The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh [46]
He started in alarm on realizing that this was where she was planning to spend the night. Shaking his head, he raised a finger of warning to point to the forested shores in the distance. The gesture was intentionally vague, and only by inference did she understand that his warning concerned an animal, a predator. And now at last she had an inkling of why the boat had been anchored in this odd position: was it perhaps to put it beyond the reach of tigers? She had never had much interest in terrestrial carnivores, but she could not imagine that even the hungriest of them would choose to stage an attack so far from shore. And if it did, what difference would it make whether you were in the stern or the bow? Presumably the whole boat would tip over under a tiger’s weight.
There was a cumulative absurdity about these propositions that made her smile. To include him in the joke, she made her hands into claws, as if to mime a tiger. But before she could complete the gesture, he clamped his hands on her wrists, vehemently shaking his head, as if to forbid her from making any reference to the subject. She decided it was best to shrug the matter off and, smoothing her mat, she lay down. This seemed the most economical way of letting him know that she was not going to spend the night huddled in the shelter for fear of an aquatic feline. To her great relief, he accepted this without protest. Removing the sari from the thatched hood, he folded it into a pillow and handed it to her, along with one of his grimy gray blankets.
Then, retreating to the center of the boat, he draped a blanket over his shoulders and lit a biri. In a while, just as she was drifting off to sleep, she heard a snatch of a tune and realized he was humming. She raised herself on her elbow and said, “Sing.” He gave her a puzzled glance and she responded by making an upward gesture with an open palm. “Louder. Sing louder.”
At this he tilted his head back and sang a few notes. The melody surprised her, for it bore no resemblance to any Indian music she had ever heard before — neither the Hindi film music her father liked nor the Bengali songs her mother had sometimes sung. His voice sounded almost hoarse and it seemed to crack and sob as it roamed the notes. There was a suggestion of grief in it that unsettled and disturbed her.
She had thought that she had seen a muscular quality of innocence in him, a likable kind of naïveté, but now, listening to this song, she began to ask herself whether it was she who was naïve. She would have liked to know what he was singing about and what the lyrics meant — but she knew too that a river of words would not be able to tell her exactly what made the song sound as it did right then, in that place.
THE GLORY OF BON BIBI
KUSUM WAS FROM the nearby island of Satjelia. Her father had died while foraging for firewood in a place that was off-limits to villagers. He had not been in possession of a permit at the time, so Kusum’s mother had received no compensation. With no means of livelihood she was reduced to a state of such destitution that she considered herself fortunate when a man from their village, a landowner by the name of Dilip Choudhury, had offered to find her a job in the city.
Knowing that he had found employment for other women, Kusum’s mother could see no reason why she should not accept Dilip’s offer. Leaving Kusum with relatives, she had gone off with him to take the train to Calcutta. Returning alone, Dilip had told Kusum that her mother was doing housework for a good family and would send for her shortly. That time came soon enough: a month or so later,