"Go back to your food," Altaf said, sitting himself down on a stool. "You've grown. But still thin as always."

"I tell him he's working too hard and not eating enough. After your father passed away, he's become even skinnier."

"Let me go to sleep now. You two can talk." Placing her hand to the small of her back, she began to rise to her feet. Kamal stood up to give her a hand. She shuffled off to her room.

Kamal was the first to speak. "I heard about your boat over in the next village. Everyone's talking about it."

"Word like that gets around, doesn't it? It's one of a kind, you know." Altaf's eyes brightened as he related the story of how he had built the boat. One day while on a job-related errand at the courthouse, he had made the acquaintance of an Englishman who built boats in south Calcutta. Mr. Wilkins was impressed with Altaf's knowledge of country boats and his curiosity about motorized transport. Altaf had long been fascinated by engines, and from Wilkins he set out to learn everything he could about motorboats. He built his boat on Wilkins's boatyard, and the Englishman taught him how to install the motorcar engine.

Kamal had paused eating. He was staring at Altaf, his mouth open. "This Ingreji sahib, he helped you learn all this?"

"Oh yes, he is a good friend."

"He considers you his friend as well?"

"Oh yes, we've done many things together. He takes me hunting sometimes and I've even eaten dinner with his family." Altaf did not disclose that this had only happened once. "You should see the delicacies they eat. So tasty. This reminds me, I brought some cake from one of Calcutta's finest bakeries."

"I'm happy with what we have here," Kamal replied as he stood up and stepped outside to rinse off his plate.

Altaf felt like he had been slapped. But how could one respond to such a comment? Best to let it go for now, he decided. His body ached, his brain felt drained. He was relieved when Kamal, coming back from outside, declared that he was ready for bed.

He had a long day ahead of him in the morning because he would be going to fetch their sister Shona Bu. She was now living with her husband in the riverport town. Kamal insisted on sleeping on the floor. Altaf was thankful, his bones still sore from the nights he had slept on the hardness of the boat's surface.

Late the next evening, Kamal brought back their sister, accompanied by her infant girl and five-year old son Masoom. The boy was thrilled to see the uncle he had never known and won the battle with his mother to stay at his grandmother's for the entire duration of Altaf's visit.

Kamal joined Altaf for most of the family meals, but otherwise he remained busy on errands. Sometimes he went to assist the laborers working on land the family owned in the next village. Other times he went into town on what he described to Altaf as business trips. He never elaborated and, though he was curious, Altaf was hesitant to pry into his brother's affairs.

One by one, the family came out to look at Altaf's boat. Others also arrived from miles around to admire it. Men who built boats further down the river said he had done a fine job. The children asked for rides. He took Masoom and some of the other children. It was awkward having to pick and choose, but there were simply too many children and his fuel was limited.

More than anything else, he relished the food. Altaf feasted on fresh fish; he ate dried fish, prepared in a sauce or mashed with lots of red pepper. Nothing he'd eaten in Calcutta compared to these meals. The region around the city simply did not have the variety of fish that teemed in the rivers and ponds of eastern Bengal.

Even the weather cooperated. There wasn't much of the sticky heat that sometimes hangs around in October, and the cyclones stayed away. He took long walks every day, seeking the spots familiar to him. By the fishpond he found the guava tree, where he used to perch himself, gnawing on not-quite-ripe fruit while observing kingfishers and storks diving and prodding the water for fish. The grapefruit tree where he had first discovered a bird's nest was no more. It had fallen in a storm, he learnt. Near the primary school, looking as disheveled as ever, the children burst out in joy and relief after their day's lessons were over. Just outside was the open space where he used to fly kites.

Whenever he was among adults, Altaf found himself detached from his body. It was as if his spirit soared into the air and looked down on the villagers below. He could not pin down the source of his unease. During conversations, someone would mention a name and they expected him to know the person. But he'd wrack his brain and fail. One or two times he asked, and it turned out to be someone he had grown up with in childhood. He only ended up feeling foolish. The men spoke of revenue, property disputes, and the greed of the moneylender. The women bemoaned the high price of salt and shortage of cloth. What did Altaf know of such things?

His brother's behavior continued to irk him. It wasn't that Kamal was unfriendly. No, whenever they met, he was respectful. But he seemed to be working hard to avoid spending any time with Altaf. Altaf asked him to come along for a ride in the boat. Kamal agreed, but on the appointed day the sun set and there was no sign of his brother.

In the meantime, Altaf was getting weary of the villagers dropping by. They had concluded that he must be a man of great wealth. Some of them asked for loans. He said he did not have any money to spare. They replied, oh sure, and then pointed at his boat and the brick house.

Even the children, who had looked to him with awe, were turning out to be fickle. Those who had been lucky enough to be invited on boat rides still admired him, but he grew tired of their never-ending questions. The others he had turned away only gave him sullen and resentful looks. One evening as he returned from a walk, someone threw a stone at him from behind a clump of trees.

Altaf could not wait to return to Calcutta.

While nature may have showered Altaf's visit with kindness, two weeks was a long time and this was not a land with that much kindness to spare. Just a few days left to go and something had to go wrong. When he had taken his nephew out for a ride, Altaf discovered that the boat was taking on water. The coat of tar he'd put on just before he left Calcutta had failed to waterproof the hull.

This morning, even before the first crow of the rooster, Altaf was up and out of bed. He had slept lightly. Unwilling to chance that the rains would stay away for his final days, he was determined to grab as many sunny hours as he could get to put a fresh coat of tar on the boat.

His mother was already up preparing steamed pitthas. She asked him to wait and have one. He felt torn, for he really did want the pittha. Often during winter days in the city Altaf found himself craving the sweetness and comfort of those mornings of his childhood when his mother rose early to make these sweets. He promised to take a break and return soon. "Wake Masoom up and have him join you. He'll be glad to help you," he told his mother. After splashing water on his face, he hurried over to the canal bank. Before sundown the day before, he had hired some of the village men to pull the boat out of the water. It now stood propped up with poles dug into the soil. The screw was slightly raised above the ground, the rear of the vessel resting on a platform of sturdy bamboo. The boat teetered slightly off balance and the bamboos strained under the weight of the engine. The hull was dry, and that's all that mattered.

As Altaf approached the boat the strong smell of melting tar reached his nostrils. Shiraj must be up. Coming around the boat, he saw that the boy had started a fire and was heating up the tar. Shiraj was squatting before the fire, stirring the tar with a thick stick. Altaf knew that the boy would have begun to put the tar on by himself, but he had warned him against that. He preferred to do all the major work on the boat by himself.

Seeing the expectant look on the boy's face, Altaf grunted a quick "You've done well." The acrid smell of the hot tar burned away whatever remnant of sleep was still in his head. It may have been alien to the otherwise natural odors of the water's edge--a blend of muddy and fishy smells--but whether it was tar, petrol, or diesel, there was something about those modern industrial odors that smelled sweet to the man who had made the big city his home. Altaf took up a brush and began to apply generous strokes of the black liquid on the wooden hull.

Mahmud Rahman is a Bangladeshi writer who lives in Oakland, California.