The Hungry Tide (49 page)

The engine sprang back to life and Horen used his shoulders to hold the wheel to a tight turn. Within a few minutes, the
Megha
was heading back the way it had come, retracing the morning's journey.

It was one o'clock when they reached Garjontola, and neither Kanai nor Horen was surprised to find no one there. Only seven hours had passed since they had waved the boat off that morning. They knew that Piya and Fokir were probably planning to come back to Garjontola much later — in time to meet the
Megha
on its return from Lusibari, which was scheduled for the end of the day.

One thing puzzled Kanai: the boat was anchored well within sight of the Garjontola pool, yet, although it was low tide, there were no dolphins in the water. He recalled that the dolphins usually gathered there when the tide ebbed, and it was clear even to his unpracticed eye that the water was running low. He went to Horen to confirm this, and was told that this was indeed the ebb tide, the bhata — the jowar would not set in for another two or three hours.

“But Horen-da, look,” said Kanai, pointing toward Garjontola. “If it's the bhata, then why is the water empty?”

Horen frowned as he took this in. “What can I tell you?” he said at last. “The world isn't like a clock. Everything doesn't always happen on time.”

There was no arguing with this, yet in the pit of Kanai's stomach was a gnawing sensation that told him something was wrong. “Horen-da,” he said, “instead of waiting here, why don't we set out to look for Fokir's boat?”

There was an amused grunt from Horen. “To look for a boat here would be like trying to find a grain of grit in a sack full of rice.”

“It won't do any harm,” Kanai insisted. “Not if we're back by sunset. If all's well, the boat will be here then and we'll meet up with them.”

“It'll serve no purpose,” Horen grumbled. “There are hundreds of little khals crisscrossing these islands. Most of them are too shallow for a bhotbhoti.”

Kanai could sense his resistance lessening and said lightly, “We're not doing anything else, after all — so why not?”

“All right, then.” Bending over the gunwale, Horen shouted to Nogen to start the engine and draw anchor.

Kanai stood leaning on the wheelhouse as the bhotbhoti pulled away from Garjontola and headed downriver. There was not a cloud in the sky and the landscape seemed tranquil in the soporific heat of the afternoon sun. It needed some stretching of the mind to imagine that bad weather could be on its way.

CASUALTIES

T
HE TIDE WAS TURNING
when at last Piya caught sight of a dorsal fin: it was half a mile or so ahead of the boat, very close to the shore. A quick read of the dolphin's position showed it to be almost twelve miles southeast of Garjontola. When she put the binoculars back to her eyes she made another discovery — the dolphin she had spotted earlier was not alone; it was accompanied by several others. They seemed to be circling in the same place, much as they did in the Garjontola pool.

She saw that the water was still at midlevel, and a look at her watch told her that it was three in the afternoon. She was conscious now of an excitement similar to that which she had felt when Fokir first led her to the dolphins at Garjontola. If several dolphins had congregated here at low tide, surely it could only mean that this was yet another pool and these dolphins were from another pod? This seemed like the best news she could have had, but a glance at Fokir's face was enough to indicate that something was not quite right — there was a cautionary look in his eyes that put her on guard.

When the dolphins were just five hundred feet ahead of the boat, she caught sight of a steel-gray form lying inert on the mudbank. Instantly she shut her eyes, knowing what it was and yet hoping it would be something else. When she looked again it was still there, and it was exactly what she had feared: the carcass of an Irrawaddy dolphin.

A closer look brought yet another shock: the animal's body was relatively small, and she knew at once that it was probably the newborn calf she had watched for the past several days, swimming beside its mother. Its body appeared to have been deposited on the shore some hours before by the falling tide. Now, with the water rising again, it seemed to be teetering on the water's edge.

Piya's intuition told her that these dolphins belonged to the same pod that usually congregated at Garjontola at low tide. The carcass explained the dolphins' departure from their routine: it seemed they were reluctant to return to their pool while one of their number lay dead in plain view. Piya had the sense that they were waiting for the tide to set it afloat again.

Fokir had spotted the carcass too, Piya knew, for the boat's bow had turned to point toward the shore. As the boat was pulling slowly up to the bank a smell caught the back of Piya's throat. The full heat of the sun was on the dead animal and the stench was such that she had to wrap a length of cloth around her head before she could step off the boat.

Looking down on the carcass, she saw that there was a huge gash behind the blowhole where a large wedge of flesh and blubber had been torn out of the dolphin's body. The shape of the injury suggested that the dolphin had been hit by the propeller of a fast-moving motorboat. This puzzled Piya, because she had seen so few such boats in these waters. It was Fokir who suggested a solution to the mystery, by sketching a peaked cap with his hands. She understood that it was probably some kind of official boat used by uniformed personnel — maybe from the coast guard or the police or even the Forest Department. It had gone speeding down the channel earlier in the day, and the inexperienced calf had been slow to move out of its way.

Piya took a tape measure out of her backpack and spent a while taking the measurements required by the Norris protocols. Then, pulling out a small pocketknife, she took samples of skin, blubber and a few internal organs. These she wrapped in foil and slipped into Ziploc bags. Armies of crabs and insects were now swarming all over the dead calf, eating into the exposed flesh of its wound.

Piya remembered how her heart had leapt when she first saw the newborn surfacing beside its mother and she could not bear to look at the carcass any longer. She gestured to Fokir to pick it up by the flukes while she took hold of the fins. Between them, they swung it back and forth a couple of times and then heaved it out into the river. She had expected it to bob up again immediately, but to her surprise it sank quickly from view.

This was as much time as Piya could stand to spend in this place. She went back to the boat, threw in her equipment and helped Fokir push it away from the bank.

As the current was pulling them away, Fokir stood up and began to point upriver and downriver, east and west. Presently, as his gestures became more explicit, she understood he was telling her that what she had seen was not an uncommon sight. He had come upon three such carcasses: one of them had washed up a short distance downriver from this very place — that was why he had thought of coming this way.

By the time they were in midriver, the dolphins appeared to be dispersing — except for one, which seemed to be lingering in the wake of the pod. Piya had the sense that this animal was circling over the sunken carcass as the currents rolled it along the riverbed. Was this the mother? There was no way of knowing for sure.

Then, all at once, the dolphins sounded and disappeared. Piya would have liked to follow them, but she knew it would be impossible. It was a little past four in the afternoon now and the tide was flooding in. The currents, which had favored them in the morning, were now pushing powerfully against them. Even with two of them rowing, their progress was certain to be painfully slow.

AFTER THREE HOURS
of unrewarded wandering, Horen said, in a tone of gruff vindication, “We've looked enough. We have to turn back now.”

Kanai's eyes were weary from the effort of peering into creeks and gullies. Now that the sun was dipping toward the horizon, the light would be directly in their eyes and it would be even harder to maintain an effective watch. But the anxiety gnawing at his stomach would not go away and he could not bring himself to accept that there was nothing more to be done. “Do we have to turn back already?” he said.

Horen nodded. “We've wasted a lot of fuel. Any more and we won't be able to get back to Lusibari tomorrow. Besides, the boat is probably back at Garjontola now.”

“And what if it's not?” said Kanai sharply. “Are we just going to abandon them?”

Horen turned to squint at him through narrowed eyes. “Look,” he said, “Fokir is like a son to me. If there was anything more to be done, I would do it.”

Kanai was quick to acknowledge the justice of this reproof. “Yes,” he said with a nod. “I know that, of course.” He felt a twinge of shame for having doubted Horen's diligence during the search. As the
Megha
changed course, he said, in a more conciliatory voice, “Horen-da, you have experience of these things. Tell me — what'll happen here when the cyclone strikes?”

Horen looked pensively around him. “It'll be as different as night from day.”

“You were caught in a cyclone once, weren't you?”

“Yes,” said Horen in his slow, laconic way. “That was the year when you visited, 1970.”

It was well after the end of the monsoons, and Horen had gone out to sea in his uncle Bolai's boat. The crew consisted of three men: Horen, his uncle and a man he didn't know. They were on the edge of the Bay of Bengal, a couple of miles from the mouth of the Raimangal River, within sight of land. There was no formal warning system in those days and the storm had taken them completely by surprise. One minute there was sunshine and a stiff breeze; half an hour later a gale had hit them from the southwest. Visibility had become very poor and they had lost sight of all their usual landmarks. They had had no compass on board: their eyes were the only instruments they used in navigating and in any case it was rare for them to venture out of sight of the coast. Nor would any instrument have been of much help, for the gale did not leave them the option of steering in a direction of their choice. The wind was so fierce that there was no resisting its thrust. It had swept them before it in a northeasterly direction. For a couple of hours they could do nothing other than cling to the timbers of their boat. Then, all of a sudden, they had found themselves heading toward a stretch of flooded land: they could see the crowns of some trees and the roofs of a few dwellings — huts and shacks for the most part. The storm's surge had drowned most of the shoreline; the flood was so deep that they didn't know they had made landfall until their boat slammed into a tree trunk. The boat's planks came apart instantly, but Horen and his uncle managed to save themselves by clinging to the tree. The third member of their crew also took hold of a branch, but it broke under his weight. He was never seen again.

Horen, then just twenty years old, had great strength in his arms. He was able to pull both himself and his uncle out of the raging water, into the tree's higher branches. The two men used their gamchhas and lungis to tie themselves to the tree. They joined hands and held on as the gale howled around them. At times the wind was so fierce that it shook the tree as though it were a giant
jhata,
a reed broom — but somehow Horen and Bolai had managed to cling on.

When the wind abated a little, they discovered that the water had deposited a great deal of debris in the tree, including some pans and utensils that had been swept out of the surrounding dwellings. Horen salvaged a round-bellied clay
hãri,
which he then used to collect some rainwater: if it wasn't for his foresight, thirst would have driven them from the tree the next day.

In the morning the sky was bright and clear but a torrent was still raging under their feet: the floodwaters were so high they reached most of the way up the tree trunk. Looking around them, they saw that they were not the only people to take shelter in a tree: many others had saved their lives in a similar fashion. Whole families, young and old alike, were sitting on branches. When greetings were shouted from one tree to another, they learned that they had been blown nearly thirty miles from where they had been when the storm hit. They had been carried across the border and thrust ashore near the Agunmukha (“fire-mouthed”) River, not far from the town of Galachipa.

“It's in Bangladesh now,” Horen said. “In Khulna District, I think.”

They spent two days in the tree, without food or any additional water. When the floodwaters subsided they tried to make their way to the nearest town. They had not gone far before they turned back: it was as if they were in the vicinity of some terrible battlefield massacre. There were corpses everywhere, and the land was carpeted with dead fish and livestock. They found out that three hundred thousand people had died.

“Like Hiroshima!” said Kanai under his breath.

Horen and Bolai were fortunate soon to meet up with some fishermen who had managed to salvage their own boat. Making their way along unfrequented creeks and khals, they had slipped back into India.

That was Horen's experience of a cyclone, and the memory of it would last him through a second lifetime — he never wanted to have it repeated.

Horen finished his story just as Garjontola was coming into view.

A carpet of crimson light lay on the island's watery threshold, covering the dolphin pool and stretching all the way to the sun, now setting on the far side of the distant mohona. The angle of the light was such that any boat, even a very low one, would have cast a long shadow. But there were no boats or other vessels in sight. Piya and Fokir had not returned.

A GIFT

A
T SUNSET,
taking a reading of the boat's position, Piya saw that they were still a good seven miles from Garjontola. She knew then that it would be impossible to get back to the
Megha
by the end of the day — but it wouldn't matter much, she decided; there was no reason to think that Horen would be especially worried. He would know that they had gone too far afield to make it back by nightfall.