Amitav Ghosh - The Hungry Tide

Piya was looking for some means of securing this precious piece of luggage when Fokir interrupted his rowing to pass her a length of rope. She took it from him gratefully and after threading it through the pack’s straps, she bound it tightly to one of the bamboo hoops of the hood. Then she opened the flap just wide enough to check her equipment. The backpack was made of a heavy waterproof material and its contents were more or less dry. As she was closing the pack her eyes fell on the pocket where she kept her cell phone: she had not activated it for use in India, so it hadn’t been charged or turned on since her arrival. Now, as the boat was heaving and listing below her, a sudden seizure of curiosity made her press the power button. Her spirits leapt at the sight of the familiar green glow of the screen, only to fall again when an icon appeared to indicate that there was no coverage where she was. She put it back in the bag and fastened the flap again before returning to her oars.

The wind seemed even stronger now and the boat’s tilt was more pronounced than before. As she pushed at the oars, her mind strayed back to the phone. She remembered reading accounts of people making calls from under the wreckage of derailed trains, from the rubble of houses that had been demolished by earthquakes, from the burning towers of the World Trade Center.

Who would she have called? Not her friends on the West Coast — they didn’t know where she was and it would take too long to explain. Kanai maybe? She remembered that along with his address he had also written down a couple of phone numbers on the back of his “present” — one of them was for a cell phone. He was probably on a plane, on his way to New Delhi; or maybe he was in his office already? It would be strange to reach him: he was sure to say something that would make her laugh. She bit her lip at the thought of this: it would be good to laugh right now, with the boat groaning as if it were going to come apart at any minute.

She shut her eyes tight, as she used to when she was little. Let it be on land, she said to herself, muttering aloud, as if in prayer. Whatever happens, let it be on land. Not the water, please. Not the water.

The boat banked into another turn, and after it had rounded the corner, Fokir rose to a crouch and pointed in the direction of a distant spit of land: Garjontola.

“The Megha ?” she said. “Horen?” He shook his head and she raised herself to get a better look. It took just a glance to confirm what Fokir had indicated — the boat was not there. The waters that flanked the island were empty except for the white-flecked waves.

She was still trying to absorb this when the wind caught hold of the gray plastic sheet that lined the boat’s hood — the remains of the

U.S. mailbag Piya had recognized when she first stepped into the boat. Suddenly a part of the sheet broke out from under the thatch. It billowed outward like a sail and there was a fearsome cracking sound in the timbers. It was as if the wind were a clawed animal doing all it could to tear the boat apart.

The boat’s stern reared up as the sheet strained at its ties, pushing down the bow. Fokir dropped his oars and threw himself forward to cut the mailbag free. But even as he was hacking at the plastic bindings there was a loud cracking sound and the entire hood tore away from the boat and went sailing off into the sky, with Piya’s backpack trailing behind like the streamer of a kite. Within minutes the whole unlikely assembly of objects — the hood, the plastic sheet, the backpack with all its equipment, its data and Kanai’s gift — was carried so far off as to become a small speck in the inky sky.

IT WAS ALMOST eleven when the Megha steamed into the Raimangal’s mohona and turned in the direction of Lusibari. The water, Kanai noticed, had become peculiarly translucent: against the steely darkness of the sky, the brown water seemed to glow like neon, as though lit up from beneath.

This was the widest expanse of water they had crossed and the waves were taller than any they had encountered yet. The sound of the bhotbhoti’s engine changed in rhythm with the waves, rising to a plaintive whine as it plowed into the swells. So much water flew over the bow that the windows of the wheelhouse were continually awash in spray.

Through most of the journey Kanai had sat in the wheelhouse with Horen, who had grown increasingly taciturn as the wind picked up speed. Now, as the Megha met the waves of the mohona, Horen turned to Kanai and said, “We’re taking on a lot of water. If it gets into the engine, we’re finished. You’d better go below and see what you can do.”

Kanai nodded and rose to his feet, stooping to keep his head from bumping into the low roof. Pulling up the hem of his lungi, he tucked it in at the waist before opening the door.

“Be careful,” Horen said. “The deck will be slippery.”

No sooner had Kanai turned the handle than the wind tore the door from his grip and slammed it back on its hinges. Kanai kicked off his sandals and left them in the wheelhouse. Then he went to deal with the door. He had to step around and put his shoulder behind it, to push it shut against the wind. Step by step, keeping his back against the bulwark, he began to move toward the ladder that led to the deck below. The ladder was exposed to the wind and he felt the gusts clawing at him as he put his foot on the first rung — had he been wearing sandals, they would have been torn from his feet. The wind was pulling at him so hard that he knew it would take only a slight slackening in his grip for a gust to tear him from the ladder and send him into the churning water below.

When he stepped off the last rung and entered the cavernous galley, his foot sank immediately into ankle-deep water. He spotted Nogen deep in the deck’s unlit interior, standing beside the casing that housed the diesel engine, grimly baling water with a plastic bucket.

Kanai waded through the ankle-deep water. “Is there another bucket?”

Nogen answered by pointing to a tin container afloat in a slick of oily water. Kanai took hold of its handle, but when he reached for the water he was all but knocked off his feet by a sudden lurch of the bhotbhoti’s hull. Righting himself, he found that to fill the bucket was far more difficult than it might seem, for the Megha ’s pitching kept the water moving in such a way that it seemed almost to be toying with them, making them lunge ineffectually from side to side. In a while Nogen broke off to point to the shore. “We’re close to Lusibari now,” he said. “Is that where you’re going?”

“Yes. Aren’t you?”

“Not us,” said Nogen. “We have to go to the next island: it’s the only sheltered place in this area. You’d better go and ask my grandfather how we’re going to drop you off. It won’t be easy in this wind.”

“All right.” Kanai clawed his way back up the ladder and went step by step along the slippery gangway to the wheelhouse.

“How is it down there?” Horen said.

“It was bad when we were in the middle of the mohona,” said Kanai. “But it’s better now.”

Horen flicked a thumb at the windshield. “Look, there’s Lusibari. Do you want to get off there, or do you want to come with us?”

Kanai had thought this over already. “I’ll get off at Lusibari,” he said. “Mashima is alone. I should be with her.”

“I’ll take the bhotbhoti as close to the bank as I can,” Horen said. “But after that you’ll have to wade across.”

“What about my suitcase?”

“You’d better leave it behind. I’ll bring it to you later.”

Kanai cared about only one thing in the suitcase. “I’ll leave everything but the notebook,” he said. “I’ll wrap it in plastic so it won’t get wet. I want to take it with me.”