The Hungry Tide (14 page)

They had said much about Calcutta, for instance, yet had never thought to mention that the first known specimen of
Orcaella brevirostris
was found there, that strange cousin of the majestic killer whales of Puget Sound.

SOON IT BECAME
clear that Fokir was making preparations for a meal. From the bilges below deck, he pulled out a couple of large and lively crabs. These he imprisoned in a soot-blackened pot before reaching into the hold again for a knife and a few utensils — including a large cylindrical object that appeared to be an earthenware vessel. But there was a hole in the side of this vessel, and when he began to stuff bits of firewood into it, she realized it was a portable stove made of clay. He took the stove to the stern, and when it was well out of the way of the shelter's inflammable roof, he lit a match and blew the firewood into flame. Then he washed some rice, drained it into a battered tin utensil, poured in some water and put it on the stove. While the rice was coming to the boil, he dismembered the crabs, cracking their claws with his knife. When the rice was done, he took the pot off the fire and replaced it with yet another blackened aluminium pot. Next he opened a battered tin container and took out some half-dozen twists of paper, which he unrolled and laid out in a semicircle around the stove. There were spices inside and their colors — red, yellow, bronze — were bright in the light of the hissing flame. After he had splashed some oil into the pot, his hands began to fly over the slips of paper, peppering the spitting oil with pinches of turmeric and chili, coriander and cumin.

The smells were harsh on Piya's nose. It was a long time now since she had eaten food of this kind: while in the field she rarely ate anything not from a can, a jar or a package. Three years before, when working on Malampaya Sound in the Philippines, she had been incautious in her eating and had suffered to the point where she had had to be medevaced by helicopter to Manila. On every survey since, she had equipped herself with a cache of mineral water and portable food — principally high-protein nutrition bars. On occasion, she also carried a jar or two of Ovaltine, or some other kind of powder for making malted milk. When there was milk to be had, fresh or condensed, she treated herself to a glass of Ovaltine; otherwise, she managed to get by on very little — a couple of protein bars a day was all she needed. This diet had the added advantage of limiting the use of unfamiliar, and sometimes unspeakable, toilets.

Now, as she sat watching Fokir at the stove, she knew he would offer her some of his food and she knew also she would refuse it. And yet, even as she recoiled from the smell, she could not tear her eyes from his flying fingers: it was as though she were a child again, standing on tiptoe to look at a clutch of stainless-steel containers lying arrayed on the counter beside the stove; it was her mother's hands she was watching as they flew between those colors and the flames. They were almost lost to her, those images of the past, and nowhere had she less expected to see them than on this boat.

There was a time when those were the smells of home; she would sniff them on her mother, on the way back from school; they would fill the elevator on its journey up to their floor. When she stepped inside they had greeted her like domesticated animals, creatures with lives of their own, sustaining themselves on the close, hot air of the apartment. She had imagined the kitchen as a cage from which they never ventured out, which was why it came doubly as a shock when she discovered, from pointed jokes and chance playground comments, that the odors followed her everywhere, like unseen pets. Her response was to fight back, with a quietly ferocious tenacity, against them and against her mother, shutting them away with closed doors, sealing them into the kitchen.

But here, the ghosts of these creatures seemed to be quieted by their surroundings. The spell of Fokir's fingers was broken only when a breeze carried the acrid odor of burning chilies directly into her face. And then suddenly the phantoms came alive again, clawing at her throat and her eyes, attacking her as though she were an enemy who had crossed over undetected. She retreated to the bow and when he followed her there, with a plateful of rice and cooked crab, she fended him off with her protein bars and her bottled water, smiling and bobbing her head in apology, to show she meant no offense.

He accepted her refusal with a readiness that surprised her; she had expected protests, exclamations, a show of being wounded or hurt. But there was none of that; instead, he gave her a nod and a long, cool look of appraisal, as though he were mentally going through a list of reasons why she might decline to accept food from his hands. It alarmed her that he might imagine that it was for some mysterious reason of caste or religion that she had refused to eat his food, so she placed a hand on her belly and acted out a little charade of her intestinal sufferings. This seemed to serve the purpose, for he laughed, throwing his head back, and gave the plate to Tutul, who devoured it greedily.

After the meal, the utensils and the stove were put back in the hold and an armload of mats and blankets was taken out. Tutul, already drowsy, unrolled one of the mats under the shelter and fell asleep quickly, with a blanket pulled over his head. Unfurling a second mat, next to the boy's, Fokir made a sign to Piya, indicating that this was to be her place for the night. But she had a mat of her own, a thin sheet of blue foam tied to the frame of one of her backpacks. Undoing the bungee cord that held it in place, she unrolled the mat so that its head was pointing toward the bow, almost touching the boat's rounded prow.

He started in alarm on realizing that this was where she was planning to spend the night. Shaking his head, he raised a finger of warning to point to the forested shores in the distance. The gesture was intentionally vague, and only by inference did she understand that his warning concerned an animal, a predator. And now at last she had an inkling of why the boat had been anchored in this odd position: was it perhaps to put it beyond the reach of tigers? She had never had much interest in terrestrial carnivores, but she could not imagine that even the hungriest of them would choose to stage an attack so far from shore. And if it did, what difference would it make whether you were in the stern or the bow? Presumably the whole boat would tip over under a tiger's weight.

There was a cumulative absurdity about these propositions that made her smile. To include him in the joke, she made her hands into claws, as if to mime a tiger. But before she could complete the gesture, he clamped his hands on her wrists, vehemently shaking his head, as if to forbid her from making any reference to the subject. She decided it was best to shrug the matter off and, smoothing her mat, she lay down. This seemed the most economical way of letting him know that she was not going to spend the night huddled in the shelter for fear of an aquatic feline. To her great relief, he accepted this without protest. Removing the sari from the thatched hood, he folded it into a pillow and handed it to her, along with one of his grimy gray blankets.

Then, retreating to the center of the boat, he draped a blanket over his shoulders and lit a biri. In a while, just as she was drifting off to sleep, she heard a snatch of a tune and realized he was humming. She raised herself on her elbow and said, “Sing.” He gave her a puzzled glance and she responded by making an upward gesture with an open palm. “Louder. Sing louder.”

At this he tilted his head back and sang a few notes. The melody surprised her, for it bore no resemblance to any Indian music she had ever heard before — neither the Hindi film music her father liked nor the Bengali songs her mother had sometimes sung. His voice sounded almost hoarse and it seemed to crack and sob as it roamed the notes. There was a suggestion of grief in it that unsettled and disturbed her.

She had thought that she had seen a muscular quality of innocence in him, a likable kind of naïveté, but now, listening to this song, she began to ask herself whether it was she who was naïve. She would have liked to know what he was singing about and what the lyrics meant — but she knew too that a river of words would not be able to tell her exactly what made the song sound as it did right then, in that place.

THE GLORY OF BON BIBI

K
USUM WAS FROM
the nearby island of Satjelia. Her father had died while foraging for firewood in a place that was off-limits to villagers. He had not been in possession of a permit at the time, so Kusum's mother had received no compensation. With no means of livelihood she was reduced to a state of such destitution that she considered herself fortunate when a man from their village, a landowner by the name of Dilip Choudhury, had offered to find her a job in the city.

Knowing that he had found employment for other women, Kusum's mother could see no reason why she should not accept Dilip's offer. Leaving Kusum with relatives, she had gone off with him to take the train to Calcutta. Returning alone, Dilip had told Kusum that her mother was doing housework for a good family and would send for her shortly. That time came soon enough: a month or so later, Dilip came to see Kusum and told her that her mother had sent word, asking him to bring Kusum to Calcutta.

It was at this stage that Horen Naskor had gotten to know of Dilip's plan. Horen had worked with Kusum's father, and he also happened to be distantly related to Kusum through his wife. He had sought her out and warned her that Dilip was linked to a gang that trafficked in women. What kind of job could this procurer have found for Kusum's mother? She was probably trapped in a brothel somewhere in Sonargachhi. As for Kusum, she was of much greater value to Dilip than her mother had been — young girls like her were known to fetch large sums of money. If Dilip had his way, she would end up either in Calcutta's red-light district or, worse still, in some brothel in Bombay. Instead, Horen had brought Kusum to Lusibari and put her in the custody of the Women's Union. Pending some more permanent arrangement, all the Union's members, in turn, would look after her.

During the months she had spent in Lusibari, Kusum had come to know the island well, and she became Kanai's guide and mentor: she told him about its people and their children and about everything happening around it — cockfights and pujas, births and deaths. Kanai, for his part, would tell her about his school, his friends and the ways of the city. Although to him these stories seemed pale in comparison with hers, she would listen with rapt attention, breaking in from time to time to ask questions.

“Do you think I can come to the city with you?” she asked once. “I'd like to see where you live.”

This silenced Kanai. It amazed him that Kusum should even ask such a question. Did she have no idea at all of how things worked? He tried to think of taking her home to Calcutta, and cringed to imagine the tone of voice in which his mother would speak to her and the questions the neighbors would ask. “Is that your new
jhi?
But don't you already have that other maid coming to do the washing and sweeping? Why do you need this one?”

“You wouldn't like Calcutta,” Kanai said at length. “You wouldn't feel at home.”

It was from Kusum that Kanai learned that a troupe of traveling actors was soon to come to Lusibari to stage performances of
The Glory of Bon Bibi.
He had heard mention of this story a couple of times on the island but was unsure about its particulars. When he asked Kusum about it, she gasped as if in shock: “You mean you don't know the story of Bon Bibi?”

“No.”

“Then whom do you call on when you're afraid?”

Unable to untangle the implications of this, Kanai changed the subject. But the question nagged at his mind, and later in the day he asked Nirmal about the story of Bon Bibi.

Nirmal waved him airily away. “It's just a tale they tell around here. Don't bother yourself with it. It's just false consciousness, that's all it is.”

“But tell me about it.”

“Horen is the one you should ask,” said Nirmal. “If you did, he would tell you that Bon Bibi rules over the jungle, that the tigers, crocodiles and other animals do her bidding. Haven't you noticed the little shrines outside the houses here? The statues are of Bon Bibi. You would think that in a place like this people would pay close attention to the true wonders of the reality around them. But no, they prefer the imaginary miracles of gods and saints.”

“But tell me the story,” said Kanai. “Who is it about? What happens?”

“It's all the usual stuff.” Nirmal threw up his hands in impatience. “Gods, saints, animals, demons. It's too long for me to tell. Better you find out for yourself. Go to the performance.”

The stage for
The Glory of Bon Bibi
was erected on the open expanse of Lusibari's maidan, between the compound of Hamilton House and the school. Its design was so simple that it took less than a day to set up. The floor, a few planks of wood, was laid on a trestle and enclosed within an open scaffolding of bamboo poles. During performances, sheets of painted cloth were suspended from the poles at the rear. These served as backdrops for the audience and as screens for the actors, so they could eat, smoke and change costume out of public view. Several large, hissing gas lamps illuminated the spectacle, and music was provided by a battery-operated cassette recorder and loudspeakers.

As a rule, night came early to Lusibari. Candles and lamps were expensive and used as sparingly as possible. People ate their evening meal in the glow of twilight, and by the time darkness fell, the island had usually fallen silent except for the few animal sounds that carried across the water. For this reason, a nighttime diversion was a major occasion, the anticipation of which provided at least as much pleasure as the event itself. Great numbers of people, Kanai and Kusum among them, stayed up night after night to attend the performances.

For Kanai the greatest surprise came right at the start of the show. This was because the story of the tiger goddess did not begin either in the heavens or on the banks of the Ganga, like the mythological tales with which he was familiar. Instead, the opening scene was set in a city in Arabia and the backdrop was painted with mosques and minarets.