by Manil Suri
“I am Vishnu,” he says, “keeper of the universe, keeper of the sun. There is only darkness without me.”
CHAPTER TWO
MR. PATHAK PAID the hotelwalla for his package of Gluco biscuits and returned to his table, where his cup of tea was waiting for him. There was a newspaper lying on the table as well, but it was in Gujarati, and he could not read it. He had thought of bringing the Times along, but he had not been ready to go back and tell his wife about his failure with the Asranis just yet.
He tore open the wax paper and took out a biscuit, then dipped it halfway into the tea, and bit the wet part off. The warm biscuit melted over his tongue, releasing its intensely sweet Gluco and tea flavors. This was what he liked most about Irani hotels—sitting at a white marble-top table on one of the black cane chairs, staring at the quotes from holy books painted in Urdu on the mirrored walls, hearing the orders being called out by the busboys, letting the tea-soaked Gluco biscuits dissolve one by one in his mouth. It was a shame so many of them were closing down. Just last month, the one down the street had been converted into a clothes boutique (the fifth boutique on their street), while there was talk of this one being sold to make way for a video store. Mr. Pathak stared at the yellowed ceiling through the slowly revolving overhead fans, and wondered how many more times he had left, to escape to this private haven.
A red double-decker bus roared by the open doors of the hotel, and Mr. Pathak smelled the hot dust churned up in its wake. There was so much noise everywhere and things these days seemed to move so fast. All Mr. Pathak ever wanted was peace, and it seemed as if he spent all his free time trying to find it. Even when he thought he had found it, like this morning, there was always something that caused it to be short-lived.
It was not his fault that Mrs. Asrani was so unreasonable. It was not his fault that Vishnu was sick. It was certainly not his fault that Usha had arranged the kitty party for today. Nothing was his fault, yet he knew he would be blamed for everything. A wave of self-pity swept over Mr. Pathak, and the Gluco turned chalky in his mouth.
Already, he could see his wife’s face narrowing with anger, lips flaring around a stream of cruel words, eyes darkening with derision—He had failed her again. He would slink back to his chair after his chastisement and stare at his newspaper. The words would dissolve meaninglessly on the page as he planned his revenge—little acts of rebellion, tiny nips of retaliation, administered in carefully camouflaged ways, that helped balance things out in his mind. There would be ample opportunity today, what with Usha’s impending kitty party. He would sit at the dining table instead of in his chair to read his newspaper, serene in the knowledge that his presence in the middle of all his wife’s preparations would drive her crazy. She would bustle around him in increasingly frenetic circles, trying to dislodge him with dirty looks and inaudible mutterings, but he would feign obliviousness while secretly savoring her every move. She would have to finally break down, of course, and tell him to move, at which point he would do so with much reluctance, pulling out that expression of long-suffering, injured misery that he knew she hated so much. And when the friends arrived and were all assembled at the table, he would shuffle into the room, unshaven and in a torn kurta perhaps, to ask after the women’s husbands, or to generally hover around, until he was certain his wife’s embarrassment was complete, and no more could be squeezed out.
The thought of getting even brightened Mr. Pathak’s mood somewhat, but also enervated him. Revenge took too much out of him, it was exhausting to plan and draining to execute. He would much rather have the ambulance pick Vishnu up, so that he didn’t have to deal with this issue. Perhaps he should call one and pay the money himself—Usha need never know.
Or perhaps he could call for it, but give Mr. Asrani’s name instead. Mr. Pathak adjusted his glasses, as if he had just spotted a new and particularly interesting inscription on the wall. Wouldn’t that be a surprise! The corners of his mouth curled up devilishly as he inserted a whole Gluco biscuit between his lips. Or better still, Mrs. Asrani’s name. That would be a riot! Excited, Mr. Pathak crammed the last two biscuits into his mouth as well, and began to chew on them vigorously. He imagined the look on Mrs. Asrani’s face when the ambulance driver presented her with the bill, and his lips twisted into a smile. Her eyes bulging like someone being throttled, her mouth opening and closing silently like that of a fish, no sound emerging from it for once, what a sight it would be! Mr. Pathak began to laugh. Bits of Gluco biscuit flew from his mouth, and the imam at the facing table stroked his white beard worriedly and looked away. Then a few of the crumbs flew down Mr. Pathak’s windpipe, Mr. Pathak’s eyes bulged somewhat themselves behind his glasses, and he was beset by a violent coughing fit.
The coughing subsided, and with it went Mr. Pathak’s planned deception. It was too dangerous. He wished Mr. Asrani and he had been better friends, so they could have somehow, secretly, resolved this matter without their wives knowing. When they had first moved into the flat, Usha had invited Mrs. Asrani to a few of her kitty parties. Mr. Asrani and he had talked politics every time they met, and the four of them had even gone to a movie together once—Main Chup Rahoongi, Mr. Pathak suddenly remembered. And when Kavita, just a baby then, started crying in the darkened theater, his wife accompanied Mrs. Asrani to the lobby and waited with her until the crying stopped.
Of course, all that was gone forever now, the kitchen had taken care of that. Any friendliness shown to Mr. Asrani (or worse, Mrs. Asrani) was interpreted as treason by Usha, who was constantly vigilant to prevent things from going too far. Both Mr. Asrani and he had been trained not to linger in the kitchen together, and to exchange only the most cursory of pleasantries when they met. Perhaps it was time to break this silence, Mr. Pathak thought, time to become allies. If nothing else, they could at least settle the problem of Vishnu.
Mr. Pathak drank the last of his tea and used his finger to scoop up the dissolved biscuit pieces from the bottom of the cup. Mr. Asrani, he knew, took the 81 bus every Saturday morning—he had often wondered where his neighbor went. He should be passing by soon on his way to the bus stop. Licking the last of the biscuit mush from his fingers, Mr. Pathak sat back in his chair to wait.
SATURDAYS WERE A day of atonement for Mr. Asrani. He would “make the rounds” as he put it, to ask forgiveness for all his sins over the week. Primarily, he supposed, for all the time he spent at the drinkwalla. He would first take the 81 to Mahim, and pay his respects at the big Ram Mandir temple there. Next, he would stop at the Prabhadevi temple, and the Mahalakshmi temple, and sometimes at the small shrine to Hanuman along the way as well. After finishing with the Hindu temples, he would take the bus all the way to the masjid near Metro, and offer his prayers there, covering his scalp with his handkerchief like the Muslim mosque-goers. On the way back, if nobody he knew was watching, he would make one final dash into the Catholic church across the street. Mr. Asrani believed in not taking any chances where appeasement of the heavenly powers was concerned.
Today he felt a special urgency to get to the safety of the temple. It was bad enough that this was amavas, the dreaded monthly event of no moon. Now, to complicate things further, Vishnu lay dying on their steps. Mr. Asrani shook his head at this awe-inspiring compounding of inauspiciousness.
The stench on the way down the steps was terrible. Mr. Asrani stopped to look at Vishnu and wondered whether to touch him.
“Vishnu?” he called. “Are you alive?” Then he realized how absurd his question sounded, and looked around, but nobody else was there. A bubble of saliva grew at Vishnu’s mouth, and Mr. Asrani thought he saw it expand and contract. He decided, finally, not to touch him, partly because of the smell, but more because of an irrational fear that Vishnu would spring to life on contact. Holding his handkerchief to his nose, Mr. Asrani skirted around Vishnu and continued down the steps.
At the door leading to the street, he paused. He hated venturing out on amavas. He wished someone would invent an umbrella that woul
d ward off the rays of misfortune he could feel raining down upon him on such days. His baldness made him feel extra-vulnerable—he could not even count on a layer of hair to protect him. Had it not been a Saturday, Mr. Asrani would have tried to remain ensconced in the protection of the house. But staying in today and missing his weekly round might be even more dangerous. Pulling up his collar around his neck, as if he were preparing to ward off some great chill, Mr. Asrani stepped through the doorway and exposed his body to the insalubrity of the day outside.
“Asrani sahib!” He had been walking toward the bus stop, keeping a wary eye on the cars passing by, to make sure they did not mount the pavement and kill him, when he heard the voice. It was a thin bespectacled man beckoning to him from the Irani hotel. “Why don’t you come in, join me for a cup of tea?”
“Pathak sahib, it’s you.” The surprise showed in his voice. “I’d love to, but I have to catch the bus.” What could Mr. Pathak want? On amavas, no less!
“Yes, yes, I know, the 81. Well, you might as well rest a little, two of them just went by, completely empty, it’s going to be a while.” Mr. Pathak beckoned to the hotelwalla. “Two more teas please. And a packet of your special cream-filled biscuits.”
Warning signals were flashing in Mr. Asrani’s head as he entered the hotel and sat down, and a cup of tea was placed steaming before him. They grew stronger as Mr. Pathak pushed the cream biscuits toward him, but subsided somewhat as the crunch of the biscuit was followed by the oozing sensation of raspberry filling against his tongue. Although Mrs. Asrani often sent him downstairs to purchase cream biscuits, they were always for the children, and he rarely risked his wife’s disapproval by reaching for them himself. It had been so long since he had tasted the raspberry ones—though his favorite had always been orange. What happy memories it brought back of all the different flavors with which his mother would ply him every evening after school.
“About this morning…” Mr. Pathak began, and Mr. Asrani looked up in alarm from the biscuit he had split open to lick the cream out. How could he have forgotten the scene with Mr. Pathak and Aruna so completely? He quickly tried to mend the two halves together, but it was too late. The taste of cream was already on his tongue, the incriminating smudges conspicuous on his lips. Mr. Asrani’s neck flushed raspberry with guilt.
“Pathak sahib, I don’t know what to say,” Mr. Asrani started, but Mr. Pathak cut him off.
“No, no, these things happen. The important thing, I think, is not to let them upset us. Or even more important, not to let them upset our wives.” Mr. Pathak’s pupils seemed to radiate understanding from behind their lenses. “Really, why bother them with such matters, which, really, we should be handling anyway? It’s not as if we need permission from them or anything.” Mr. Asrani winced at the emphasis Mr. Pathak put on the word, and did not meet his eyes.
“Allies, that’s what we should be,” Mr. Pathak said, and Mr. Asrani wondered why, against his best instincts, he had stepped out on this noxious day. “Friends, really,” Mr. Pathak continued, peering through his glasses, and the cream and biscuit began to form a knot in Mr. Asrani’s stomach, ready to reemerge as a raspberry bolus. “Friends who can settle things amicably, between themselves,” Mr. Pathak purred, and Mr. Asrani looked hopelessly at the packet of biscuits lying on the table. And as he found himself nodding to all the things Mr. Pathak was suggesting, found himself agreeing they should share equally in the cost of the ambulance, even found himself standing next to Mr. Pathak as he spelled out both their names on the phone to the ambulance clerk, Mr. Asrani thought to himself that this was the dearest biscuit he had ever eaten, and wasn’t he glad he had only taken one.
THE RED HAS receded into darkness. Light is beginning to appear again, flecks that emerge through the shimmer of gauze.
“Eight,” he hears himself saying. “Nine.” Through the veil he sees her come.
“Ten,” he says. “Eleven.” The dupatta she has wrapped around his head is slipping off. “Twelve. Thirteen.” She is trying to tiptoe down the stairs past him. “Fourteen,” he says. “You know you can’t hide down there, you’re not allowed down the stairs.”
“You looked!” Kavita cries.
“I didn’t! Not through my good eye!”
“You looked! Even after I tied the dupatta! What’s the use? I’m going to take it off!”
The gauze begins to slide against his eyelids, it quickens and he feels the burn against his skin. His eyes open as it alights from his face and shoots into the air, a long, crinkled swathe, reaching up high toward the open window. The light streaming in sets it ablaze; suspended in the air, it sparks and crackles, like a canal for lightning, like a conduit for the sun, capturing light and energy from the universe and funneling them into her hand. Slowly, she turns, there is gold cascading around her, she turns round and round, and the dupatta floats in spirals above her.
“Kavita.” The word plays against his lips, as her form descends past the window again. It is Divali, she has a sparkler in each hand. “Look at my phuljadis,” she says, as she waves the sparklers around in the air. Drops of fire fall from them, bouncing and splashing against the stone floor.
Vishnu smells the sulfur burn. The shadows are dancing on the wall, kissed to life by the light of the phuljadis. Up and down, back and forth, they rise and thrust and fall and turn. This is their chance, they know, this is the night of Divali, they whisper, the night when Lakshmi descends through their midst to the earth. They see her come, flanked by flame on either side, they leap into the air with every step she takes. “Will she find her Vishnu,” they sing, “will she unite with her destined one?” The firecrackers outside roll to their song like distant drums.
“Do you have one for me?” Vishnu asks.
“This one’s almost done,” Kavita says. “You can have it.” The phuljadi goes out just as the wire stem passes from her hand to his.
“Take this one, then,” she says, “quick, before it goes out too.” Vishnu takes the sparkler but it too burns out. The wires glow orange in his hands, he holds them up to peer into the darkness. The movement on the walls has stopped, the shadows have fallen back to rest.
“It’s dark,” Kavita says.
There is a flash from the window. Rockets begin to bloom in the night, they color her face green and blue. She turns around to stare at the sky. The shadows stir a little to life again.
Vishnu gazes with her at the garden unfurling above them. “It’s never dark on the night Lakshmi is around,” he says.
The years pass, and every Divali, she graces the landing. She gives Vishnu phuljadis, whole ones sometimes. He uses them to light strings of red and green patakas, the ones she likes so much to watch, but is herself afraid to light. They burst in long volleys on the landing, and Vishnu looks at the flashes in her eyes. Always, he sees both fear and fascination. Sometimes he holds on to the top end of the string, and the explosions climb the red and green rungs, creeping closer and closer to his fingers, until she screams for him to let go. Then he tosses the string into the air, the crackers turn fiery cartwheels over their heads; Kavita covers her eyes with her hands, and the shadows are forced down to the floor.
“Kavita.” The Divali comes when Kavita descends without phuljadis. Vishnu notices she is wearing different clothes now. He notices her body is different too, it is fuller, with an allure he has not suspected before. He notices many things about her that year. “Kavita,” he thinks, as she negotiates the stairs in high heels, trailing a group of laughing friends, their perfume sweet in the landing air. “Kavita,” he wants to say aloud, as she passes by, her eyes in a dream, her lips in a faraway smile. “Kavita,” he wants to say, and reach out his hand and touch, as she glides by on an invisible plane, the edge of her sari undulating like a wave behind her.
He says it one day, “Kavita,” and doesn’t realize he has uttered it aloud. She stops, as surely as if he has physically intercepted her. She stares at him uncertainly. A smile plays at her lips, and Vish
nu sees the mischief seep into her eyes.
“Kavita memsahib!” she says, and looks at him daringly, to see if he will contradict her. Her hands are on her hips, and Vishnu can see the skin of her midriff exposed between her blouse and petticoat.
Vishnu looks into her face, past the defiance, and is struck by her vulnerability. His need to touch her has never been stronger. “Kavita memsahib,” he whispers, and folds his straying hands together.
Delight springs to her eyes. She turns from him to hide her smile. “Salaam, memsahib!” Vishnu salutes, as Kavita raises her head, tosses her hair, and begins to ascend the stairs triumphantly.
THE FIREWORKS FADE from the night. In their place are hundreds of bulbs, wrapped in squares of colored cellophane. They light up the sky in bursts of red and blue and purple.
He stands with Padmini at the entrance to the fair. It is two months since the first time he has been to see her. He cannot believe she has come with him. How has he persuaded her to leave her room?
“I love melas!” she says, as they enter the city of stalls made of cloth and rope and bamboo. The lights blink on and off all around, the loudspeakers are blaring an old Shamshaad Begum song. Ahead rises the giant wheel, lifting laughing fairgoers into the sky.
“Look! Carrots!” Padmini says, pulling Vishnu toward a gunnysack stall. A man sits behind a mound of vegetable scraps. He is inserting carrots into one end of a shiny tube and they are emerging in an unbroken spiral at the other end. “And potatoes! Look! Look!” The potatoes have been forced through a slicing machine, a stack of ridged ovals lies spread out before the man.
“Come right up, memsahib, see what the wonders of science can do for you. Every husband should buy one of these for his wife, yes, you too, sir.” He points at Vishnu with the implement. “Make your shrimati happy!”
