Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

Alu picked up a bit of wire and a file and hobbled back to his place in the waist of the boat. He wound the wire around his fingers and began to file one end.

What are you doing? the Professor said, watching him, his eyes wide behind his round spectacles.

Making a hook to fish with, said Alu.

But why?

Why? Alu looked at him in surprise. What else is there to do?

You’re going to make a hook while we die slowly of—

He was cut short by a great ringing crash. What’s the matter? he cried, clutching at the rails. What’s happened?

It rang out again: a harsh, metallic sound as though one of the oil-drums in the cabin had been hit, gong-like. They heard a torrent of hoarse, choking speech, and a moment later Zindi’s voice, shouting confused, breathless orders: Hold her legs. Don’t let her kick. Why’re you holding her like that? Do you think she’s a horse or what? Then the cabin erupted again; there was another crash and another burst of hoarse, strangled speech. The men had all gathered around the steps now. They heard Zindi’s voice again, pleading.

In the lull that followed a woman in a white sari pushed the curtain aside and stumbled out. What’s happening, Kulfi-didi? Rakesh cried. Is she in labour?

Kulfi-didi wiped her face with the end of her sari. She was a slight, fragile woman with long, slender arms and a thin, hollowed-out face. Her cheeks looked as though they had collapsed, like the skin of a punctured drum. Grey smudges surrounded her eyes, spilling out, mask-like, towards her temples. She had taken her name from her complexion, which was pale, slightly yellow and grainily coarse. Her age seemed oddly indeterminate, for with her worn face and haggard cheeks she combined an incongruously girlish manner. Now, red-eyed and sweating, she stood panting at the entrance to the cabin. Her hair hung around her head in damp, stringy knots and her white sari was streaked with blood. She thrust a mug at Rakesh: Water, quickly.

Rakesh ran to the side, threw himself flat on the deck and reached down to fill the mug. Has it started? he asked, handing it back to her. Is she delivering now?

Rolling her eyes, Kulfi said: Yes. No, it’s her time but she won’t … She won’t let the labour start. She’s sitting on the floor and kicking and fighting. She’s stuffed her hands into her womb, right in, up to her wrists. Maybe she’s trying to kill it. She keeps saying things in her language …

Like lead grating on a slate, hysteria shrilled through her voice. Then Zindi stepped out and pushed her back into the cabin. Her scarf had slipped off and her coarse greying hair lay matted on her forehead. She spotted Professor Samuel. Hey, you, she said, beckoning with a finger. You know Malayalam, han? Come into the cabin and tell us what she’s trying to say.

There was a silence. Then Professor Samuel said with quiet dignity: You know that is not possible. I cannot go into the cabin with her in a state like that. It won’t be right, it won’t be—

He stopped, mouth open, searching for the Hindi word he wanted.

The blood rushed into Zindi’s eyes. Arsehole, sala , she shouted. You come here quick right now, or I’ll break your legs.

All right, all right — the Professor held up his hands — but I won’t go in. I’ll stand with my back to the curtain.

He climbed carefully down the steps to the cabin. When he reached the last step he turned to face the wheelhouse and edged backwards towards the cabin. Catching the curtain with both hands, he held it to his cheek so that his ears were inside the cabin but his face outside.

There was another outburst behind the curtain. The Professor stiffened, frowning in concentration. His lips moved silently as the hoarse voice muttered on. At length he said: She says she won’t deliver without signing the right forms. That’s what she says. She says she’ll keep it in for as long as she has to.

Are you mad? Zindi shouted at the Professor. Are you lying, you bastard? What form? Where form? Do you think this is a passport office?

The Professor silenced Zindi with a gesture. Cocking his head, he listened intently to the whimpering inside until it had sunk into exhausted gasps. He looked up then, and shifted his eyes uneasily from Zindi to Alu. She’s delirious, I think, he said. It was madness to bring her on to a boat in this state. She’s just babbling, on and on. She says that she knows that the child won’t be given a house or a car or anything at all if she doesn’t sign the forms. It’ll be sent back to India, she says, and she would rather kill it than allow that to happen; kill it right now with a bottle while it’s still in her womb.

Zindi pushed him aside and vanished into the cabin. They heard her growling in a soothing whisper and soon Karthamma’s murmurs faltered and died.

After nightfall, sitting around the deck, they ate a silent meal of rice, fish-paste and pickle off tin plates — all of them except Hajji Musa and Sajjan, who were still cleaning bits of machinery. Zindi sat cross-legged, enveloped in a black, cloak-like tarha. Beside her was Chunni Devi, a dark, taciturn, square-faced woman, dressed in a yellow kurta and green bell-bottomed trousers.

Presently Kulfi-didi broke the silence. What I can’t understand, she said thoughtfully, licking a grain of rice off her fingers, what I can’t understand is how she got these ideas. Kahan se? She’s so uneducated she doesn’t even know when a baby’s been stuck inside her, but she still wants to sign forms. It’s not like she’s from Bangalore or some big city or something. You can tell as soon as you see her that she does eight-anna jobs in ricefields and things like that. And here she is, convinced that if she signs a form her baby will get cars and houses and all that. Where do these villagers get these ideas?

Maybe, Rakesh said, looking at his plate, maybe she wants a birth certificate. You really need a birth certificate nowadays: can’t get into school without one; can’t get a job, can’t get a bus-pass, nothing …

You’re wrong, the Professor said sharply. What she wanted is quite clear. Someone’s brought her on to the boat by making all kinds of promises — your child will be this, it’ll be that, it’ll have houses and cars and multi-storeyed buildings if only you can get across to al-Ghazira. Sign a few forms and the child will be a Ghaziri. In her state the poor woman believed what she was told. Now her time has come and she wants those forms.

The Professor stared hard at Zindi: Someone here has done something sinful to that woman; someone with no conscience.

Zindi pushed herself slowly upright and emptied the remains of her rice into the sea. Quietly, speaking to no one in particular, she said: Karthamma came to me herself in Mahé. She had heard of me from someone or the other. I didn’t have to tell her anything — she had already heard more stories about al-Ghazira than I could make up in a year. She begged me, she even offered me money, to take her away from your India.

She glanced around the deck. Nobody met her eyes. She clasped her flapping tarha tightly around her and vanished into the cabin.

An hour later there was a rattle below deck as Sajjan cranked the engine. It pattered irregularly for a moment and then the beat caught and held. The engine roared and Mariamma surged ponderously forward. There was a burst of cheers; Zindi and Kulfi-didi rushed out of the cabin, and Professor Samuel ran into the wheelhouse and thumped Hajji Musa on his back.

In answer, Hajji Musa merely smiled, baring his grey gums, and looked ahead at the moonlit sea.

Late on the fourth day Alu finished filing his bit of wire to a point. He had worked on it for hours every day, to distract himself from the racking pain of his boils. Next morning he set about making a line. First he gathered together all the rags he could find and unravelled them. Then he twisted the bits of string together, into three separate lengths of yarn to begin with, and then into a three-stranded cord.