The City of Devi: A Novel

by Manil Suri

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. Of course. It’s our wedding night, why wouldn’t it be? I was just resting my eyes.”

  He slid along the bed to make room for me, and I reclined, also fully clothed, next to him. We kissed quickly. His jaw was tight, his lips stretched—I’d never seen the line between them communicate such nervousness. “It’s hard to believe we’re married now, just like my parents used to be,” he said.

  His tenseness had a curious effect on me—it focused my attention on trying to loosen him, making me forget my own diffidence. “Did you see the priest’s stomach? Just his belly button looked the size of a one-rupee coin. And when he put the camphor into the fire—it was all I could do not to sneeze.” I chattered on about the food and the gifts tally and the guests, and finally got him talking about his aunt.

  Rather than tension, I felt a mounting anticipation. I couldn’t wait for the montage running for weeks in my mind to commence. Shedding our clothes, pressing my face into his body, feeling his kisses on my breasts. As Karun described a holiday with his cousins, I gathered up my nerve and leaned forward to arch my bosom like a bridge over his chest.

  He stopped mid-sentence and lay motionless, holding his breath. Only when I unfurled my sari did he think to unhook my blouse and bra to free my breasts. I shifted my weight so that they hung like fruit over his neck. He hesitated, then leaned up to plant a kiss on each of them.

  They were more chaste than I would have liked, his kisses, but I sighed my appreciation. He responded with more, apportioning them equitably between my two breasts. When I moved higher, he kissed my stomach, then stopped to wait for approval. “These wedding garments are too hot,” I said. “Let’s take some of them off.”

  The cycle of cues on my part and responses on his continued after we disrobed—me to my petticoat and Karun to his underpants. I was struck by my enterprise—what had happened to my inhibition, my lack of experience? We rubbed our bodies together—he even took a breast in his mouth with my encouragement. There was something endearing about his willingness to please but also something tempering—the thought that he might not be aroused evened out the bursts of passion I felt.

  Eventually, my initiatives faltered—I ran out of places to explore. I could not summon up the courage to venture uninvited below his waist. We lay side by side caressing each other. “Let’s get some rest,” I finally said, when it became clear no fire would be lit tonight.

  “It’s been a long day. I’m sorry I’m so exhausted.” He buried his face in my chest to hide his embarrassment—or perhaps relief.

  I turned out the light. Somehow, I didn’t feel so dejected. Although I would have liked Karun to be more assertive, I had surprised, even exhilarated, myself by taking the lead to compensate. The gentle ebb and flow of the waves outside reassured me we had many days of married life ahead.

  THE ALL-CLEAR SIGNAL still hasn’t sounded, which worries me. Could the control tower for the sirens have been hit? Will people realize this and begin to eventually creep out of their holes? Or will they hunker in deeper to count out their days, convinced the silence outside heralds the end? The street lies completely empty—only an abandoned red double-decker bus looms ahead. Even the beggars who live under the bridge over Queen’s Road have disappeared—I miss running the gauntlet of their badgering voices, their pawing hands.

  I mount the steps to the station. The way to tell whether trains still run is to examine the evidence left by citizens who have performed their business on the rails. Something has come by to flatten deposits, but not today. Walking looks like the best alternative, since there’s no electricity to feed the pantographs anyway. I pick my way over the tracks to the seaward side. The lawns of the line of gymkhana clubs are so unnervingly immaculate that I wonder if they still pay their gardeners to manicure each individual blade of grass. Perhaps this is the fabled sacred land the Khaki referred to, the one he dared the enemy to harm.

  Further on, though, chunks of concrete litter the sidewalk—fragments from bolsters blown out of the seawall. One of these bolsters has sailed clear across the road to smash into a building—it sticks out like a missile fired into the ruined façade. In fact, every fourth structure along Marine Drive, the city’s cherished “Queen’s Necklace,” seems to have been bombed. Markets, theaters, and now art deco buildings—is it incompetent planning, or simply bad aim on the Americans’ part? Maybe it is the Pakistanis after all.

  A gash in the land cuts off my path. Waves froth through the bolsters, up the gully, all the way to the ground floor of a building that still stands. Could a bomb attack have done this, or has the earth spontaneously split apart in protest? I remember the frustratingly impersonal chats with Karun after my early swimming lessons—didn’t he say such fissures may be caused by rising sea levels? A woman appears at a balcony on the top floor and shakes a bed sheet open. It unwinds down the side of the building like a large white flag, as if she is signaling her personal surrender to any planes still lingering around. I wonder how she gets up there, how she negotiates the gully and crosses the moat that surrounds her teetering building. Will she go down with it when it collapses, determined to cling onto her flat until property prices recover?

  I head the other way, towards Chowpatty. The uneasy sensation of being watched prickles my neck. Could someone be following me? I spin around, but no Khakis skulk behind the lampposts. The deserted curve of Marine Drive stretches emptily into the distance, terminating at Nariman Point in a tangle of blackened skyscraper shards.

  I stand there, trying to comprehend the skyline without its iconic Air India tower, when the anti-aircraft guns start up again. Shells pop unseen in the sky. My first instinct is to dive into one of the vehicles abandoned mid-road—perhaps the police jeep with the missing wheels. But then I tell myself not to panic—I’m much too insignificant a target, enemy planes will hardly waste their bombs on me. Sure enough, the arrowhead formation of jets that zooms in from the sea streaks by overhead without slowing. A second later, I hear another drone, this one more gravelly, as if the engine has sucked in a pigeon it’s trying to digest. This straggler flies on too, like the ones before, but then swoops around in a sharp arc to return. I watch in disbelief as he dives towards me, and run screaming down the road as fragments of asphalt kick up at my feet. He circles around for a third pass, chasing me all the way to the city aquarium nestling in its enclosure of palm trees.

  I crouch in the vestibule, waiting for him to blow me up. It makes perfect sense: hospitals, art deco buildings, cinemas—surely aquariums come next. Only after several minutes elapse can I allow myself to breathe freely. The jet still executes its homicidal loop repeatedly in my mind, but I know I have escaped with a reprieve.

  It’s been several years since my visits here with my mother and Uma. The stone steps were smooth and polished then, the aquatic creatures carved on the walls didn’t have heads or fins missing. Most wondrously, a family of seahorses glided in a window by the entrance like some mythical aquatic tribe. Their display tank is empty today, the entry doors chained and padlocked.

  About to turn away, I remember the fish and chips café in the compound, where we gorged on crisp pomfret after each visit. Is that why fate has spurred me here today, to satisfy my seafood craving? Uma always commented on how macabre the location seemed, as if the whole point of the aquarium exhibits was to stimulate viewers’ appetites. I tug at the handle and rattle at the chains, but the café remains securely locked. The door leading to the second-floor canteen, though, opens when I try it, and I scurry in.

  Upstairs, the floor is covered with dust and broken glass. I walk into the kitchen and the pungency of fish assaults me almost at once. Am I imagining it?—has the machiwalli hallucination from the hospital returned? Or could years of frying have insinuated the odor into the walls? I begin to notice other things—the kerosene stove, the bottle of oil, and in the dark corner by the cupboard, the figure of a man lying curled up on a mat.

  He
awakens almost as soon as I spot him, and lifts himself groggily up on his hands. “How did you get in here? What do you want?”

  He is barely twenty, but there is already a gauntness to him going beyond the war weariness I have seen in people’s faces. He looks as if he has been fighting an enormous personal battle, with little success. “Are you the cook?” I ask.

  “The cook?” He scrambles up to a sitting position, umbrage clearing the sleepiness from his face. “Do I look like the cook to you?”

  For an instant, I wonder if I’ve stumbled upon a Khaki, given his rumpled khaki shirt with the epaulets flopping unbuttoned at his shoulders. Then I notice the aquarium logo stitched over his pocket and realize he’s the watchman. He seems mollified by this. “I have a rifle downstairs, you know,” he adds, as if to impress on me the powerfulness of his position. He takes out a large ring of keys from his back pocket to display as further proof, whisking them away as if afraid I will try to touch them. “Why are you here?” he demands.

  “I came looking for fish.”

  A wary look springs to his eyes. “The display tanks are in the other building—”

  “I meant to eat. Isn’t this the canteen?”

  “The canteen? Does it look open to you? Can’t you hear the bombs falling outside? Where is the fish going to come from, fly into your lap from Chowpatty?” He shakes his head. “There’s no fish. Now go away.” He turns around and spreads himself out again on his mat.

  I’m about to turn away when I spot a waste basket next to the cupboard. Sticking out from under its lid is a fish head, its eye dried open into a stare. “See?” I cry out, waving the lid in the air. “See, I could smell it. Someone has been eating fish.”

  The watchman springs back up. “Are you accusing me? Are you saying I ate that fish?”

  I’m startled at his vehemence. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”

  “Anyone could have sneaked into the aquarium and pulled out a fish. How do I know who did it? Do I have ten heads that I can keep track of everything? And what am I supposed to eat—do you even know how long it has been since I’ve been paid?”

  I wonder if he is asking for money. Perhaps I should offer him some of the notes tied in my dupatta. “Look, Bhaiyya. I haven’t eaten either. If you can bring me a fish, even a small one, I’ll give you two hundred rupees.”

  Instead of calming him, my words make him flare up. “How dare you insult me with such a bribe? You think I’m going to hand over the very creatures I’m supposed to protect? You think I have no self-respect? Why did you come here, memsahib, just to spit in my face?” He wraps his arms around his sides and hugs his body, rocking back and forth slowly on his heels, as if to comfort himself after my calumnies.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, backing away towards the kitchen door. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

  I am almost at the door, ready to turn around and escape, when he looks up. “Four hundred,” he says.

  AN UNDERGROUND PASSAGEWAY connecting the two buildings leads us into the aquarium. Hrithik (not his real name, he confesses, but one he has decided to adopt after his favorite film star) tells me there might still be a few of my cherished seahorses around somewhere. “Though they’re not very tasty.”

  The exhibits inside have no illumination, so Hrithik lights a candle. “These days, there’s only enough generator oil to run the filters,” he explains. “Not that there are too many tanks with anything left.” He shows me a panel behind which tiny candy drop fish make small kissing gestures as if thanking him for the light. “I never tried these, I was always told the colorful ones are poisonous.”

  As we pass case after empty case, I realize just how many fish are missing. Could Hrithik have eaten them all? Perhaps he reads my mind, because he starts talking about how easy it is for fish to fall sick, the lack of food and supplies, the pressure to sell the best specimens to foreign aquariums. “For a while, we were getting live carp and pomfret for the restaurant and storing them temporarily in these tanks, just so that the visitors had something to look at.”

  We come to the central tank, illuminated by sunshine through a skylight above. A large ray floats by, exposing the various organs on its underside for me in a languorous display. Hrithik shakes his head subtly to indicate its lack of culinary quality. “Look, there,” he says, pointing at a shadowy shape circling further back. “Very good to eat. Only one left.”

  “But it’s a shark.” I can tell by its triangular fin. A small shark, a baby perhaps, but a shark, nevertheless.

  “It’s the tastiest one left. I’ve been trying to catch it for weeks, but he always escapes. Look.” He shows me a scar on his neck, and another one across his arm. “All over my body, especially on my chest. Once he even tried to bite off my leg.” He stares at the water with animus on his face. “It’s not possible to trap him—not by myself alone. But if there was another person—” He looks at me slyly.

  “Something smaller would be better.”

  We settle on a fish with a blunt head and speckled skin that is swimming alone in one of the tanks further on. The fish seems quite dazed and lethargic, and doesn’t flop around too much in the net when Hrithik scoops it out. “It would be dead in a day or two anyway,” he reassures me.

  In the kitchen, Hrithik uses only a few stingy drops of oil in the pan, with the result that the fish comes out more burnt than fried. The flesh is mushy and unpleasant, and there are no spices to camouflage the bitter aftertaste. It’s nothing like the machi-fry I craved, but I eat as many of the pieces as I can stand. Hrithik wolfs down his share and whatever I leave of mine, acknowledging that the flavor is not good, and reminding me he recommended the shark.

  The all-clear signal sounds as we finish. Pulling out the money for Hrithik, I notice the satiation on his face giving way to an inexperienced leer. “You don’t have to pay me the full amount,” he says. “Just stay awhile. It’s not so safe outside, and I have an extra sheet here.” He smirks.

  I throw the notes at him. “I’ll take my chances. Maybe you should ask your mother for permission first before you make such an invitation again.”

  His bravado crumbles immediately, and he doesn’t meet my eye. I am at the door when he calls out. “Come back tomorrow and help me with the shark. You can eat as much as you want for free.”

  4

  APSARAS FLITTED IN TO AWAKEN US WITH THE STRUMS OF THEIR celestial instruments the morning after our wedding. We had barely noticed the images from the Ajanta caves decking the walls of our bridal suite the night before: Bodhisattvas contemplating lotuses, maidens comforting their swooning princesses, even the Buddha gazing down (perhaps a bit too ascetically) on the newly betrothed every evening. In light of how things had played out between Karun and me, I felt relieved we hadn’t booked the Khajuraho suite.

  We breakfasted on the balcony. The décor took generous liberties with historical consistency: ornate Mughal chairs stationed around an Ashok chakra table from Mauryan times; railings, arches, and decorative flourishes that gleefully seesawed between north and south, old and new, Rajput and Dravidian. It hardly mattered—not with the sands sparkling up and down the coast, the waves rolling in with hushed booms, the sun falling on Karun as he selected fresh apricots from a platter and peeled them for me. Afterwards, we walked through the lobby, redolent with the fragrance of thousands of tuberoses this morning, to explore the exotic flowering plants in the outer courtyard, imported all the way from Hawaii.

  We’d both brought our swimsuits, since this was our chance to finally experience the exclusive waters of the hotel swimming pool. The guard simply bowed us through without even checking the guest cards that now proved our legitimacy. The carved pillars and cascading steps cut into the long edge gave the pool a ceremonial air, like something one might come upon in an inner temple courtyard. How magical the water felt, how pure and vitalizing, like a baptism ushering us into married life. I wanted to reprise our first kiss, but felt too self-conscious and settled instead for a quick peck
beneath the surface. We gave up on the idea of exploring the rest of the hotel, splashing and swimming almost until checkout.

  UMA PICKED US UP at one and drove us to Karun’s flat in Colaba. We had decided to defer our honeymoon by two months, when I would accompany Karun to a conference in Jaipur. “Carry her over the threshold,” Uma said, “like they do in foreign countries.” She giggled as Karun looked for a place to put me down, and helpfully suggested the bed.

  I’d been to the apartment before, and instantly fallen in love with the view of the sea through the windows. Karun showed me the bedroom cupboard he’d emptied. “If you have more clothes, I can clear out some of my shirts as well.” On the bed, under the covers, he’d spread the new sheets he’d purchased. “Uma said you liked roses, but this sunflower pattern was all I could find. They’re still a bit stiff—I only had time to get them washed twice.”

  We spent the afternoon listening to his collection of classical CDs. “The sarod you hear is by the maestro himself, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan,” Karun said, fitting me with headphones as he played one of his favorites. “It’s the Chandranandan raga, his most famous composition.” Afterwards, he talked about the first nanoseconds after the Big Bang when the primordial soup coalesced into protons and neutrons, then showed me a simulated film on his computer of gold ions colliding. “What this tracks is the condensation process in reverse—the particles blown apart into a plasma of gluons and quarks.”

  The flat came with Karun’s job—in fact, the entire cluster of buildings was owned by his institute, an annex to the larger housing complex down the road where Uma and Anoop lived. “I didn’t realize I’d be surrounded by scientists,” I exclaimed.

  He looked confused. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “I’m joking. My sister’s married to a scientist—and now, so am I.”