Amitav Ghosh - The Hungry Tide

Bon Bibi was far away, but she crossed the waters in an instant. She revived the boy, taking him into her lap while her brother, Shah Jongoli, dealt a terrible chastisement to the demon. Then, transporting Dukhey to her home, she nursed him back to health. When it was time for him to return, she sent him back to his mother with a treasure trove of honey and wax. Thus did Bon Bibi show the world the law of the forest, which was that the rich and greedy would be punished while the poor and righteous were rewarded.

Kanai had expected to be bored by this rustic entertainment: in Calcutta he was accustomed to going to theaters like the Academy of Fine Arts and cinemas like the Globe. But much to his surprise he was utterly absorbed, and after the show had ended was unable to erase some of the scenes from his mind. The terror he had felt when the demon charged Dukhey was real and immediate, even though there was nothing convincing about the tiger, and it could be plainly seen that the animal was only a man dressed in a painted sheet and a mask. No less real were the tears of joy and gratitude that flowed from his eyes when Bon Bibi appeared at Dukhey’s side. Nor was he the only one: everyone in the audience wept, although the actress’s arrival was anything but instantaneous. On the contrary, the audience had actually had to hurry her along, because as Dukhey lay unconscious with the tiger poised to devour him, she had stopped to lean over the side of the stage in order to clear her mouth of a great wad of paan. But the flow of the story was such that none of this seemed to matter, and even before the performance had ended Kanai knew he wanted to see it again.

THE LAST PERFORMANCE of The Glory of Bon Bibi was something of a special event, and many people came in from other islands. The crowd was much rowdier than on other days and Kanai kept to the maidan’s fringes, watching from a distance. By this time he knew the first part of the show well enough to be bored by it. At a certain point he dozed off, and found on waking that he was sitting next to Kusum. “What’s happening?” he whispered. “Where have they got to?” There was no answer; she was so rapt by the performance that she seemed oblivious of his presence. Her absorption prompted him to glance at the stage, and he saw that he had slept longer than he had thought. The action was well advanced now: Dhona and his fleet had arrived at Kedokhali Char and would soon make his pact with the devil.

“Kusum?” whispered Kanai, and when she turned briefly to look at him he saw, in the reflected glow of the gas lamps, that she was biting her lip and her face was streaked with tears. Having seen for himself the emotions the story could evoke, he was not particularly surprised to see she was crying. But then, when she suddenly leaned over to bury her face in her knees, he knew there was more at issue here than could be accounted for by the performance alone. On an impulse, thinking to console her, he slid his hand along the ground, hoping to find her fingers. But her hand was not where he had expected it to be, and instead he found his fist entangled in the folds of her frock. His fingers grew frantic as he tried to extricate them, and instead of finding their way out they encountered a soft and unexpectedly warm part of her body. The shock sparked by this contact passed through both of them like a bolt of electricity.

Suppressing a cry, she jumped to her feet and went stumbling into the darkness. He would have run after her right then, but some furtive instinct of prudence prompted him to think of how this might look to watching eyes. He waited a minute or two and then pretended to head in the other direction. Circling back in the shadows, he caught up with her as she was nearing the compound of Hamilton House: “Kusum — wait! Stop!”

There was just enough light from the now distant gas lamps for him to see that she was stumbling ahead, turning from time to time to wipe her dripping nose on her shoulder. “Kusum,” he cried, keeping his voice low, “stop!” He had caught up with her now and he gave her elbow a tug. “It was a mistake.”

She came to a halt and he steeled himself for a flood of reproach. But she said nothing, and when he looked into her eyes he knew that his link with her perturbation was only incidental and that her grief sprang from a much deeper source than could be plumbed by a boy’s mistaken touch.

They were now very close to the gate of Hamilton House compound. On an impulse Kanai vaulted over the gate and gestured to Kusum: “Come on. Come.” After a moment’s hesitation she followed, and he took her hand and they went racing up the mossy flagstones that flanked the pond. Kanai led Kusum up a flight of stairs to the shaded veranda. They seated themselves on the floor with their backs to the old wooden walls. From this position they had a clear view of the maidan, and they could even see Dukhey lying prone on the stage, beseeching Bon Bibi to save him.

It was Kusum who spoke first. “I called her too,” she said. “But she never came.”

“Who?”

“Bon Bibi. The day my father died. I saw it all, it happened in front of me, and I called her again and again …”

It had been an ordinary day, no different from any other, and it had happened under the full light of a blazing noonday sun. There was money in the house and food as well, because her father had come back just the day before from a long and successful fishing trip: the one untoward thing he had had to report was that he had lost his gamchha. He had wanted to eat well, so her mother had made rice, dal and vegetables, but when it came time to cook some fish, the firewood had run out. On being told this, he had flown into a rage: it was many days since he had had a good meal and he was not going to be deprived of one now. He stormed out of the house, saying he would be back soon with more firewood.

Their hut was in the lee of the embankment, on the shore of a narrow creek; it took just ten or fifteen minutes of rowing to get to the forest on the far bank. Although this was a reserve, it was common for people of their village to forage for firewood there. Kusum followed him out of the house and stood on the embankment as he rowed across the river. This took longer than usual because there was a strong wind blowing in from the far shore. He was pushing the boat up the bank when she saw it — not the whole animal but enough of its flashing black and gold coat to know it was there.

“Do you mean,” Kanai interrupted, “that you saw a —?” But before he could say the word bÁgh, tiger, she had slammed a hand over his mouth: “No, you can’t use the word — to say it is to call it.”

The animal was in the trees that lined the shore, and from the direction of its advance she knew it had watched the boat as it came across the river. At Kusum’s first scream her mother and many others from the hamlet ran up to the embankment. But her father, for whom the shout of warning had been intended, didn’t hear her, for the wind was blowing in the wrong direction.

Within moments, dozens of people had joined her on the embankment and they all saw what she had seen: the animal was stalking her father. The men of the village raced to get their boats into the water, while the women shouted and banged on pots and pans, making as much noise as they could. But it made no difference, for the wind was against them — the sound did not carry to the man on the far bank. The animal too was upwind of its prey, and they could see its coat flashing as it closed in; because of the distinctiveness of its own odor, it was skilled in dealing with the wind and it knew that the people on the other bank were powerless against these gusts. So great was its confidence that in the last stretch it actually broke cover and went racing along the shore, in full view of the far shore; intent on its prey, it no longer cared about concealment. This was in itself an astonishing sight, almost without precedent, for the great cats of the tide country were like ghosts, never revealing their presence except through marks, sounds and smells. They were so rarely seen that to behold one, it was said, was to be as good as dead — and indeed the sight caused several of the women on the embankment to lose consciousness.