The Hungry Tide

by Amitav Ghosh

  Piya’s eyes widened: could it really be that he knew this woman? To confirm, she said again, “Mashima?” He nodded once more and gave her a smile, as if to say, yes, he knew exactly whom she was referring to. But she still could not tell whether he had understood the full import of what she was asking of him. So, just to be sure, she made a sign, pointing first to herself and then at the horizon, to tell him she wanted him to take her there in his boat. He nodded again, and added, as if in confirmation, “Lusibari.”

  “Yes.” Shutting her eyes in relief, she unclenched her stomach and let her breath flow out.

  STANDING ON THE LAUNCH, the guard snapped his fingers at Piya as if to wake her from a long sleep. She pulled herself to her feet, leaning against the boat’s bamboo awning for support, and signaled to him to pass over her backpacks. He handed over the first without demur, and it was only when she asked for the second that he understood she was not coming back to the launch. His smirk changed into a scowl, and he began to shout, not at her but at the fisherman, whose response was nothing more than a quiet shrug and a murmur. This seemed to make the guard angrier still, and he began to threaten the fisherman with gestures of his fist.

  Piya tried to intervene with a shout of her own. “It’s not his fault. Why’re you yelling at him?” Now, unexpectedly, the pilot added his voice to hers. He too began to remonstrate with the guard, pointing to the horizon to remind him of the fast-approaching sunset. This jolted the guard’s attention back to Piya. He held up her second backpack and rubbed his finger and thumb together, to indicate that it would not be given without a payment.

  Her money, she remembered, was inside her waterproof money belt. She reached for the zipper and was relieved to find the belt intact, its contents undamaged. She counted out the equivalent of a day’s hire for the boat and a day’s wages for the guard. Then, as she was handing the money over, just to ensure herself of a quick riddance, she added a few extra notes. Without another word, the guard grabbed the money and tossed over her backpack.

  She could scarcely believe she had succeeded in ridding herself of them. She had expected more scenes and more yelling, fresh demands for money. On cue, as if to show her that she had not gotten off lightly, the guard held up her Walkman — he had managed to extricate it from her belongings before handing them over. Then, to celebrate his theft, he began to make lurid gestures, pumping his pelvis and milking his finger with his fist.

  Piya was as oblivious to these obscenities as to the loss of her music: she would be grateful just to see the guard and his friend depart. She shut her eyes and waited till the sound of the launch had faded away.

  THE TRUST

  DESPITE ITS SMALL SIZE, the island of Lusibari supported a population of several thousand. Some of its people were descended from the first settlers, who had arrived in the 1920s. Others had come in successive waves, some after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 and some after the Bangladesh war of 1971. Many had come even more recently, when other nearby islands were forcibly depopulated in order to make room for wildlife conservation projects. As a result, the pressure of population in Lusibari was such that no patch of land was allowed to lie fallow. The green fields that quilted the island were dotted with clusters of mud huts and crossed by many well-trodden pathways. The broadest of these paths were even paved with bricks and shaded with rows of casuarina trees. But these elements of an ordinary rural existence did not entirely conceal the fact that life in Lusibari was lived at the sufferance of a single feature of its topography. This was its bãdh, the tall embankment that encircled its perimeter, holding back the twice-daily flood.

  The compound of the Badabon Trust was at the rounded end of the conch-shaped island, half a mile from Lusibari village. Nilima lived there in a small building that doubled as a guest house for the Trust’s visitors.

  It took a while for Kanai and Nilima to make their way to this end of the island. They had disembarked on the mudspit, near Lusibari village, and by the time they departed for the Trust’s compound, it was near sunset. The vehicle that had been arranged for their transport was new to Kanai — there had been none on the island at the time of his last visit. It was a cycle-van, a bicycle-trolley with a square platform mounted behind the driver’s saddle. The platform served to carry luggage and livestock as well as passengers, who sat on it either with their legs folded or with their feet dangling over the edge. Since the platform was flat, with no handholds, passengers had to cling on as best they could. When the vehicle hit a bump or a pothole, they locked arms to hold each other in place.

  “Are you sure we’ll all fit on that?” said Kanai dubiously, eyeing the vehicle.

  “Yes, of course,” said Nilima. “Just get on and we’ll hold you down.”

  They set off with Kanai’s suitcase lodged among baskets of vegetables and squawking clutches of fowl. The van turned onto a path paved with uncemented bricks, many of which had come loose, leaving gaps in the track’s surface. When the wheels hit these holes, the platform flew up as if to catapult its passengers from the vehicle. Kanai would have gone rocketing off if the others hadn’t kept him in place by holding on to his shirt.

  “I hope you’ll be comfortable in our Guest House,” said Nilima anxiously. “Our setup is very simple, so don’t expect any luxuries. A room’s been prepared for you and your dinner should be waiting in a tiffin carrier. I’ve told one of our trainee nurses to make arrangements for your food. If you need anything, just let her know. Her name is Moyna — she should be there now, waiting for us.”

  At the mention of the name, the van’s driver corkscrewed around in his seat. “Mashima, are you talking about Moyna Mandol?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you won’t find her at the Guest House, Mashima,” the driver said. “Haven’t you heard yet?”

  “What?”

  “Moyna’s husband, that fellow Fokir, has gone missing again. And he’s taken the boy too — their son. Moyna’s running all over the place asking after them.”

  “No! Is that true?”

  “Yes.” A couple of other passengers confirmed this with vigorous nods.

  Mashima clicked her tongue. “Poor Moyna. That fellow gives her so much trouble.”

  Kanai had been listening to this exchange and, on seeing the look of consternation on Mashima’s face, said, “Will this upset all the arrangements?”

  “No,” said Mashima. “We’ll manage one way or the other. I’m just worried about Moyna. That husband of hers is going to drive her mad one day.”

  “Who is he? Her husband, I mean.”

  “You won’t know him —” Breaking off in midsentence, Nilima clutched at Kanai’s arm. “Wait! Actually you do know him — not him, I mean, but his mother.”

  “His mother?”

  “Yes. Do you remember a girl called Kusum?”

  “Of course,” said Kanai. “Of course I remember her. She was the only friend I had in this place.”

  Nilima gave a slow nod. “Yes,” she said. “I remember now: you two used to play together. Anyway, this man we’re talking about — Fokir? He’s Kusum’s son. He’s married to Moyna.”

  “Is he the one who’s missing?”

  “Yes, that’s him.”

  “And what about Kusum? What became of her?”

  Nilima let out a deep sigh. “She ran off, Kanai; it must have been some months after you visited us. For years we didn’t have any news of her, but then she showed up again. It was very unfortunate.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  Nilima closed her eyes as if to shut out the memory. “She was killed.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” said Nilima in an undertone. “Not now.”

  “And her son?” Kanai persisted. “How old was he when Kusum died?”

  “He was just a child,” Nilima said. “Maybe five years old or so. He was brought up by Horen, who was a relative.”

  A large building suddenly came into view, capturing Kanai’s attention.
“What’s that, over there?”

  “That’s the hospital,” said Nilima. “Is this the first time you’re seeing it?”

  “Yes,” said Kanai. “I haven’t been to Lusibari since it was built.”

  The lights that flanked the hospital’s entrance each seemed to be enclosed within a moving, buzzing halo of its own. When the cyclevan rolled past, Kanai saw that this effect was created by clouds of insects. Also clustered beneath the bulbs were groups of schoolchildren, sitting on the ground with books open on their laps.

  “Aren’t those electric lights?” Kanai said in surprise.

  “Yes, they are.”

  “But I thought Lusibari hadn’t got electricity yet?”

  “We have electricity within this compound,” said Nilima. “But just for a few hours each day, from sunset till about nine.”

  One of the Trust’s benefactors, Nilima explained, had donated a generator, and the machine was turned on for a few hours in the evening so that the hospital’s staff could have a period of heightened activity in which to prepare for the stillness of the night. As for the children, they too were drawn to the hospital by its lights. It was easier to study there than at home, and cheaper too, since it saved oil and candles.

  “And that’s where we’re going,” said Nilima, pointing ahead to a two-story house separated from the hospital by a pond and a stand of coconut trees. Small and brightly painted, the house had the cheerful look of a whitewashed elementary school. The guest rooms were upstairs, Nilima explained, while the flat on the ground floor was the home in which she and her late husband had lived since the mid-1970s. Nirmal’s study, where all his papers were stored, was on the roof.

  After Nilima had dismounted from the cycle-van, she handed Kanai a key: “This opens the door to your uncle’s study. You should go upstairs and have a look — you’ll find the packet on his desk. I wanted to take you there myself but I’m too tired.”

  “I’ll manage on my own,” said Kanai. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Kanai was heading for the stairs with his suitcase when Nilima called out, as an afterthought, “The generator will be switched off at nine, so be prepared. Don’t be caught off-guard when the lights go out.”

  FOKIR

  ONLY AFTER THE LAUNCH had disappeared from view was Piya able to breathe freely again. But now, as her muscles loosened, the delayed shock she had been half expecting set in as well. Her limbs began to quiver and all of a sudden her chin was knocking a drumbeat on her kneecaps; in a moment she was shivering hard enough to shake the boat, sending ripples across the water.

  There was a touch on her shoulder, and she turned sideways to see the child standing beside her. He put his arm around her and clung to her back, hugging her, trying to warm her body with his own. She closed her eyes and did not open them again until the chattering of her teeth had stopped.

  Now it was the fisherman who was in front of her, squatting on his haunches and looking into her face with an inquiring frown. Slowly, as her shivering passed, his face relaxed into a smile. With a finger on his chest, pointing at himself, he said, “Fokir.” She understood that this was his name and responded with her own: “Piya.” With a nod of acknowledgment, he turned to the boy and said, “Tutul.” Then his forefinger moved, from himself to the boy and back again, and she knew he was telling her the boy was his son.

  “Tutul.”

  Looking closely at the child she saw he was even younger than she had thought, perhaps no more than five years old. He was wearing a threadbare sweater against the November chill. Below this hung a pair of huge, discolored shorts that looked as though they had once belonged to a school uniform. He had something in his hands, and when he held it up she saw it was her laminated flashcard. She had no idea where he had found it but was pleased to see it again. He brought it to her, holding it in front of him like a tray, and gave her fingers a squeeze, as though to assure her of his protection.

  The gesture had the paradoxical effect of making her aware of her own vulnerability. This was not a feeling she was accustomed to — she was used to being on her own in out-of-the-way places, with only strangers for company. But her experience with the guard had bruised her confidence and she felt as though she were recovering from an assault. This made her all the more grateful for the child’s presence: she knew that if it weren’t for him it would have been much harder for her to put her trust in a complete stranger as she had done. It was true, then, that in a way the boy was her protector. The recognition of this made her do something that did not come easily. She was not given to displays of affection but now, in a brief gesture of gratitude, she opened her arms and gave the boy a hug.

  As she released the child, she noticed he was looking intently at her hands — her wallet was still wedged between her fingers. With a guilty start, she remembered that she had made no mention of money to the fisherman. Opening the wallet, she took out a wad of Indian currency and separated a thin sheaf of notes from the rest. She was counting out the money when she became aware of their attention and looked up. They appeared to be transfixed and their eyes were following her fingers as though she were performing some intricate feat of jugglery. There was a wonderment in their faces that told her that their absorption was not a function of greed; it was just that they had never before been in the proximity of so large a sum of money and so many crisp currency notes. Yet despite the closeness of this scrutiny, Fokir seemed not to have understood that it was for him that she was counting the money: when she offered the notes to him, he recoiled guiltily, as though she’d offered him some kind of contraband.

  The sum she had counted out was small, no more than she might elsewhere have paid for a few sandwiches and a couple of coffees. Her research grant was too tight to allow her to be lavish, but this small token, at least, she felt she did owe him, and if he had had a shirt, she would have tucked the money right into his pocket. As it happened, apart from his wet loincloth he was wearing nothing but a small cylindrical medallion tied to his arm with a string, just above the biceps. Unable to think of any other expedient, she twisted the notes into a roll and thrust them under the medallion. His skin, she noticed, was bristling with goosebumps and she could not tell whether this was a reaction to her touch or to the chilly evening wind.

  A loud exclamation followed as Fokir retrieved the money. When the notes were in his hands, he examined them as if in disbelief, holding them at a distance from his face. Presently, with a gesture in the direction of the recently departed launch, he peeled a single note from the bundle and held it aloft. She understood that he was telling her that he would accept that one note as compensation for the money that had been taken from him. He handed this to the boy, who darted off to hide it somewhere in the thatch of the boat’s hood.

  The other notes he gave back to her, and when she attempted to protest, he pointed toward the horizon and repeated the word she herself had uttered earlier: “Lusibari.” She recognized he was deferring the matter of payment until they arrived at Lusibari, and there she was content to let the matter rest.

  THE LETTER

  THE GUEST HOUSE occupied the whole of the second floor and was accessed by a narrow staircase. There were four rooms, all identically furnished with two narrow beds, a desk and a chair. They opened onto a space that was part corridor, part dining room, part kitchen. At the far end of the corridor lay the building’s one claim to luxury, a bathroom with a shower, a toilet and running water. Kanai had been dreading the thought of bathing in a pond and heaved a sigh of relief on catching sight of these unexpected amenities.

  On the dining table stood a stainless-steel tiffin carrier and Kanai guessed it contained his dinner. Evidently, despite her cares, Moyna had not neglected to provide his evening meal. Exploring further, he deposited his suitcase in the room that appeared to have been readied for him and headed for the stairs.

  On making his way up to the roof, Kanai was rewarded with a fine view of a tide country sunset: with the riv
ers running low, the surrounding islands were riding high on the reddening water. With his first circumambulation of the roof, Kanai found he could count no fewer than six islands and eight “rivers” in the immediate vicinity of Lusibari. He saw also that Lusibari was the most southerly of the inhabited islands; on the islands beyond were no fields or houses, nothing other than dense forests of mangrove.

  On one side of the roof was a long, tin-roofed room with a locked door. This, Kanai realized, was Nirmal’s study. He unlocked the door with the key Nilima had given him and pushed the door open. Stepping inside, he found himself facing a wall stacked with books and papers. There was only one window, and on opening it Kanai saw it looked westward, in the direction of the Raimangal’s mohona. The desk beneath this window was laid out as if for Nirmal’s use, with an inkwell, a stack of fountain pens and an old-fashioned, crescent-shaped blotter. Under the blotter was a large sealed packet that had Kanai’s name written on it. The packet was wrapped in layers of plastic that had been pasted together with some kind of crude industrial glue. On top was a piece of paper that looked as if it had been torn from a notebook, and written on it, in his uncle’s hand, were Kanai’s name and his address of twenty years before. Kanai squeezed the packet between his fingers but could not make out exactly what lay inside. Nor could he see how he was to open it; the layers of plastic seemed almost to be fused together. Looking around him, he saw half a razor blade lying on the windowsill. He picked up the sharpedged sliver of metal and applied it to the plastic sheets, pinching it carefully between his fingertips. After cutting through a few layers, he saw, lying inside, like an egg in a nest, a small cardboard-covered notebook, a khata, of the kind generally used by schoolchildren. This surprised him for he had been expecting loose sheets — poems, essays — anything but a single notebook. He flipped it open and saw that it was covered in Bengali lettering, in Nirmal’s hand. The writing was cramped, as if in order to save space, and the penmanship was so unruly as to suggest that the lines had been written in great haste. In places there was much crossing out and filling in, and the words often spilled into the thin margin. Despite the many layers of plastic, the paper was covered with damp spots. In some places the ink had begun to fade.