Amitav Ghosh - The Hungry Tide

By the time Kanai stepped out on deck again, Piya had drawn alongside the Megha. She was standing unsteadily upright, clutching the GPS monitor that she had been using to find her way. Kanai went to the stern and held his hand out to her. Neither of them said a word, but her face crumpled as she stepped onto the Megha. It seemed that she was going to fall, so Kanai opened his arms and she stumbled against him, resting her head on his chest. Kanai said softly, “Fokir?”

Her voice was almost inaudible: “He didn’t make it.”

It had happened in the last hour of the storm, she said. He’d been hit by something very big and very heavy, an uprooted stump; it had hit him so hard that she too had been crushed against the trunk of the tree they were sitting on. The sari had kept them attached to the trunk even as he was dying. His mouth was close enough to her ear so that she’d been able to hear him. He’d said Moyna’s name and Tutul’s before the breath faded on his lips. She’d left his body on the tree, tied to the trunk with Moyna’s sari, to keep it safe from animals. They would have to go back to Garjontola to cut it down.

THEY BROUGHT THE body to Lusibari on the Megha, and the cremation was held the same evening.

There had been very few casualties on the island: the early warning had allowed those who would have been most at risk to take shelter in the hospital. As a result, the news of Fokir’s death spread quickly and a great number attended the cremation.

Through that night and the following days, Piya stayed by Moyna’s side, in her room, where many mourners had gathered. One of the women fetched water so she could clean up and another lent her a sari and helped her put it on. Mats had been set out on the floor for the mourners, and when Piya seated herself on one, Tutul appeared beside her. He placed a couple of bananas on her lap and sat with her, holding her hand, patient and unmoving. She put her arm around him and held him close, so close that she could feel his heart beating against her ribs. She remembered then the impact of the hurtling stump that had crashed into Fokir’s unprotected back; she remembered the weight of his chin as it pressed into her shoulder; she remembered how close his lips had been to her ear, so close that it was from their movement, rather than from the sounds he uttered, that she had understood he was saying the names of his wife and his son.

She recalled the promises she had made to him in the silence of her heart, and how, in those last moments, with the wind and the rain still raging around them, she had been unable to do anything for him other than to hold a bottle of water to his lips. She remembered how she had tried to find the words to remind him of how richly he was loved — and once again, as so often before, he had seemed to understand her, even without words.

NILIMA WAS SITTING at her desk, a month after the cyclone, when a nurse came running over from the hospital to tell her that she’d seen “Piya-didi” stepping off the Basonti ferry: she was now heading toward the Trust’s compound.

Nilima was unable to disguise her astonishment. “Piya? The scientist?” she said. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, Mashima, it’s her. No doubt about it.”

Nilima sank back in her chair as she tried to absorb this.

A fortnight had passed since she’d said goodbye to Piya, and the truth was that she had not expected ever to see her again. The girl had stayed in Lusibari for a while after the cyclone, and during that time she’d become a strangely unnerving presence in the Guest House, a kind of human wraith, inward, uncommunicative, leadenfaced. On her own, Nilima would not have known how to deal with her, but fortunately Piya had formed a friendship with Moyna during that time. Nilima had encountered them several times in and around the Guest House, sitting silently next to each other. On occasion, Nilima had even mistaken the one for the other. Having lost her own clothes, Piya had perforce taken to wearing saris — colorful reds, yellows and greens — for Moyna had given her those of her own clothes that she herself would no longer wear. What was more, Moyna had also cut off her hair, in keeping with the custom, so it was now as short as Piya’s. But this was where the resemblance ended: as far as demeanor and expression were concerned, the contrast between the two women could not have been greater. Moyna’s grief was all too plainly visible in the redness of her eyes, while Piya’s face was stonily expressionless, as if to suggest that she had retreated deep within herself.

“Piya’s in shock,” Kanai had said to Nilima one day shortly before his own departure. “It’s hardly surprising. Can you imagine what it was like for her to sit through the last hours of the storm, sheltered by Fokir’s lifeless body? Leave aside the horror of the memory — imagine the guilt, the responsibility.”

“I understand all that, Kanai,” Nilima had said. “But that’s why I think it would be easier for her to recover if she was in some familiar place. Don’t you think it’s time for her to go back to America now? Or else couldn’t she go to her relatives in Kolkata?”

“I suggested that to her,” Kanai had replied. “I even offered to arrange for a ticket to the U.S. But I don’t think she heard me, really. What’s uppermost in her mind right now, I suspect, is the question of her obligation to Moyna and Tutul. She needs to be left alone for a bit, to think things through.”

Nilima’s response had been tinged with apprehension. “So you’re just going to go off and leave her here? For me to deal with?”

“I don’t think she’ll be any trouble to you,” Kanai had said. “In fact, I’m sure she won’t be. She just needs some time to pull herself together. To have me here will be no help — exactly the opposite, I suspect.”

Nilima had not raised any further objections to his departure. “Of course, Kanai, I know how busy you are…”

Kanai had put his arm around her shoulder and given her a hug. “Don’t worry,” he’d said. “It’ll be all right. I’ll be back soon. You’ll see.”

She’d received this with a noncommittal shrug. “You know you’re always welcome here.”

Kanai had left the next day — a week after the cyclone — and some days later Piya had come down to tell Nilima that she was leaving too.

“Yes, my dear, of course. I understand.” Nilima had made an effort to keep her voice level so as not to betray her relief. She’d been wondering for the past couple of days whether Piya’s presence in Lusibari might lead to trouble with the authorities. Did she have a visa? Did she have the right permit? Nilima didn’t know and didn’t like to ask. “You’ve been through a lot,” Nilima had said warmly. “You must give yourself time to recover.”

“I’ll be back soon, though,” Piya had said, and Nilima had replied, with hearty goodwill, “Yes, my dear, of course you will.”

But Piya’s valediction was not an unfamiliar one; Nilima had heard the same words often before, on the lips of many well-meaning foreign visitors. None of them had ever been seen or heard from again, so it was not without reason that Nilima had assumed that the same would be true of Piya. But now here she was, just as she had said.

THE KNOCK SOUNDED before Nilima had had the time to properly prepare herself. She could think of nothing to say except “Piya! You’re back.”

“Yes,” said Piya matter-of-factly. “Did you think I wouldn’t be?”

This was, of course, exactly what Nilima had thought, so she was quick to change the subject. “So tell me then, Piya, where did you go off to?” The girl had bought herself some new clothes, she noticed: Piya was dressed, as before, in a white shirt and cotton pants.