by Manil Suri
The moon hangs high and round above us like a sole surviving streetlight. “Look at the chand, beaming down its chandni,” Dev says, turning up his face to the sky. He closes his eyes and opens his mouth as if he can catch the moonlight like rain. Down the curve of his neck, over the throb of his Adam’s apple, is the forgotten sliver of makeup shimmering again.
“Sing for me,” I tell him. “Sing the song that will bring back the light.” I want to watch the crescent of white rise and fall on his throat.
Dev looks at me, and I lift his hands and press against his fingertips in encouragement. “Will you light the fire of your heart?” he begins, so softly at first that only I can hear him. “To dispel the darkness of my life.” I watch the mark on his throat begin to pulse up his neck, spill up over his chin. A circle forms around us, as people stop to listen. “For only love can bring back the light….”
In reply comes the sound of a soft explosion from somewhere behind the fort. A single rocket rises silently into the sky, its plume leaving a white trail against the blue-black night. An instant later a galaxy of sparks lights up the sky. More rockets begin to climb lazily, like flower stalks scaling the night and blossoming in bursts of orange, green, and white. “Will you light the fire of your heart, to dispel the darkness of my life?”
Flashes illuminate the arches of the fort as if from cannons being fired in salute from behind the walls. The flag emerges from its seclusion of night, its stripes rippling under the national colors unfurling above. Gandhi and Nehru look benevolently on as upturned faces from the crowd around us join in the song. “Only love can bring back the light,” Dev sings, his words encompassing every voice, every aspiration on the street.
Then the nautch girls come swinging in. “Only love, only love, only love,” they croon, wriggling through the crowd and spinning the tassels on their breasts. Extras dressed as British officers bounce out with their guns, pivoting them smartly, saluting in sync. Shah Jehan sashays past slowly with his Mumtaz, feeding her grapes, followed by his musical entourage. Nehru comes to life and descends singing from his poster, Gandhiji twirls his staff and comes dancing right after.
And here we are, from the Mughals and the British to Gandhi and Nehru, all lined up for the finale. The scene bursts into Eastman Color, the sky stretches to CinemaScope. The volleys rise into the night, the bricks in the street light up like day. Gandhiji taps his cane to the tune of the music, first at his feet, then at me, then at Dev, then at the explosions above the Red Fort, above India. Is this my future that he is pointing to, the path to my happiness that is being lit up? “Only love…” Dev sings, and I bury my face in his sweater and let his song drown out the world.
I fall asleep with the lyrics still swirling in my ears, the candy glow of my cheeks even redder with the thoughts of my future with Dev. Perhaps it is the rouge, perhaps it is an intoxicant, perhaps Biji is right about how dangerous it is. She returns at midnight, slaps me out of bed, and drags me by the ear to the bathroom to scour it off my face.
chapter three
THE DAY ROOPA TOLD DEV ABOUT THE NAVY OFFICER TO WHOM SHE WAS to be engaged, I was standing in the shadows, spying on them. I had followed Roopa to Nizamuddin station, and then down the narrow station road with the rickshaws all lined up for passengers, through the large bare plot of land that had been cleared for more whitewashed railway quarters like the one in which Dev’s family lived. There was nothing to hide behind on this stretch, but I had been stalking them for so long (once even to the Rivoli cinema in Connaught Place, where I sat in the row behind them, waiting in vain for them to kiss) that by now I was an expert at using only air to conceal myself.
In fairness, this bad habit of spying I had fallen into was hardly my fault. All through the spring, Roopa had been using me as her alibi to spend evenings with Dev. She would drag me out of the house to show Paji it was just the two of us leaving together, then expect me to make myself scarce the instant Dev arrived. Could I really be blamed for wanting to linger behind a tree somewhere so that I could observe what transpired?
Sometimes I wondered if Roopa had realized I was a rival, the way she kept flaunting Dev. “Every great romance depends on a go-between,” she would say to me, “and that is the part life has deemed you fit to play.” I was recruited to carry notes to Dev, messages of (as Roopa made it sound) life-and-death importance that for some unclear reason could not be personally conveyed but had to be hand-delivered by me in sealed envelopes. “I’ve signed across the back, so don’t even think of looking inside,” she warned, to make certain I was sufficiently tantalized.
Was this a game Roopa had devised for her amusement, after guessing the mischief kindled in my brain? Could she have plotted my errands with the precise expectation of my hand brushing against Dev’s? Accidental contact soon led to something more deliberate, with quick squeezes and stolen caresses coming into play. I kept waiting for the fireworks to bloom once more, for the electricity to arc between our fingertips, but Dev’s skin remained cool and uncharged against mine.
“Just how many years younger than your sister are you?” he asked one day.
“Two. But if you see us standing together, you’ll notice I’m taller by almost half an inch.”
“Perhaps you’re even taller than I am, let’s see.” He moved close to me and ran his hand from the top of his head to my brow. “Yes, amazing, exactly half an inch again.”
For an instant, I looked up towards the fingers touching my forehead, astonished at this pronouncement. Then I realized he was making fun of me and swiped his hand off.
“Why don’t you come over to the Sangam Café some afternoon?” Dev called after me, as, with flushed cheeks and tingling forehead, I bounded away.
I did venture to the café a few times—it was right across the street from Ramjas College, where Dev and Roopa studied. I even stole some cosmetics from her bag, using the college ladies’ room to imitate her makeup techniques as best as I could remember. “What have you done to your eyes?” Dev asked, the first time I unleashed the eyebrow pencil on myself. “This makeup doesn’t suit you, like it does your sister—it covers up the freshness of your face.”
I was never able to summon up the nerve to sit down at Dev’s table with all his friends. “The Sawhney girls are getting prettier and prettier every day,” someone would say, and I would quickly blurt out where Dev was supposed to meet Roopa that evening and scamper away. “And what about you, my darling, where will you meet us?” a voice would call after me. The boys would whistle and laugh and I would hear the sound of glasses being thumped down in appreciation on the tabletop.
The specter of my sister’s wrath always hovered over me through these expeditions. Roopa could metamorphose from sweet to ferocious in an instant, like an irked goddess suddenly sprouting a phalanx of weapon-laden arms. My parents seemed to encourage this—our grandmother even fondly called Roopa her “Little Durga.” Perhaps that’s what made the spying so addictive—the thrill that I could be caught at any time by my demon sister.
That final day in Nizamuddin, though, was different. It wasn’t the danger that had pulled me in this time but the need to witness the climax of a story tracked so long. The navy boy had appeared at our house with his parents more than a fortnight ago. His name was Ravinder, he had skin even fairer than Roopa’s, and he exuded a sense of control quite opposite to the carefree nature Dev projected. He had been dressed in impeccable white—from the round white hat on his head to the polished white shoes that he carefully unlaced and left just outside our doorstep. Perhaps it was his looks, perhaps his uniform, but I could tell Roopa was taken from the start. She blushed, something I had not known she was capable of.
“Did you see?” she exclaimed as soon as they left. “So young, and already an officer.”
With Dev, though, she carried on as if nothing had changed, as if the flurry of matrimonial negotiations that began to swirl around her in the ensuing days did not exist. “It’s best not to jinx things by acting
in haste,” she said, as she handed me another perfumed envelope to deliver to Dev.
“How is she, my sweet and salty one?” Dev had asked this morning, when I had informed him about the rendezvous with Roopa at Nizamuddin. I had nodded, unable to speak, and run away.
I crept behind them now, as they headed towards the abandoned tomb of Salim Fazl. Was that the tinkle of Roopa’s laughter—could she really be that cold-blooded as she prepared to dispatch Dev? It was April already, and the bougainvillea that swept wild through the ruins was teeming with flowers. Some said that Fazl was a Sufi mystic before the time of the Mughals, though others claimed he was simply a favorite minister. In any case, the competing shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin (after whom the area was named) had diverted all the pilgrims long ago, leaving Fazl’s tomb to decay in quiet solitude to the ground.
I watched from behind the bushes as Dev led Roopa through a gap in the wire fence towards the shrine with the tiled walls. They didn’t stop to kiss or embrace in the outer courtyard as they usually did. The last glimpse I had before they disappeared into the chamber was of Roopa looking back nervously, as if worried about someone watching her.
A few minutes later, she came running out, the end of her sari pressed into her mouth, as if to keep her emotion contained. I waited for Dev to follow, but he didn’t. The minutes went by but the entrance to the shrine remained empty. Thoughts about what Roopa might have done began to overwhelm me—how cruel had she been, what condition had she left Dev in? When the wait became too much to bear, I crept in.
It was cool and dark in the chamber, so dark that the floral designs on the tiles appeared as different shades of gray. Sections of wall stood crumbling where mosaics had been ripped out as souvenirs decades ago. The shrine itself was missing, a large cemented depression in the center marking where it had once stood. The rumor was that the British had dug it up and carried it off for one of their museums in London.
I half expected to see Dev in this rectangle, hands crossed neatly over his chest like the Sufi saint laid out in his grave. But Dev was not there. I found him through the small doorway at the far end, in the courtyard on the other side. He was reclining on the grass with his face turned towards the sunset, arms extended above his head as if stretching them after a nap.
“Dev,” I whispered, but he did not move. I drew closer and noticed his eyes were closed. The sun had dipped behind the wall he faced, and the light through the arches streaked his face orange and red. Pieces of broken bottle glinted around him from the grass, like jewels surrounding a temple carving, inlaid in a wall. A ray of sunlight just missed his forehead, glancing across his eyelashes, brushing the tips in gold.
I was about to touch him, when he spoke. “I knew you would come.” He kept his eyes closed. “You came the last time too, didn’t you? I saw you hiding behind the bougainvillea.”
He held out his hand and I took it, wrapping my fingers around his. His eyelids quivered but did not open. The sun had settled lower behind the wall, and his lashes were no longer golden. A crow cawed, and I heard the horns of scooters making their way home.
“She’s not coming back, is she?” he said, finally.
“She’s getting married.”
Dev let out a short laugh. “I should have expected it. I’m not rich enough for your family. Not good enough for the Sawhneys. All those promises from her that we’d run away.”
When I think back to that instant, I sometimes manipulate my memory to play tricks. I come up with a scene, with dialogue, depicting me as the passive one, the one led on by Dev. But whatever recollection I weave, the words I spoke next always unravel it. “Roopa is not the only one,” I hear myself say. “There are others who more strongly feel your pain.”
A tear is trembling at the corner of his eye, but Dev doesn’t seem to notice. Is he even aware of what I have confessed to him? I feel a fury towards Roopa for the hold she has on Dev. I want to avenge her years of arrogance, the misery she must have wreaked on all the suitors she has boasted about, not just him.
The tear trickles down the side of Dev’s nose, then fades into his skin. I notice his lips—they are parted just enough to make me wonder how his mouth would feel against mine. I suddenly inhale Sharmila’s milky baby breath, the only person I’ve kissed, in the games of “house” we played. What would Dev’s breath be like—redolent of cigarette smoke, adult, masculine?
And if we were to kiss, would he press his chest against me, as I have seen heroes do in films? Would a sudden shower drench our bodies, so that our clothes stick to our skin? I imagine the two of us running through a downpour, across slopes rolling with thunder, under lightning-lit skies. We come to an abandoned hut and Dev breaks open the door with a kick. Inside, the room is bare, except for a fireplace which Dev quickly gets going. He takes off his shirt and I unwind my sari, which has become transparent in the rain. We find a rope and string it across the room to hang up our clothes to dry. We stand on opposite sides of this curtain, Dev in his trousers, me in my blouse and petticoat, feeling the fire on our bodies, watching the flames dance on each other’s faces. Two actors frozen in a movie still, waiting for the next scene in the script.
Except it is April, so there is no rain. But we are racing together anyway, as if being indeed chased by a thunderstorm—through the courtyard, past the wall, into the entrance through which we came. Our fingers are still locked, and Dev runs ahead, but it is unclear whether he is leading me or I am prompting him.
Inside, we are unsure what to do, the darkness makes us shy. There is no fire to stoke, no rope to string, no clothes to hang up to dry. Again, my recollection wavers. Is Dev the one who draws closer or is it I?
I feel Dev’s thumb skim across my lower lip as if to brush off a speck he has just noticed. He cups his hand around the back of my neck and guides my fumbling mouth to his. His lips part mine, and I taste not smoke but a freshness, like fennel, on his breath. His tongue eases in and tests the inside of my mouth in an inquiring caress—frightened, I pull away. I stand there willing the rush to subside from my body, grateful that the dark hides my expression. I am filled with apprehension, but also exultation, at joining the ranks of the kissed.
And now here is the rectangle cut out of the ground for us, where the Sufi saint Salim Fazl once lay. Here I am, reclining back on this bed, the fabric of my blouse separating cement from skin. My hand closes around a fragment of tile that has broken off from somewhere. I feel the outline of an imprinted flower and rub it like a good-luck charm. The darkness trembles around me, then parts, to magically reveal the mosaics on the walls. Whorls of blue petals surrounding anthers yellow with pollen, pistils red and feathery, their ends swollen.
Dev hesitates, then bends over me. He has removed his shirt, even though there has been no rain. Light flitters across his chest, as if a fire has sprung up in a corner somewhere. The illumination is too fleeting to make out the naag I know is hiding there. I imagine it come to life, leaving blue petals crushed in its wake. Its body smeared yellow with pollen, the stickiness of stigmas clinging to its scales.
Dev props himself on one arm, his legs between mine, and struggles to undo his belt. His frame looks even more spare from this angle, the muscles still developing, like someone not quite adult. A faint fragrance of perspiration rises off his skin. I notice a growing sensitivity call to me from the part of my body for which I have no name. A warm and liquid awareness that advances unseen under my clothes and flushes my skin. I feel my stomach become hot, then my chest, my neck and face.
Dev pulls himself free of his pants. A clutch of panic seizes my throat. Must I take something off as well—does etiquette demand that I reciprocate? The movies never go this far. There are no songs explaining how the scene progresses, no singers in the background giving hints. The panic begins to dance around, igniting other questions like a runaway flame. Why am I here alone with Dev? How have I ended up in this position with him? Hasn’t Biji spent a lifetime warning me precisely of situations like this? What
will Paji think, what will Biji do, what will everyone say?
Then Roopa appears. I think that her face will be clotted with anger, but instead she is sporting a smirk. “You couldn’t do it, could you?” she seems to say. “You couldn’t go further, you couldn’t be more daring than I.”
All I need to do is blink to make Roopa disappear. Wave my hand at her as if shooing away a fly, to end this silliness, to end this game. But instead, I rise to her challenge. I decide to go past the point where the songs run out on the soundtrack. I decide to forge my own destiny, as Nehru might say. I shut my eyes and guide Dev’s hand to the drawstring around my waist.
It is Dev who loses his nerve. He loosens my salwar, then stops and looks down strangely at my face. The naag has crept back onto his chest, its body a line of hair again. “I just—” he says. “I don’t know what I was—” His voice is so strangled that the words barely escape. “I’m sorry,” he manages to force out. He wilts into the space beside me and crosses an arm over his face.
For a while we just lie there. I can feel the grit of cement along the strip of bare skin around my waist. The tile has slipped out of my fingers, the flowers subsided back into their wall. I hear Dev pull up his pants beside me and turn to look at him. A lingering pocket of heat flares in my brain.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I say finally, and bring his fingers to my lips. “We didn’t do anything—there’s no reason to be afraid.”
Except that there is. What I don’t realize then is that it makes no difference that we stopped when we did. My fate was sealed the moment Dev’s body pushed me down into the grave. Perhaps the eyes watching us blended in with the tiles in the mosaic. Perhaps if I had heard the retreating footsteps I would have urged Dev to give chase. But by now the courtyard has already been left behind, the bougainvillea squeezed past, the tract of empty land raced across. The door has been thrown open, the door to the railway quarter next to Dev’s.
