yesterday. A friend told me that there might be an infestation.’

  ‘I look everywhere – there was nothing, niente, nulla. I come with you now. You show me where you see spider.’

  We went up to the apartment together and he picked out a key from the jangling bunch that was attached to his belt. Unlocking the door he ushered me in: ‘Prego.’

  I stepped in and he followed, closing the door with a thud. An instant later we heard a sound, of something falling, in the living room. I went to the door and looked in: there was a book lying open on the floor.

  ‘These old palazzi Veneziani,’ sighed Marco. ‘Any time you shut a door, something jumps off a shelf.’

  ‘This one must have jumped a long way,’ I said.

  The book had fallen beside a chair in the centre of the room. Picking it up, I saw that it had a brightly coloured tiger on the cover: it was Salgari’s book about the Sundarbans. I was almost certain that I had reshelved it after taking it out.

  Or had I?

  Meanwhile Marco was growing impatient. ‘Forza!’ he said. ‘Show me where you see spider.’

  I replaced the book and turned to Marco: ‘Come, I’ll take you there.’

  I led him to the maid’s room and switched on the light. I was stepping forward to show Marco the spot where I had seen the spider when something fell against the windowpane with a thud.

  I jumped backwards, in fright, and Marco began to laugh.

  ‘Nothing to worry, just a bird.’

  I focused my eyes on the window and saw that there was a small brownish bird perched on the sill. It looked at me for a moment before flying away.

  ‘It happens sometimes,’ said Marco. ‘They fly north and they get tired. When they see a light they fly to it. It is their season of … how do you call it?’

  ‘Migration?’

  ‘Sì. Migrazione.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, pointing to the table. ‘It was here that I saw the spider. It was on my laptop.’

  ‘Sarà!’ Marco rolled his eyes in exasperation. ‘I look in this room already. Nothing. Nulla! I live here twenty years never see spider. You come two, three days and you see. Ma come?’

  ‘I don’t know but I did see it. Here, look.’ I showed him the picture on my cellphone.

  He was unimpressed. ‘Many spider in your country, no? Maybe you see there?’

  ‘No. It was right here.’

  He threw up his hands and turned to go. ‘You see again you call me, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  * * *

  On his way out Marco gave me a pat on the back, as if in re- assurance, which left me feeling both foolish and guilty for having alarmed Cinta unnecessarily. After I had closed the door I pulled out my phone and sent her a text: ‘Marco has checked the apartment. There’s nothing here. Don’t worry. All is well.’

  She answered within minutes. ‘Grazie, caro! Sleep well. See you tomorrow.’

  I went to the kitchen and was about to pour myself a glass of water when something began to knock on a windowpane. I spun around and saw another brown bird, perched on the sill: it was pecking at the glass. When I stepped towards the window the bird flew off, wings flashing. I stood at the window looking outside, at the flower-filled garden at the back and the dimly lit lane beyond the wall. I saw nothing of note but suddenly I had an odd feeling at the back of my neck. I turned around, to find nothing there – but somewhere in the apartment there was a creak and a groan, the sound of centuries-old wood slowly settling into the soft mud of the lagoon.

  There was nothing untoward anywhere in sight, yet everything around me seemed to be alive, even the air, which was brushing against my face as though there were a draught blowing through. Yet the windows were all closed.

  Trying to calm myself I put a call through to Gisa and told her about the boat that Lubna was hoping to hire.

  ‘Maybe it will be interesting for you to go on this boat, Gisa? What do you think?’

  She thought for a bit. ‘Maybe you are right, Dino. It could be molto interessante. I will discuss it with my team and call you back.’

  When I got off the phone I realized that I was very tired. I decided to go to bed but sleep eluded me and I lay awake a long time, listening to the apartment’s nightly litany of creaks and groans, which seemed louder and more insistent than ever before.

  At some point I drifted off, but only to wake up, some hours later. My heart was pounding and I was beset by a sense of urgency, as though something were imminent. Even the air seemed heavier, as in the hours before the breaking of a thunderstorm.

  I went to the kitchen again, to get some water, and on the way back to the bedroom, when I shut the door behind me, I heard a sound in the living room – a sound of something falling, as if out of startled hands.

  I ignored it and went back to bed.

  Warnings

  Early next morning I was sitting at the kitchen table, with a cup of tea, when I heard the clicking of a key in the apartment’s front door. Then Cinta’s voice rang out: ‘Dino? Are you there?’

  ‘Yes. I’m in the kitchen.’

  ‘Aspetta!’

  She veered off to the living room to draw the curtains. When she came out again she had a book in her hands. She waved it at me
and laughed.

  ‘I see you’re reading Salgari…?’

  Then she caught sight of me, sitting at the kitchen table, and came to a sudden stop. ‘Caro mio! What’s happened? You look terrible.’

  Coming into the kitchen, she put a hand on my shoulder. ‘That expression on your face – it’s like you’re trying to frighten away a ghost!’

  ‘You caught me unawares,’ I said. ‘I didn’t expect you to arrive so early.’

  ‘I left as soon as I could,’ she said. ‘I could tell from your voice yesterday that something was wrong, that you were not yourself. And now I see that I was right: you’re shaking.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yes. What is the matter, Dino?’

  ‘I don’t know, Cinta. But you’re right – I’m not my usual self.’

  She seated herself across from me, on the other side of the table. ‘Tell me, Dino, what is wrong? Dimmi!’

  ‘I don’t know that I can explain it, Cinta. It’s just that lots of things have been happening that I can’t account for. It’s a strange feeling, as though I’m not in control of what I’m doing. It’s as if I were fading away, losing my will, my freedom.’

  ‘What has made you feel this way? Tell me.’

  ‘It’s a lot of little things, Cinta, happening in quick succession. And I feel silly even saying this, but that whole business with the spider was really unsettling – the way it appeared in front of me and was just standing there, as though it were looking at me, as if there were some sort of connection between us … and then finding out that it was extremely venomous. I mean, I’m sure I’m making too much of it. I know it has nothing to do with me, that there’s a perfectly natural, scientific explanation.’

  ‘Really?’ said Cinta frowning. ‘And what is this natural, scientific explanation?’

  ‘Oh you’re as familiar with the explanation as I am, Cinta,’ I said impatiently. ‘You know – temperatures are rising around the world because of global warming. This means that the habitats of various kinds of animals are also changing. The brown recluse spider is extending its range into places where it wasn’t found before – like this part of Italy.’