by Manil Suri
“Why have you not done what I commanded?” Vishnu roared, and Mr. Jalal smelled the sweet fragrance of his own burning flesh.
He opened his eyes. He was alone on the floor of his bedroom. Street noise and sunlight streamed in through the door leading to the balcony. Arifa was talking to someone on the phone in the next room. Somewhere in the building a meat curry was being cooked.
What was real, he wondered, and what was a dream? Didn’t the Hindus hold that reality was just an illusion? That everything was maya as they called it—all existence a temporary delusion—hadn’t even the Buddha accepted that? And the westerners, too—wasn’t there something about the world not existing, only mental representations of it? Was it Kant who had said that? Or Nietzsche? No, someone else, someone less well-known—who was it, Berkeley, perhaps? For an instant, Mr. Jalal worried about where all his books on philosophy had gone. He hoped Arifa hadn’t thrown them out.
Perhaps there were some things that could only be experienced, not explained. Perhaps logic was not the answer to bolster every truth in the universe. Last night’s vision had felt as accurate as a shirt against his skin. But surely its fabric could be scrutinized to yield flaws, its fibers worried until they unraveled. And yet, he had felt it clothe the center of his self, transform the way he felt about the world. He would not, could not, dismiss the reality of his experience.
But how was he to convey this reality to others? How, without the benefit of logic or argument, was he supposed to capture people’s minds? All he had been given was a sign. With this he had to arm himself, and go out and change the world. He supposed this was the essence of faith. There was no science that governed it, no calculus that propelled it, just the raw strength of his own conviction. Whether he succeeded or not depended on how well he could combat doubt, both his own and in others.
And succeed he had to. Vishnu’s words came back, his promise to save, to destroy the universe. He had to be recognized, recognized before it was “too late for all.” They could not afford to ignore his warning. Mr. Jalal saw Short Ganga being consigned screaming into Vishnu’s giant maws. Then the cigarettewalla and the paanwalla, the Pathaks and Asranis. Their bodies masticated together into one bloody mass, their shocked faces popping and exploding, torrents of fire reducing them to instant ash. And from somewhere, barely audible, Arifa’s plaintive voice, begging to be spared.
Mr. Jalal sat up on the floor. He was the only one who could save them. He would have to use what little he had, and hope it was enough to connect people to the urgency of what he had witnessed. The rest would be up to them.
But first, he had to return to Vishnu’s landing. With a sweet, a fruit, or other offering. This was the proper way, he knew, that one asked for blessing from a Hindu god.
MRS. JALAL STARED at the letter Salim had written. What had the world come to today? First Ahmed, babbling about walnuts and gods, led upstairs by the Pathaks and Short Ganga of all people. How would she live the shame down? Being found next to Vishnu in such a condition—with a dupatta wrapped around his head, as Mrs. Pathak had pointed out—not once but three times—the cheek of that woman. At least Mr. Pathak had had the decency to conjecture that Ahmed might have fallen and knocked himself unconscious. Thankfully, she’d had the presence of mind to say that she had often warned Ahmed about taking his night walk down the dark steps.
And now this. Salim writing simply that he was going away for a few weeks. Why wouldn’t he have told anyone? What possible place could he have gone to, that he couldn’t have let her know in advance? She was surprised at all the clothes missing—which told her it was a planned decision. But planned for what? Nothing was making sense—nothing on this inauspicious day.
There was no point telling Ahmed about the letter—not until he had returned to his senses. She had thought about calling the doctor, but had been scared at the prospect that he would recommend psychiatric evaluation, or even hospitalization. She didn’t want to have Ahmed committed to a mental asylum, or worse, end up in a place like Amira Ma’s. Once such news spread, it was difficult to contain, so she had to be very careful about what she was doing.
Just then, Ahmed walked into the room.
“How do you feel?” Mrs. Jalal asked, trying to put on a cheerful face. She suddenly noticed how awful he smelled. “Should I get the water ready for your bath?”
Mr. Jalal shook his head. There was something he was holding behind his back. His eyes circled the room, estimating distances and angles from where he stood to Mrs. Jalal and the front door.
Mrs. Jalal tried to see what he held in his hand, but he used his body to screen it from her. “What’s that, Ahmed,” she finally asked, “behind your back?”
Reluctantly, Mr. Jalal showed her. It was one of the mangoes she had put in the refrigerator last night. It looked nicely chilled, the moisture glistening against its golden skin. Why had Ahmed been concealing it?
“Should I cut it open for you?”
“It’s not for me,” Mr. Jalal said, sheepishly. “I was taking it downstairs. As an offering for Vishnu.”
“An offering? What do you mean, offering?”
“One has to offer gods things to eat. That’s what they do in the temples.”
The light suddenly left the room. Mrs. Jalal watched as the gloom began to scale the walls. Ahmed had not recovered. He was still ailing from the delusion he had experienced last night. She had known, since that omen at the shrine, that she should not have let him out of her sight. Couldn’t she have kept awake on the floor for just one night to watch over him?
“I don’t think Vishnu is well enough to eat a mango,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “They’re very heating—it might upset his stomach.”
“I would’ve taken a banana, but I couldn’t find any. There were so many lying on the dining table yesterday—I’m surprised you ate them all.”
Mrs. Jalal’s throat constricted. Somehow, she had forced down the last banana last night, even though it had been well past ripe. She tried to stop the tears flooding her eyes, but couldn’t.
“Don’t cry, Arifa. Why are you crying? Is it the mango? Here, you can put it back—I’ll find something else.”
Mrs. Jalal looked at the mango her husband was offering, his face innocent of guile. As if it were an enchanted fruit that would arrest her tears, as if a bite of its magic flesh would carry her away from her problems. What had gone wrong, she wondered, who had made this happen to him? She felt so powerless—what could she do to make him right again? “I don’t care about the mango,” she said, averting her face.
“Then come with me,” Mr. Jalal said, grabbing her hand. “Come, let’s go make this offering together. Ask his blessing, both of us.”
“Ask whom for blessing? Not Vishnu. Are you crazy?” Mrs. Jalal pulled her hand away. Instantly, she missed the reassurance, however slight, that Ahmed’s touch had transmitted.
“It’ll be much more effective if we both go. I can’t do this alone, Arifa. Come, be my partner.”
“What are you saying, Ahmed? Stop—just stop all this, please.”
“Listen to me, Arifa. I’ve changed. You’ve made me change. All the arguments we had about religion. I’m now like you. I’ve let myself be touched. By something—by a sign, by faith.” Mr. Jalal took his wife’s hand again, and squeezed it, as if his newly acquired faith would flow through in proof.
“You don’t know how much I worked, to open my mind, to free it. All the fasting and the sleeping on the ground. You saw last night how hard the floor of our bedroom is. Try it for a month, then you’ll see.”
So this was the explanation. She had known, of course, that he had been lying, but that didn’t stop the blood from burning in her cheeks. All those nights she had spent alone in her bed, all those times she had called out to Ahmed, pleaded with him to tell her what was going on. And this? This was what it was about?
“Last night it finally happened. I saw a hundred suns fill the sky. Flowers so unusual, I can’t descr
ibe them, jewels so fantastic, you wouldn’t believe existed. Then he appeared. Vishnu. Our Vishnu. Yes, I couldn’t believe it either. But fifty—no, five hundred feet tall. With fire and smoke, and more heads than I could count. It was terrifying. Yet beautiful, too.”
Mrs. Jalal opened her mouth, but her husband started speaking faster, to prevent her from saying anything. “He told me I was to be his messenger. That he would destroy us all, if we didn’t recognize him. I know what you’re thinking,—why would he ever choose me? But it’s hardly surprising, is it? After all the effort I’ve been putting in. Who are we to argue anyway, Arifa? If Vishnu wants me to be his prophet, that’s what I must be.”
Mrs. Jalal felt a chill in her shoulders. What was Ahmed saying? This talk of Vishnu being a god, this talk of Ahmed being a prophet. It was one thing to ramble on about these things in the incoherent state he was in this morning. But looking into his eyes now, she saw an alertness that frightened her. Did he not understand this was blasphemy?
“I need your support, Arifa. Just give it a chance. Even if you don’t accept everything I witnessed. Even if that is too much to hope for.”
“Stop what you are saying, Ahmed. Stop, and listen to me. What you saw was a dream. A nightmare. More vivid than most, but nothing more. Understand? Vishnu is not a god. You are not his messenger. You are not to call yourself prophet. There are no more prophets. It’s written in the Koran.”
“It wasn’t a dream. No matter what you or anyone says, it wasn’t a dream.” Stubbornness settled at the corners of Mr. Jalal’s mouth. “No one can tell me I didn’t see what I saw. As for the Koran, doesn’t it also say a wife is supposed to obey her husband?”
“Just listen to yourself. You, the pillar of rationality. This is the best you can come up with? This is what you preach? That we all sit down and pay homage to your dream?”
“A vision, it was a vision, didn’t I just tell you? I know it must be hard for you to accept, but what’s the point if you don’t even try?”
“You’re right, it is hard for me to accept. That my husband’s lost his mind. That he’s lost all sense, all logic. That he’s calling some drunkard a god. Have some sense, Ahmed, have some shame.”
“I thought you’d be happy. That I’ve finally found something in common with you. Faith, religion, call it what you may. Don’t you see? It’s a sign that I’ve received. Or all of a sudden do you not care?”
“You want me to rejoice? That you’re declaring yourself prophet? That you’re hailing some mortal as god? All these years of begging you to come to the masjid with me, and this is what you offer? Blasphemy? You’ve found nothing, Ahmed—you’ve only lost. You’ve lost my respect. You’ve lost your religion. You’ve turned your back on everything it stands for.”
“But I haven’t given up anything. We all discover our own god. I’ve just begun to define mine. Think of the people I can lead to Vishnu. Think of all the people who might find their god in him.”
“There is no God but God,” Mrs. Jalal screamed. “Don’t you understand? Say no more, Ahmed, for I cannot hear you speak.”
LISTEN TO WHAT the man says, I am Vishnu. Listen to what he says, yes, I have come to save or destroy you. See me descend to earth in my different avatars. Matsya and Kurma and Varaha and more.
She is sitting by the shrine in the hut. It is raining outside. Flashes of lightning play with the features of her face. She waves incense over the idol as he watches from his mat and waits. “When will I be in heaven, O Krishna, to hear the sweetness of your magic flute,” she sings.
She is next to him now, shaking her hair loose over her shoulders. He can smell the coconut oil as her fingers run through the strands. She reaches back to tie it up again, and he sees the sweat darkening the armpits of her blouse. It is her essence that he knows so well, the sweat mixed with the coconut oil.
“Little Vishnu,” his mother says. “What avatar has my Vishnu come down as today?”
The rain outside is a quickening drumbeat. Gusts of wind blow through the hut and the flame in the oil lamp flickers.
He giggles and hides his face in the mat. He pretends to answer, mumbling something he knows she cannot hear.
“Let’s see. What is he? Hmmm—burying his head like that—all curled up—he looks like a tortoise, perhaps, hiding in his shell.”
He shakes his head. He is not a tortoise tonight.
“Not a tortoise. But yet so bunched up. Could he be a dwarf, then—little Vamana, waiting to confront Bali?”
He shakes his head again. He moves his arms over the mat, as if he is is swimming. Tonight, he is in the mood for an aquatic incarnation.
“Aha, the rain. Of course. It’s Matsya the fish. Is there going to be a flood, then?”
He nods. “So you must put me in the sea where I belong.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I will grow and grow and grow before your eyes, and become so big you won’t know what to do with me.” He puffs up his cheeks as he says this, and stretches himself out from his balled-up position.
“No, no, Matsyaji, I will do as you say and carry you to the sea. Will Juhu Beach do, or will it have to be Chowpatty?”
“The Gateway of India. And hurry, I’m already twice your size, and soon you won’t be able to carry me anymore.”
His mother scoops him up into her lap. “Oh, my—you are a big fish. How happy you might make some fisherman if he caught such a big fish in his net.”
“How dare you joke with me. The net has not yet been sewn that can catch Matsya. Now put me in the sea and do as I say, unless you want to be washed away with the rest. For it is Vishnu you are talking to, Vishnu who has descended personally from the heavens, to save you from the flood.”
“Forgive me, Vishnuji, for I did not know. Tell me what I should do.”
“First you must build an ark. Then go to the forest and gather seeds from every plant and tree you see. Tie the ark to my horn when the flood comes and I will tow you to safety.”
“Which horn, O great Matsya? All I see is this.” His mother tweaks his nose, and he giggles.
“When the flood comes, my horn will grow,” he says. He is getting sleepy.
“When the flood comes,” he hears his mother whisper, as she pulls the blanket over his falling body.
Outside, the rain spills over from the gutters and forms a stream. Streams that course through unlit passageways and coalesce cunningly in the night. Stealthily, the water rises, burrowing under tin walls, seeping through cardboard sides, silently lifting objects off the ground. It creeps up and encircles his mat, then gently laps against his body.
“Vishnu,” his mother calls, but he has found his fins. Through the open door he swims, into the river waiting outside. Bubbles rise from upturned faces, still asleep on the riverbed. Huts pass by underneath, then houses, then buildings, as he rises with the water. The glow of streetlights floats up silently from submerged lampposts.
“Vishnu,” he hears his mother call again. She is standing on the top of the Gateway of India, surrounded by the four carved turrets. Beneath her feet, the stone plunges in giant arches to the plaza far down below. Children run on the plaza, couples linger in front of the monument. They do not see the wall of water that rises behind in the bay.
He feels his horn grow. He feels the skin on his forehead erupt, and the appendage push out. He can see it curve through the water, thickening and hardening as it emerges.
The water begins its descent. The sea rushes in to embrace the land. Children fly into the air, then vanish in the foam. Buildings rock and sway, then acquiesce majestically. “Vishnu,” his mother cries as the water surges over her feet.
He submerges his head. Ahead are the arches of the Gateway, fish dart in and out of them. Already, his body is too big to pass through the side arches. He swims halfway through the main arch, centering his body under it. Then he begins to rise, to rise and to push upwards.
His horn breaks the surface first, then his head. Th
e Gateway comes off its foundation, and rises on his back. He turns his head around and looks at his mother, still standing on the top. She throws a rope around his horn, and nods at him.
With the chariot on his back, he turns to the sea. Through the waves he rides, towards the sun, leaving behind the ruined city.
CHAPTER NINE
MR. JALAL CRANED his head around the stairway to make sure there was no one on the landing. Vishnu lay just as he had been left this morning, the suns on his sheet beaming in the light filtering in from outside. Seeing his inert body, Mr. Jalal had the strange feeling of being a murderer stealing back to the scene of a crime. He shook his head to expel this thought—what if Vishnu was able to read it in his mind?
How frail Vishnu looked. It was hard to imagine that this body before him could have metamorphosed into something so terrifying. Had it all been a mistake? Was it simply a dream, after all? But wait, wasn’t that a grin Vishnu’s face was twisted into? Could he be smirking at the folly of mortals, whose flaw it was to always go on appearance, whose fate it was to never comprehend what lay underneath?
“Give me strength,” Mr. Jalal whispered, looking around furtively, “to be your messenger.” It had been so many years—decades, perhaps—since he had uttered any kind of prayer that he felt self-conscious saying these words, even though no one was there. He laid the mango next to Vishnu’s head and wondered if there were other steps he should perform. Scattering flowers, lighting incense—what ceremonies were needed to make the offering complete?
Mr. Jalal tried to remember how they had done it at the temple at Mahalakshmi. That one time he had visited a Hindu temple—it had been while he was reading all those books on Akbar. Akbar, who might be the only Muslim ruler to set foot in a temple—who, in fact, frequented all sorts of places of worship to mingle with his subjects, always in disguise.
