The City of Devi: A Novel

by Manil Suri

  “With the Limbus? They’re too stupid to figure anything out. And my boss isn’t here, so he’ll never know.”

  We hug, and I glimpse an expression of guileless affection on Rahim’s face which takes me back many years. Or perhaps it’s just the light from the table lamp, catching him in such a way to make him look very young. “I hope you find him,” he says.

  As I step into the corridor to go get Sarita, he calls after me. “Actually, I did come close to caring a lot for somebody once. But I was only sixteen, and thought it was just a crush.”

  INCREDIBLY, MY VISION did come true—Karun and the Jazter ended up living together in our own private flat. Not in Bombay, but Delhi. That’s where Karun returned when he graduated with his bachelor’s, to be closer to his mother, and also pursue a post-graduate degree. Since I received my bachelor of commerce at the same time, I said goodbye to my befuddled parents (“But Mumbai is the financial capital!”) and took up a job at an investment center in Connaught Place.

  Our joint apartment almost didn’t come to pass, simply because nobody would rent us one. To head off any reservations, we’d prepared an explanation of wanting to share expenses to save money for when we married. But the sticking factor turned out to be religion rather than two men cohabiting. I’d heard of landlords in Bombay refusing to lease flats to Muslims, but they were ten times more bigoted in Delhi. (“All that terrorism, you know,” one explained rather kindly.) The question of Karun renting a place in his name didn’t arise, students being a category possibly even less welcome than Muslims.

  For a while, we lived in a “barsati” in a Muslim section of Old Delhi. Coming from Bombay, I was not familiar with these single-room structures, built as servants’ quarters on house terraces. Ours came with a tiny toilet, a cubicle for bathing, and a hot plate (for which the landlord, Mr. Suleiman, charged us fifty rupees a month for the extra electricity). The place (our “penthouse,” as we called it) had the advantage of complete privacy—only the most determined intruders would climb four floors to barge in on a terrace that baked all day in the heat.

  Still, for the two months we spent there, Karun (or rather Kasim, the Muslim name we made up to give Mr. Suleiman) and I were able to relax into the tranquillity of quotidian life for the first time. We made tea on the hot plate each morning and shared a packet of Gluco biscuits for breakfast (seven biscuits each, with an extra one sometimes, which we split in half). We left at around eight and returned only after sunset, trying out all the oily but inexpensive dhabbas in nearby markets. Sometimes, we went for a movie, but usually just watched television on the small portable set we’d smuggled up (so that Mr. Suleiman didn’t charge us even more for electricity). Once it cooled down enough, we had sex in the room, then dragged the charpoys outside to wherever the breeze seemed strongest that night. Karun liked bedtime stories, so I usually narrated a fairy tale we’d both heard as children. By the time I got to the middle, he fell asleep.

  On very hot nights, I tried to cool us down by talking about all the snow I’d seen while growing up. The great blizzard of Chicago when we shivered without electricity for an entire week, the white-daubed houses and carpeted streets that turned Geneva into a postcard. The trees aglitter with ice under which I lay, the snow chairs I built to cozy up in, the frozen lakes across which I danced and skimmed. Karun, who had never experienced snow, snuggled closer, as if he could actually feel its chill. That’s when I told him the nearby Yamuna had frozen solid against its banks, that the roads downstairs were hushed and white, that the gleam of our rooftop came from snow, not moonlight. Once, I even taught him how to skate, as if the terrace outside our barsati had been converted into a giant ice rink.

  I awoke every dawn when the birds just started chirping. I rolled into Karun’s bed—I enjoyed cuddling with him in the cool. Sometimes, I pressed and poked with my erection, or stroked his groin, or nibbled at his foreskin. I loved bothering him like that while he lay half asleep—he either groaned and turned away, or succumbed to my advances. Afterwards, he tried to catch a few more winks. I held him in my arms and waited for the sun to rise from behind the rooftops, to brush his skin with its first delicate strokes of golden light.

  Perhaps our abode wasn’t as private as we imagined. Perhaps other residents stirred at the same time of dawn in their barsatis. One day, as I played with a still-drowsy Karun, a rock came hurtling onto our terrace from an adjacent rooftop. When I returned that evening, a knot of women who lived in the lower floors stood gossiping on the steps by the entrance. The way they went silent and stared as I passed made it clear they were talking about us. The next day, Mr. Suleiman braved the four floors to our barsati to order us to leave.

  I HAD NOT WANTED to enlist my parents’ help in getting a flat, since I didn’t want them to know about Karun and me living together. But I needn’t have worried. When, after two weeks of filthy hotel rooms, I finally gave in, my father readily swallowed the story I’d concocted about wanting to save money. “That physics student—I remember him. It’s good to have friends with such diverse interests.”

  He put me in touch with Mrs. Singh, a widowed friend of a colleague, who asked Karun and me to come directly to the Green Park flat she had for rent. She looked much younger than I’d expected—about fifty, perhaps. Although dressed in the observant white of a widow, I noticed her feet peeking out from under the cuffs of her salwaar astride exuberantly pink sandals. “I live right below, but you have your own private entrance. Mr. Singh had that installed just before he passed.” Her scrutiny alternated between Karun and me, as if trying to figure us out. “It’s only a one-bedroom, but it does have two beds.” She pointed them out—they looked as modest as the cots in Karun’s Bombay hostel. “I normally rent only to husband-and-wife couples—I had the mai pull them apart for you this morning and put the nightstand in between.” She locked gazes with me. “This is the way they should look when the mai comes in at ten every morning to clean.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Look, Mr. Hassan. You’re telling me you and your friend want to save money. Fine. I didn’t ask, and I don’t care. You won’t find another Punjabi woman in all of Delhi who’s less inquisitive than Mrs. Singh. But I draw the line at gossip. I like my tenants to be quiet and clean. All I ask is you not give the mai any reason to start her tongue wagging.” She stared at each one of us in turn. “I can show you the kitchen if we’re agreed.”

  The flat rented for half my salary, so it didn’t look like we’d be saving much money for our purported weddings. “Plus, I’ll need a year’s rent in advance as deposit,” Mrs. Singh said. “Which is pretty standard for Delhi.” I had to SOS my father for help again—fortunately, he agreed to wire me the money.

  The next two years were the happiest in my life. I felt like the hero (sometimes the heroine) of one of the fairy tales I related to Karun every night. Swirling through flower-laden fields, galloping across magical plains—who cared if it was only Delhi’s congested lanes, as long as I had Karun by my side? We perfected the art of haggling, and learnt to tenderize even the toughest Delhi hen by marinating it in yoghurt overnight. We bought half the board games on the market, and several new accessories for my train set, indulging every whim our childhoods had denied. Rearranging the furniture for the mai each morning became a drag, so we learnt to squeeze together in the same bed. At night, we made love with barely a gasp or creak so as not to disturb Mrs. Singh.

  Her demeanor softened soon after we moved in. She helped us fill out the application for a phone line and figure out the electricity bill. She gave us cucumbers from her vines on the terrace, and remembered to wish us well on both Muslim and Hindu holidays. Two months after we moved in, she sent up a large pot of chicken lentil soup when we both got the flu. Most endearing of all, she treated us as a couple—long before the shopkeepers downstairs fell into the habit from seeing us together so often. The bania advised us to start buying detergent in the family size to save money, the vegetable woman rememb
ered I liked okra and Karun peas, the meatwalla saved us just enough chops for two persons to eat.

  The only thorn in our side was Mrs. Singh’s eighteen-year-old son Harjeet. He scowled each time he encountered us on the steps, positioning his hefty frame to make it awkward to pass. He made raucously loud homophobic comments from the verandah when he got together with his Sikh friends. We stopped hanging out our clothes to dry on the terrace when gobs of dirt started mysteriously landing on them (underwear seemed especially vulnerable). He lifted weights in his turban and shorts on the landing outside our door on Sundays, so that he could mutter obscenities in case we accidentally glanced his way.

  Fortunately, we spent most of our time on weekends exploring the city. On one such expedition, we chanced upon an expansive shrubbery-filled park that bordered an enclave of foreign embassies. I instantly realized its potential as a shikari’s paradise. Sure enough, men loitered all around, standing near the gate, reclining on benches, leaning against trees. A central pathway over a suspended red and white rope bridge had the most action, with shikaris and their prey working the circuit as if modeling their wares on a fashion runway.

  On a whim, I took Karun by the arm and joined the men parading up the path to the bridge. A space immediately cleared all around us, as if in deference to our coupled state. I felt people’s curiosity, noticed them peering to catch a glimpse. Was there a measure of jealousy mixed in, resentment that we promenaded like royalty through their midst? Had I risked attracting their malediction, their evil eye, their nazar, by flaunting our good fortune in their face? Karun didn’t seem to notice the reactions—he blithely pointed to the trees, the gardens, the red and orange flowers.

  That evening, I finally uttered the phrase whirling around in my mind. I could no longer remember when the inkling had first arisen, when it had fledged and strengthened, when it had parsed together the words for its own articulation. An idea, an expression, antithetical to Jazter philosophy, one that blasphemed his Gita, his Koran, his Bible. Our stroll in the park had given it that final energy to break free, when I realized how lucky I felt to no longer be a shikari. I raised myself up on my arms when I felt it coming, so that I hovered over Karun, looking directly into his face. “I love you”—the words felt unfamiliar yet silky as they slid from the Jazter’s lips.

  For a moment, Karun didn’t respond, and I wondered if I’d overreached, overplayed my hand. Then he leaned up to kiss me. “I love you too,” he replied.

  THE ALLEY BEHIND the hotel is deserted, except for rats enjoying a moonlit supper of discarded kitchen waste. We race past the rear of several buildings, Rahim’s large purple burkha billowing and flapping around Sarita’s slender frame. Cadell Road, when we get to it, is thronged with men, though thankfully a few burkhas dot the crowd as well. I try to keep us hidden from the Limbus glowering menacingly from the edges. Every so often, they gesture, with their rifles or the stiff plastic tubing they wield as whips, to pull people out for checks.

  The skyscraper tower of Hinduja Hospital rises to our left. The Limbus have only managed to blacken it, not burn it down—even the charred shell of the aerial tunnel connecting the east and west wings still hangs above the road. Broken medical consoles, mangled hospital beds, smashed operating tables lie scattered around, like bodies dragged out of the building and clubbed to death. An MRI scanner seems to have been the object of particular wrath—its pallet twisted and burnt, its cylindrical tube hacked open in half, electronic entrails spilling out colorfully over the pavement.

  Ahead, the air is thick with the smell of generator fuel. Loudspeakers blare religious sermons, the torches give way to floodlights beaming down from poles. Every once in a while a roar of approval erupts from somewhere up ahead. I’m uneasy about the crush—so strong that it’s impossible not to be carried along. We’re headed in the direction of the causeway, it’s true, but what if that’s precisely where they hope to scoop us up?

  The road narrows, and more Limbus appear, blocking every side street and alleyway. It already appears impossible to make a break for the water, to choose the boat alternative Rahim had suggested. A few hundred meters away, a mound rises from the ground, splitting the crowd into two streams that slowly circle past. A pair of rifle-toting Limbus stands on this platform, flanking a smaller figure between them. Even from afar, I realize it must be Yusuf—they’re funneling us through so that he can scan all our faces.

  Sarita sees him as well, and immediately slows down—I nudge her on to maintain her pace. There’s no way to turn around—the Limbus will get very excited if anyone attempts an about-face. Instead, I veer us through the flow at an angle, so that we gradually shift towards the edge. The doorway to a building stands unguarded ahead—if we can make it through, we might escape.

  Barely have we stepped onto the sidewalk, though, when a whistle sounds, followed by a whole cacophony of them. We’ve been spotted from above—a Limbu gestures with his rifle from his balcony perch for us to stay clear of the building. I hastily pull Sarita back into the anonymity of the crowd before the terrestrial guards can pinpoint whom they’ve been whistling at.

  We near Yusuf, and I notice his face is swollen. Blood runs down from his ear and mouth, several of his scabs have ruptured again. I try not to look at him—to be cautious, I tell myself, though it’s really due to guilt. But he catches my eye when we’re still several feet away. Recognition floods in—he opens his mouth and raises his hand to point me out. I brace myself for exposure—the accusing finger, the triumphant shout—can I really blame him after the injuries I’ve caused? One second extrudes slowly into the next—is it even worth fumbling for my weapon, should I simply let the Limbus gun us down? But at the last instant, Yusuf redirects his raised hand to wipe his chin—he licks the blood off his lips and closes his mouth. As we pass, he flashes the tiniest of smirks, while keeping his gaze trained resolutely at the crowd.

  Sarita is so distraught at his condition that she tugs on my arm to go back—I’m thankful the burkha keeps her agitation masked. “His brother’s a Limbu, so he’ll be OK,” I whisper, and pull her along.

  The road runs past the mosque turnoff to the causeway bridge, but the throng pressing in from the opposite direction makes it impossible to continue. Limbus push through, trying to bring order to the whirlpool of people, flailing their rubber tubes to herd everyone in through the entrance lane. We have little choice but to follow, towards the ornate green arch with white Urdu lettering that frames the mosque. The four minarets and star and crescent flag rising from the top of the gate are just as I remember. I’ve been here twice with my father—once to observe the ailing supplicants who come to seek a cure on Thursdays, once just to soak in the tranquillity of the inner sanctum housing the graves of a Sufi saint and his mother.

  Now, the Limbus have erected a tall stage with loudspeakers in the tiled plaza. “These infidels, these kafirs, who tried to kill our innocent children with their terrorist train—” one of them recites, standing next to a slaughtering frame, the kind found in a halal abattoir. Ropes tether two blindfolded figures in bloodstained clothes to a pole. The man on the left pulls and strains to free himself, but the other simply sits slumped on the ground, his head lolling limply on his chest. A rock from the crowd bounces off his body and elicits a weak groan, but he makes no move to protect himself.

  “I think that’s Mura,” Sarita says in a strangled voice. “What if they’ve got Guddi and Anupam as well?” She wants to stick around to make sure her train companions aren’t led on stage, but the queasiness is rapidly spreading in my stomach, and I pull her away before the “entertainment” Rahim warned us about can begin.

  On our last visit, my father led me down a long flight of steps to show me the strip of beach at the rear of the mosque. Looking for a way to distance us from the stage, I spot the passage that leads to these steps—miraculously, they are unguarded. We climb down to the sand and have barely walked a few paces before we bump into the missing sentry zipping up his pants by a ur
ine-stained wall. He tries to unsling his rifle, but to my surprise, I have faster reflexes. The gun magically appears in my hand, I am transformed to Jaz Bond in an instant.

  Except I haven’t quite mastered the art of 006 dialogue yet, I can’t summon the lines I’m supposed to spout. After an awkwardly silent moment, Sarita has the presence of mind to order the Limbu to drop his rifle and raise his hands. She even waves him along through her burkha as if packing her own pistol under her chador.

  We walk in a procession along the wall of the old Mahim fort. The sentry stretches his arms high into the air as if accomplishing this smartly is a point of pride for him. He’s almost my height, and about my age as well—doing an automatic shikari appraisal of his shoulders and back, even our builds appear the same. The thought flashes through my mind that our positions might have been reversed had our birth circumstances been exchanged. I try to imagine myself barefoot in a raggedy salwaar kameez like him, trading in the comfort of my Italian sneakers, the snugness of my designer jeans. What would it have been like to grow up in his place? Perhaps surrounded by religious zealots, perhaps hungry, perhaps illiterate? Would the Jazter have turned into a Jihadster? Might free will have prevailed, or was it solely a function of fate?

  “A function of opportunity,” I hear my father say. He always maintained that the difference between the tolerant and the extremist was not so great. “Looking into the Other, we can always find something of ourselves within.” By which logic I, too, should have the power to reach out to this Limbu: plant a notion, sow a seed, that might influence him. Who knew what native intelligence lay under that scruffy exterior, what sensitive personality, what endearing face? I decide to share the fact that I’m Muslim—this will be the stepping stone towards establishing a connection.

  “Lying dog!” He turns around and spits in my face. “I know you’re one of the Hindus who got away from the train. We’re all around—you’ll never escape.”