What Happens in an Abandoned Oil Rig in the North Sea? A New Novel Explores

Two thin arms reached out to grip the bars, and a face appeared. It was, or had been until recently, a human face.

(The following is an excerpt from Award-winning Indian novelist, poet and journalist Tabish Khair's ‘The Body By The Shore', published with permission from Harper Collins Publishers India. Tabish teaches in a university in Denmark, and also writes a column, Khairiyat, for the Quint. 'The Body By The Shore' is set to hit stores this week. The sub-headings are not a part of the original text, and have been added by The Quint.)

Everything went according to plan. I let him sleep for half an hour and then shook him. Kurt, I said, Kurt. Sweet Kurt. He murmured, turned over and kept sleeping. I waited for another five minutes. I also left a note I had already prepared by the bedside, informing Kurt that I could not sleep and had gone for a walk in the upper deck (the lower decks were locked and forbidden), something I did often enough during the daytime. That, I hoped, would give me an excuse if things went wrong. Then I tiptoed out of our room and down the luxury corridor—some of the rooms were occupied—and into the room, I had begun to think of as my access room. I had to move noiselessly, but rigs do not have wooden floors, and it was quite easy.

I locked the door behind me, put on the kitchen overall I kept in that room—there could be traces of dust and soot in some parts of the air ducts, especially above the galleys, which I would have to cross. Then I lowered myself into the air ducts. I had to move more cautiously this time. The slightest noise could be heard, if I was above a room occupied by one of the men. Noise carries at night. Mr Watch was luckily not with us that night; he had flown away on one of his regular trips to wherever. I did not even take the torch or a knife with me, as I was afraid of them clinking against something as I crawled. I proceeded very slowly. It took me about five minutes longer to reach the part where the secret section began. I saw it from a distance: bright ribbons of light were pouring through the ventilation slits in that part.

What Happens in an Abandoned Oil Rig in the North Sea?

They left many parts of the rig lit during the light, all of it powered by the powerful generators whose hum matched the sound of the waves on still nights. I knew they left the secret chamber lit too, but I had no idea it was so strongly illuminated. It was as if all the lights were switched on in the section. This solved one of my problems: I had not been certain how much I would be able to see.

It took me some peering through the slits before I got an idea of the room below. But it was clear right from the start that this room—hall would be a better word—was different from anything else on the rig. How can I describe it, Maman? What it reminded me of most was a hospital operating theatre, perhaps because there were two shiny metal tables—exactly like operating tables—in one part of it. There were lots of monitors in the room, things with lights and electronic screens, with strange gadgets and tube-arms attached to some of them. There was a kind of glass cabinet, about man-size, made totally of glass or some other transparent medium, with tubes attached to it, all of them hanging free, and wires that led to some of the computers.

Mystery Deepens Around Empty Rooms Aka Cages

I had never seen a room so chockfull of scientific equipment. But that was it. There was no one in the hall. No human being—and definitely no animal. Where had that sound of an animal in pain come from?

Then I saw it. I had taken it for shadows thrown on the wall, distorted by the slits through which I was peering into the garishly lit room. I could see it only from one of the ventilation panels because it was on one side of the room. What I had confused with the ventilation slits or shadows were metal bars. Actual bars.

Animals or Humans Held Hostages?

There were three doors with bars on that side of the hall. Each door was about four feet in height, and it must have been especially installed because there were no other such small doors—like that of a cage—anywhere else on the rig. What was contained in those barred rooms—or cages—was mostly in shadow. The light from the hall did not carry beyond the first three feet or so, from where I was perched, where it drew a pattern of bars on the floors of the cages. There was something disturbing about them. I felt a grievous sense of wrong, even anger. It reminded me of how you could never bear to see a bird in a cage, Maman.

I concentrated on the three cages. Slowly, I felt convinced that at least one of them contained movement. It was the middle one. I kept looking. There was something in that cage. An animal. A large animal, something like a chimpanzee. I was convinced of it. I lay down flat on my belly, rested my chin on my hands, and kept watch. I must have spent at least one hour, I told myself. That meant that I still had about an hour. Maybe two. I watched.

Nothing happened. The lighted hall exhaled emptiness. The seconds ticked away; the minutes started to stretch. I struggled against drowsiness. Just when I was about to crawl back, there was a sudden movement in another of the cages, one of the two I had considered empty. Two thin arms reached out to grip the bars, and a face appeared behind them. I almost cried out in fear. It was a devastated face, a face torn by disease and pain. But it was not the face of an animal, not just any animal. It was, or it had been until recently, a human face.