by Amitav Ghosh
For a while they all looked silently down the hatch. Then, Rakesh, leaning his thin, lanky frame over the rails, began to clean his teeth with a twig of neem. Soon Professor Samuel wandered away towards the cabin. He was a short, stocky man, bespectacled and balding. He folded his lungi up to his waist and climbed down the three steps which led to the cabin. When he reached the curtain which hung across the cabin’s entrance he turned, averting his eyes from the interior with painstaking modesty, and reached inside. He drew out a large pot of tapioca, a bottle of coconut oil and a tin of salt. Then he leapt back up the steps and, squatting in the passageway, began to knead the tapioca with coconut oil and salt.
Suddenly he stopped, cocked his head and beckoned at Alu: It’s her again. A moment later a long, pain-racked groan rasped out of the cabin, shaking the whole boat. The Professor wagged his head: Yes, it’s her again – Karthamma.
They had only had a glimpse of her once, when she clambered on at Mahé: tall and luminously black, heavy with child, her belly straining before her like a full sail. God, said the Professor with his ear to the cabin wall, it’s a strong woman who can groan like that.
At midday when the sea shone like a white light Mariamma was still sitting on the glassy water, rocking in the occasional gusts of wind that gently corrugated the surface. Rakesh, Professor Samuel and Alu soon bored of keeping a look-out for coastguards as Hajji Musa had told them to. Gradually they drifted towards a patch of shade near the cabin. Alu propped himself up against the cabin wall and stretched his legs stiffly ahead of him to dull the pain of his boils. Rakesh and Professor Samuel squeezed in beside him. They could hear Sajjan tinkering with the engine: in that shimmering silence it seemed as though the sound was echoing back at them from the horizon.
Presently Professor Samuel began to talk about queues.
If you want to understand queues – understand them seriously, that is – you have to begin by admitting that you know nothing about them. They aren’t simple things, queues. Whole books have been written about them – in America, in Poland, Japan, Czechoslovakia … People see queues and they think, Why, here’s a simple thing, I’ll just go and join it. But it’s not simple, not at all. They’re there before you see them; they have nothing to do with you. They were there before you came along and they’ll be there after you leave. A queue’s not just one man or two men or ten men standing in a line. Even if those two men or ten men weren’t there you’d still have a queue, stretching away in principle. It’s a thing of the mind, with its own humours and properties.
Squinting short-sightedly at the cabin wall, the Professor chipped away a flake of blue-grey paint to reveal a minute but very detailed elephant standing under a coconut palm: it wasn’t as though he’d sprung from his mother’s womb with all that he knew of queues hanging on him ready-made like a polyester shirt. For that matter, nobody in Tellicherry Science College where he had taught these last eight long years had known anything about queues: nobody had time for anything but government quarters, convents for their children, the price of fish, quarrels in the Municipal Council, who the Sub-Collector was, where he was being transferred, who’s in, who’s out …
It was just pure chance, if there was such a thing. One day, passing through Cochin on his way to the station, he had stopped at a library in a small college; not a big library, but quiet, a nice place to spend an hour. And there it was on an almost-empty statistics shelf, its blue hardboard cover plastered with dust and perforated by weevils. He’d picked it up idly – it hadn’t looked very interesting – The Theory of Markov Processes. And it wasn’t very interesting for the most part; he’d almost put it back on the shelf. But then somehow his thumb had caught on the last chapter – ten sparse pages on the Theory of Queues. That was how it began …
The Professor stiffened and swallowed his sentence. Look! he dug Alu urgently in the ribs. It’s her. It’s her again: Zindi at-Tiffaha.
They saw the back of her head first, wrapped in a yellow scarf. It rose slowly, like a winter sun, above the roof of the cabin. Then, swaying gently, she turned into the passageway. Her head and hands seemed incongruously small now, almost misshapen beside the immense rolling bulk of her body: she looked as though her body had somehow outgrown her extremities. She saw her path blocked by the three men and stopped, arms akimbo, eyes narrowed against the sun. Her face was very dark, but only in patches, as though it had been scorched unevenly by the sun, and it glistened under a sheen of sweat. Her cheeks hung down in heavy, muscular jowls, every fold of them quivering with vitality. In Mahé she had been inexpertly swathed in a sari; now she wore a black dress which enveloped her in a cocoon of cloth, billowing outwards where great quivering breasts rested on her stomach and then ballooning over her massive hips to fall to the ground like a tent, over her feet.
In one hand she held a red folding umbrella printed with flowers. She pointed the umbrella at the men and pressed a knob. It flew open, almost leaping out of her grip, and the men flinched and shrank back. She raised the umbrella and swept past them towards the screen of oil-drums which hid the slop-bucket. They could see the umbrella even after she had disappeared behind the oil-drums; it hung poised above the rim, like a small flowered dome.
Squinting at the umbrella, the Professor leant towards Alu and whispered: Yes, no doubt about it. No doubt about it at all. What they say is true – she’s a madam. It’s stamped on her – you can see it in everything she does. And anyway, if she wasn’t, why would she be herding these poor women across the sea? Why would she be keeping them shut away like prisoners in the cabin? I tell you, she’s going to sell them into slavery in al-Ghazira. Something like that. Or worse.
But they don’t look like prisoners, Rakesh said timidly, smoothing his oil-sleek hair. They seemed quite happy to come on to the boat. Of course we couldn’t see Karthamma properly, but that woman she calls Kulfi – the pale gori one in the white widow’s sari – she sits up front in the evenings and laughs and chats with Hajji Musa. Chunni, too, the other one. They seem quite as happy to be going as us.
Rakesh stopped as a low rumbling groan shook the cabin walls. The Professor cocked his head and nodded in quiet triumph: Yes, you’ll soon see how happy they are. We’ll be hearing more of that soon, much more. I’ll tell you one thing – we’re going to go through hell, stuck here in the middle of the sea with this woman starting her labour.
In the engine compartment below deck Sajjan jerked hard on a cord and twice the engine whirred. Once it beat momentarily into life and then spluttered out again. They heard Hajji Musa quietly urging him to try again.
There was a splash of water behind the oil-drums and then the umbrella rose as Zindi stood to shake her skirts out. She turned and lurched purposefully towards the Professor. Squatting beside him, she stared hard into his face.
You’re good at this, han? she rapped out in fluent guttural Hindi. Good at talking? Talk for hours, talk, talk, no thought for other people’s headaches and worries, just talk, talk, any shit, any filth that comes into your mind? You think we can’t hear you down there?
The Professor edged away. Zindi thrust her face within an inch of his; a black mole with a single hair, twitching like an insect’s antenna, sat on a deep line at the corner of her mouth. All right, she said, we all want to hear some more talk from you now, some real talk. What are you going to do about this boat? Are you going to fiddle with your balls while we die in the middle of the sea or are you going to do something?
Professor Samuel swallowed and shut his eyes.
What can we do? Rakesh appealed to her. You tell us – what can we do? We don’t know anything about engines.
His voiced trailed off. Of course, he said, peering at the horizon, we could row …
Yes, row, said Zindi. That’s the answer. Hang your cocks over the side and twitch hard. That’ll get us to al-Ghazira by sunset.
There was a sudden pounding on the cabin wall. An instant later a half-strangled shriek shook the deck. The pounding grew till Mariam
ma began to rock, sending circles rippling outwards towards the horizon. Zindi whirled around and rushed down to the cabin. Soon after, the hammering weakened into feeble knocks. I told you, the Professor said with mournful satisfaction. I told you.
Later, when the sun had dipped low in the sky and a cool evening breeze was gently rocking Mariamma, Alu found himself suddenly shaken out of a doze. Professor Samuel was crouching over him. I’m not going to die like this, he said, his voice shaking. I’m not going to die floating on a boat in the middle of the sea. We have to do something. It’s our duty towards those poor women. Get up. How can you sleep now? Get up. We have to do something.
Alu heaved himself up and limped over to the wheelhouse with the Professor following close behind. Hajji Musa was sitting in the shade of the wheelhouse, holding up a filter while Sajjan polished it with a rag. They were surrounded by grimy bits of machinery.
How much longer, Hajji? Alu said.
The Hajji shrugged and thrust an open palm at the heavens: Who knows?
Criminals, villains, the Professor muttered into Alu’s ear in English. Bringing helpless men and women out to die like animals on the sea. Why is the government not doing something?
Alu picked up a bit of wire and a file and hobbled back to his place in the waist of the boat. He wound the wire around his fingers and began to file one end.
What are you doing? the Professor said, watching him, his eyes wide behind his round spectacles.
Making a hook to fish with, said Alu.
But why?
Why? Alu looked at him in surprise. What else is there to do?
You’re going to make a hook while we die slowly of—
He was cut short by a great ringing crash. What’s the matter? he cried, clutching at the rails. What’s happened?
It rang out again: a harsh, metallic sound as though one of the oil-drums in the cabin had been hit, gong-like. They heard a torrent of hoarse, choking speech, and a moment later Zindi’s voice, shouting confused, breathless orders: Hold her legs. Don’t let her kick. Why’re you holding her like that? Do you think she’s a horse or what? Then the cabin erupted again; there was another crash and another burst of hoarse, strangled speech. The men had all gathered around the steps now. They heard Zindi’s voice again, pleading.
In the lull that followed a woman in a white sari pushed the curtain aside and stumbled out. What’s happening, Kulfi-didi? Rakesh cried. Is she in labour?
Kulfi-didi wiped her face with the end of her sari. She was a slight, fragile woman with long, slender arms and a thin, hollowed-out face. Her cheeks looked as though they had collapsed, like the skin of a punctured drum. Grey smudges surrounded her eyes, spilling out, mask-like, towards her temples. She had taken her name from her complexion, which was pale, slightly yellow and grainily coarse. Her age seemed oddly indeterminate, for with her worn face and haggard cheeks she combined an incongruously girlish manner. Now, red-eyed and sweating, she stood panting at the entrance to the cabin. Her hair hung around her head in damp, stringy knots and her white sari was streaked with blood. She thrust a mug at Rakesh: Water, quickly.
Rakesh ran to the side, threw himself flat on the deck and reached down to fill the mug. Has it started? he asked, handing it back to her. Is she delivering now?
Rolling her eyes, Kulfi said: Yes. No, it’s her time but she won’t … She won’t let the labour start. She’s sitting on the floor and kicking and fighting. She’s stuffed her hands into her womb, right in, up to her wrists. Maybe she’s trying to kill it. She keeps saying things in her language …
Like lead grating on a slate, hysteria shrilled through her voice. Then Zindi stepped out and pushed her back into the cabin. Her scarf had slipped off and her coarse greying hair lay matted on her forehead. She spotted Professor Samuel. Hey, you, she said, beckoning with a finger. You know Malayalam, han? Come into the cabin and tell us what she’s trying to say.
There was a silence. Then Professor Samuel said with quiet dignity: You know that is not possible. I cannot go into the cabin with her in a state like that. It won’t be right, it won’t be—
He stopped, mouth open, searching for the Hindi word he wanted.
The blood rushed into Zindi’s eyes. Arsehole, sala, she shouted. You come here quick right now, or I’ll break your legs.
All right, all right – the Professor held up his hands – but I won’t go in. I’ll stand with my back to the curtain.
He climbed carefully down the steps to the cabin. When he reached the last step he turned to face the wheelhouse and edged backwards towards the cabin. Catching the curtain with both hands, he held it to his cheek so that his ears were inside the cabin but his face outside.
There was another outburst behind the curtain. The Professor stiffened, frowning in concentration. His lips moved silently as the hoarse voice muttered on. At length he said: She says she won’t deliver without signing the right forms. That’s what she says. She says she’ll keep it in for as long as she has to.
Are you mad? Zindi shouted at the Professor. Are you lying, you bastard? What form? Where form? Do you think this is a passport office?
The Professor silenced Zindi with a gesture. Cocking his head, he listened intently to the whimpering inside until it had sunk into exhausted gasps. He looked up then, and shifted his eyes uneasily from Zindi to Alu. She’s delirious, I think, he said. It was madness to bring her on to a boat in this state. She’s just babbling, on and on. She says that she knows that the child won’t be given a house or a car or anything at all if she doesn’t sign the forms. It’ll be sent back to India, she says, and she would rather kill it than allow that to happen; kill it right now with a bottle while it’s still in her womb.
Zindi pushed him aside and vanished into the cabin. They heard her growling in a soothing whisper and soon Karthamma’s murmurs faltered and died.
After nightfall, sitting around the deck, they ate a silent meal of rice, fish-paste and pickle off tin plates – all of them except Hajji Musa and Sajjan, who were still cleaning bits of machinery. Zindi sat cross-legged, enveloped in a black, cloak-like tarha. Beside her was Chunni Devi, a dark, taciturn, square-faced woman, dressed in a yellow kurta and green bell-bottomed trousers.
Presently Kulfi-didi broke the silence. What I can’t understand, she said thoughtfully, licking a grain of rice off her fingers, what I can’t understand is how she got these ideas. Kahan se? She’s so uneducated she doesn’t even know when a baby’s been stuck inside her, but she still wants to sign forms. It’s not like she’s from Bangalore or some big city or something. You can tell as soon as you see her that she does eight-anna jobs in ricefields and things like that. And here she is, convinced that if she signs a form her baby will get cars and houses and all that. Where do these villagers get these ideas?
Maybe, Rakesh said, looking at his plate, maybe she wants a birth certificate. You really need a birth certificate nowadays: can’t get into school without one; can’t get a job, can’t get a bus-pass, nothing …
You’re wrong, the Professor said sharply. What she wanted is quite clear. Someone’s brought her on to the boat by making all kinds of promises – your child will be this, it’ll be that, it’ll have houses and cars and multi-storeyed buildings if only you can get across to al-Ghazira. Sign a few forms and the child will be a Ghaziri. In her state the poor woman believed what she was told. Now her time has come and she wants those forms.
The Professor stared hard at Zindi: Someone here has done something sinful to that woman; someone with no conscience.
Zindi pushed herself slowly upright and emptied the remains of her rice into the sea. Quietly, speaking to no one in particular, she said: Karthamma came to me herself in Mahé. She had heard of me from someone or the other. I didn’t have to tell her anything – she had already heard more stories about al-Ghazira than I could make up in a year. She begged me, she even offered me money, to take her away from your India.
She glanced around the deck. Nobody met her eyes.
She clasped her flapping tarha tightly around her and vanished into the cabin.
An hour later there was a rattle below deck as Sajjan cranked the engine. It pattered irregularly for a moment and then the beat caught and held. The engine roared and Mariamma surged ponderously forward. There was a burst of cheers; Zindi and Kulfi-didi rushed out of the cabin, and Professor Samuel ran into the wheelhouse and thumped Hajji Musa on his back.
In answer, Hajji Musa merely smiled, baring his grey gums, and looked ahead at the moonlit sea.
Late on the fourth day Alu finished filing his bit of wire to a point. He had worked on it for hours every day, to distract himself from the racking pain of his boils. Next morning he set about making a line. First he gathered together all the rags he could find and unravelled them. Then he twisted the bits of string together, into three separate lengths of yarn to begin with, and then into a three-stranded cord.
Rakesh and Professor Samuel sat beside him and watched. There was nothing else to do. The sea was glassily empty. Sajjan and Hajji Musa ran Mariamma in uncommunicative silence, brusquely refusing all offers of help. The cabin had fallen eerily silent ever since the second day. One evening Kulfi-didi had confided that she could hardly tell any longer whether Karthamma was dead or alive – she just lay there, barely breathing, and yet, incredibly, the child still seemed to be growing within her.
Early on the sixth day Alu’s line was finally ready. He bent his bit of wire to form an eye at one end and a serviceable hook at the other, threaded the line through the eye and baited it with a lump of tapioca. Rakesh and Professor Samuel gathered around to watch as he prepared to make his first cast.
Just then Zindi emerged from the cabin, umbrella in hand, on her way to the bucket in the stern. She shot her umbrella open as soon as she stepped on to the deck and looked around, her eyes narrowed against the glare of the midday sun. She saw the men gathered in a knot near the bows, chattering excitedly. For a moment she thought of ignoring them, but then curiosity got the better of her and she shuffled forward, rolling her immense bulk with the pitching of the boat.