The City of Devi

by Manil Suri

  Assuming the soundness of the surveyor’s diagnosis, a city has been hit. The question is which one? The only possibility can be Bombay—none of the other seven places on the list lie on the Arabian Sea. Except it’s October, when the monsoon currents are in the process of reversing. The debris could equally well have floated in from the other direction, down from Pakistan—in which case the city destroyed would be Karachi. Or even some place further, like Muscat, in Oman.

  The panic, which bubbled off into euphoria just a few mornings ago, surges back. Nuclear bombs are like potato chips, nobody can stop at just one. Every scenario predicts that a country under attack will launch all its weapons at once to avoid losing them. Does this mean all eight targets on the list have been struck? What about the remaining two hundred or so warheads in the combined possession of India and Pakistan? With even a single missile fired, wouldn’t the two enemies have responded by launching this entire arsenal?

  Continuing this line of thought, once such attacks started, wouldn’t other countries be unavoidably drawn in? Could they have set off enough devices to obliterate life on the entire planet?

  The true horror of the bodies in the harbor starts sinking in: this just represents a speck of the hundreds of thousands already killed. How many untold more are set to perish?—does Diu have any chance of escape? All eyes turn to the sky, to keep watch for the legendary death clouds. The toxic masses which must now rove the globe like giant dinosaurs, devouring anything that moves in their path. Depending on how many bombs have detonated, the clouds will either dissipate over time or merge together to wipe us all out. Sure enough, the first smudge appears a day later, clotting the air from sea to sky in a sweater-like knit of grey. As some flee and others shutter themselves, the wind intervenes to blow the mass off to the north. A second cloud the next week blusters right into town. But it brings nothing more baneful than rain—perhaps a holdover from the long-expended monsoon.

  Reports stream in about towns that have not fared as well—over which lingering palls have triggered ballooning tumors and instant blindness. Babies vomiting blood, cattle driven mad and chewing on their own limbs, well water so toxic it leaks right through people’s throats when they try to drink it. However, no actual refugees fleeing such stricken spots accompany these accounts.

  One day, a couple does arrive, announcing they’ve trekked all the way from Ahmedabad. The woman’s face is black and oozing, the man has a stump for his left hand. But they seem in remarkably good spirits. At least two nuclear bombs went off in the air on the nineteenth, they say, describing horrific funnels of death through which bodies melted like wax and fireballs gusted like wind. They’ve walked to Diu to offer a coconut to their family shrine in thanks. They’ll go to Junagadh next to climb to the temple atop the ten-thousand-step hill.

  People marvel at their pluck, offer them chappatis and milk. But after their departure, there’s puzzlement about how they could have escaped, drinking tea on their verandah, when everything around them vaporized. Perhaps they’ve embellished things—at the very least, the bombs they saw explode couldn’t have been atomic.

  By now, rumors swell unchecked by the day—pouring forth from neighboring villages, alleged radio broadcasts (even some miraculous ones on television), and most prolifically of all, people’s imaginations. Delhi lies in ruins, as does the entire belt of north and northeastern states. The Ganges has evaporated, the Deccan plateau collapsed, the heat has melted the entire Himalayan range. The center of the country has been so mercilessly bombed that seawater now erupts through a hole in the land. Only the southernmost states have been saved, the ones out of Pakistani range. Which means that for the generations to come, darkies will reign.

  Vincent tries boosting his radio’s reception with an assortment of improvised antennas. The most successful of these involves a long length of downed power cable strung just so between the papaya trees in the garden. One night, he tunes in to a ham operator warning people to stay away from Delhi, which has been wiped out by at least six warheads. The next day, he chances upon a conversation between two hams in the Delhi suburbs, discussing where one might still be able to buy fresh milk. Over the next few weeks, he collects similar snippets from Calcutta, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai, pointing to contradictory fates. He even believes he “copies” England in the wee hours one morning, but the signal is so weak he can make out little beyond the British accent. Only the sign-off streams in loud and distinct. “Cheerio, old man. G6AQR clear.”

  COCOONED IN OUR private loss, Sarita and I remain insulated from the prevailing disquiet. We listen to the Sequeiras argue about the radio broadcasts: despite the frequent claims of destruction, could their rising number imply the country (and by extension, the planet) has been spared? What is the significance of the clouds petering out? How harmful are the growing bouts of diffuse haze? Given that so many had already fled the cities based on the warnings, how high will the death toll rise? Questions that in our benumbed state, seem to pertain to some abstract alternative universe.

  I don’t own up to my deception—Sequeira still believes I’m Sarita’s husband, Karun her brother. “Ijaz and Sarita,” he introduces us to everyone. “Getting married against religious norms at a time like this. Truly an inspiring example, a couple whose bravery will lead the way.” He has championed us so passionately to his family (direct descendants of the original Portuguese duke who set up the colony, he claims) that they have embraced us as their own.

  Living with them, we must maintain our charade. At night, we sleep on thin mattresses on the floor, easy enough to separate. The little touches of intimacy that come naturally to married couples prove more challenging to simulate. Each time our hands accidentally touch at dinner, I have to remember not to pull away. We rehearse some stories together so that we can occasionally complete each other’s tales. We try to give the impression that we depend on each other to survive these distressing times, that we are true soul mates.

  In fact, grief does bind us together. At first, it seems like a competition—who feels more devastated over Karun, who deserves the title of most bereft? But then our individual pools of sorrow merge to form a common lake. We each swim in this lake, see each other bathe in its melancholy chill. Our grieving body of two, though small, offers us community, nevertheless. We silently stare at each other from our mattresses, reliving memories of Karun too personal to share.

  After a while, though, this bond starts to become oppressive. Night after night, we return to the same crushing fact—Karun is no longer in our midst. Like our own personal cloud of gloom, the memory of that last shared encounter on the beach hovers and clings. I wonder how much time I have left on this planet. Will I squander it all pining like this?

  So I resolve to leave. Armageddon or not, I want to live again, rediscover my Jazterness, revel in it. Especially since it’s begun to appear that the world’s end might not be nigh. The doom-laden signals Vincent receives seem much too robust to originate from the midst of the devastation they detail. I could journey along the coast, avoiding hot spots along the way—surely Gujarat is a wonderful place to explore, the goût de terroir is great. Perhaps it’s safe to even paddle myself back to Bombay. Anything would be better than the stifling hours spent next to Sarita, the memories that slowly tighten around us day by day.

  I tell her one morning. She almost seems to expect my announcement. “I’m pregnant,” she says.

  SURELY IF THE JAZTER took a poll on what he should do next, the advice would be overwhelmingly Hallmark. Let your heart melt, O hoary old scallywag! The cannoli in the belly, the tadpole of joy all curled up—take those tiny fingers as soon as they emerge grasping for love. Pledge to stay by the mother’s side, to welcome this gurgling blessing with an open heart.

  Except the Jazter has never willingly abided infants. They always look too larval, too raw, like protoplasm not cooked enough. Besides, wouldn’t it be the end of everything he stood for? The end of exploration, of discovery, of experience? Al
l those unscaled heights, those unmapped pavilions, were he to succumb to paternity’s crew-cut call?

  Sarita is astounded when I say I still plan to go. “Go? What do you mean?”

  “I mean Sequeira can look after you. You know he’ll be thrilled—it’s not like you’d be having the baby all alone.”

  “But you’re the one responsible.”

  “What?”

  “You know. That night. It never would’ve have happened. You’re the father, too, as much as Karun. If nothing else, think of what he would have wanted.”

  She throws herself into the campaign to make me stay, urging me to feel her stomach, shamelessly trotting out the “Can you hear it kicking?” shtick, even though it’s months too soon to detect anything. She then claims it was Karun’s directive in his dying whisper, that he grasped for our hands at the end only because he wanted to put them together. “He saw the three of us forming a family after he was gone. He always believed in trinities, as you remember—said they represented perfection in the universe.” I tell her I don’t remember—in fact, I’m quite certain he mentioned no such notion to me. That in any case, he could have had no inkling of her pregnancy. She shakes her head sadly. “He could see. He always could. You’d do as he wanted if you truly cared about him.”

  Such statements enrage me. Not only is she invoking a love she’s never even properly acknowledged, she’s trying to manipulate me with what she decrees are its responsibilities. With Karun, it had always been just him and me—we didn’t get far enough to consider something as unconventional as taking in a baby. I know she’s doing it for her child, a mother trying to ensure her blood more protection. But how dare she horn in so transparently? The more she prods, the more I want to leave.

  I start looking more seriously into possible destinations. By now, Vincent has pronounced both Delhi and Hyderabad radiation-free, but getting there on foot is best left to hardened ascetics. Ahmedabad, the closest big city, also gets a safety certificate—unfortunately, it doesn’t hold any particular allure for me. My thoughts keep returning to Bombay: the land of new beginnings, of opportunity; compared to overland routes, a sea voyage might be easier. Vincent still urges extreme caution, because of the many conflicting signals received. However, the most tangible evidence of nuclear annihilation to wash up on our shores no longer incriminates Mumbai. A small, recently discovered plaque attached to the tree trunk still sprawled across the harbor playground announces (in both Urdu and English) that this is the third oldest banyan in Karachi.

  There’s another reason I want to make the trip: it’s the only way to definitively break away from Karun. I feel I should walk the streets I strolled with him, frequent the same beaches, the same restaurants and coffee places—most of all, revisit the shikar grounds where we first met. This is the catharsis I need, the pilgrimage that will set me free.

  The more I think about it, the more the idea appeals to me. I seek out Afsan, still stranded in Diu for lack of fuel. He’s spent his time refurbishing the ferry as a sailboat—as expected, he’s itching to get back on the sea. He’s not too keen on Bombay, though—not without more evidence of its safety. Yes, he knows the debris the sea carried in turned out to come from Karachi, that Vincent hasn’t heard any convincing reports of a Mumbai strike despite two elapsed months already. “But the risk is still too great without firsthand testimony—we should wait to hear it from the mouth of a refugee.” He finally agrees to venture as far as Daman, where we could stop to reevaluate the situation.

  Leaving Sarita proves harder than I think. She cuts off her pleas, stops talking to me. I expect her to enlist Sequeira to exert pressure on me, but she keeps scrupulously mum about her pregnancy. At night, she lies on her back and stares at the ceiling—sometimes, I notice her gently rub her belly. I rush to assist when she falls between the tables one afternoon, but she picks herself up, refusing my hand expressionlessly. Her silence makes me feel so guilty that I start spending my days away, stealing away from the house before she awakes.

  Early one morning, I head down to the waterfront to check on Afsan’s progress with his ferry. I’m surprised to see a small crowd already gathered at the beach along the way, pointing out at sea. An enormous rectangular box-like object tosses in the waves—some cry out it’s a truck, others a shipping container. The edges rise high above the water, then crash back with great bursts of spray. For a while I think it will just lurch off, perhaps to heave up on another shore somewhere. But then, as if tired of playing with this toy, the waves lift it one final time and send it hurtling shoreward.

  It comes to rest on the beach—a compartment from an electric train, as can be seen from the pantographs still attached to the roof. My heart lurches when I see the “Western Railway” logo on the peeling brown and yellow paint—indisputable evidence that it’s from Bombay’s suburban rails. For a while, I peer through the broken windows, at the metal floors and empty seats. I feel vaguely dissatisfied, as if a bottle has been delivered, but without the requisite message inside. Then I realize the message is the car itself, telling me I will not be returning, the city has not escaped. Curiously, the paint hasn’t scorched so much, so perhaps there’s hope that Mumbai has fared better than Karachi.

  I walk along the water for much of the morning, thinking of Karun, seeing our story play out against the Mumbai vistas again. Then I go home and tell Sarita I will stay.

  IN SHORT ORDER, the Jazter molts his curmudgeonly crust and gets more intrigued by the coming baby. Perhaps not as excited as Sequeira, who goes around touting it as the miracle child, the new seed for Hindu-Muslim unity, a symbol of religious tolerance to set us free. He somehow manages to procure all sorts of fruit—bananas and guavas and yes, even her obsessively coveted pomegranates, which I peel and de-seed and sometimes juice for Sarita. Her teeth turn crimson, her eyes tear a little each time.

  On nights when the dusty haze rolls in to fill the air, I cover Sarita with a dentist’s X-ray apron Sequeira has found, to protect the unborn baby from any lurking radiation. She lies under it, sweating in the dark, and I fan her with an old newspaper to cool her off. Sometimes, she gets so warm that I have to sponge her forehead with a wet towel. It’s probably overkill, we both realize—we simply don’t want to take a chance. The heat is good, I tell her—she’ll hatch her egg more quickly, like a chicken. She must be developing a sense of humor (Allah be praised), because she laughs.

  For the first time, I get a sense of her physical self. The sense that eluded me when I lay next to her on our “suhaag raat” at Sequeira’s club (even sniffed her, as I embarrassedly recall). I feel the familiarity in her touch as she holds on to me for support, the intimacy in her gaze as she waits for me to lay the apron over her. Her expression expectant, her body compliant, like someone being packed in sand at the beach for a play burial.

  Sometimes, while she sits up to read in bed, I can glimpse what Karun might have seen in her. Her brow smooth as she gazes at the page, her skin lustrous in the window light. The curve of her neck leading like a fluid brushstroke to the roundness of her breast, the rise in her belly. A certain shy voluptuousness she may not even be aware of, which I can envision Karun may have found appealing. Of course, in the rosy bloom of her pregnancy these days, she simply radiates beauty. The Jazter blushes at his former ungenerous assessments—made, he sheepishly admits, in the heat of jealousy.

  Every so often I imagine hugging Sarita as we lie together at night. Not in a sexual way or as an erotic experiment, but just because I think her softness would feel nice. I remain on my carefully separated mat, however—I suspect it would confuse her otherwise. As it is, Sequeira hints that given the country’s probable need for repopulating, we should already start thinking of having more children (an entire litter of mixed-breed pups, why not?). I stay on the lookout for opportunities to convey my lack of romantic intentions to Sarita. Fortunately, the Hindus have endless brother-sister festivals like Rakhi, perhaps to express precisely such sentiments.

  Tonigh
t, I squeeze her hand and pat the apron over her belly. She’s been pining not only for Karun, but also her parents and sister and infant nephew in the south somewhere. I reassure her they should be fine, that she will see them soon enough one day. Perhaps it’s the surging hormones, but she keeps latching onto thoughts that bring her down. “All that haze outside. Won’t it reduce our life spans?”

  “Perhaps. But it’s a lot better than being dead. Besides, if everyone’s going to live a month or two shorter, what of it? Aren’t statisticians supposed to look at the average?”

  On the contrary, she informs me somewhat severely, it’s the standard deviation that’s needed, to figure out what percentage might get shortchanged at the left end of the curve. “If, that is, the distribution is Gaussian,” she adds in warning, as if I’m raring to go out and commit a statistical crime.

  I tell her it doesn’t matter. “We’re six hundred kilometers away from Karachi, three hundred from Mumbai. Where we still don’t know what happened, incidentally. If anything, you’ll be at the favorable end of the curve, with all the care Sequeira’s expending.”

  This also makes her morose. “All the fruit he brings, this shelter, this safety. When so many are dead—I feel so guilty.”

  I point out that the only alternative to survivor’s guilt is eternal serenity: the clear and happy-go-lucky conscience of a corpse. “Besides, why don’t you think instead of all the people saved? Lahore to Calcutta, Chennai to Rawalpindi—Vincent’s determined that every single one of the remaining cities came through all right. Remember, by then even Mumbai and Karachi had almost emptied. The Pakistanis got a warning too, just like we did—think of the ninety percent or more who fled in that fortnight.”