Gun Island

by Amitav Ghosh

  ‘Has this stuff affected your dolphins?’

  ‘I believe it has,’ said Piya. ‘My guess is that this is why Rani and her pod have abandoned their old hunting grounds. I’m certain that it’s been a huge source of stress for them – I mean, wouldn’t you be stressed, if you had to abandon all the places that you know and were forced to start all over again?’

  She sighed, gazing into the distance. ‘And it must be hardest on Rani, knowing that the young ones depend on her. There she is, perfectly adapted to her environment, perfectly at home in it – and then things begin to change, so that all those years of learning become useless, the places you know best can’t sustain you any more and you’ve got to find new hunting grounds. Rani must have felt that everything she knew, everything she was familiar with – the water, the currents, the earth itself – was rising up against her.’

  The words had an oddly familiar ring. ‘It’s funny you should say that. Moyna said something similar when she was talking about the people who’re leaving the Sundarbans.’

  Piya nodded. ‘You’ll hear those words often here. We’re in a new world now. No one knows where they belong any more, neither humans nor animals.’

  * * *

  A half-hour later Piya tapped my shoulder and pointed ahead. ‘There it is – Garjontola.’

  To me the island seemed no different from any other stretch of the mangrove forest – a featureless green smudge squatting upon a ledge of mud. But soon enough it became clear that something unusual had happened there: a tall column of birds could be seen circling above the island, in widening spirals.

  Piya studied the island carefully with a pair of binoculars.

  After a while I asked, ‘What do you see?’

  She turned to me and handed me the glasses: ‘Here, take a look.’

  I couldn’t see much – it wasn’t easy to focus the glasses in that fast-moving boat – but I did manage to catch a glimpse of some oblong patches of grey, outlined against the mud.

  ‘Are those your dolphins?’ I said.

  ‘I won’t know till I take a closer look.’

  The boat came to a stop about a hundred yards from the shore. Moments later we were hit by a putrid odour; it was so strong that I had to hold a hand over my nose.

  Piya gave me a wry smile. ‘I think you’d better stay back – it’s going to stink like hell out there.’

  I didn’t argue; I remained on the boat while Piya and her assistants went over in a rubber dinghy.

  They came back after an hour with a reek of putrefaction wafting around them. Under her cap and sunglasses, Piya’s face was unreadable; without so much as a glance in my direction she busied herself in putting away her equipment and the samples she had collected. When the boat turned around to head back she went to the prow and sat huddled over her camera, going over the pictures she had taken. It was clear that she was in no mood to talk.

  We were more than halfway back when she came to sit beside me, at the rear of the boat.

  ‘It was them all right,’ she said grimly. ‘Rani and her pod. They seem to have beached themselves, all at the same time. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘Were they trying to get away from something, do you think?’

  ‘It sure looks like that. I don’t think the corpses were washed ashore. They wouldn’t be lying next to each other, with their heads pointing in the same direction, if they’d died in the water.’

  ‘Could a predator have attacked them?’

  ‘I didn’t see any signs of injury,’ she said. ‘Of course, the remains have been torn up by birds and crabs so it’s hard to tell. But I don’t think a predator could have done this: a shark or a croc wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on them without their knowing. Orcaella are used to dealing with sharks and crocs: they detect them with their sonar. Anyway, a croc wouldn’t have attacked all three at once.’

  ‘Do you think it could have something to do with those dead zones that you were talking about?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think a dead zone could spook them into beaching themselves.’

  ‘What do you think it was then?’

  She thought this over, frowning. ‘It’s not uncommon, you know, for whales and dolphins to beach themselves – in fact it’s been happening more and more frequently. There’s a theory that man-made sounds – from submarines and sonar equipment and stuff like that – could be behind the beachings. As you know, marine mammals use echo location to navigate so if something messed with that they could become disoriented and run themselves aground. But nothing like that could have happened here – there’s no vessel anywhere nearby with that sort of capability.’

  ‘So what could it be then?’

  She made a despairing gesture. ‘I don’t know – I don’t think we’ll ever know. Clearly something spooked the hell out of them. But I have no idea what it was. There are just so many aspects of marine mammal behaviour that we don’t understand, especially when it comes to beachings.’

  Putting her arms around her legs Piya fell into a reverie, her chin on her knees. When she spoke again her voice was softer: ‘Some of the old stories about beachings are so weird that they sound almost like witchcraft.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Like there are these stories, you know,’ she said, ‘about islands in the southern Pacific where shamans claimed to be able to summon dolphins. They’d do some mumbo-jumbo on the beach and sure enough dolphins would arrive. It was probably just coincidence, but they took the credit for it anyways.’

  ‘Or maybe they had visions,’ I said, ‘like Tipu did yesterday?’

  I regretted the words almost as soon as I had said them. Casting me a sharp, scornful glance she said: ‘You think Tipu had a vision?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, defensively, ‘he did want to send you a warning, didn’t he? At around the time your alert went off?’

  ‘But you’re not sure about the time, are you?’ she shot back, in a tone of annoyance. ‘And Tipu was probably just remembering something from the past. There’s nothing else to it.’

  ‘Still,’ I persisted. ‘Even if it’s just a coincidence, don’t you think it’s interesting?’

  ‘No, not particularly,’ she said dismissively. She thought this over for a minute and then added: ‘I guess that’s the difference between you and me. I’m just a field biologist, trying to figure out my data. And you’re a … hell, I don’t even know what you do.’

  ‘I’m an antiquarian book dealer.’

  She gave a dry laugh. ‘Yeah. It’s like we’re from different planets.’

  * * *

  After this exchange Piya’s manner became markedly less friendly; I had the sense that my reference to visions had annoyed her and that she wanted to be rid of me.

  Just before we arrived in Lusibari I looked at my watch and realized that there was still time for me to make my flight if I hurried straight back to Kolkata. With Piya in this mood there was no reason for me linger; I asked if she could arrange for me to return to the city and she answered with a nod.

  Pulling out her phone she made a couple of calls. ‘It’s done,’ she said. ‘You can leave when you want.’

  As soon as the boat had docked we went back to the guest-house where I put my things together. Then Piya walked me down to Lusibari’s jetty, where a boat was waiting to take me to Basonti.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye to Tipu.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ she said offhandedly. It was clear now that she was relieved to see me go. ‘He’ll understand.’

  ‘But I’d like to know what he says.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About Rani, and how he knew that she was in danger.’

  ‘Oh that,’ she said disinterestedly. ‘I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. Tipu’s probably forgotten all about it. People never remember what they say when they’re delirious.’

  We were at the jetty now, and as I was shaking her
hand I said: ‘Do you ever come through New York?’

  She looked startled. ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s where I live. And I thought perhaps if you came through…’

  She had begun to shake her head before I could finish the sentence. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said in a tone that was clearly intended to dampen any expectations that I might have. ‘I live between Oregon and here – these are the only places I spend time in, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change. As for New York, I can’t remember when I was last there – maybe ten years ago? And I can’t say I care for it, frankly.’

  I nodded and tried not to look unduly snubbed. ‘Well maybe you could drop me an email about Tipu?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Can you text me your address?’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘Take care.’

  ‘Take care.’

  * * *

  On the way back to the city I felt as though I were slowly waking from an extended hallucination. I could no longer remember why I had embarked on this absurd expedition and cursed myself for having gone. Once again my therapist had been proved right; I had allowed my hopes of romance to get the better of my judgement.

  I don’t think I have ever been as glad to see an airport as I was when I reached Dum Dum later that night: it was as if a gateway of escape had appeared magically in front of me. Even the processes of checking in and going through immigration and security didn’t seem as tedious as they usually did: they were like rituals that signalled a return to sanity.

  I was in the departure lounge when my phone pinged to alert me to an email. It was from Piya.

  ‘Tipu says hi. He’s fine – he’s sitting up in bed, chatting with Rafi. He says he doesn’t remember a thing after he got bitten – just as I thought. Said to say goodbye to you. By the way does he really call you Pops?’ This was followed by a string of incomprehensible emojis.

  Fortunately my automatic Away responder was still on: I decided that there was no need to reply. At that moment I didn’t want to spend one more second thinking about this strange episode; all I wanted was to put it out of my mind.

  I stepped on to the plane with a great sigh of gratitude: it was as if I had entered an impregnably metallic, mechanical, man-made womb, where everything served to protect me from that world of mud and its slithering, creeping inhabitants.

  Dawn was breaking when the plane took off and its flightpath took it, briefly, over the Sundarbans. From my seat, by a window, I had a clear aerial view of the silted, tidal landscape below, densely matted with vegetation and veined with rivers. The sight made me shudder: that I had ventured voluntarily into that wild tangle of mud and mangrove seemed incomprehensible now.

  What had I been thinking of? Had I gone mad?

  Brooklyn

  Experience had taught me that to travel between Calcutta and Brooklyn was to switch between two states of mind, each of which came with its own cache of memory. For me this alternation had happened so reliably in the past that it was not unduly optimistic, I think, to assume that my memories of that visit to the Gun Merchant’s shrine would recede once I had settled into my Brooklyn apartment.

  But this expectation was soon belied. For several weeks after my return I found it hard to focus on my work. While sitting at my desk I was frequently ambushed by snatches of recollection from that day; worse still, my nights were often interrupted by dreams from which I would awake drenched in sweat, with a burning sensation stewing in my guts (‘Heartburn,’ said my doctor).

  It was as if some living thing had entered my body, something ancient that had long lain dormant in the mud. I could only think of it in analogy to germs or viruses or bacteria, yet I knew it was none of those things: it was memory itself, except that it was not my own; it was much older than me, some submerged aspect of time that had been brought suddenly to life when I entered that shrine – something fearsome, venomous and overwhelmingly powerful, something that would not allow me to be rid of it.

  I spent hours sitting at my desk but was unable to get anything done. I urgently needed to finish my first catalogue of the year but hours would go by without a single word being written. To fill the silence I would play music, sometimes classical Indian ragas, sometimes qawwalis by Sufi musicians. They would lull me into a stupor and hours would slip by without my being aware of it. My portable Bluetooth speaker became my constant companion, accompanying me from room to room as I wandered listlessly around my apartment.

  After two wasted months I went to my doctor and got a prescription for anti-anxiety pills. But even these didn’t help. If anything they made me feel even less my own self, my own master; they seemed only to strengthen the hold of whatever it was that had gained ascendancy over me.

  I was sitting at my desk one day, staring blankly at my computer, when a pop-up window appeared on the screen. Inside the window were the words: ‘Does the word BHUTA mean “ghost”? Or does it mean something else?’

  Unnerved by this strange manifestation I went to the bathroom and washed my face. When I came back the window was still on the screen, blinking. But now I noticed a line in small print; it said ‘Bonduki@bonduki.com wants to start a chat session with you.’

  I sat down and typed: ‘Is that you, Tipu?’

  The answer appeared after a couple of seconds. ‘Sure it’s me. Now answer the question.’

  ‘Why are you asking me this?’ I wrote. ‘Why don’t you look it up on the Net?’

  ‘I did. And now I’m asking u. What exactly does BHUTA mean?’

  I scratched my head for a bit and then fetched a dictionary.

  ‘Look, I’m no expert on this,’ I wrote. ‘All I can tell you is that the Bangla word “bhoot” or “bhuta” comes from a basic but very complicated Sanskrit root, “bhu”, meaning “to be”, or “to manifest”. So in that sense “bhuta” simply means “a being” or “an existing presence”.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘So are u and I bhutas then?’

  ‘I suppose you could say so.’

  ‘And what about animals? Snakes? Dolphins?’

  ‘In the sense that they exist and are beings, yes, animals are bhutas too.’

  ‘Then why do people mean “ghost” when they say “bhoot”?’

  ‘Because “bhuta” also refers to the past, in the sense of “a past state of being”. Like when we say “bhuta-kala” or “times past”.’

  Another long pause.

  ‘But if the same word means both “existing” and “existed” wouldnt it mean that the past wasnt past? That the past was present in the present?’

  ‘In a sense yes.’

  ‘But thats impossible isnt it? How can the past be present in the present?’

  ‘In the same way that you might say in English “the present is haunted by the past”. I suppose that’s how the word “bhuta” has come to mean “ghost”.’

  This time his response was instantaneous. ‘So are u saying that ghosts exist?’

  ‘NO!’

  I yelped. My fingers had hit the keyboard so hard that I had split a fingernail. But I typed on, without stopping. ‘I’m not saying that AT ALL. I’m just telling you what the word means.’

  Several minutes went by before Tipu’s response appeared: ‘OK, got it.’ This was followed by a thumbs-up emoji, and then the window closed.

  I slammed shut my laptop and stared at it, shivering, half expecting it to open of itself. It was as though the most sterile object in my safe, man-made world had suddenly become a portal through which the primeval mud could draw me back into its depths.

  * * *

  Time became almost meaningless to me now. The days flowed by and I scarcely noticed.

  Then one day another pop-up window appeared on my screen.

  ‘What is a SHAMAN?’

  I recoiled, frowning. ‘Tipu, why do you keep asking me these things?’ I wrote. ‘Why don’t you look them up yourself, on the Net?’

  ‘I did. I found a site that said shamans can
communicate with animals. And even with trees, and mountains, and ice and stuff.’

  ‘That’s your answer then.’

  ‘So do you think its true? That these guys can communicate with animals? And trees and mountains?’

  Pushing my chair back, I forced myself to consider this seriously.

  I must have sat there for a long time because presently another balloon appeared within the pop-up screen. ‘Hey Pops! u still there?’

  Startled out of my trance, I wrote: ‘I was just thinking about your question. I suppose the answer depends on what you mean by “communication”. For example, if a dog barks at me then I know that it’s trying to communicate something. Maybe that it’s angry, that it doesn’t want me to come any closer. Whatever it is, it’s certainly some sort of communication, isn’t it?’

  ‘I guess. But u know what I mean. Can they like communicate more complicated stuff?’

  I thought about this for a bit. ‘Look, if someone like me, who knows pretty much nothing about animals, can figure out what a dog is trying to communicate when it barks, then I imagine that people who actually work with animals, like farmers, or dog walkers, or horse trainers, can understand some pretty complicated stuff.’

  A minute went by and I found, to my puzzlement, that I was sitting on the edge of my seat as I waited for his response.

  ‘Horen says my dad cud understand animals. And not just animals.’

  ‘What else then?’

  ‘He says that he cud see and feel things that others cudnt.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Oh you know.’ His rate of typing was suddenly very slow. ‘Like we were talking about that time? What did u call them? Beings?’

  ‘I don’t know that I would take Horen’s word for any of this,’ I wrote. ‘What does your mother say?’

  Tipu didn’t answer my question. When he began to type again the words that appeared before me were: ‘Rafi’s grandad was a bauley. Do u know what that means?’