Amitav Ghosh - The Hungry Tide

“What’s the matter?” said Kanai. “What do you see?”

“Look.”

Kanai narrowed his eyes as he followed Fokir’s finger. He could see nothing of interest, so he said, “What should I look for?”

“Signs, marks — like we saw yesterday. A whole trail of them, running from the trees to the water and back.”

Kanai looked again and caught sight of a few depressions in the ground. But the bank at this point was colonized mainly by stands of garjon, a species of mangrove that breathed through spear-like “ventilators” connected by subterranean root systems. The surface of the bank was pierced by so many of these upthrust organs that it was impossible to distinguish between one mark and another. The depressions that had caught Fokir’s eye looked nothing like the sharply defined marks of the night before. They seemed to Kanai to be too shapeless to signify anything in particular; they could just as well have been crabs’ burrows or runnels formed by the retreating water.

“See how they form a track?” Fokir said. “They go right to the edge of the water. That means they were made after the tide had ebbed — probably just as we were heading this way. The animal must have spotted us and come down to take a closer look.”

The thought of this, a tiger coming down to the water’s edge in order to watch their progress across the mohona, was just far-fetched enough to make Kanai smile.

“Why would it want to look at us?” said Kanai.

“Maybe because it smelled you,” said Fokir. “It likes to keep an eye on strangers.”

There was something about Fokir’s expression that convinced Kanai he was playing a game with him, perhaps unconsciously, and the thought of this amused him. Kanai understood all too well how the dynamics of their situation might induce Fokir to exaggerate the menace of their surroundings. He himself had often stood in Fokir’s place, serving as some hapless traveler’s window on an unfamiliar world. He remembered how, in those circumstances, he too had often been tempted to heighten the inscrutability of the surroundings through subtly slanted glosses. To do this required no particularly malicious intent; it was just a way of underscoring the insider’s indispensability: every new peril was proof of his importance, each new threat evidence of his worth. These temptations were all too readily available to every guide and translator — not to succumb was to make yourself dispensable; to give in was to destroy the value of your word, and thus your work. It was precisely because of his awareness of this dilemma that he knew too that there were times when a translator’s bluff had to be called.

Kanai pointed to the shore and made a gesture of dismissal. “Those are just burrows,” he said, smiling. “I saw crabs digging into them. What makes you think they have anything to do with the big cat?”

Fokir turned to flash him a bright, white smile. “Do you want to know how I know?”

“Yes. Tell me.”

Leaning over, Fokir took hold of Kanai’s hand and placed it on the back of his neck. The unexpected intimacy of this contact sent a shock through Kanai’s arm and he snatched his hand back — but not before he had felt the goosebumps bristling on the moist surface of Fokir’s skin.

Fokir smiled at him again. “That’s how I know,” he said. “It’s the fear that tells me.” Rising to a crouch, Fokir directed a look of inquiry at Kanai. “And what about you?” he said. “Can you feel the fear?”

These words triggered a response in Kanai that was just as reflexive as the goosebumps on Fokir’s neck. The surroundings — the mangrove forest, the water, the boat — were suddenly blotted from his consciousness; he forgot where he was. It was as though his mind had decided to revert to the functions for which it had been trained and equipped by years of practice. At that moment nothing existed for him but language, the pure structure of sound that had formed Fokir’s question. He gave this inquiry the fullest attention of which his mind was capable and knew the answer almost at once: it was in the negative; the truth was that he did not feel the fear that had raised bumps on Fokir’s skin. It was not that he was a man of unusual courage — far from it. But he knew also that fear was not — contrary to what was often said — an instinct. It was something learned, something that accumulated in the mind through knowledge, experience and upbringing. Nothing was harder to share than another person’s fear, and at that moment he certainly did not share Fokir’s.

“Since you asked me,” Kanai said, “I’ll tell you the truth. The answer is no, I’m not afraid, at least not in the way you are.”

Like a ring spreading across a pool, a ripple of awakened interest passed over Fokir’s face. “Then tell me,” he said, leaning closer, “if you’re not afraid, there’s nothing to prevent you from taking a closer look. Is there?”

His gaze was steady and unblinking, and Kanai would not allow himself to drop his eyes: Fokir had just doubled the stakes, and it was up to him now to decide whether he would back down or call his bluff.

“All right,” Kanai said, not without some reluctance. “Let’s go.”

Fokir nodded and turned the boat using a single oar. When the bow pointed toward the shore he started to row. Kanai glanced across the water: the river was as calm as a floor of polished stone and the currents etched on its surface appeared almost stationary, like the veins in a slab of marble.

“Fokir, tell me something,” said Kanai.

“What?”

“If you’re afraid, then why do you want to go there — to that island?”

“My mother told me,” Fokir said, “that this was a place where you had to learn not to be afraid. And if you did, then you might find the answer to your troubles.”

“Is that why you come here?”

“Who’s to say?” He shrugged, smiling, and then he said, “Now, can I ask you something, Kanai-babu?”

He was smiling broadly, leading Kanai to expect he would make some kind of joke. “What?”

“Are you a clean man, Kanai-babu?”

Kanai sat up, startled. “What do you mean?”

Fokir shrugged. “You know — are you good at heart?”

“I think so,” Kanai said. “My intentions are good, anyway. As for the rest, who knows?”

“But don’t you ever want to know for sure?”

“How can anyone ever know for sure?”

“My mother used to say that here in Garjontola, Bon Bibi would show you whatever you wanted to know.”

“How?”

Fokir shrugged again. “That’s just what she used to say.”

As they drew close to the island a flock of birds took wing, breaking away from the upper level of the canopy and swirling in a cloud before settling down again. The birds were parrots, of a color almost indistinguishable from the emerald tint of the mangroves; for a moment, when they rose in the air together, it was as though a green mane had risen from the treetops, like a wig lifted by a gust of wind.

The boat picked up speed as it approached the bank and Fokir’s final stroke rammed the prow deep into the mud. Tucking his lungi between his legs, he dropped over the side of the boat and went running over the bank to examine the marks.

“I was right,” cried Fokir triumphantly, dropping to his knees. “These marks are so fresh they must have been made within the hour.”

To Kanai the depressions looked just as shapeless as they had before. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

“How could you?” Fokir looked up at the boat and smiled. “You’re too far away. You’ll have to get off the boat. Come over here and look. You’ll see how they go all the way up.” He pointed up the slope to the barrier of mangrove looming above.