Chapter 5 — The Guide

"The temple is not a temple," Haripada said. "It is the oldest thing in the Sundarbans. Older than the name of the forest. Older than the rivers that made the delta. The forest grew around it." He was looking at none of us specifically. "It is not dedicated to a god. It is itself a thing that is worshipped, sometimes, by those who have no other choice. The fishermen who are lost. The moule who go too deep into the forest alone." He paused. "These people do not come to it for blessings. They come to it because it is there and they have entered its territory and the choosing is already over.""The offering," Priti said. "What does it take?"Haripada looked at her for a long moment."Different things from different people," he said. "What you have most of. What you can afford the least to lose." He looked at his hands. "I know a man who went in as a young fisherman, headstrong, brave. He came out. He is still alive." He paused. "He has not been afraid of anything since. Nothing. He held his hand in a fire once in front of his children to show them he was not afraid. He could not understand why they were crying."Priti's account. The grandfather who couldn't feel pain."Can it be refused?" I said. "The offering."Haripada looked at me with the expression of a person for whom the question revealed something significant about the asker."You can refuse to give it," he said. "The temple cannot be refused. You have come to it — it takes." He looked at the boat. "The difference between giving and being taken from is what remains of you afterward.""Why are you helping us?" Rohan said. He had been quiet through all of this, the camera low at his side, not filming yet. He asked it with the directness of someone who had been thinking it for ten minutes. "If you know all this. Why help us go there?"Haripada looked at him."Because you will go whether I help or not," he said. "I have seen your kind before. The ones with cameras. The ones who wrote in notebooks." He gestured toward the river. "They went. Some came back. Some—" He shook his head. "If I go with you, there is a chance I can bring you out. If I don't go, there is less chance." He looked at Rohan steadily. "I am not helping you. I am reducing the harm."Rohan looked at him."That's honest," Rohan said."Yes," Haripada said.