Fishers of Men

Fishers of Men[i]
Hannah Sonnier

The line of white-clad pilgrims wound down the hillside to the edge of the river[i], their low, eerie chant rising up out of the fog. From their perch in the ancient cypress, the boy and girl could just see the small things[ii] they carried: a wilted flower, the stub of a candle, a broken fishing pole. The things they would have to give up to live in the Compound. One by one they reached the last dry step of the ancient staircase, the remainder of which continued on below the green-grey surface of the water. One by one, they cast their objects into the reddening fog of the morning, their ears straining for the muffled splash.
The girl studied their reactions carefully, finding that they varied from initiate to initiate. Some shuffled off dejectedly as soon as their object was out of sight, as though let down by their own sacrifice. Others paused, straining to see their offering after it was swallowed by the fog. One man, immediately after flinging his scratched rosary out across the water, lunged forward to get it back; only the swift arms of the pilgrims behind him prevented him from tumbling into the depths.
The black-robed priests stood restlessly at the edge of the steps next to three white, wooden coffins, clutching their tall spears with ever increasing discomfort. The sun was rising. The rest of the sacrifices would have to wait until tomorrow morning. The spear-carriers kicked the coffins one by one unceremoniously into the green-gray water. They didn’t wait to hear the splash.[iii]
That was the signal. Those who had not yet made their contributions were chased away into the swamp; they would have to wait until the next night. The ones who had made their sacrifice were ushered into a small shed, which contained a smaller set of stairs that wound down into the Compound, below the river and the mountain. The girl shifted nervously, eyeing the boy worriedly; once the door closed, there would be no returning until sunset. If he could stay silent just a moment longer, they would be free.
Another priest, one with the red marks of a nursery attendant[iv], pushed through the now-silent neophytes to whisper lowly to the spear-holder guiding them down to the caverns. The spear-carrier turned and scanned the surrounding swamp land, his eyes flicking among the roots of the towering cypresses. She clutched the boy’s hand more urgently, willing him to remain quiet.
The spear-carrier shook his cloaked head as the last of the shimmering pilgrims vanished into the shed. The red-stripe attempted to argue, but the spear-carrier paid him no heed. Guiding the red-stripe towards the steps, the spear-carrier slammed the heavy steel door shut. The echo reverberated with finality around the awakening swamp, and with it the girl released the breath from her body with a soft whuf.
“We did it, 431!” she whispered, shaking the boy’s cold arm. “We’re out!”
The boy stared at her, grinning madly and beginning to laugh. He chattered something incoherently at her in a loud voice, waving his arms for emphasis and nearly tumbling off the branch. She chuckled nervously and helped him climb down to the soft peat below.
She dropped to the ground behind him, the saturated earth pliant under her bare feet. Boy 431 hobbled away from her and on to the pilgrim’s path, his wet feet leaving shining marks on the pale stone. The girl started after him, pulling cypress needles out of her long braid. “431! Wait for me!”
They went down the steps together and peered at the green-gray water, hoping to catch a glimpse of the bottom. The sun was climbing ever higher, and the fog that ruled the night-time swamp was beginning to burn off. But instead of the bottom, they saw only more and more river.
It was vaster than she had ever imagined; she could never have conceived that the small strip of river where they worshiped was only part of a much greater whole[v]. The opposite bank was just visible over the hurried white caps that flurried down the river now that the wind was beginning to rise. The far side was still shrouded in mist.
She tore her eyes away from the river to find Boy 431 peering at her through his fingers. She rolled her eyes and looked past him across the expanse of the pale stone and into the swamp. Resting low in the peat just beyond the edge of the steps was a gate, covered in bright green vines.
Boy 431 dropped his hands to his sides and glanced behind him to see what she was looking at; discovering the gate, he squealed with delight and bolted for it. She reached out to grab him, but her hand closed on empty air. He was already sniffing at its peeling paint when she caught up with him. He swung it open as she approached, pointing past the rotten wooden posts and into the swamp.
Beyond the gate, a path wove among the ferns and into the dimness of the bog. Cypress knees forced their way up through it and tilted the ancient pavers at odd angles, and the gray mud of the riverbank clung to the sharper edges. It was far older than the Compound and probably the sacrificial steps as well. Boy 431 tugged at her hand and the pair ventured into the steaming swamp.
The path paralleled the flow of the river, passing under the waist-thick arching roots of the more ancient trees. The sun reached its peak in the sky, making the moisture rest heavily in their lungs as they walked and walked. The girl thought many times of resting, of dangling her feet into the green-gray water. But Boy 431 did not even pause to scratch a mosquito bite.
Just before midday, the girl began to notice a distant, constant roar lingering underneath the calls of the birds and the rustling of unnamed creatures of the swamp. As they continued down the path, the roaring grew more and more prominent, the river more and more unsettled. Boy 431 became excited, pointing and squawking at a billowing cloud of mist up ahead.
A waterfall.
They scrambled over the twisting roots to find themselves at the edge of a fifty foot gorge, and the green-gray water careened off the edge and crashed to the rocks below. The vast lake beyond was clear and green, speckled with hundreds of darker flecks the girl could not identify. Boy 431 tugged more urgently at her wrist, leaning over the precipice and gesticulating wildly at a rusted iron ladder that led downwards into the mist. He released her hand and swung his legs over the edge onto the first rung, climbing down with the agility of a gymnast. He paused several rungs down, looking up at her expectantly.
She stared down at the ladder in terror; having lived her entire life below the surface of the earth, she had never been so far above the safety of the ground. Her legs shook as she sat down at the edge and let her bare feet dangle high above the unfriendly rocks below. Boy 431 made an impatient noise and climbed down another rung. She shook her head, her eyes wide in fear.
“I can’t! I’ll fall!” Her palms were sweating now. Boy 431 reached up and tugged her ankle gently. She screamed and rolled back away from the edge. “Don’t! I can’t!”
His head peeked over the cliff, his deep brown eyes staring silently at her. He hauled himself back onto the top of the cliff and put his hand on her shoulder. He muttered something incoherent, then put his back to her and squatted. She stared blankly at him.
“Tet allup!” he said, glancing back at her. He slapped his back. “Tet allup, yall charry fool.” He tugged her arm over his shoulder.
“Carry me[vi]? Then we’ll both die!” she cried, yanking her hand back. She had never heard him speak anything that sounded remotely like words, and his new articulations frightened her more than the rickety ladder. “Why don’t you go by yourself? I’ll wait for you and we can walk back to the shed together.”
Boy 431 shook his head. “No sho clackt. No chet. You first.” He squatted again and struck his back, offering her a ride.
She lay there stunned for a moment. “You…you spoke!” He nodded and slapped his back again, growing agitated. She wobbled to her feet and wrapped her arms around his neck. He stood up; he was taller than she remembered. He swung down onto the ladder and began to descend. She closed her eyes.
There was a small jolt as his feet reached the muddy bottom. He pulled gently at the arms clenched tightly around his neck, and she slowly dropped to the ground. Opening her eyes warily, she surveyed the bottom of the gorge.
Hundreds of tiny objects lay scattered among the rocks or floating on the now calm green waters like so many strange fish. The boy and girl watched a mangled wicker rocking chair float by, followed by a toy airplane and a shattered music box. A stack of water-logged papers, their ink run-together and illegible now, stuck firmly to the side of a large boulder a little ways downstream. A cracked watch, forever reading ten ‘til two[vii], lay next to a diamond wedding ring on the riverbank, waves covering and uncovering them in a constant rhythm.
A tall figure emerged out of the mists of the waterfall, approaching them with an off-balance swagger that did not seem to inhibit his ability to leap from stone to stone. As he came closer, the girl could see that this imbalance was caused by the fact that his left arm was shorn off just above the elbow[viii]. A white bandage was wrapped tightly around it, and he wore long brown pants whose hems dragged in the green water. He carried a large waterproofed bag slung across his body, and it bulged against his thigh as if it were packed to the brim. He wore no shoes, the better for his toes to grip the slippery rocks as he bounded towards them.
“Gabriel[ix]! You’ve returned!” the man exclaimed, enveloping Boy 431 in a one-armed hug. Boy 431 released the girl’s hand to embrace the man.
“I’ve brought someone new,” he replied. The girl flinched at the sound of his voice and stepped back. Boy 431 turned to face her.
“My voice was clouded before; only here do my words have any real meaning,” he said to her with an apologetic look. “Here, my name is Gabriel. This is the Fisherman.”
She was struck immediately by the absurdity of the title; how could a man with one arm reel in a line or haul a net?
“And what is her name?” the Fisherman asked, smiling welcomingly at her.
“Girl 657,” she said.
“Helen[x],” said Gabriel.
The Fisherman opened the flap of his sack and rummaged around for a moment. It was overflowing with small things, still glistening with water. His forehead creased in concern. “I don’t see you in here anywhere.”
“She hasn’t made a sacrifice. She was born in the Compound,[xi]” Gabriel explained. The Fisherman looked at him for a long time with his bottomless brown eyes.
“Brave of you. Many are too well-taught to heed the Saviors.” He clapped his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “I am proud of you.”
They stood like that for a moment, Girl 657 (for she was not this Helen, whatever Gabriel said) feeling increasingly awkward and confused. Gabriel broke eye contact first, and the Fisherman sighed.
“No matter. It’s good that you came when you did, as there are more new travelers to deal with than usual.”
“I know. That’s why we’ve come.”
Gabriel reached for her hand, but she drew back from him. He shrugged nonchalantly, but she could that tell he was hurt. “Come, there are more things to see.”
She followed a little ways back from Gabriel and the Fisherman as they walked towards the waterfall. Gabriel glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder from time to time, checking to make sure she was still there. Her clothes became heavy with humidity as they drew ever closer to the waterfall; finally, Gabriel and the Fisherman stepped into it and disappeared.
She stood at the base of the falls, breathing heavily with fear. Why did she trust these people so implicitly? Just three weeks ago, Gabriel had been Boy 431, found shivering and mindless at the door to the shed. It had only been three weeks since the red-stripes assigned him as her Friend, and only one week since he had made himself understood enough to express that he wanted to go exploring. She had trusted him when his words made no sense, treated him like a little brother. Now that he was coherent, she was unwilling to follow him any farther.
A hand shot out of the thundering water, startling her. It was Gabriel’s hand, the same hand that had covered his eyes in peek-a-boo, the same that had guided her through the path in the swamp. Slowly, she held her breath and took it.
It dragged her under the roaring water, which pounded down upon her with the force of a falling mountain. The sound was deafening, erupting in her brain and running circles around her body. It drove the air from her lungs and forced her to her knees, pummeling her again and again until fireworks exploded behind her eyes and she tumbled forward.[xii]
And just as suddenly it was over. She lay there coughing and soaked in the cavern behind the falls, with a dripping Gabriel still holding her hand. He smiled down at her.
“You made it,” he said, lifting her gently to her feet. The Fisherman stood silently at a distance, next to three white, wooden coffins. The pair hobbled toward them, the girl leaning heavily on Gabriel’s shoulder.
The Fisherman had lit a lantern that illuminated the entire chamber with its yellow glow. Hundreds of niches lined the walls, and inside of each there was a small thing that reflected the flickering lamp light. The Fisherman gestured toward the coffins with the lantern. “Pick one. Today we will divide the joy equally.” She couldn’t tell if he was being ironic.
Gabriel pointed to the center coffin; part of the lid had been broken off in its trip down the falls, and a matted web of black hair was seeping out. The Fisherman nodded, and Gabriel steadied the girl and walked solemnly towards the shelves.
The Fisherman looked at the girl expectantly. She chose one of the remaining two at random, pointing to the coffin that was smaller than the others. The Fisherman nodded.
“Go, now, and find his treasure.”
Gabriel was already returning with his choice: a long thin violin bow, its string snapped and flopping. He approached his chosen coffin and threaded it through the hole, dropping it so that it made a small thunk as it reached bottom.
She looked up and down the wall nervously. How would she know if she chose the right thing? What if she gave back the wrong one?
“You won’t.” The Fisherman stood behind her, his eyes scanning the pitted wall.
Taking a deep breath she plunged her hand into the niche in front of her and closed her hand around the object inside. A key. She studied it for a moment, then put it back. No. She reached into the next one. The handle of a tea cup. No.
The rest of the afternoon proceeded mostly thus, though she did not notice the passage of time. Finally, she reached into a crevice at the bottom of the wall, and her hand closed around a jam jar[xiii].
She pulled it out. Inside of it, there was a tiny spider clinging to his web, unmoving[xiv]. Holes had been punched in the top in an effort to give him air, and bugs far too large for him lay scattered and shriveled on the sticky surface of the web. As she brushed the dust from the glass he tumbled off and lay upside-down at the bottom, clearly dead.
This was it, she could tell. This is what belonged in the smallest coffin. She held it up for the Fisherman to see. He nodded.
She returned to the coffins and cracked open the lid just enough for her to slip the jar inside. She let it fall shut and the echo reverberated with finality around the cave. With it the girl released the breath from her body with a soft whuf.
They carried the coffins to the river side and lowered them back into the water, where they floated along the calm green surface until they vanished into the sunset distance. The Dreamers and their Dreams were reunited at last; a little bruised and broken, never quite whole[xv]. The boy and girl stood with the Fisherman at the edge of stream, watching them in silence.
“We have to go back,” Gabriel said quietly, wrapping her wet curls around his finger. “We have to tell the others, to show them what happens at the end.”[xvi]
“I know.” She looked back at the rusted iron ladder with a sigh. She reached into the water and pulled out a shimmering green marble and twirled it in her fingers. Just this morning, she had been a quiet, conforming member of the Compound. Now she was a Reuniter-of-Souls, a Torch-Bearer, a Fisher-of-Men. She had been chosen to receive the Light. She let the marble fall to rest in the hollow of her fingers.
The world in the palm of her hand.
Girl 657 wasn’t worthy. But Helen might be. One can never be sure. Anything ca
[i] In almost every mythology or religion, water is considered to be life-giving and beneficial. Rivers often represent the passage of time, since their flow is only in one direction and cannot be reversed. In Ayemenem, the condition of the river mirrors the condition of the community itself, specifically the Ipe family. During Estha and Rahel’s childhood, the river is high and full of fish; after the family is ravaged by Sophie Mol’s death and all of the events that precipitate from that event, the river becomes dirty and thin. Here, the pilgrim’s toss their small things (see Note 3) into the “river” of time to satisfy the requirements of the Compound.
[ii] At the very end of the novel, Arundhati Roy offers her audience a final description of the “small things,” defining them as the seemingly insignificant items, events, and actions that represent concepts so big and so terrible that people cannot bear to speak of them plainly. “Even later, on the thirteen nights that followed this one, instinctively they stuck to the Small Things. The Big Things ever lurked inside.” For Velutha and Ammu, for example, the spider Chappu Thamburan represented “their Love, their Madness, their Infinnate[sic] Joy.” His frailty was representative of their own rocky situation. Similarly, the small things sacrificed by the pilgrims represent much wider beliefs and freedoms that we must let go of in order to conform to society (i.e. the Compound).
[iii] These priests represent those who perpetuate the ideas of society because they are so indoctrinated with its laws that they no longer question it. They are the shadow-makers in Plato’s Cave Allegory, or the nightmares in Jarrell’s “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”; they confine and limit humanity by keeping them aware of only the official version of reality.
[iv]Unfortunately, those who nurture us often perpetuate the “unspoken” laws of society as well. People like Mammachi and Vellya Paapen, so indoctrinated with the expectations of the world that they no longer object to the their own oppression, serve as strong reminders of how society “should be,”and why. Though perhaps genuinely concerned for the children they raise, simply by allowing themselves to be suppressed and humiliated sets an example for those that learn from them.
[v] Chacko uses the “Earth Woman” to give Estha and Rahel “historical perspective.” Essentially what he is saying is that time is so vast and unmentionably huge that an individual human life makes very little difference to the universe. “’And we, my dears, everything we are and ever will be are just a twinkle in her eye,’…” (Roy 53) Likewise, the river they have been taught to worship is only a miniscule part of the river. Until now, the fog had obscured the true nature of the world around them, but the sun burned off the fog and revealed its reality.
[vi] The famous Christian devotion “Footprints In the Sand” concludes with the line “"My son, my precious child, /I love you and I would never leave you. / During your times of trial and suffering, / when you see only one set of footprints, /it was then that I carried you." Mary Stevenson, the author of the poem, is suggesting that one’s toughest trials cannot be endured alone; whether it is the Christian God, a lover, or a sibling, the greatest pain will overwhelm us if we do not have someone to hold our head above the waves.
[vii] By giving her character a watch that does not function, Roy is making a comment on the fallacy of humanity’s concept of time. Hours and minutes are simply measurements invented by Man to keep his mind from exploding at the utterly huge concept of infinity. As Douglas Adams would say, “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” Same goes for time.
[viii] It cannot be said that life does not require some sacrifices. While the Compound, which here represents the constraints of society, requires that dreams and aspirations be tailored to the societal ideals. On the other hand, the Fisherman appears to have paid a large physical price for his knowledge of the world. In Nordic mythology, Odin plucked out his eye as a sacrifice in order to drink from Mirmir’s Well, the source of all wisdom.
[ix] Gabriel, one of the archangels of the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faiths, is the messenger of God. He is the entity that gave Mohammad the Koran and brought Mary the news of her conception of Christ. The name literally translates to “God is my strength.”
[x] Helen literally translated from Greek means “Light.”
[xi] As in Jarrell’s “Ball Turret Gunner,” the girl had no voice in her commitment to the Compound, since her parents presumably made that choice for her. She remains within Plato’s realm of thought, too, however, since she chose to leave her oppressive situation instead of coming into conflict with that which nurtured her.
[xii] The act of stepping into under the waterfall has the same significance as stepping out of the Cave; though it may come close to destroying the physical body, by taking that hand and walking out of the darkness, one can come to a greater understanding of herself and the world around her.
[xiii] In The God of Small Things, Mammachi’s jam business is very much representative of the freedom she has created for herself, despite her husband’s efforts to keep her in check.
[xiv] Conversely, the jar traditionally signifies closure and entrapment. In this case, the prison bars were love; like Chappu Thamburan, this spider was a representative of something much bigger than itself. The previous owner did all he could to keep it alive and well, but in the end that dream went into the river.
[xv] It is the unfortunate truth that, once lost, something of great value will never have the same meaning again. This concept is clearly embodied in the separation of Estha and Rahel, and even their deep love for each other doesn’t bring back the oneness they had before.
[xvi] The truly awakened, after exiting the Cave, know that they must go back and save the others.