The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh [181]
This, too, Piya took in her stride. “I spoke to my uncle about that,” she said. “He told me I’m eligible for a card that would allow me to stay on indefinitely — something about being a person of Indian origin. And as for the permits to do research, he said that if the Badabon Trust was willing to sponsor my work, he’d take care of the rest. He knows of some environmental groups in New Delhi that will intervene with the government.”
“My goodness! You really have thought of everything.” Nilima gave a bark of laughter. “I suppose you even have a name for this project of yours?” Nilima had meant this ironically, but when Piya gravely cleared her throat, she realized that the matter was no joke for the girl. “So you do have a name? Already?”
“I was thinking,” Piya said, “that we might name it after Fokir, since his data are going to be crucial to the project.”
“His data?” Nilima raised her eyebrows. “But I thought you’d lost all your data in the storm?”
Piya’s eyes brightened. “Not all of it,” she said. “I still have this.” She took her hand-held monitor out of her pocket and showed it to Nilima. “See, this is connected to the satellites of the Global Positioning System. On the day of the storm it was in my pocket. It was the only piece of equipment that survived.” At the touch of a button the screen flickered on. Piya tapped a key to access the memory. “All the routes that Fokir showed me are stored here. Look.” She pointed to a sinuous zigzag line that had appeared on the screen. “That was the route we took on the day before the storm. Fokir took the boat into every little creek and gully where he’d ever seen a dolphin. That one map represents decades of work and volumes of knowledge. It’s going to be the foundation of my own project. That’s why I think it should be named after him.”
“My goodness!” said Nilima. Her eyes strayed to the fragment of sky that was visible through the nearest window. “So you mean to say it’s all preserved up there?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Nilima fell silent as she pondered the mystery of Fokir and his boat, writing a log of their journeys and locking it away in the stars. Presently she reached for Piya’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “You’re right,” she said. “It would be good to have a memorial for Fokir, on earth as well as in the heavens. But as for the details, you’ll have to give me a little time to think it through.” She sighed and rose to her feet. “Right now, my dear, what I need most is a cup of tea. Would you like one too?”
“Yes, I would,” said Piya. “Thank you.”
Nilima went into her kitchen and filled a kettle with water from a filter. She was pumping her kerosene stove when Piya put her head around the door.
“And what about Kanai?” said Piya. “Have you had any news from him?”
Nilima put a match to the stove and replaced the grill. “Yes, I have,” she said. “I got a letter from him just the other day.”
“And how is he?” said Piya.
Nilima laughed as she placed the kettle on the stove. “Oh, my dear!” she said. “He’s been almost as busy as you.”
“Is that so? What’s he been doing?”
“Let me see,” said Nilima, reaching for a teapot. “Where shall I begin? The most important thing is that he’s restructured his company so that he can take some time off. He wants to live in Kolkata for a while.”
“Really?” said Piya. “And what’s he going to do there?”
“I’m not quite sure,” Nilima said as she spooned some longhoarded Darjeeling tea leaves into the pot. “He told me he was going to write the story of Nirmal’s notebook — how it came into his hands, what was in it, and how it was lost. But what he means by that you can ask him yourself. He’ll be here in a day or two.”
“That soon?”
Nilima nodded. The kettle’s cover had begun to rattle, so she took it off the stove. Pouring a stream of boiling water into the teapot, she said, “And I hope you won’t mind if Kanai stays upstairs while he’s here — in the Guest