Prabir completed the final ‘N’ and sidled back towards the ladder. The paint would reduce their power supply by about one-fifth, but with the satellite link switched off they’d still have enough to keep everything else running. As he approached the ground, Madhusree started wailing because she wasn’t allowed to climb up and see what he’d written. His mother began fussing over her as if she was in genuine distress, cooing and stroking her brow. Prabir said mischievously, ‘She can do the next one. I don’t mind. Would you like that, Maddy?’ He gave her an aren’t-you-adorable look, and she stared back at him in amazement, her bawling dying down to a half-hearted wheezing sound.
His mother said wearily, ‘Don’t be stupid. You know she can’t.’ Madhusree started screaming. Prabir moved the ladder over to the next hut.
‘I wish you’d grow up! You’re such a baby sometimes!’ Prabir was halfway up the ladder before he realised that these words were directed at him. He continued on, his face burning. He wanted to shout back: It was only a joke. And I look after her better than you do!But there were some buttons he’d learnt not to push. He concentrated on his sign writing, and kept his mouth shut.
When he came down, Madhusree was still whimpering. Prabir said, ‘She can help me do one of the walls.’
His mother nodded, and stooped to put Madhusree down. Madhusree gazed resentfully at Prabir and clung on, sensing a chance to milk the situation further. Prabir gave her a warning look, and after a moment she changed her mind and waddled over to him. He handed her the spraycan, then crouched behind her, guiding her arm while she squeezed the button.
‘You know we almost sent you off to boarding school this year. Would you have liked that?’ His mother spoke without a trace of sarcasm, as if the answer wasn’t obvious.
Prabir didn’t reply. It was no thanks to her that he’d been spared; only the war had saved him from exile.
She said, ‘At least you would have been out of all this.’
Prabir kept his eyes on the job, doing his best to compensate for Madhusree’s enthusiastic random cross-strokes, but he thought back over the conversation he’d heard between his parents in the butterfly hut. It was true that his mother had suggested sending him to her cousin in Toronto… but that had only served to put his father off the whole idea, a response that might not have come as a great surprise to her. So maybe he’d judged her too harshly. Maybe she’d actually been fighting to keep him here.
He said, ‘If I was away I’d be worried about everyone. This way I know you’re all safe.’
‘That’s true.’
Prabir glanced over his shoulder; his mother was smiling, pleased with his answer, but she still looked uncharacteristically fragile. It made him very uneasy to think that she might need reassurance from him. Ever since she’d gone soppy over Madhusree he’d longed for some kind of power over her, some means of extracting revenge. But this was too much. If an illchosen word could truly hurt her, it was like being handed the power to shut off the sun.
The sign on the wall resembled one of Prabir’s attempts to write with his foot, but the word was recognisable. He said, ‘Well done, Maddy. You wrote “Ilmuwan”.’
‘Mwan,’ Madhusree declared confidently.
‘Ilmuwan.’
‘Ilwan.’
‘No, Il-mu-wan.’
Madhusree screwed her face up, ready to cry.
Prabir said, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll be back in Calcutta soon, and no one speaks Indonesian there. It’s a language you’ll never use again.’
Prabir woke in the middle of the night, his stomach churning. He staggered half awake to the lavatory hut. He’d suffered bouts of diarrhoea ever since they’d started eating home-grown yams, but it had never woken him before.
He sat in the dark, with the door open slightly. There was a faint electrical hum from the treatment tank beside him. It took him no time to empty his bowels, but then he still ached, almost as badly. He was breathing strangely, much faster than usual, but if he tried to slow down that made the pain worse.
He washed his hands, then walked out into the middle of the kampung. The view through the gaps in the trees was like deep space. In Calcutta the stars had seemed tame, almost artificial—drab enough to pass for a half-hearted attempt to supplement the street lighting. Here there was no mistaking them for anything human.
Back in his hammock the pain refused to fade. He didn’t need to vomit, or shit more, but his stomach was knotted with tension, as if he was about to be found out for some crime. But his conscience was no more troubled than usual. He hadn’t teased Madhusree badly, or upset his mother that much. And he’d made up for it to both of them, hadn’t he?
When they’d first arrived on the island, and the unfamiliar sounds had woken him nightly, Prabir had cried out until his father came and rocked him back to sleep. This had gone on for weeks, though for the last few nights he’d been doing it out of habit, not fear. His father had never shouted at him, never complained. In the end, just the knowledge that his father would come if he needed him was enough; Prabir didn’t have to keep testing him in order to feel safe.
But he was too old to cry out for Baba now. He’d have to find another way to calm himself.
Prabir slid off his hammock and walked over to the screen door. The butterfly hut was directly opposite, grey and indistinct in the shadows. He knew the door to the hut would be bolted, to make sure no animals got in, but it wouldn’t be locked. Nothing ever was.
Cool sweat was gathering behind his knees. He moistened his fingers and sniffed them; he was so used to the smell of the mosquito repellent that he could barely detect it any more. But he doubted that anyone in the family found it so pungent that a few drops could incriminate him.
He opened the screen door just enough to slip through, then headed across the kampung, bare feet silent on the well-trodden ground. He was determined to act before he changed his mind. When he reached the butterfly hut, he didn’t hesitate: he slid the bolt open in one smooth motion. But when he began gently pushing the door, the whole fibreglass panel squeaked alarmingly, picking up the vibrations as its bottom edge scraped across the floor. He knew at once how to remedy this—the door to the kitchen made the same kind of noise—but he remained frozen for several heartbeats, listening for a sound from his parents’ hut. Then he steeled himself and flung the door open; the panel flexed enough to gain the necessary clearance, and there was nothing but the sigh of moving air.
Prabir had seen most of the inside of the hut through the windows, by daylight, but he’d never had reason to commit the layout to memory. He stood in the doorway, waiting to see how well his eyes would adapt. Anywhere else it would have barely mattered; he could have marched in blindfolded. ‘This is my island,’ he whispered. ‘You had no right to keep me out.’ Even as he said the words, he knew they were dishonest—he’d never actually resented the fact that the butterfly hut was out of bounds—but having stumbled on the lame excuse, he clung to it.
A patch of floor a metre or so ahead of him was grey with starlight, preceded by what he guessed to be his own shadow, unrecognisably faint and diffuse. The darkness beyond remained impenetrable. Switching on the light would be madness; there were no blinds or shutters for the windows, the whole kampung would be lit up. He might as well wave a torch in his father’s face.