The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh [178]
“Who’s in it?” Kanai asked, but this elicited no response from Horen.
Kanai and Moyna went to stand in the Megha’s bow. The water seemed to congeal as the two craft inched toward each other. In a while Kanai realized that there was only one person on the boat: it was impossible to tell who it was, man or woman, for the figure was caked from head to toe in mud. Moyna’s hands, like his own, were fastened on the gunwale, and he saw that her knuckles had paled, just like his own. Even though they were right next to each other, a chasm seemed to open between them as they peered into the distance at the boat, trying to guess whom it was carrying toward them.
“It’s her,” Moyna said at last, in a whisper that rose quickly to a cry. “I can see. He’s not there.” Balling her hands into fists, she began to pound the marital bangles on her head. One of them broke, drawing blood from her temple.
Kanai snatched at her wrists to keep her from hurting herself. “Moyna, wait!” he said. “Wait and see...”
She froze and again they stared across the water, as if hypnotized by the approaching boat.
“He’s not there! He’s gone.” Moyna’s legs folded under her and she dropped to the deck. There was an outbreak of pandemonium as Horen came running out of the wheelhouse, shouting to Nogen to cut the engine. Between the two of them, Horen and Kanai carried Moyna into one of the cabins and laid her on a bunk.
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