The City of Devi: A Novel

by Manil Suri

  Except Bhim seems determined to do precisely that, perhaps having recognized the danger Sarahan poses. The door opens to reveal a trio of guards, not the rescue team I’ve been promised. They want to put on handcuffs, to which Sarahan objects at first, but then agrees sportingly, as if it’s all a big charade. He smiles as we’re led out of the cell, even giving me a conspiratorial wink.

  As we walk through the subterranean tunnel, it strikes me that Sarahan might be overly optimistic, even deluded. I can’t rely on him—I need to plan my own escape. My best hope is that someone will spot me on the way and inform Devi ma of my handcuffed state. Unfortunately, we’re sequestered from view in the tunnel, from which we emerge into a shed that’s equally secluded. A tall animal figure with an outlandishly swollen belly looms in front of me—looking around, I notice a whole herd of them.

  At first I think they are decorative sculptures, examples of folksy local craftsmanship. The statues stand perfectly still, their heads slightly cocked, as if interrupted by an unfamiliar sound in the midst of their graze. Then I notice the horn-shaped protuberances, the short stump-like limbs, the hooks on their backs attached to sturdy hooped braces. One of the animals is legless and rests on the ground like a giant egg, another is all skeleton—a woman works rolled-up newspaper into the crevices of its blackened metal frame. “The buffaloes,” Sarahan says, pointing at them with his chin. “I had an inkling that’s how they’d do it.”

  I’m not sure what he means, not immediately, not beyond the fact that they’ve brought us to see the buffalo-demon effigies the Devi sacrifices. The woman comes over to introduce herself as Mansi, offering us a sheet of canvas-like material spread over her outstretched arms. Noticing our cuffed hands, she holds it up for us to examine, telling us this is what they use for the buffalo exterior. “After we’ve squeezed as much paper and pulp as we can into the frame, we stretch this tight over the surface like a skin. It lights on fire instantly because of the ghee we smear over it.” She leads us on a tour of the buffaloes, stroking their backs as if they’re alive, informing us about the individual names she’s given them. There’s even a Shyamu—no relation, presumably, to Guddi’s elephant.

  I keep getting the impression, as Mansi points to the special features of each buffalo—the roominess of the belly cavity, the colors and designs painted on the sides, that she’s trying to sell us something. “So?” she asks, after touting a particularly festive model with green good-luck swastikas imprinted on its forehead. “Will Birbal be the lucky one tonight?” Sarahan defers to me, and with no particular animus against Birbal, I shrug yes. Mansi beams. “Let me show you the fireworks then.”

  She leads us to a corner of the shed, where she removes the lids from a row of large bins. Inside, I see tangles of rockets, strings of red crackers, atom bombs neatly packed in boxes, fire whistles glistening like foil-covered chocolates. “Don’t be shy, fill them with as many as you like,” she says, handing us each an empty bucket. I load mine as instructed, getting a bit greedy with the spinners and fountains at the end. Mansi nods in approval. “Those burn spectacularly—Devi ma just loves them.”

  After we’ve set the buckets down by Birbal, Mansi tops each off with several white bricks of camphor, whose astringent aroma reminds me of Vicks. “For that nice sizzling effect.” I must be dense, because I don’t get it even when she tells us they clean the frames thoroughly each morning. “All very hygienic—you won’t smell any trace from the previous burning.” It’s only when she starts reassuring me about how comfortable it is within that I wonder if she could possibly mean what I think. I look at Sarahan, and he nods, as if he’s been watching the awareness flower with such aching slowness on my face.

  “Don’t worry,” he tells me. “Remember what I said in the basement about my men.” Turning to Mansi, he compliments her on how splendid she’s made the buffalo look. “I’m sure they’re just as nice inside—I didn’t realize I’d actually get to try one myself.”

  Mansi blushes in delight. “I still have a pair of fire wheels left. We’re not really supposed to use them in the buffaloes, but Devi ma likes them even more than the rockets. I’ll let you have them as well.”

  Our actual insertion into the effigy is a decidedly unceremonious affair. The guards lift Birbal onto a dolly, then lean a ladder against his side, then nudge us up at gunpoint with our hands still cuffed behind our backs. One of them flips open a trapdoor on the top and pushes Sarahan in—I hear a groan as his body hits the base of wooden planks. He cries out even louder when I land on top of him. As I try to wriggle myself off his belly, a cascade of firecrackers pelts us—first one bucket, then the other. More material comes raining down—wood shavings and pulp this time, and I realize the guards are emptying the wastebaskets of burnable scrap.

  The patch of sky visible through the trapdoor opening is already purple by the time we are wheeled out of the shed. I manage to flip myself over so that I lie squeezed next to Sarahan, feet to head (giving me my first true appreciation of the term “packed like sardines”). After rolling along for several minutes, during which I distinctly hear us serenaded by devotional music, our bovine chariot comes to a halt. A tackle hangs in the hole above, suspended by wires that disappear towards the looming Indica turret beyond.

  At least they’ve left the trapdoor open for us to get some air, I think, just seconds before someone slams it closed. Bolts are drawn, fasteners snap shut, the buffalo rocks and shudders as footsteps sound on the flat of its back above. Will this be it? I wonder, as the blackness begins to stifle. I strain against my cuffs, struggle to shake the crevices of my body free of nestling fireworks (the rocket with its cone pointed at my groin proves particularly stubborn). My empty stomach churns with acid—shouldn’t someone at least offer us a last mutton fry or masala chop?

  “It’s OK,” Sarahan intones. “They’ll come, don’t you worry.” He tries to keep his voice encouraging, but I can detect the first flurries of unease from him swirl in the dark. He starts singing (though it sounds a bit like praying) as if unencumbered by a care in the world.

  We’re in there for an hour at least, or perhaps it just seems that long, having to listen to Sarahan’s labored vocal efforts at affecting nonchalance. I try to get my mind off my situation by thinking of Karun, but that’s even worse. He lolls with Sarita by the pool sharing something frosty in a glass (the Jazter’s sacrifice, already forgotten, bleaches in the past). Just when I’m all good and claustrophobic, ready to scream for the barbecue to start, I hear the bolts on the trapdoor being drawn. “See?” Sarahan says, his relief audible. “I told you they’d come.”

  Except it’s not the much-ballyhooed rescue brigade peering down at us, but Das. “Sarahan? Everything going well down there, my friend? I know it must be a bit uncomfortable, but it’s not for very long.”

  “Das? What are you doing here?”

  “Bhim told me what happened. The train hijacked, the weapons lost, even Mura killed—what a terrible shame. I came to say how much I’m personally going to miss you—without your presence, things simply won’t be the same. You may not realize this, but ever since I arrived here, I’ve looked up to you as a role model.”

  “That’s very nice to hear. Now could you pull me out?”

  “I want to, Sarahan, believe me, there’s nothing I’d like more. But with you leaving so abruptly, and nobody else around to take your place, Bhim just appointed me of all people, put me in charge. All very spur-of-the-moment—I guess he’d heard about me helping you out—I can’t very well now betray his trust. In fact, I actually came here to seek your blessing. I’m nowhere near as worthy, I know—just pray I can succeed even half as well as you did.”

  I hear a sharp intake of breath from Sarahan. “So it was you, then,” he says, slowly. “All this time I’ve been racking my brain. The one who tattled to the Limbus, the one who told them to derail the train. You must have been planning this all along.”

  “No, of course not. How could you ever think I—?”r />
  “Bastard. Dogfucker. And now you have the audacity to come seek my blessing? If I were free—” Sarahan heaves and thrusts next to me, raising and lowering sections of his body like an earthworm.

  Das steps back a bit. When he speaks again, his voice has an injured tone. “Here I am, come to seek your blessing, and instead you heap me with such abuse? Do you know, I actually brought something for you, something to thank you for everything you’ve done?” He holds up a can of some sort. “Here. I’m going to leave it for you, whether you appreciate it or not.” He lowers it through the hole, at the end of a rope tied around its girth.

  The container alights on our bodies, straddling my thigh and Sarahan’s stomach. As I adjust my leg, I feel liquid slosh within. “It’s to make the transition easier,” Das says. “As you’ve seen, Devi ma’s fire can be slow and arduous.”

  Sarahan hears the sloshing too, and begins to curse louder. Das shakes his head. “This is gratitude? Do you know how hard it was to find, how I had to smuggle it out? Don’t tell anyone, but it’s a whole can of petrol, enough to explode a bus. You’ll be vaporized in an instant, not burn bit by bit, not have your skin peel off.”

  As Sarahan’s shouts fill the buffalo interior, Das shakes his head sadly. “Such anger. Such conflict. At least feel happy you’re celebrating the glory of Devi ma.” He gives a short wave, then seals the trapdoor shut.

  IT’S TIME TO FACE the tragic truth. The Jazter will never pen his memoir. Too bad these meditations will die with him, how sad he couldn’t even Twitter them out.

  What, in any case, should be my concluding thoughts? What paeans should I compose, what advice dispense, what legacy of wisdom bestow? What insights will stand the test of time—a much more plausible task, now that time itself seems poised to wind down? I find myself at a loss. The sparkle has deserted me, now that the fun and games have stopped. I can summon neither wit nor pithiness, not even use my experiences to extrude a trite epitaph.

  And yet the brown and cloying aroma of ghee reminds me to hurry up. It seeps through the lining of Birbal’s stomach, mixing with the sulfur of firecrackers and the sourness of wood pulp. The maidens have begun to smear on our flammable coating, I can hear them titter and laugh. Where does all this ghee come from? The cows that give the milk—don’t they know there’s a war going on? Sarahan understands the fragrance as well, because his prayers, nominally disguised as singing, turn into frantic chants.

  I realize I’m not immune from fear myself. For all this time, I’ve kept it at bay, my cockiness surrounding me like a wall. The panic floods in, now that this defense has fallen. The Jazter was not born to play the role of Bond. Or, for that matter, Joan of Arc. He’s always yelped at the tiniest burn. He can’t imagine the prospect of immolation, much less face it with aplomb.

  With fear so palpable, the air inside the chamber dwindles fast. I lie in the dark, my breathing labored, my throat burnt by fumes, my mouth gritty with dust. This is how I will die—bound and gasping, pressed against the jelly mold of Sarahan’s quivering body, here in this buffalo’s stomach. The realization shocks me. I never thought my search would end so sordidly, always imagining my existence charmed.

  What does one do in these last few minutes? What tips do gurus dispense to calm oneself before the death blast? I try to conjure up pleasant memories. Meals enjoyed, concerts attended, the first qawalli disco cut I mixed, a long-ago vacation with my parents in the Swiss Alps. The timeless cycle of search, battle, and victory on the epic fields of shikar. And then, of course, Karun—the montage softer, more lyrical, tinted in a rainbow of luminous colors. Perhaps the imminent heat of conflagration makes the memory of cooling barsati snow tales stand out in particular.

  But none of these recollections, not even Karun, can keep me anchored strongly enough. I must liftoff to distance myself from what I face, I can no longer remain earthbound. Like the stages of a rocket, the different components of my identity begin to drop away: Jazter, Ijaz, Jaz—the shikari, the son, the holy lover. I rise higher, faster, freer, as I jettison every façade, every persona.

  What will I discover about myself in these final instants? What awaits me as I break through these clouds? I’ve never ventured so high, confronted my own unvarnished being, gazed so directly into the self’s blinding sun. I know I cannot look for more than a second, but that glimpse will be enough.

  And then it comes. The flash, the insight, the explanation, the awareness that sums me up. To my surprise, I find it’s tragedy that defines me—no matter how carefree a gloss I put on it, no matter how I try to bury it in fun. The tragedy of a spirit not quite formed, a character not yet done. I need more time to realize myself, to grow up fully, to assume my place in the world.

  Except there is no more time left—the vision already begins to fade off. The clouds fold over me again, I find myself plummeting back into the dark. The layers I have shed cling back on, sodden and suffocating, weighing me down. Sarahan has started screaming, now that the sound of the maidens outside has died out.

  All of a sudden, he stops. Noises waft down from above—metal clinks, footsteps scrape. It sounds like the tackle being attached to hooks, they must be preparing to winch us up. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, not caring that my lungs fill with gunpowder. Only one thing remains now—to wait for the buffalo to deliver us.

  SARITA

  15

  AT FIRST, I FEEL FAINT AT THE THOUGHT THAT THE NEWS HAS been a cruel hoax. Abandoning my fruitless search of yet another hotel floor, I’ve raced back to Guddi’s room and burst through the gaggle of guards outside. But I only see Anupam. “Where is he?” I gasp, my knees threatening to buckle, my breath squeezing through in spurts.

  Anupam points towards the balcony. “Over there, Didi. He’s your husband, isn’t he?” She smiles shyly and covers her head with the edge of her sari. “I’ll be outside, in case you need anything.”

  I venture deeper into the room and stop. Through the balcony doors, framed by the billowing curtains, I behold the familiar silhouette. Light swirls around Karun’s body, splashing over his shoulders, dappling his hair. I feel myself transported to all those years ago at the beach picnic, watching him emerge once more from the incandescent waves. Or the mornings that we practiced yoga, lit by the sunshine streaming in from outside. For an instant I want to just stand there and drink him in incrementally, savoring every feature as I focus on it. But then he moves closer and calls out my name, and I rush up to bury my face greedily into him.

  “Karun,” I repeat like a mantra over and over again, trying to lose myself in his feel, his scent, the line between his lips. No matter how hard I hug his body or press my mouth against his, though, I can’t seem to squeeze out enough reassurance, can’t seem to make up the deficit. Perhaps all the agonizing days of separation are to blame, the hours and minutes and seconds that have played out, drip by drip. Even once I’ve sated myself, I think, I might never let go of him again.

  Although his embrace is tight, even frantic, I cannot feel any joy communicated by him. In fact, his entire body seems strangely wound and unresponsive. Drawing back, I’m shocked to see how miserable he looks, how agitated. He squeezes his eyes shut when I ask what’s wrong. “Jaz. They have Jaz. And I wasn’t able to do anything about it.”

  His words tumble out faster than I can keep up. Something about the hotel annex, something about Bhim, something about a colleague never heard from again. “At first I was furious when I learnt you were here and Jaz hadn’t even told me about it. But now I realize he offered himself up just so we could be safe.” My confusion must show, because Karun stops and holds me at the shoulders with both arms extended. “You do know who I’m talking about? The Jaz who found me, the one who followed you, the one you came with. They’ll kill him if we don’t find some way to save him.”

  Although I’m still blurry, the expression on Karun’s face is beginning to fill me with dismay. “Do you—?” A multitude of questions throng my mind and I can’t think of which
one to choose. “Do you know him—Jaz—from before, then?”

  I have to repeat my question a few times before it gets through, before Karun’s train of words slows, then comes to a halt. He drops his hands to his sides and stands in silence, or perhaps contrition. “It happened a long time before I met you,” he finally says. “He and I—we were—we were together.”

  Together. Is that it, then? All that needs be stated? The way it’s announced these days? Together. How should I respond? What emotion should I bring to my face? Of all the reactions that flood my mind, none seems entirely appropriate to display. It’s not as if I haven’t brooded about this possibility, as if I didn’t have any warning, any time to prepare. Perhaps my defense is I’ve never encountered a Mills & Boon heroine confronting this situation, I don’t have a template to follow from Bollywood films. Shock or disappointment or horror or hurt—I wait for the spin to stop, for the arrow to point the way. “I’m sorry,” Karun mumbles.

  And then the wheel bearings lock—in a surprise photo finish, anger wins. It no longer matters whether I saw this coming or not—my fury sweeps all such irrelevancies away. The rigors of my journey, the strain of the past weeks, the insecurities of our entire marriage perhaps, fill me with a desire to exact vengeance, to punish Karun for the pain he has inflicted. Sorry is not enough. Together is not enough. Vast reservoirs of indignation rage inside me, they must be tamed.

  I make him start at the very beginning, tolerating no omissions, brooking no euphemisms. Each time he tries to finesse over something private, I insist he reveal every embarrassing detail. How exactly did Jaz initiate him that first time? What did he do to reciprocate? What is the physical sensation like, lying on his stomach and being penetrated? Is that it then—my spouse’s preference? What my pati-dev, my husband-god, specializes in?