The City of Devi: A Novel (13 page)

“And what if you’re wrong? What if the warnings are correct?”

“They’re not, but we’re prepared for any eventuality.”

“Who? You and your devi?”

“Not the devi, Bhim. Do you really think he wouldn’t have taken precautions—someone so visionary? I can’t go into details, but if the Pakistanis do try any mischief, he’ll make sure we’re the most protected souls in the country. Which includes all of Devi ma’s maidens, incidentally. So you’re lucky I picked you—perhaps you could show some gratitude to me.”

Mura comes closer again, and runs a hand through my hair. “So what do you say? In return for saving your life—surely you can agree to such a little thing?” He leans forward to kiss me.

I lay my palms on his chest as if in acquiescence, then push him hard. He topples over easily, tumbling across the floor like a plump and comical baby. He gropes for his glasses and locates them underneath his own body. One of the arms has snapped off. “How will I see with them now?” he asks mournfully, staring at the piece in his hand.

I am at the door, banging for the girls, when he is upon me. He rams his head into my back, knocking my breath out. I turn around, and he batters me again, like a fat and hornless goat, this time between my breasts. The impact of the blow sends me falling to the floor. The pomegranate rolls out of my sari, and the first thought that flashes through my mind is that if he tastes it, he’ll be further crazed by its aphrodisiac properties.

But he pays it no attention. Instead, he squats over me as I lie there trying to suck air back into my lungs. “Such a small favor I ask.” His face is red, he wipes tears from his eyes. “And instead, what do you do? You attack me.” I try to sit up, but he pushes me back. “Convent girls—do they all have to be so haughty?” He holds me down and stretches out atop me. His body is soft and unnaturally yielding—even his lips on my neck feel spongy. “Please,” he whispers, “it’s not too much.” I can still detect the peanuts on his breath.

I nod to buy time. “But not on the floor, not like this.” Surprised, he peers at me to see if I’m lying. I give him a reassuring smile. “As you put it, for saving my life.”

He helps me to my feet, and leads me to the berths. I stall by prodding the cushions on each, pretending to look for the softest. I’m running out of ploys and Mura out of patience when the undercarriage shudders—a sharp crack from below interrupts the steady rumble of wheels. Metal grinds noisily against metal, the compartment buckles and lifts, and to my disbelief, I see the wall outside the window closing in. I have just enough time to cover my face before we plow through, before a barrage of brick and mortar bursts in. The room tilts precariously around me, flinging me against a berth—then rights itself miraculously, the instant before tipping. A line of building façades whizzes by—I realize the train has left its tracks and is thundering down the center of a road.

Except that it’s not quite the center, but an angle at which we hurtle—an angle that brings us closer and closer to the buildings streaming past. We mount something, the edge of the sidewalk perhaps, and the jolt dislodges the pomegranate from its hiding place. It lifts off the floor and sails by my face, serene as a flying saucer, as I vainly try to snare it. I imagine myself airborne as well, the walls around me weightless, the train a rocket launching into space. As the moment of contact arrives, gravity gives us a pass, and we rise above the buildings instead of crashing into them. The scrunching of metal, the splintering of wood—all the sickening sounds of impact surrounding me fade. We arc through the air, the compartments liberated from their earthly existence, our persons conveyed heavenward by the freed spirit of the train. I look down through the clouds at the long trail of Mumbai that stretches below us—from the string of suburbs unwinding north, to Colaba at the southernmost tip. For a moment, as we peak, everything is still. Then we begin our descent back to the city where Karun awaits.

JAZ

6

AS I WATCH THE WAR-POCKED LANDSCAPE GO PAST, I WONDER
again what my life would have been like had I never met Karun. Calmer, probably. Longer, too. To think that a single chance encounter has led to this wood and metal coffin in which I brace for my doom. Sweet, innocent Karun, as alluring as a blossom of the deadly datura and about as harmless. Samson had his Delilah, Adam his Eve, and the Jazter had you.

Already, I can see my epitaph. “Here lies Jaz, lover of his fellow men, done in royally by one of them.” With a warning for others of my ilk (hunters—
shikaris
—I like to call them) inscribed on my tombstone. A list of cautionary signs to watch out for—the most flagrant being that even now, risking life and limb and that one other most imperiled appendage, all I do is search this benighted city for Karun.

I look at the scratches on my arms, smell the sulfur in my hair. Has the Jazter really been reduced to this? The mud on my designer high-tops, the stains on my Diesel denims—what possessed me to subject my kickiest threads to such risk? Then I remember—Karun, whom I must find, whom I need to dazzle, whose rectitude I hope to penetrate.

Perhaps I’m too easy with the blame. With the impending bomb, the Jazter goose, not to mention his jeans and sneakers, are scheduled to be cooked anyway. I’ve rarely planned ahead, so no sense lamenting lost opportunities for escape. It might have been nice watching all this action from afar—say on the giant screen in Times Square. Except most of New York, for all I know, has been burnt to a crisp.

Since the future’s so iffy, I’ll turn my attention to the past. The underfoot clickety-clack marking out my remaining minutes begs to be drowned out with nostalgia anyway. I tune in to the sounds from twelve years ago. Children laugh and shout on the swings. Mango trees around me rustle in the wind. I sit in the park near Cooperage, waiting for the hunt to begin.

IT WAS DUSK
when I first saw Karun. He looked much younger than all the parents milling around with their kids, which made him instantly suspect. He sat on a bench between the slides and the swings, an unopened book in his lap. He was trying very hard to be inconspicuous, I could tell.

I’d walked over after college to the park, to check out the evening’s prospects. A teenager showing off his shiny new Reeboks. A bearded young Bohri promenading his burkha-clad bride. Day laborers out for a smoke, their arms dusted white with gypsum. I leered at them all with scrupulous impartiality. The couples, as usual, were clueless. The shikaris would know I was one of them.

My gaze kept returning to Karun. Such a fawn, he might even be younger than myself. His chin as smooth as his cheeks, his hair cut so short that his ears stuck out, his lips announcing a hint of succulence. Did he have enough meat on his bones, though, to warrant a shikari’s interest?

He opened the book in his lap. His absorption in the pages seemed so immediate, it had to be faked. Was he performing for someone’s sake? As I decided he’d do for this evening’s prey, he looked up and engaged my gaze. He held it as long as he could, as if forcing himself to be brave.

Then the courage drained from his face. He arose abruptly and began to walk to the gate. By the time I made it through the turnstile, he had crossed the sidewalk onto the curb. Wait up, I felt like shouting. Don’t you know the rules of the game? He was almost at the opposite shore of the road when I immersed myself into the river of traffic after him.

He started looking unflatteringly lanky on the other side, his ears protruding absurdly from his head. Had I really found him attractive, was he even in on the hunting game? But by now, all my carnivorous instincts had been aroused—I had to keep giving chase.

He unexpectedly veered right, through the entrance to the Oval grounds. Ahead, in the dying light, groups of boys wound down their soccer games. The path stretched out emptily, nobody using it to cross the field today. We soon discovered why—just before the road on the other side stood a locked metal gate. The way we had entered offered the only escape.

He stopped. Two boys in orange and black stockings ran between us, scrimmaging. One of them knocked chests with the other to get control of the ball. They engaged in the briefest of contact at their waists, then, laughing, sprinted away.

He took the opportunity to slip off the path. I followed the outline of his shoulders as he wafted into the dark. More soccer boys ran by, bare-chested this time, their shirts dangling out from behind their shorts. The sweat on their muscles glistened in the light from distant streetlamps.

Night seemed to be descending unusually fast. The center of the field was already a pool of black. Other denizens had begun to roam around in the playfield, seeking more nocturnal games. I heard the familiar signaling coughs I had heeded so often, caught a glimpse of a torso or head.

Tonight, I already had my quarry marked. I followed him all the way to the peripheral ring of palms. The lights of the city twinkled beyond the tree trunks, tall metal bars rose in between to cut us off. He wavered as he spotted them, then came to a stop. Had he really expected a way out?

It was time to move in for the kill. Time to prepare for the feel of skin against skin. Clumps of bushes rose chest high between some of the palms. Would he struggle very strenuously if I tried to drag him in? How loudly would he groan as I initiated him?

But he was new to the hunt, I reminded myself. Unversed as yet in the versatility of spit. I had to ply him with words first: what cricketers did he like, had he seen any films?

He turned around as I began my approach. Even in this light, I could make out the fear on his face. “Hello,” I said soothingly. He stood frozen for an instant, then took off on a sprint.

I looked on dumbfounded. This wasn’t literally a hunt—I’d never heard of anyone actually bolting like this. Then the adrenaline pumped motion into my limbs. He raced through the darkness, staying close to the border, and I ran after him. We could have been the last two soccer players on the field, still chasing each other after the end of the game.

It happened as he closed in on the entrance, as it occurred to me he might get away. He tripped over a tree root—his velocity so great that it launched him into the air. He flew through the night, like a daredevil player defying gravity to execute a flamboyant save. By the time I came up, he was lying on his back, grimacing in pain.

In nature documentaries, the predator, its work done, would sink its teeth about now into its injured prey. I felt the same stimulus from my own quarry’s helplessness, but resisted the urge to pounce and have my way with him. “Are you OK?” I asked, but he didn’t reply. Tears glistened in his eyes as he rocked on the ground, holding his left forearm at the wrist.

The need to touch him was overwhelming, so I took his wrist and examined it. He winced as my fingers brushed against the tender bone ridge. I held on longer than necessary to the unbruised part, fascinated by the soft hairs over the supple skin. Would offering to inspect the rest of his body as well seem too amiss?

“Why did you run?”

“Why were you following me?”

“Why do you think?” Immediately, I realized it was the wrong thing to say. “I just wanted to talk, that’s all,” I slipped in quickly, but my dare had silenced him.

His vulnerability—the dirt on his shirt, the rip in his jeans, the sneaker that had rolled off, made him achingly desirable. But the notorious Jazter carnality had been corrupted by guilt. “Here, let me dust you off,” I said, feeling the full weight of responsibility for his fallen state.

He didn’t protest as I brushed my hands across his shirt, then more liberally over his jeans. He winced when I eased his foot back into its sneaker. “Does it hurt?” I asked, but he shook his head.

When I stood him up, however, he winced again. “It’s nothing, I’ll just go home,” he insisted when I suggested a doctor. Then he took a step and yelped.

Here was the opportunity to redeem myself, to rise like Mother Teresa above my lasciviousness. I bundled him, still protesting, into a taxi and took him to Bombay Hospital. The X-ray clearly showed the fracture—a thin dark line cutting into the outer metatarsal. “I really must go, I’ll come back tomorrow,” he started saying when the doctor ordered a cast. Red-faced, he whispered to me that he didn’t have enough money on him.

It felt strange offering him a loan, but the ghost of Mother Teresa cheered me on from the wings. As expected, he refused, so I went and paid directly at the hospital desk. The cast was white and bulky—his toes peeped out like small caged pets. I felt myself succumbing again to his helplessness. Who knew the sight of hobbling prey could be such an aphrodisiac?

He did not want to disclose his address. “Just drop me off at Mumbai Central Station.” But he was too wobbly on his crutches, so I accompanied him to his hostel, then up three floors to the room he shared. “My roommate’s asleep, so I’ll just say goodbye here. I’ll have the money for you tomorrow at six.”

I took the same cab home. My mother was waiting with dinner, but I had to go to the bathroom first, I said. The image of my fawn limping around in torn jeans swirled in my head. The Jazter had been stimulated a little too much—before he ate, he had to take care of himself.

BY THE TIME
I knocked on Karun’s door the following evening, I had fantasized so much that I felt ready to burst in, rip open his shirt, and throw him on the bed. Or perhaps on the floor, the reimbursement money from yesterday flying into the air as I plunged in to satisfy myself. Maybe Karun would be in the same state of ferment and join in the ripping and throwing as well. Though not in the plunging, an activity the Jazter refuses to permit on himself.

I didn’t get a chance. Karun opened the door a crack, just enough to hand me an envelope. “Thanks for helping me last night. I’ve added in the taxi fare as well.” The crack began to close, and he waved as if from a receding train.

I stood in front of the door, dumbfounded. Then I started hammering. “Who is it?” a different voice called out—its annoyance pleased me.

“Just a friend. I’ll get it.” The door opened, and Karun slid out. “Are you crazy?”

“Why are you whispering?” I demanded loudly.

He shut the door behind him. “My roommate’s inside. What do you want?”

“I want to know what you were doing yesterday in the park.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, I just want to talk.”

He began to say something, then decided against it. “Wait here.” He went in and emerged a moment later with his crutches. “There’s a Barista café around the corner—we can go there.”

The crutches were useless on the stairs. He hopped awkwardly down the first flight, then gave in and took the arm I offered. Within seconds, the predator centers in my brain shot into high alert. I instinctively scanned the stairwell for cubbyholes suitable for a quick drag-and-plunge.

Relinquishing him to his crutches downstairs came with an unexpected consolation. Each time he bore down on the handles, his body tensed to reveal the location of underlying muscles. They were modest but endearing—a
6
.
8
on the Jazter scale. His buttocks arced through the air as he swiveled, inviting me to follow them. I felt a primeval satisfaction knowing he couldn’t make a run for it.

“Ijaz,” I said at the café. “That’s my name, though everyone calls me Jaz. I thought I’d tell you since I saw yours at the hospital sign-in. Do you go to college?”

He nodded, then became studiously absorbed in his coffee when I asked him where. To put him at ease, I talked about my bachelor’s in commerce at HR College. As I prattled on about the Sensex’s stupendous rise on the Mumbai stock exchange, he stopped me. “What exactly do you want?”

“To get into international finance, I guess. To really understand how the world works.”

“No, I mean what do you want from
me
? Why did you bring me here?” His eyes darted as he spoke, an agitated smile stretched over his lips.

That’s where I muffed it. The Jazter code of conduct is quite explicit in such situations: Be direct. Don’t risk being misunderstood with subtlety—bring out, so to speak, the ol’ battering ram. Except my lust had been adulterated by an unaccustomed sense of responsibility, perhaps even tenderness. “I just thought we could be friends,” I responded, aghast at my own sappiness.

His expression didn’t relax. My usual fallbacks of cricket and the movies also fell flat. “Would you like to return?” I finally asked, and he said yes.

I followed him back to the building, my taste buds bitter with defeat. This time, his buttocks swung away not in invitation, but in declaration of their unavailability. The fact that I had failed to connect, that I wouldn’t be able to have him, left me even more charged with desire. As he pitifully poked along, the tender thoughts grew stronger too, into an overwhelming feeling of protectiveness. I wanted to mother him as well as molest him.

Just as I prepared to wish him a final goodbye at his hostel, he turned around. “Jai Hind,” he declared.

“What?” I had been given the brush-off before, but never with a patriotic slogan.

“Jai Hind College—didn’t you want to know where I study? I’m free Friday evening—we could meet near there.”

WE COME TO A HALT
. The scenery outside remains desolate. What has happened to the people? Where has the war hidden them? It’s good the Jazter has renounced his pastime of shikar, since park pickings must be exceedingly slim these days.

Then again, it’s hard to tell. The population has taken to ebbing and flowing in waves. Perhaps it’s the moon that drives them, exerting mass gravitational pulls on their brains. More plausibly, they’re motivated by safety in numbers, given the unpredictability of each day. I feel the stares of wary eyes from distant buildings, imagine bodies carefully concealed behind drapes. Any moment now, they will realize their collective power and surge down upon us in an invincible spate. I’ve seen this firsthand through my days of surveillance—human tides pouring through neighborhoods, their abrupt rise, their unpredictable wane.