The Death of Vishnu (8 page)

T
HE FIGHT HAD
ended an hour ago—the landing had been cleaned up, the children beaten, the husbands berated, and both Mrs. Pathak and Mrs. Asrani were being borne towards their afternoon naps on carpets of satisfaction and inner peace, when Mrs. Jalal came down.

“Hello? Anyone home?” She knocked on the Pathaks’ door, but there was no answer.

Salim had told her that the Asranis and Pathaks had been wrapping up their fight when he had passed their floor. “Looks like they couldn’t agree who should pay for the hospital bed,” he said. “So they sent the ambulance away without poor Vishnu.”

Mrs. Jalal instantly felt the guilt, kindled that morning by Short Ganga. “You mean he’s just lying there on the steps, dying?” she asked Salim. She paced her kitchen, worrying about it, and finally decided to go downstairs to see what could be done. “Mrs. Pathak?” she called now, wondering if she risked waking them if she rang their bell. “It’s me, Mrs. Jalal.”

There were shuffling sounds from behind the door. “What do you want?” It was Mrs. Pathak’s voice, and muffled though it was by the door, the irritation it carried came through clearly.

“I was wondering if I may have a word with you. It’s about Vishnu.”

“What
about
Vishnu?”

“Well, Salim told me what happened—that you and Mrs. Asrani had—had a problem getting him to a hospital—and—well, it’s the whole building’s responsibility, isn’t it, not just yours, so I thought perhaps I should come down and help.”

“What help now? The ambulancewalla has come and gone.”

“Yes, Salim told me. So expensive. Hospitals, these days. But I have a suggestion. That’s why I came down only. Perhaps we should call Hajrat Society.”

“Hajrat Society?”

“They pick people up—people who’re dying. To take care of them in their last moments. People who have no place to go. It’s not a hospital, really, just somewhere a little more comfortable. And it’s free.”

“
What
society is this?”

“Hajrat. It’s a charity organization. You can see their van pass by here sometimes. Some of the people from our mosque belong to it—even Mr. Jalal volunteered once. It’s all free, of course.”

“Oh. Related to your mosque.”

“It’s open to everyone—not just Muslims.”

“Yes.”

The irritation in Mrs. Pathak’s voice was gone. In its place, Mrs. Jalal detected a careful tonelessness.

“I have their number. I could call them up.”

“I see.”

“They come quite quickly. I would just have to call them. You just need to let me know.”

“Thank you.”

Mrs. Jalal stood on the steps uncertainly. The tone of Mrs. Pathak’s voice suggested she had been dismissed, but there had been no clear resolution to the conversation. Which was typical of her dealings with the Pathaks and Asranis. Why were these people so difficult? Why couldn’t they be more like her upstairs neighbor, Mr. Taneja? She still remembered the weeks of antagonism that had followed when the main water pump had broken down, and the agonizing negotiations that had dragged on when the sewage pipes had to be replaced. Even something as harmless as giving Short Ganga five rupees for the new year had turned into a fight, with both Mrs. Pathak and Mrs. Asrani storming up and accusing her of spoiling Short Ganga, who now would expect the same from them as well.

At least Mrs. Pathak was still civil to her, unlike her abominable neighbor behind the adjacent door. Every time she encountered Mrs. Asrani on the steps, the woman made it a point to snort and rudely turn her face away. Which was quite rich, considering it was that firecracker daughter of Mrs. Asrani’s who had ensnared her poor Salim. Mrs. Jalal stared at the black-and-white doorbell of the Asranis and wished she was agile enough to punch it and run up the stairs, like Salim used to, when he was younger.

For a moment, she contemplated going down to the landing to check on Vishnu. She still didn’t believe he could be all that sick—perhaps she could trick him into recovery. But then Short Ganga’s chastising words smoldered in her ears again, and she felt ashamed at her cynicism. The poor man was dying—
dying
—she herself had been talking of having his body carted away just a minute ago. No, there was no need to verify Vishnu’s condition. Besides, if need be, she could always look into it later on her way to Nafeesa’s.

There was nothing more to do. The trip had been a wasted effort. Mrs. Pathak, she knew, would not be calling. She never should have come down—it wasn’t as if she didn’t have enough problems of her own to worry about.

Mrs. Jalal turned around and, gripping the banister, began the climb back to her floor.

T
HE KNOCK ON
the Pathaks’ door had come just as Mrs. Asrani was about to fall asleep. At first, she had been too tired to get up and listen, but then the sound of Mrs. Jalal’s voice had galvanized her to her own door. She stood behind it now, waiting for the footsteps to fade up the steps.

Mrs. Asrani looked at the Air India clock on the far wall. The maharaja’s hands were both near the four, which meant it was too late to return to her nap. Besides, her heart was racing again—try as she might, she could never quite relax herself while she eavesdropped on Mrs. Pathak’s conversations through the door. She had often wondered if she should see a doctor about this, if there was some little pill that he could prescribe for such occasions. But perhaps tea was all she needed, tea to soothe her mind and calm her heart. She opened her door a crack and peered out to make sure the landing was clear. She was about to enter the kitchen when the Pathaks’ door opened and Mrs. Pathak stepped out as well.

In the kitchen, the two women did not look at each other, but kept their eyes fixed on their kettles. It was Mrs. Asrani who spoke first. “Hajrat Society. Never heard of it.”

“It’s a
Muslim
charity, she said.”

“For what, though? To cart dead people away? What kind of charity is that?”

“She said to help them die. In comfort, she said.”

Mrs. Asrani picked up her kettle and shook it vigorously to stimulate the water into boiling faster. “Forgive me, but if I were in that state I wouldn’t be worrying about a pillow for my head,” she said.

“I wonder what they do with the bodies.”

“I’ll tell you one thing they
don’t
do. They don’t cremate them.”

“Of course. They probably just bury them.”

“Who knows
what
they do with them.”

“Especially the non-Muslims.”

“They probably check the men, you know. Down in their private region. To see if they’re Muslim or not.”

“Poor Vishnu. I wonder what would happen to him.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to him. We aren’t just going to hand him over like that.”

“I’m sure the municipality does cremations if you contact them.”

“If not, we’ll take him to the ghat ourselves. Tell Mrs. Jalal we don’t need her help.”

“The nerve of that woman. Waving her charity in our face like that. As if we’re incompetent. As if we can’t take care of our own.”

“Who knows what the real motive is. She and her crazy husband and that cockroach son of theirs.”

“I’ll call her up and tell her.”

“Yes, give my name too. Tell her we have charities like that in our community also.”

“Besides, I just put a new sheet on Vishnu. What does she think. I’ll tell her he’s quite comfortable, thank you.”

T
HE NOISE HAS
abated. Sprouting in its wake, like a field germinating after a flood, is a universe of sound he has never noticed before. Small sounds, tiny sounds—the footsteps of ants, the scurrying of beetles, the rustling of spiders, springing up from the ground. He hears the flight of a gnat across his face, he feels the rhythm of centipedes rippling the walls, he listens to the murmurs of cicadas rising from the trees outside. All the insects in the world are calling to him, he can hear their cries from forests and fields far away; they are calling his name, telling him their stories, asking him to track their progress as they crawl and creep and fly to their destinations.

A solitary ant crawls up the step before him. How high has this ant risen? he thinks. Has it ever been a bird, an animal, a human? Could this be a prince who has tumbled down, a Brahmin who has fallen astray? He listens for the voice of the ant, tries to hear its story. But the ant climbs on, steadily, and does not speak.

Vishnu watches the erratic path it traces. A step in one direction, two in the other, an intricate dance that slowly pulls it up. It reaches the top, and waves its feelers in the air, searching for the stone surface. Vishnu waits for it to push its body over the edge and start traversing the breadth of the step. But it turns instead and begins to move along the edge.

He looks at it inching its way towards the wall and wonders if he should correct its path. He places a fingertip on the edge to block it. But the ant crawls around the finger, without ever touching it, and continues along the edge. He tries again, and again, but each time, the ant circumvents his finger, single-mindedly continuing its course. Vishnu watches as the ant nears the wall and the hanging shadows slowly swallow its body.

There are other things alive in the stairs as well. Tiny bugs flit in the evening light filtering in through the window. A mosquito hums next to his ear. He feels he is in a forest, and there is life hiding everywhere.

He reaches the landing of the Asranis and Pathaks. There are more ants here, he sees them thread across the floor. Bits of food move along the line, like light along a string of bulbs. Vishnu follows the line to a corner of the landing, and sees a piece of cheese hidden there. The ants are swarming all over it with their black bodies, breaking off tiny chunks and carrying them away. As it becomes lighter, they try to move the whole piece; Vishnu sees it rock and twist a little. Then, like an enormous trophy being carried in a victory procession, it is hoisted off the ground, and borne unsteadily through the air.

Vishnu remembers his battles with the ants. How many times has he woken on his landing, to see the lines swarming over his blanket, his possessions, himself. He remembers the box of sweets he bought for Padmini. He has wrapped it in plastic, and buried it deep in his pile of belongings, hoping the ants will not discover it. But by morning, they are swarming all over it. He sets the box in the sun and waits for the light to drive them out, then presses their bodies one by one into the ground with his thumb. Before giving the box to Padmini, he examines every sweet, and carefully pinches the remaining ants out.

The first thing he remembers Padmini saying upon opening the box is “Look, an ant.” She pulls a piece of barfi out, and there, sprinting across the silver leaf coating, is the tiny black insect. Vishnu feels the guilt rise to his face, and waits for Padmini to throw the box down. But she is amused. She flips the barfi upside down as the ant reaches an edge, then watches it race across the top to the other side, before flipping it again. Finally, she tires of the ant and flicks its body into the air. She puts the piece into her mouth and takes out another. “Any more, my little darlings?” she says.

Vishnu wonders how many ants he has killed. All those bodies he has crushed, did they all have voices? He lifts his foot to clear the ants on the landing, then stops. His animosity has vanished, he will not bring it down. He watches the cheese move along the thread, it is almost at the door of the kitchen now.

Voices come through the door. Mrs. Asrani and Mrs. Pathak are discussing his body. How curious, he thinks, when he is right outside, listening to them. How surprised they will be when they see him standing there.

It is Mrs. Asrani who comes out first. She looks straight at him, but does not see him. Mrs. Pathak is right behind her, carrying her cup of tea as well. Her gaze falls upon the ants, her eyes widen at the sight of the cheese. “Damn ants,” she cries, and kicks the cheese across the landing. She lifts her sandal and brings it down repeatedly on the convoy.

The screams are so loud that Vishnu covers his ears. He thinks of children run over by cars, families crushed by buildings, people burnt alive. He covers his ears to keep the agony out, but the screams claw them apart and burrow into his brain.

T
HE LAST RAYS
of evening light are filtering through the window when Vishnu sees the image. A man is standing over his body on the landing down below. He kneels besides him, and pulls back the sheet. With one hand, the man touches Vishnu’s cheek; with the other, he presses the forehead and brushes the wisps of hair off the eyes. Fingertips trace across Vishnu’s lips, then down his chin, and to his chest, where they rub against his heart.

The man has his eyes closed. His neck is arched, head tilted upwards, lips reciting silent words. Vishnu has seen this silhouette before, he knows he should recognize the crouching figure.

The man’s eyes open. Their whiteness reaches through the dark. They are large and milky, staring up through the air, through the ceiling, through the stone, at some point outside in the sky. Vishnu looks at them and is unsure if they are filled with reverence or fear.

The eyes blink, the fingers caress the tufts of chest hair, the lips open and close. Soft words float slowly up from the upturned face. Vishnu sees the gray hair, sees the bulbous nose, sees the pockmarks on the cheeks. Recognition floods in finally. He peers down at Mr. Jalal on the landing, crouching next to his body, staring up through the darkness towards heaven.

M
R
. J
ALAL READ
from his book.

The eyes. Surdas’s eyes.

The two fountains of sight.

It would have to be the eyes, Surdas decided.

The eyes are the windows to the world, and to the soul.

The sin he had committed, through those eyes.

The sins we all commit. Not the same, but the gravity, the gravity of the sins.

Surdas looked at his eyes. His eyes in the mirror.

The sin, the hierarchy of sin, like roots and a trunk and branches and twigs, a network of sin.

He said, With these eyes have I sinned, and with these shall I cleanse myself.

Surdas the poet, the greatest poet in the court of Akbar, the greatest king. He had sinned. He had sinned with his eyes. His poetry would not be enough to save him.

These eyes shall be my freedom. These eyes shall be my penance. With these eyes shall I attain salvation.

Mr. Jalal paused. What had
he
sinned with? His hands, certainly. His mind. His body. His tongue, perhaps? His nose? Had he sinned with his nose? Perhaps by smelling something he shouldn’t have? Mr. Jalal pondered this question, whether it was possible for a nose to be guilty of sin.

Surdas picked up the knife. It was a small ornamental knife, with a sharp, curved blade. It had a wooden handle, with three diagonal marks on it.

The handle with its marks pleased Mr. Jalal. Every account he had read said something different. In one, Surdas was said to have used a skewer, in another, a sword; still another had him pick up a razor, which Mr. Jalal considered the least attractive alternative, since who knew what beards the blade had scraped against? The ornamental knife in this book was much more deserving of the task. Mr. Jalal imagined it gleaming its purity, the mysterious marks on its handle transmitting a sense of ceremony to Surdas’s fingers as they closed around.

He slashed his left eye first. He had not meant to scream, but the pain was so intense that he must have, since they came to the door. Surdas, let us in, they pleaded. He saw the blood spurt out, run down his nose, collect at his lips. All this he saw with his other eye.

Mr. Jalal touched his own eyes. Surdas had coveted a girl he shouldn’t have. He had undressed her, drunk in her nudeness, made love to her, all with his eyes. Mr. Jalal tried to think—had he done anything to match that? There must have been something—his eyes couldn’t be innocent. Mr. Jalal decided to be on the safe side, and add them to the inventory of parts of his body with which he had sinned.

Surdas picked up the knife again. This time, he knew he would not see anymore. He stared at the blade calmly, so calmly, with such elaboration, knowing it was the last thing he would see. He took his fill of the sight of the blade like a man taking his last drink of water, his last breath of air. And when he knew the memory would forever be with him, only then did he bring the blade up.

The pain was much worse this time, but he was not surprised by it, and he did not scream. The satisfying, cleansing pain, his mouth filling with blood, a red, peaceful, calming night descending over everything.

And Surdas went to the door and opened it. He turned his face to the horrified people assembled there.

And said to them, Now I am free.

Now I am free.

Mr. Jalal stared at the words. The brown print stood like dried blood against the yellow of the paper. He ran his fingers across the letters, half expecting the clotted ink to come off against his fingertips, red and rejuvenated.

He imagined if he could ever pierce his own eyes. Find a knife just like the one Surdas had used, and watch himself in the bathroom mirror as he raised it to his face. See the blade, feel it, know what the first whisper of contact meant. Or perhaps cut off some other part from the inventory. Maybe all of them. (Had he decided yet about the nose?) Not so much because he felt guilty, like Surdas, but for the sanctity that penance bestowed. “Happy are those who have purified themselves,” the Koran said. Mr. Jalal wanted to be pure. He wanted to rise, to be enlightened, to be introduced to the rapture of faith. He yearned for it more than anything else.

Of late, he had been delving into the penance prescribed by different religions. The nuns and monks who flogged themselves to experience the trials of Jesus. The fakirs who lay on beds of ice in the Himalayas to overcome their attachment to the body. The flagellants who roamed the streets whipping their bare torsos with long, tapering ropes. Mr. Jalal would come to the balcony every time he heard the drums that announced their arrival. He would watch them as they danced with their ropes held high above their heads, and flinch every time they cracked them across their backs.

The tragedy was that he had no tolerance for pain. He was terrified of the slightest cut or bruise—had always been, ever since he was a child. The sight of blood made him heave. He had often toyed with the idea of going downstairs and asking one of the flagellants the secret of their endurance.

Recently he had seen a man recite several pages of the Koran while holding his palm over a gas flame. He had decided to try it himself at home, but the gas, when he had turned it on, had burnt with a blueness that had been too intimidating. He had rummaged around the kitchen drawers and found a packet of birthday candles, which had seemed perfect to start with instead. He had lit one and lowered his hand over the flame. Almost immediately, the sensation had been too much to bear. He had experimented with the different colors, hoping that one of them (pink, he had guessed) would be less hot. But the candles had all burnt his palm with equal efficiency. Finally he had decided to douse the candles with his fingertips—even that had sent him running to the medicine cabinet searching for the Burnol.

Much worse was what had happened at Muharram. For years, he had watched the processions, snaking through the streets of Bombay. The men cried and wept, whipping their backs bloody with ropes and chains to lament the treatment of the Prophet’s grandson at Karbala. He would see people slash at their bodies with sharpened pieces of metal, see the blood well out of gashes on their chests and limbs. Sometimes they would fall to the ground, quivering in pain, but they always picked themselves up and continued again. He would marvel at the penitents’ faith—the faith that was said to heal their wounds overnight, no matter how deep or grievous. He would wait until the procession had passed, then follow in its wake, stepping his way carefully through the fragments of rope and metal, staring in fascination at the smears of blood drying darkly on the road.

He had gone to see the procession as usual this year. Through the crowd, Mr. Jalal had seen a young boy, no more than sixteen, lashing himself with a belt studded with pieces of metal. Each time the boy brought the belt down, the sun reflected off the metal edges as they whistled through the air. The boy’s back was bathed in a sea of cuts, but he kept whipping himself, his face contorting in pain, his lips never stopping repeating the name of Allah. The only concession Mr. Jalal heard was a sharp intake of breath after each stroke, the first syllable of “Allah” half swallowed, but still audible.

He did not know what happened next. He was moving along with the procession, staring at the bloody pattern on the boy’s back, trying to hear the sound of each “Allah,” when he found his fingers unbuttoning the shirt he wore and reaching for his own belt. He tied his shirt around his waist like some of the other men and stepped into the procession behind the boy. One end of his belt grasped firmly in his hand, the buckle end swinging by his side.

The mourners swelled around him, immersing him in their religious fervor. The metal-studded belt rose and fell in front of him. A streak of blood flew through the air and landed diagonally across his chest, like a challenge daring him to make his own mark. He lifted the belt into the air and swung it around, but the momentum was wrong, and the belt coiled itself around his arm. He tried it again, and once more the belt did not behave, flopping harmlessly against his shoulder. He wondered if the people around him were watching, if they had noticed his ineptitude, if they were whispering and pointing at the novice, the fake. Fresh droplets of blood rose from the boy’s back and spattered his face. He let the belt straighten under the weight of the buckle. Then he swung it in a wide arc, saw the buckle rise through the air and disappear over his head, and waited for the contact that would initiate him into the crowd.

The first sensation he felt was a stinging blow, like that of a pellet, aimed just below his shoulder blade. He had meant to shout Allah’s name like the boy, had the word at the tip of his tongue, waiting to be exhaled. But the pain that surged in at the next instant was so intense that all he could do was to scream out loud. He released the belt, and it swung from his back—the prong in the buckle had lodged in his flesh. He screamed again and again, and clawed at the belt, then fell backwards on the road, which pushed the metal further in. The procession pressed on, unmindful of his agony. He crawled through the tangle of legs into the bank of onlookers, to a man who pulled the buckle out.

“Wait, your belt!” the man cried, waving it in the air after him, as Mr. Jalal staggered away through the crowd.

He would never be able to inflict pain on himself. He would never experience its serenity, its sanctity, its purity. All he could do was read about it and fantasize. Mr. Jalal wondered wistfully why pain had to be so
painful
.

He had chosen the next best thing. Deprivation. It had occurred to him during Ramzan. He had never fasted much before, except once or twice each year to appease Arifa. Even then, he would usually end his fast before the proper time. This time, Arifa had persuaded him to keep the first roza all the way to sunset.

Perhaps it was the fact that he was in it for the full duration, but by midmorning, all he could think of was food and water. His mouth felt papery, his tongue dry and listless, and his throat scraped like leather when he swallowed. Hunger bored through the tissues of his stomach and spread like a fever to the far reaches of his body.

It was in the early evening that a strange clarity opened up to him. The hunger and thirst were purifying agents, cleansing his mind of unnecessary thought, fortifying his body against the laxness to which he had allowed it to become accustomed. He decided he would continue subjecting himself to them, making them part of his existence, fasting every day of the Ramzan period, and continuing after that as well.

He had been doing it now for three months. The problem was his body seemed to have become too used to hunger, and the exercise was in danger of not qualifying as deprivation anymore. He had tried fasting for longer stretches than the traditional sunrise to sunset, but the emptiness had made his head spin, forcing him to stop. The path to enlightenment for him, he had decided, could not be paved by pain
or
dizziness.

Instead, he had tried to find new ways to deprive himself. He had given up reading the newspaper, then stopped listening to music, but these had seemed like minor sacrifices. He had tried not washing, but people had complained too much about his odor. He had started sleeping on the floor. Arifa had called to him to get up and join her in the bed, but only for the first few days. Lately, he noticed with resentment, she had been spreading out quite comfortably on his side of the bed as well, and snoring even louder than she normally did.

In the past week, he had embarked on a new project. He would climb down the stairs late at night and sit in the dark next to Vishnu. Sometimes he would watch him for an hour before returning to his flat. Once, he fell asleep and only woke up at dawn, just in time to avoid Short Ganga on her morning milk run.

Sitting there, he would play with a curl of Vishnu’s hair and reach out and touch Vishnu’s face. His mind would wander across all the little deceptions he had allowed Vishnu to get away with over the years. The compensations for injuries supposedly sustained while running errands, the reimbursements for prices purportedly inflated by shopkeepers. Perhaps it had been his years of laxness that had encouraged Vishnu to steal their car that one time. What a shock that had been to him. But it all mattered so little now.

Mr. Jalal would move his fingers over Vishnu’s nose, his eyelids, his lips. The skin would feel hot against his cool fingertips, and he would try and read Vishnu’s expression using his sense of touch. Was the forehead furrowed in concentration, or was it from pain? Were the eyelids twitching from a fever, or was Vishnu experiencing a dream? Was it the sight of some fantastic vision that was making the lips tremble, the nearing of some profound unrevealed truth that fueled the urgent rasps of breath? Most important of all, was Vishnu still suffering, or had he transcended it, gathering momentum from its throes to launch himself to a higher, more tranquil plane?

Mr. Jalal was fascinated by Vishnu’s current state. He felt there was something holy, something exalted, about being so close to death. He had almost died himself, when he was five. A case of smallpox had left him in a state of delirium for days. He had tried many times to recapture the memory of that experience, to feel again what it meant to be able to look over the edge.

Sitting next to Vishnu, he could sense it everywhere—a premonition of momentousness, a cognizance in the air, that floated through the dark and landed around his shoulders like a shawl. Mr. Jalal wanted to wrap himself tight within the feeling, he wanted to be irradiated by the energy spreading everywhere through the landing from Vishnu.

Tonight, he had decided, he would go one step further than before. He would spend the night with Vishnu. Stretch out on the landing next to him, and sleep right there beside him. He would be like Mother Teresa, like St. Francis, and embrace Vishnu as a brother. Not shrinking at the smell, the filth, or the possibility of infection. Perhaps someone would notice him, but he would not care.