The Death of Vishnu (5 page)

M
RS. JAISWAL WAS
cheating again, and as usual there was nothing Mrs. Pathak could do about it. Not unless she was prepared to be banished from the kitty party circle, like poor Mrs. Bawa had been. The scene was still fresh in her memory—the last time anyone had ever seen the hapless Mrs. Bawa, who had not even directly accused Mrs. Jaiswal, just said, “You seem to be getting too too too many good cards today.”

It had been the three “toos” that had done her in—Mrs. Bawa could not have made a bolder statement had she pulled three aces from Mrs. Jaiswal’s breast and flung them in her face.

“Are you suggesting I am getting these too too too good cards not by my own good luck?”

The chill had been so palpable that the women in the room had hugged their saris tight around their shoulders. Even Mrs. Mirchandani had felt it in the kitchen and rushed back to catch every word.

Perhaps if Mrs. Bawa had been keen enough to perceive the danger she was in, and skillful enough to pretend she’d just been joking, she might have escaped. But she interpreted the silence as encouragement to blunder on. “So much luck you have—last week too your three-three queens to my ninetenjack—it must be something you eat, to get this rosy rosy luck every time.” She laughed nervously and looked around the room for support, but no one would meet her eye.

“Never so-so much luck for one person only, never have I seen that.” Mrs. Bawa laughed again, more nervously this time.

“You haven’t been playing very long then,” Mrs. Jaiswal said, and everyone in the room, except Mrs. Bawa, knew what the words foreboded for Mrs. Bawa’s cardplaying future. For Mrs. Jaiswal controlled all the top kitty parties in town, and no one who wanted to keep playing dared challenge her.

Poor Mrs. Bawa, Mrs. Pathak thought, she had been so distraught on the phone. “The exact amount that I put into the kitty!” Mrs. Bawa had wailed. “It came in a letter, today only! And now Mrs. Dosh won’t let me play in her group either, says her sister has moved into town, and she has to give my place to her.”

Mrs. Pathak had clucked sympathetically. She bit her tongue now, as Mrs. Jaiswal plucked the two-rupee notes, several of which had been lying in front of Mrs. Pathak a few minutes ago, from the sheet spread out on the floor. “I was so sure I was going to lose, too—Mrs. Pathak gets such big-big cards, and I only had a small little sequence.”

The last of the notes disappeared into Mrs. Jaiswal’s big black purse, the one that always lay by her side, the one that Mrs. Pathak was convinced held the secret to her unnaturally good luck. She watched as Mrs. Jaiswal tucked the purse under the folds of her sari, and fantasized again about pulling it out and emptying its incriminating contents over the sheet.

The kitty party had been a disaster from the start. The ambulance that Mr. Pathak said Mr. Asrani had called had not shown up. At one-thirty, only an hour before the guests were to arrive, Mrs. Pathak had sent frantically for the jamadarni, to have the mess around Vishnu cleaned up. The jamadarni had demanded—Mrs. Pathak still couldn’t believe it—thirty rupees! Thirty! The cheek of that woman, taking advantage of her when she was helpless! It had taken all Mrs. Pathak’s bargaining power to bring it down to twenty, with the Russian-salad samosas thrown in. (Mrs. Pathak had tried impressing upon the jamadarni that the mayonnaise alone had cost five rupees, but unfortunately, the jamadarni had not known what mayonnaise was.)

After the cleaning had been done, there had been barely enough time to dress up for Mrs. Jaiswal. She had been unable to locate the pearl earrings that went with her necklace, and had been forced to put on a green pair that didn’t match. (“What delightful earrings Mrs. Pathak is wearing,” Mrs. Jaiswal had remarked loudly between hands. “They must be her lucky pair, that must be why she has them on with that white necklace.”) Minutes before the first guests arrived, Mrs. Pathak had remembered Vishnu again, and pulled out an old sheet which she’d been saving to give the jamadarni at Divali (but certainly not
now
). She’d sent Mr. Pathak down to the landing with it to cover Vishnu up as best as he could. “Make it look natural!” she’d shouted after Mr. Pathak. “I want people to think he’s asleep, not something else.”

But it hadn’t worked. The first thing Mrs. Jaiswal had said upon walking in was, “If I’d known I’d see a dead man on your stairs, I would never have come! On a Saturday, no less! How inauspicious!”

“Oh, that’s Vishnu. He’s just drunk. As usual—we really can’t do anything with him.”

“Drunk? You have drunk people on your steps? What kind of building have you brought us to here, that there are drunk people on the steps?”

“He’s perfectly harmless,” Mrs. Pathak had tried saying, but Mrs. Mirchandani had started complaining that Vishnu had lurched towards her as she’d walked past, and Mrs. Ganesh had declared that he had grabbed her foot, and it had only been the sight of the kitty pouch, hurriedly brought out and dangled in front of the women by Mrs. Pathak, that had quieted them down.

It had surely been a sign of terrible displeasure that Mrs. Jaiswal had not asked the hostess, as was the custom, to draw the week’s winner, but had assigned the task to Mrs. Mirchandani instead. And now, here was Mrs. Mirchandani, fawning over Mrs. Jaiswal as usual, begging her to repeat the story about how she had come to Bombay on her honeymoon, and been discovered by a film producer, and acted in three films. “Tell us again, Sheila, wasn’t one a silver jubilee?”

“
Two
of them, actually. And
Haseena
would’ve been a golden jubilee, ask anyone, if only the freedom movement hadn’t gained force.”

Mrs. Jaiswal played with the streaks of henna painted in her beauty-salon-coiffed hair and adjusted the diamond pin in her nose. “They said that if I’d continued, I’d have been the next Meena Kumari.” Mrs. Pathak resisted the temptation to remark that at least Meena Kumari had been dead and gone for some years now.

A sudden tickle started up in Mrs. Pathak’s right palm. She tried to ignore it, since it was a bad sign, portending more loss of money. While she was growing up, her mother had always called her “the lucky one,” the one destined to be married into riches, a bungalow and car. Instead, here she was at forty-three, with two children (one of them first-year fail at Somani College), living in a two-room flat with not even her own kitchen, trying to impress this woman with orange streaks in her hair, who still believed herself to be a film star. The earrings dangled greenly at Mrs. Pathak’s earlobes, the itch in her palm seemed to get worse, but still she refrained from scratching it.

Since they had come to Bombay, she had strived to claim her place in the circles her mother had promised her. It had taken work to get this far—she had learned to cultivate and flatter, to aggrandize her family’s status and her husband’s position, and to gamble away a few hundred rupees she could ill afford to lose. Now that she was recognized in the kitty party circle as one of the women eligible to be a hostess, what was the next step? Start her own kitty party? Try to wrest control of this one? Mrs. Pathak looked at Mrs. Jaiswal displaying the gold-and-blue silk border of her sari to the women around and scratched her palm distractedly. She would never be as rich and powerful (or even as coordinated) as Mrs. Jaiswal, she could never
become
her, so what was the use?

But this was no time for self-pity. There
was
one thing she could do, one thing she
would
do—and that was to make mincemeat of Mrs. Jaiswal’s “tocos” from last week. She went into the adjacent room to assemble her tray. After the disintegration of the samosas, she had gone straight to the steel bedroom cupboard, the one where she kept all the valuables she owned. Rummaging under the pile of her Benarasi saris, her fingers had closed around the metal cylinder. She had pulled it out and looked at it—“Kraft” it said, in letters so proudly red and yellow against the bright blue curve of the tin that they practically screamed “Imported,” practically screamed “American.” (In fact, weren’t red and blue the colors of the American flag?) She had been saving it ever since her cousin had brought it for her from his trip abroad—if ever there was a time to use it, it was now.

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!”

“V
ISHNU, 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.