By Gail B. Pinto
Squatting beneath the tea-shop’s overhang, the Boatman watched the two men before him talk.
“Not in this weather,” said the ferry-conductor, the taller of the two. “With the rains, it will swell like a leech, and will make everything more dangerous.”
The shorter man, who owned the tea-shop, shrugged. “Do what you have to, I will be closing. On the radio, they are talking about cyclonic winds. Shee, baba.”
The evening’s humidity settled on the Boatman’s skin. Sweat dripped down his back and soaked into his loincloth.
The ferry-conductor picked at his fingernails. “Then there will be nobody to tell people that we have left early.” He wiped his fingers on his pants and stared out at the river. The Boatman followed his gaze to the muddy turbulence. Deep reddish-brown. It would turn black when night came. Black and dangerous.
“The devil is in it,” the ferry-conductor said.
“It is a devil that you can negotiate with, as my father would say.” The Boatman stood up, wincing at the ache in his calves. “I will take whoever is left across.”
They both turned to face him.
The ferry-conductor shook his head, “You should leave. We always get the worst of the rains here.”
The Boatman said nothing, but a muscle in his jaw twitched. He looked out at the horizon. The sky there was indigo, choked with clouds that were rushing in. A ghost army.
The shop-owner laughed. “You won’t get any more passengers. People won’t want to cross now. They’ll just stay the night on the island.”
“There are always stragglers,” the Boatman said, his voice carrying thinly-veiled exhaustion.
“Didn’t make enough?”
The Boatman’s eyes shifted to the ferry-conductor then back to the shop-keeper. Again, he said nothing.
The island, really a river delta, was small, sparsely populated, rustic and removed from modern amenities. Mangroves thronged its periphery, drawing in herons that stalked the schools of fish in the shallows. The locals here had relied on the simple occupations of farming and fishing for generations. With the coming of the ferry, opportunities had begun to open up, and the crossing saw far more traffic.
The ferry-conductor walked up to the Boatman. The grey light gave his face a corpse-like pallor. The Boatman met his gaze, searching for respect, but seeing only his reflection in the man’s eyes. “Listen. People go missing here because of the flooding. The currents are bad, the winds are rough.”
“No,” the Boatman said, “I can brave the waters here. If not, I’ll wait for it to pass. My forefathers have done it before without all the mechanical rubbish that you use.”
The ferry-conductor laughed. “Many of them died, too. If you secure your boat here, by the dock, we will take you to the other side...”—he paused—“without charge.”
The Boatman shook his head. He spoke quietly, but his body was tense. “Damn your charity. I can get by on my own. Take your metal box and go.”
The ferry conductor snorted. “The box is safer, you know.”
The Boatman felt a hand on his shoulder. He spun around, and faced the shop-keeper.
“It’s not meant as charity,” the shop-keeper said. “Don’t be a fool. You have a family. Go back to them. I will open early tomorrow morning, and check on your boat if you leave it here.”
The Boatman shrugged his hand off. “No. I will never set foot on that machine.”
The shop-keeper watched the ferry leaving. Above it, the sky had congealed into a blue-grey mass, and distant thunder sounded.
“I’m closing,” the shop-keeper said. The Boatman only nodded.
“You know, if it gets really bad, you can sleep beneath the overhang.”
The Boatman sighed. “I only came here because there are fewer boats. Or so I thought. More passengers.”
The shop-keeper shrugged. “Ferry comes twice a day. Government’s orders. That’s enough for our slow lives. Times are changing for us all.” There was a wistful note in his voice.
He pointed to the Boatman’s canoe along the bank. “Pull that further up, okay? Or the spirits will get it.”
“Spirits?”
“That’s how people here explain the flood deaths. The rains cause one every year. Drownings, disappearances… last year the ferry capsized, and a few fishing boats went missing. The water gets rough. Sudden currents.”
“When my father was alive we crossed several rivers like this one, in very bad weather.”
“When did he die?”
“When I was fourteen.”
The shop-keeper nodded. “I usually leave the back door of the shop open. You can sleep inside if the rain is too heavy.”
“My ancestors are with me,” said the boatman.
The shop-keeper nodded again. Then he turned on his heel and walked away. The Boatman watched him mount his bicycle and set off down the road. His figure retreated in the distance, a grey smudge against dark sky. A breeze broke through the humid stillness, turning the clouds into a ghostly procession in the sky. His canoe was beached by a mangrove thicket some distance from the teashop. It was slim, made of coconut wood, unpainted. Planks were nailed along its width for seating. He dropped himself on to one, letting his feet hang over the edge into the mud. He pulled an old blue tarpaulin sheet over his hunched shoulders and gazed at the river. Behind him, the wind thrashed through the mangrove forest, a creature formed of twisted roots and branches. Before him, the river was an ancient vat, churned by an angry god. While it gave life with one hand, it took with the other. He stared at its churning water, imagining sacrifices. Drowned, bloated corpses. Grieving families, indifferent authorities. His shoulders drooped further.
His wife would be making a hot curry now. They would eat it with vegetables and rice. His son would be playing on the floor with his wooden toys. His mother would be in her chair by the window with a shawl tightly drawn about her, its coarse fabric chafing against her wrinkled forearms. The room would grow dark until the kerosene lamp was lit. The world around him, with its deep indigo and grey and black hues, was ethereal, bleak, and cold. It was an uncertain world, far removed from the bustle of the town and the comfort of crowds, but it was the world that he had been given, passed down from father to son over many generations. It was also a world that was changing, and much too quickly for him to keep up with it.
He felt raindrops on his neck. They were cold and large. He pulled the tarpaulin over his head. He dug his toes into cold mud. The downpour began. He lifted his eyes to the rapidly blackening sky and whispered, “Give me guidance. I know not what to do. The world is a changing tide… and I am being washed away.”
The wind gusted. The cold seeped into his bones.
He had a family to feed. It was not the time to risk changing trades. And then there was duty to his forefathers. Rejecting his traditional trade would incur their wrath. Generations of knowledge, thrown away by him. One man.
He stood up, shivering. Cyclonic disturbances, the shop-keeper had said. He remembered similar evenings as a child, helping his father, and ran his hand along the side of the canoe, caressing it. The bank ahead of him was dark, the dense vegetation turning into black silhouettes. The trees around him bent over in another gust of wind. He squinted in the direction of the tea-shop. He was crouched over the canoe, searching for rope to tether it to a mangrove trunk, when he heard it. At first he thought it was just the wind whistling through the trees. Then it came again, and he knew exactly what it was. It was so alien, so removed from his surroundings, it chilled his blood. Squatting behind the canoe, his hand instinctively reached for the folds of his loincloth, which held a large khoito, a curved machete blade that he used to split coconuts. Again, the sound. It was bells. Tiny bells, worn around an ankle, tinkling in time with a footfall. It was the sound of gatherings and celebrations. A sound associated with light, colour and crowds.
“Who’s there?” he called, in as sharp a voice as he could muster.
Silence.
Then, from the darkness of the undergrowth, a woman’s voice.
“Boatman?” it asked. The tinkling again, coming closer. It was both familiar and strange.
“Stay where you are!”
The bells fell silent. He heard only the rain, and the river behind him.
He felt inside the canoe. Below his seat, a concealed space held some kerosene oil and his father’s old kerosene lamp. His hands shook as he held the matches. Bending over to shelter it with his torso, he struck one. It flickered and went out in a gust of wind.
“Don’t move,” he called out.
He struck another match. This time, the flame quivered, but held. He covered the match with his palm, though it burned him. The wick caught. He held the lamp up at arm’s length, the flame casting a dim circle of light. He could smell the mogra flowers in her hair, their scent dizzying even from where he stood. She wore her sari close to her body. He squinted into the rain, trying to blink rainwater away. He had heard of her kind, but was sure that they were so rare, he would never encounter one. Kholvontin. Temple dancers, married to the gods they served.
“What are you doing here?”
Her face was mostly in shadow, but he could see large eyes, could trace the silhouette of prominent cheekbones, of a slender neck. He took a step toward her, but she stepped back into the shadows.
He lowered his lamp. She was a woman on her own, and he a man.
He raised his hand. “I will not harm you.”
“Boatman,’ she said again. Her voice was plaintive. “I mean you no harm. I missed the last ferry across.”
Her sari, thin and wet, clung to her breasts and encircled her waist. In the amber light, her flesh looked taut, soft. Desire bloomed in his loins, but in his belly, another emotion stirred. His eyes darted around. Only rain and wind, and the pitch black night.
“Where are you going?”
“Across the river is a wedding I must attend. I am to dance there. They are expecting me.”
She glanced at his canoe. He said, “It is late, and they would have to put off the wedding in this storm.”
“I must attend the wedding, Boatman. They wait for me there.”
He tightened his grip on the lamp’s handle.
Finally, he said, “I am waiting for the storm to pass. The river has strong currents and it would be too dangerous.”
“You are a Boatman, yes?”
“Yes. I am.”
“Then it is true that you can navigate this river in spite of the storm.”
The girlish pleading had fled her voice. Her tone had a sneer.
Dread, inexplicable and deep, made him queasy.
He raised the lamp. He saw mahogany skin, full lips, a thick plait of hair, immaculately neat. Large eyes rimmed with black khol.
“I choose not to,” he said.
“They wait for me at the wedding, Boatman. I will lose my patron. Will you not take me across?”
There was something strange in the way she stood, in the way the bells sounded as she stepped toward him. Memories surfaced in his mind, half-forgotten tales and legends of childhood.
His lantern rattled.
“Your wife waits for your return in the morning, but she is worried. She wears her blue cotton nightgown that you bought for her.”
His hands and feet turned to ice. He found his voice beneath the hammering of his heart.
“Who are you?”
She smiled, vermilion lips curving at the corners.
A rustle of fabric. Something glittered. She extended her hand, and he could see that it was very long and crooked, like a child’s drawing. The wrist did not taper, and her elbow bent upward instead of down. She held out a thick gold arm band. Her palms were scored with gashes. He stared at them. They did not bleed. The rain blurred his vision, but he did not blink the water away.
“Take my bhaju band. It will make you rich, Boatman. You need not serve tourists or dive for shellfish again. You may even give up your trade.”
He shook his head. “No... no, I…”
“And if I also gave you my bangles?” Her fingers were long and very thin. Some of her fingernails were missing, the flesh beneath grey and ragged. “And this necklace? Send your son to the school in your village. He need never pick up the oar.”
The coil of fear in his stomach had worked its way to his throat and bound itself there.
“No,” he said. His voice was a rasp. “I must wait... The storm...”
“Oh, but you were so eager before.” She walked closer to him, and he stumbled backwards.
“Here,” she said, reaching back. Her sari loosened and slipped off her shoulder to the wet earth, leaving her waist bare. A cave of ragged flesh gaped at the base of her ribcage. She held out a heavy belt of gold and stepped towards him. “Take my kamarbandh, Boatman. You can build the house that your wife dreams of, with a courtyard for your son to play in.”
She was closer now, and he could see blood flecking the white mogra petals, could smell their fragrance turn into the fetor of decay. His stupor broken, he ran into the river. She stopped at the water’s edge, her sari trailing behind her. Beneath the fall of the sari, he knew, would be feet that turned backwards. He heard muttering, and realised that it was his own voice, mumbling half-remembered prayers. The angry river tugged at his calves. If he swam, he would be swallowed.
“You would not take me across, Boatman? Not for all my gold?”
His body shook. A sob interrupted his fervent murmuring.
“Then I must dance for you.”
With that, she stretched her arms out and traced movements in the air that were graceful, but reversed. Her body swayed to a rhythm that he could not hear.
“Can you hear it, Boatman?” She cried, and the bells rang out faster and faster. “The music. It is old, so old. The singing of the river. The chanting of your ancestors. Can you hear?”
The light was dim and the shadows seemed to bend, to crawl towards her.
Though, as he stood there, he could hear it. It came from the sound of the rain and river. It came from the sound of the bells. It was a music beyond description, yet familiar, as intimate as his own breathing or heartbeat.
The sari unwound, falling from her body. The world unwound with it.
He felt the heat of arousal. A sharp metallic clink as the lantern fell from his hand, and the amber glow of his vision faded to black. At first, there was only darkness and silence. Then, from the silence, a multitude of sounds.
Bird call? No... voices.
Voices.
Tens, thousands... a multitude of voices.
They grew louder, filled the world. He was borne away by the torrent. He clung wildly to his own thoughts, trying to make them cohere – trying to string together the questions, trying to understand. How? Why?
And Death?
He let himself drift. Far above, there was some kind of light. It was pale, but he moved towards it, stretched out his hand to grasp it. Instead, his fingers broke through the surface of the water. He gasped for breath as his head came up. His lungs burned, and his chest ached. He was in the river. He felt panic, but many years of preparation for this moment made him slow down his breathing. He listened to the thundering of his heart. Everything was far too quiet. He stretched out an arm to try to swim, and his knuckles collided with wood. He threw himself into the canoe. It felt different, heavy, and at first, he wondered whether it had taken in water, but all he could feel as he got in was mud.
Thick, cold mud.
With that, all the sounds of night and the storm returned.
The canoe was moving again, picking up speed. A crack of lightning split the sky, and for an instant he could see the woman crouched at its end. He gripped the oar. The canoe lurched, but was it just the river eddies, or had she moved? She—whatever she was—wanted passage. How many times had she tried to cross the river? For a wedding that took place how many years ago? The vessel was beginning to slow down. He was nearing the mouth of the river. If he didn’t change course now, he would soon be in deeper water, navigating waves the height of a house. He steadied the canoe, trying to keep it tangent to the current. A misstep now would mean losing the boat and possibly death.
And if so, they would not cross. They. If he perished, she would be lost, too. Now their fates were tied. The rain came in sheets. Finally, he saw lights in the distance, unobscured by foliage. He angled the front of the boat toward the light. Closer and closer, unable to slow down, he approached the shore. He crouched on one side of the canoe and stuck his oar into the water, trying to slow the approach. He saw the rocks too late. The paddle of his oar dug into sand. Two things happened simultaneously. The canoe lurched, its side catching the oar, snapping it. The force knocked him off his feet. There was a sharp pain in his head, and he knew nothing more.
*
When his eyes fluttered open, the sky was a milky white haze. The sun was at its zenith. He sat up too quickly, and faintness overcame him. He waited for it to pass. Disoriented, he looked around before memory resurfaced. He staggered to his knees and used the side of the canoe to raise himself, wincing at the pain in his head. Bits of memory coalesced, fleeting and vague. The woman. The river.
His heart dropped.
There was a crack in the side of the canoe. It spiderwebbed downward, buried beneath mud. It was a fine silt, found only on the riverbed. From it, half covered, something black poked out. It resembled a long string of large beads. He pulled it out, and it rattled like the breath of the dying.
He immediately dropped it.
Gingerly, he stepped out onto the rocks. His legs shook. He was breathing heavily. He leaned against the side of the boat like that for a while. Finally, he turned around, and got back in. He picked out the string of bells, black and rusted, and laid them aside on the rock. Something else glinted in the canoe. He brushed the silt off it with his finger, and it shone in the sun. He turned it over in his hand. An arm band. Gold. Thick, heavy. Bangles, waistband, necklace. Bleached bones of a dream, they emerged from the silt. The water that had poured in had drained rapidly. He could see through the crack to the sand beneath. The wood was far too swollen. The gold glinted at him. Black fury clouded his face. He picked up the pile of jewellery and squeezed it in his fist. He raised his hand up, and facing the river, he screamed, “Take this! Give me back what was mine!”
He squatted alongside the canoe. The tears came freely. He pressed his left palm on the side of the boat that had held him, and his father before him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into the wood.
Beside him, the river ran on. In the silt at its bottom, silent histories slept. Each particle an echo of the past and each echo etched in an organic palimpsest. Layer embraced layer, united in incidental destiny.
Gail Pinto is a fiction writer with words published in the Chthonic Matter Quarterly, summer 2023 and the anthology Ways of Belonging, Goa 1556, 2023. She lives in Washington State, USA with her partner and enjoys baking sourdough bread and painting in her free time.
Photo downloaded from Unsplash.com