The Death of Vishnu Read online

  She had opened the can and peered at the cheese inside—it was definitely more orange, more rich-looking, than the pale yellow Amul cheese she was used to. She had decided to cut it into cubes and serve it from the can—better not to take any chances with these old goats, who probably couldn’t tell the difference between Kraft and paneer. The taste had been surprisingly disappointing—bland and a little plastic, like something wrapped in cellophane, but without the wrapper taken off. But it was nothing a little hot chutney couldn’t fix. Maybe some spicy roasted peas too, she had thought, and some lentils fried with chili powder—that should zip things up. As she had ground together the green chilies and coriander for the chutney, Mrs. Pathak had wondered how the Americans liked to eat their Kraft cheese.

  The bell rang just as Mrs. Pathak was putting the final touches on her tray. She looked at the cheese all neatly cut into cubes, at the peas and lentils glistening with spices, at the bowl filled with dark green chutney. There were voices from the other room, but Mrs. Pathak would not be hurried—she carefully turned the tin around until the lettering was facing the front of the tray. She was still adjusting the cubes of cheese when Mrs. Mirchandani burst into the room. “Usha, come to the door quickly. The ambulancewalla is here, and your neighbor is demanding you pay him!”

  “VISHNU, WAKE UP!” The words come from far away. He opens his eyes. Kavita is standing over him in the dark. “Wake up! Has Salim come down yet?” Slowly, he remembers. It is the night he fell asleep, waiting for her to come.

  “Not yet, memsahib.”

  “Not yet?” Her brow furrows. “Tell him then I’ll be waiting upstairs. Right near the terrace door this time, even above Mr. Taneja’s landing—last time we almost got caught. And, Vishnu, warn us again, will you, if anyone comes?” Kavita reaches out her hand as if to touch his cheek. But her fingertips stop just before they make contact with his face, and she waves instead.

  Salim descends some minutes later. He is the Jalals’ only child. Vishnu wonders why Kavita has chosen this Muslim boy, why she risks her parents’ wrath to see him. The moon dusts silver on Salim’s hair, and for an instant, Vishnu can imagine himself standing there instead. But then the light catches the boy’s face, uncovering the full brilliance of his youth. Eyes so deep and earnest that Kavita must fling herself a thousand times into them, lips so full, so innocent, she must ache to press their sweetness out into her mouth, skin so fair and radiant, it must feel like life itself under her touch. Vishnu is overcome with humility at the boy’s beauty.

  “She’s up there, at the entrance to the terrace, waiting for you.”

  Salim smiles, and the walls of the landing light up. Vishnu imagines Kavita thinking of that smile all day, waiting for darkness to fall so she can be close to its luminance. He waits until Salim’s footsteps have faded, then throws off his blanket and follows.

  Vishnu ascends the steps leading up from Mr. Taneja’s landing. There is no one at the terrace entrance. A rectangle of light on the floor ushers him through the open door, to the night beyond. He stands just inside the door, his heart racing.

  The terrace is white and empty. A shirt hangs torn from a clothesline, twirling in the night breeze. Antennas guard the perimeter, rising like sentinels from the parapet. Beyond them lies the sea, the whites of waves gliding silently over its surface. The moon looms unnaturally close, like a face pressed flat against a giant window.

  Twice, Vishnu misses the red of Kavita’s blouse. But the third time, he sees a corner, visible between stacks of empty soft drink crates. He crouches and moves noiselessly across the whitewashed surface, into the darkness of the shadows at the far end. From here, he can see the two of them—they are lying between the crates, their bodies tight against each other.

  “See that star,” Salim says, pointing at the sky, “the big one, blinking there? When I carry you away, I’ll follow that star and see where it takes us.”

  Kavita giggles. “That’s not a star, it’s an aeroplane. Don’t think I’ll run away with someone who can’t tell a star from a plane.”

  “All the better to fly you away in,” Salim whispers, putting his head on her shoulder.

  Kavita presses his face into her blouse. Vishnu sees his lips touch her flesh, sees the red of his tongue dart against her breasts. Wet streaks gleam in the moonlight against white skin. Kavita pulls her blouse lower to uncover more of her bosom. Salim’s tongue goes down one breast and up the other, straddling the valley in between, reaching under the cloth to caress the flesh underneath. The streams of wetness merge, in a line of silver that winds its way across her chest and to her throat. Kavita moans and flails, her foot hits a stack of crates and sends it tumbling noisily. Vishnu looks on, unable to break away; he looks on, and feels the moon behind him, looking on too.

  A wave of jealousy seizes him. He imagines pulling Salim off, and hurling him over the parapet. The boy grabs for an antenna to save himself, but it breaks, and plunges over the edge with him. Kavita runs screaming to the wall, and tries to jump over as well. Vishnu catches her skirt, and pulls her down to the ground with it. She is shrieking with grief as he lowers his body over hers. He feels the roundness of her breasts press against him with every scream, feels the firmness of her thighs as he pulls down her dress. He buries his face deep into her neck, and lets the smell of her body overwhelm his senses; he traces his fingers greedily over her skin, and covers her mouth with his long-waiting lips.

  He looks at the couple again. They are lying in each other’s arms, eyes closed, faces dappled by the moon. They seem so peaceful, so at rest, he might walk up to them, and they would not notice. He straightens up from the shadows. The wind seems to have picked up, the waves are sweeping the bay more purposefully now. He thinks he can feel the chill of the approaching winter in the night.

  Vishnu turns around and goes back through the door. He climbs down slowly, one step at a time. A cloud covers the moon, funneling the night down the spiral of stairs. His feet feel the familiar stone of his landing. He sinks to the floor. He sits there surrounded by the darkness, allowing it to fill his universe and push all thought from it.

  WHILE MRS. PATHAK fought Mrs. Asrani, and Mr. Pathak avoided Mr. Asrani’s doom-laden look, the ambulancewalla stood and watched, and silently stiffened with anger.

  “How dare you interrupt my kitty party!” Mrs. Pathak shouted, waving the end of her sari accusingly at Mrs. Asrani. “It was your husband who called the ambulance!” The earrings flashed and swung through the air with the angry bob of her head.

  “Liar!” Mrs. Asrani shouted, launching the word with the full heft and conviction of her bosom. “It was your husband! And don’t think I don’t know what you do with my ghee!”

  “You liar! You thief! All that water you steal—you can take all the baths you want, but you’ll never get rid of the dirt on your face!”

  “Thief, thief! I’ll teach you, you thief!” Mrs. Asrani turned to the kitty party ladies, who had filled up plates and come out to watch the fight. “Hai, all you women, with the dal sticking to your fingers and to your face. It’s fried in stolen ghee, all of it—now how do you like the taste?”

  “No!” Mrs. Jaiswal gasped, quick to draw upon her thespian grounding. She allowed her shocked fingers to release the toxic plate, and watched wide-eyed as it shattered with a satisfying crash, sending lentils bouncing everywhere. Mrs. Mirchandani tried doing the same, but inexpertly toppled her plate inwards instead, depositing cubes of cheese in her sari, some of which she only found (and ate) at home, later.

  Mrs. Pathak lunged at Mrs. Asrani, but was stopped by the ambulancewalla, who positioned himself between the two women. “No more!” he screamed. “How many hours the driver is waiting on the road for you. You don’t have the only sick person in Bombay, you know. Two hundred and thirty-five rupees, right now! Or I’m calling the police. On all of you.” He slapped his palms on his knees for emphasis.

  “On all of us?” Mrs. Jaiswal exclaimed, from behind him. “What rot! We do
n’t even live here! I’ve had enough of this tamasha—come, ladies, let’s go.”

  But the ambulancewalla spread his hands out and blocked the head of the stairs. “First I want my money. Nobody can go until I get my money.”

  Instinctively, Mrs. Jaiswal advanced to challenge him, but Mrs. Mirchandani held her back. “He’s holding us hostage, Sheila!” she gasped. She turned around, her face flushed, and explained the situation sadly to the others: “Mrs. Pathak hasn’t paid him, so he’s holding us all hostage.”

  “Pay him at once, Usha!” Mrs. Jaiswal commanded.

  “I pay him? You pay him, you cheat! Stealing everyone’s money, week after week, stuffing your black purse—you think no one can see? Let’s have a look—all of us, what’s in that purse of yours—what special good-luck charm, for you only, Lakshmi has bestowed—even the ambulancewalla wants to see—” Mrs. Pathak grabbed a strap and tried to snatch the purse out from under Mrs. Jaiswal’s arm, but the strap broke and came loose in her hand. Mrs. Pathak stared at it, bewildered. All the fight seemed to go out of her.

  “How dare you!” Mrs. Jaiswal hissed, as she pulled the strap back out of Mrs. Pathak’s limp hand. “How dare you!” she repeated, and Mrs. Pathak flinched, as if expecting Mrs. Jaiswal to strike her with it. But all Mrs. Jaiswal did was to open her purse and fold the strap into one of the compartments.

  “For your information, I have nothing to hide in my purse,” Mrs. Jaiswal said, and held open the compartment for everyone to see. Mrs. Mirchandani extended a hand to feel inside, but was stopped by a withering look from Mrs. Jaiswal. Mrs. Ganesh was curious about the other compartments, but decided not to say anything.

  “Now can we go?” Mrs. Jaiswal said, and the women nodded in unison. The ambulancewalla started to say again that he wouldn’t let them pass, but sheepishly lowered his arms as Mrs. Jaiswal approached with her entourage.

  “Why won’t anyone pay me?” he moaned, as they filed past him down the steps.

  Mrs. Pathak spotted a piece of cheese that had been flattened under Mrs. Jaiswal’s sandal, and picked it up. She looked at it in her palm, as she would an injured bird that needed nursing back to health. “Pay him,” she said tonelessly to Mr. Pathak, pressing the cheese with her fingers to coax it into a cube.

  “Listen to your wife only, and pay me,” the ambulancewalla chimed in.

  Mr. Pathak looked sternly through his glasses at Mr. Asrani, who started shifting uncomfortably.

  “Actually,” Mr. Asrani mumbled, his face reddening as he stared at his wife’s feet. “Actually, Mr. Pathak asked me to help him call the ambulance.” He looked up to gauge her reaction, then quickly lowered his eyes. “How could I refuse only, he asked me when I was on my way to the temple. So I had to give my name, too.” His voice choked, as if he had just discovered a remnant of biscuit lodged in his throat.

  Wordlessly, Mrs. Asrani went back into her flat. She reemerged moments later, and put some bills and a fifty-paisa coin in the ambulancewalla’s hand. “Here’s our share of the money,” she said, not looking at the Pathaks or her husband.

  Mr. Pathak paid the ambulancewalla the other half. “Now go downstairs and take him away,” he directed authoritatively.

  “I will,” the man said, “but you have to sign this first.” He produced a printed form from his pocket, which Mr. Pathak looked at suspiciously.

  “Well, either you or the lady there—someone has to sign it. Someone has to agree to pay the hospital charges when the patient gets admitted.”

  THE RED HAS returned, it surrounds him again. Behind it, he can hear voices, rising and falling, the color bulging as they try to push through. The red stretches like a balloon, then ruptures, and the voices flow in. Vishnu hears Mrs. Asrani and Mrs. Pathak—they are both very angry.

  Floating above the others, he recognizes the voice of his mother. He tunes everything else out and focuses only on it.

  “We all start as insects,” she is saying, “every one of us. That’s why there are so many more insects than people.” He recognizes these words—it is the tale of the yogi, the yogi-spirit named Jeev, the yogi-spirit born nine hundred and ninety thousand times. A tale stretching all the way from Jeev’s past through all his incarnations in the future.

  “Jeev started from an insect so tiny, it was smaller than a banana seed. Of course, as an insect, he was not a yogi. But even then, some part of him knew there was more to be aspired to than just being an insect.”

  Mrs. Pathak starts screaming at Mrs. Asrani. The story of the yogi’s ascent is in danger of getting lost. He wants to hear his favorite incarnations—the one where Jeev is born as a pig and saves a child, the one where he is a mistreated ox who sets a landlord on fire. “It took the yogi many lives to reach the level of a human,” his mother says, “and he fell back several times to where he started. But finally, he got to the next level—he became human like you and me.”

  This is the part Vishnu likes best. The lives of wealth and indulgence that await Jeev. The feast where each grain of rice is dipped in silver, where the apricots have emeralds as pits. The marriage to the princess of Sonapur, with the procession of the thousand trumpeting elephants.

  “Bit by bit, life by life, Jeev sated his soul with worldly pleasure. And only then, when he had slaked its thirst, and quelled its hunger; only then did his soul allow him to look upwards again. To a place beyond his own needs and his own self, where he could be of service to others.” Vishnu recites the words along with his mother. He is proud he knows the story so well.

  There is a crash, and the sound of more screaming. Noise has been pouring in steadily, cascading down the steps and flooding the landing. Waves of sound lap at his neck. The story starts dissolving, Jeev’s years of service begin to break off, renunciation and enlightenment swirl away. He tries to reel in the thread of his mother’s voice, but it snaps and comes back weightless through the surge of sound.

  All the noise he has borne in his life, every shout, every insult, every curse, is roaring down on him. The pounding of feet on the steps, the crackling of songs from the radio, the squabbling of horns in the street—they are all there, and getting louder every second. Even the chimes of the ghungroos have turned into crashes—Vishnu wonders how such tiny bells can make so much noise.

  He realizes he has to escape this noise. This noise that has tormented him for so long. Born at the moment of his own birth, it has swelled insidiously over the years. This noise that has been the price of every breath he has taken, of every action, every event in his life. This noise that is submerging him, taking over his brain and obliterating his senses. If there is anything to be left of him, he must escape this noise.

  With all his will, Vishnu pushes on the ground. He feels his torso lifting up, feels the floor straighten under his feet. Part of him remains behind, sprawled under the sheet. Ahead rise the stone steps, spiraling into light.

  Noise still surges down. Perhaps, Vishnu thinks, the best way to escape is to descend. He turns around, but cannot see the stairs that have always connected him to the street. The landing is suddenly immense, stretching in all directions into milky darkness.

  A man comes down the stairs. There is a white band around his arm, with a red cross on it. The man doesn’t notice Vishnu, but goes over to the figure stretched under the sheet. Vishnu sees him bend and feel a wrist, then straighten out and shake his head. He tries to follow the man, but loses him somewhere on the landing.

  Vishnu stands before the steps, gauging the monument he must scale. He lifts a foot tentatively, then places it on the first step. The stone feels cold and smooth against his sole. He has not felt anything for some time now—the sensation is surprising, welcome. He presses down the toes, the arch, the heel, so that each part of his foot can feel the surface.

  He wonders what to do next. He pushes down with the other foot, but nothing happens. He tries to recall the mechanics of climbing—is it his ankle he should bend? Then he remembers—he has to lean his weight forward and stra
ighten out his knee.

  Vishnu thrusts his body forward and up. The muscles in his leg flex. His foot relinquishes contact with the landing, it lifts into the air. The spell of gravity is broken, a sensation of buoyancy infuses him. He stands on the first step, and feels he can float up the rest.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MRS. JALAL STOOD on her second-floor balcony, watching the ambulance depart. Must be for Vishnu, she thought, not allowing herself to breathe—perhaps the Pathaks or Asranis downstairs were having him admitted to a hospital. When she was six, Nafeesa had terrified her with stories about the germs released into the air by ambulances, about people inhaling them and dying horrible, twisting deaths. Her sister’s warnings still tightened around her lungs every time she heard the telltale siren. She waited until the van had reached the far intersection before cautiously sniffing a small sample of the air.

  It was Short Ganga who had told her this morning about Vishnu lying unconscious on the landing. Mrs. Jalal had been skeptical at the report—could he again be feigning some illness, as he had done so many times in the past? “The last time that happened, Mr. Jalal revived him with a ten-rupee note,” she told Short Ganga.

  “Not everything can be cured that way, memsahib. Maybe Mr. Jalal can save his ten rupees this time,” Short Ganga said without looking up, and without interrupting her ferocious scrubbing of the iron pot with rope.

  Mrs. Jalal felt her cheeks burn red. She wanted to defend herself, to protest the unfairness of the comment. How many times had Vishnu come to their doorstep with some real or fabricated ailment, and hadn’t they always sent him away with something? Even though he hardly did any errands for them, compared to all the work he did for the Pathaks and the Asranis. And the time he had stolen their car—what about that? They had not even reported him to the police, to get him the thrashing he deserved.