The Death of Vishnu (7 page)

Mrs. Jalal looked at the remaining bananas. How many more would she be forced to eat in her life? How many times again would the slime coat her tongue, the ripeness fester in her mouth? Her throat constricted at the injustice of it all. She was tired, so tired, of being the one. The eating, the fasting, the aloneness, the silence. How much longer, how much further, how much more was she supposed to endure? Tears, thick and salty, started flowing down her cheeks.

It wasn’t her fault this was happening. Perhaps she should let it out, tell her story, confide in someone. She had kept everything bottled up for too long. Maybe she would make a trip to her parents’ house this very evening and reveal everything to Nafeesa. Let herself be ashamed no longer.

The door slammed, and Mrs. Jalal heard Salim’s footsteps in the corridor. Quickly, she brushed off the tears with the back of her hand. There was no reason to get Salim involved in any of this—she would not let him find out.

Mrs. Jalal smoothed out her cheeks with her fingertips to capture the last traces of moisture. “Salim dear,” she called out. “Come into the kitchen and have one of these bananas with your mother.”

K
AVITA
A
SRANI SLID
the picture of Salim out from between the pages of the
Eve’s Weekly
she was reading. “Tonight, my sweet,” she said silently, and touched her finger to her lips, then to the picture. “Only a few hours left.”

She had thought about taking some clothes, packing a bag. Now would have been a good time to do it, with both her mother and father on the landing outside, engaged in their weekly fight with the Pathaks. But she had decided against it. She wanted it to be just like it had been for Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh in
Zahreela Insaan
, for Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore in
Daag
. It was going to be a new world, a new life; why should her clothes be old? Besides, she had all the money from her savings account—the clerk had looked at her funny when she had given him the withdrawal slip, but she was eighteen now, and what could they do?

Kavita did not feel guilty about taking the money. After all, her mother had kept telling her over the years that it was for her dowry. While this was perhaps not (
definitely
not) the match her mother could have had in mind, they
were
going to get married, although they had not figured out yet how they would get a priest or mullah to perform the ceremony. Besides, there hadn’t been so much money anyway—her mother should be thankful the family was getting off so cheap. She remembered the huge wedding and reception that Anita’s parents had paid for last year, with the horse and the band and the dinner at Holiday Inn. A momentary wistfulness made her resolve waver, but then the prospect of romance won her over again.

Growing up, Salim had been one of the neighborhood boys, nothing more. She had seen him loitering around with the other teenagers, but had paid little attention to him. One day, the group had been particularly boisterous, and Kavita had complained to her mother about the catcalls and whistles they’d made. Mrs. Asrani had marched upstairs and accused the Jalals of harboring an eve-teaser. Salim’s parents had sent him down to apologize—not to Kavita, but to her mother, who had met him at the door, arms crossed emphatically across her chest. He had stuttered at first, but then expressed such eloquent regret that Mrs. Asrani had melted—she had pulled him to her bosom and declared him to be her own son.

“From now on, Kavita is your sister,” she said, and clasped their hands together. “If we can’t all live in harmony in this building, what hope is there for the nation?”

“Sister,” Salim said, with an expression so angelic that Kavita knew at once he was mocking her. She was going to pull her hand away, but stopped—there was some chemical reaction that had started between them. Electrons were being blown out of their orbits, atoms and molecules rearranged, heat was being generated, and she was suddenly afraid to interrupt. She stood there and felt the blood surge in her fingertips; she looked into his eyes, and saw the hint of green mixed in slyly with the brown, she noted the whiteness of his teeth and the fairness of his skin. She would not be his sister.

Mrs. Asrani’s benevolence evaporated quite rapidly. “What all you keep doing to encourage this Salim character, I don’t know—day after day he buzzes around like a flying cockroach.”

“But he’s my brother. You said so yourself.”

“What brother-wrother? I pat him once on the head, and he becomes your brother? Who am I, the Queen of England?”

“But you said we all have to live in harmony.”

“Yes yes. Everyone in the building has seen your harmony. Even Mrs. Pathak—the nerve of that woman. ‘How broad-minded of you,’ she tells me in the kitchen. ‘He hardly even looks Muslim,’ she says. I felt like slapping her.”

“But it’s not my fault if people think like that.”

“Then whose fault is it? Parading up and down for everyone to see. Well, no more, I say. No more Master Cockroach Jalal. No more meeting him. Get rid of the bamboo, and the flute won’t play.”

“But that’s so unfair.”

“I’ll talk with your father today only. We’ll get your horoscope drawn. It’s time to put henna on your hands, before you blacken your face too much for anyone to marry you.”

Naturally, such proscriptions against seeing Salim charged their trysts with a new and delicious urgency. Whereas before Kavita had been content to just talk and spend time in his company, she now found herself consumed by the need for physical contact. She stroked his face with her fingers to feel the tingling rise up her hand, she brushed her lips against his mouth to experience the rush that raced through her body, she pressed her breasts against his shirt and fantasized about the thick dark hair on his chest rubbing against her uncovered nipples. And every time they met, she let Salim guide her hand closer and closer to places she had not thought about, before she pulled it away.

They began enlisting Vishnu’s help. He had surprised them one day, as they were nuzzling in the dark on the stairs. “Watch out, your mother is coming up with the kerosenewalla,” he had hissed at her, and Salim had just managed to make his getaway. For a while, they met on Vishnu’s landing, bringing him little presents of money or food, for which he sat on the steps and warned them of danger. But it was impossible for him to keep watch both above and below them, so they started using him to communicate meeting places instead. And since they knew he couldn’t read, Salim even sent Kavita a torrid letter or two through him. (The sight of the electrician downstairs reading out the newspaper aloud to a squatting audience that included Vishnu put an end to this.)

Mrs. Asrani, meanwhile, started pursuing the project of getting Kavita married with the zeal of a person whose true goal in life has just been revealed. She called the family astrologer and had Kavita’s chart made (“three children, all boys” the astrologer promised, provided they matched things correctly, but “five girls, dark as coal” if they didn’t watch out for Mars). Missives were sent to relatives far and wide (with the chart airmailed as far as Canada and Singapore) to scour the earth for a suitable match. A matrimonial ad was drafted for the Sunday
Times of India,
but was temporarily shelved when the next twelve Sundays were declared inauspicious by the astrologer.

It was when Mrs. Asrani’s networking started producing results that Kavita realized she would have to leave.

“Mrs. Lalwani called last night,” her mother announced one morning, beaming at everyone as she served them parathas at the breakfast table. “Her sister-in-law’s cousin is an engineer. Just got a job with Voltas. Charts match so well that Mrs. Lalwani said they could have been Radha and Krishna.”

Kavita nibbled at her paratha. She would just pretend not to listen. That always infuriated her mother. “Could I have the chutney?” she asked her father sweetly.

“Makes a good salary. Doesn’t smoke or drink.”

“I’ll bet he’s real ugly—must be, to want a fatso like her,” Kavita’s twelve-year old brother Shyamu snorted. “Mean, too—just what she deserves—someone mean and ugly.”

“Shut up, Shyamu. The parents have a flat in Colaba. Own an Ambassador. He’s the only son, so—”

“Maybe he’ll beat her,” Shyamu said, hopefully.

“How does the boy look?” Mr. Asrani asked.

“Look? Is that the only thing that occurs to you? What is she going to do—lick his good looks when they have nothing to eat?”

“I merely asked—”

“Mrs. Lalwani assures me he has a good height. Besides, he’s an engineer. He must look like an engineer, what else? It’s bad enough that I’m making all the effort—if you don’t want to lift a finger, at least don’t get in the way.”

“She’s barely eighteen. I just don’t see why the hurry.”

“Well, when
will
you see? When your darling takes wing with the flying cockroach upstairs? When we can’t even show our face in public?
Then
will you see?”

“He’s not a cockroach,” Kavita shouted, unable to keep silent. “I’m going to marry him. I’m going to spend my life with him. Don’t call him a cockroach.”

“See? See your daughter’s nine-yard-long tongue? This is how you’ve spoiled her. Day after day she gets more insolent, and I am the one who has to listen to it.”

“All she needs is a good beating,” Shyamu offered.

“If you to try to marry me to someone else, I’ll throw myself in front of a train. Like that girl at Matunga station. I swear.”

“How dare you talk like that. Don’t think that just because you’re eighteen you’re too old to be slapped by your mother.”

“Aruna, leave her alone.”

“Slap her! Slap her!” Shyamu leaned across the table in excitement, overturning his glass and spilling Bournvita across the table. He yelped in surprise as his mother smacked his arm, then his face.

“Always causing trouble. Always. From morning to night, you just can’t sit still.” Slapping Shyamu felt so good that Mrs. Asrani did it again.

“But
she’s
the one.
She’s
the one who deserves it. You never hit her anymore, only me.” Shyamu started sniveling, and this prompted Mrs. Asrani to slap him some more.

“Shut up, I say. And listen, everyone at the table. Mrs. Lalwani has invited us to come and meet the boy on Saturday. At her place. Says its more neutral that way. I’ve set it up for seven. I want everyone on their best behavior. You too, Kavita.” Mrs. Asrani’s voice suddenly took on a conciliatory tone. “He’s a good boy. At least have a look at him. If nothing else, for your poor aging mother and father.”

That was when Kavita decided. She would run away. Elope, they called it—the English word had such a voluptuous feel. All those movies, all those stories. She would be Laila, she would be Heer, she would be Juliet. “If that is what everyone wants, I’ll do it.”

The beam returned to her mother’s face. “I knew you would,” she said, putting her arms around Kavita and kissing her forehead. “Whose daughter are you, after all? Come now, after breakfast, I’ll teach you to cook gulab jamuns so you can take some along on Saturday.”

Originally, Kavita had planned to elope last night. But then curiosity had got the better of her, and she had postponed it a day. She wanted to see if she could pull it off. She wanted Mrs. Lalwani to be impressed. She wanted the poor engineer boy to fall madly for her, and have all his trite engineer dreams crushed when she ran away. She would cook to kill tonight, she would scent the gulab jamuns with the perfume of her own youth, sweeten them with the syrup of her own beauty. They would remember her, all of them—they would have her picture emblazoned on their minds, and pine for her return, but it would be in vain.

Kavita kissed Salim’s photo and opened her purse to put it in. The smell of fresh hundred-rupee bills wafted out. A new life, Kavita thought, inhaling. The fragrance of a new future. She separated a note from the rest. Vishnu had not been well lately. This was for him—she’d leave it under his blanket as they left.

O
N THE FIFTH
step, he pauses. The stairs are curving round. The lower half of his figure has disappeared behind the stone. If he climbs another step, only the head will remain visible.

Vishnu looks at the torso outlined under the sheet. It lies there unmoving, mapping out the space he occupies in the world. He has worked so hard to stake out this space. Every inch his body has grown, every cell it has generated, every hair, every eyelash, has needed space. He has fought to claim it from the outside, gouged it out from the unyielding reserves around. He has guarded it, hoarded it, squeezed his body into its confines. He is loathe to give up this space.

His body, too—how will he leave it behind? It is his agency for experience, his intermediary to the world. This body that has borne him from infancy to manhood. Every imperfection in this body is his, every scar belongs to him—he can remember when it first appeared. He has cared for this body, fed it, cleaned it, nurtured it like a child. These lips that barely encircled his mother’s nipple, this nose that has learnt to pick out Kavita’s fragrance from a dozen others, these eyes that have watched the layers around Padmini’s body peel away. He has tried to fulfill its longings, he has lain it down naked on the ground and felt the sperm surge out of this body.

Is it his perception, or is the stone under his feet beginning to fade? Are his limbs getting weightless, or was he always this light? Are his muscles losing their flex, are his bones turning to air, is his head threatening to float away? He can no longer feel his clothes, nor under them, his skin.

Vishnu mounts the next step. He wills the action, and it is done. There is no push against the ground, no thrust against the air, no activity at all. It is a strange sensation, vaguely unsatisfying.

He rises, and the stone slides across his view like a screen. Now, only his neck and head are visible, now only his face, now only his forehead, now only his hair. He closes his eyes. There he is, lying on the landing, the light cresting around him. He opens his eyes, then closes them again, making the image disappear, then reappear. He keeps them closed. He may have lost his sense of touch, he may have lost the comfort of weight, but he has gained, as well. He can see now, clearer, deeper, than he has ever seen before.