The Death of Vishnu

seat. “And mai, it’s so hot!” She tries fanning herself with the carrot cutter.
    “It’s going to start in a second,” Vishnu says. Outside, the ticket seller is making a last all-out attempt to attract customers. “See Reshma’s body sizzle like a pataka in the most passionate and revealing dance of her career! See her bare all, her youth, her beauty, her all!”
    The light finally goes off, and Reshma appears on the screen, her head unnaturally elongated. She pouts and prances, and boasts that her body is so intoxicating she could even make the priest in the temple worship at her feet if she wanted. Although the promised revealing of her youth does not materialize, the audience is quite satisfied, and there are whistles and catcalls at the screen.
    “That fat cow!” Padmini snorts after they have exited. “All she ever does is wriggle that big stomach of hers! Why did you take me to see her?”
    “Because you dance so much better than her,” Vishnu says quickly. “You should be the one up there.”
    “You really think so?” Padmini wants to hear more. “But she has bigger breasts than I do.”
    “Yes, but your face. There’s no comparison.” Padmini is pleased at this.
    It is late by the time they get back to the street where she lives. There is music and light everywhere, young girls and women beckon from windows, from doors, from balconies.
    “Can I come?” he asks.
    “Depends,” she answers, rubbing her thumb and fingers together. “You know what you need if you want to come in.”

    I T IS LATE afternoon when he awakens. The tide has come in and receded while he slept. The sand stretches to the water’s edge, gleaming in the sun’s rays as if painted with silver.
    He tries to remember the night before. Standing on Padmini’s doorstep after the mela. Telling her how much she means to him, telling her how much he loves her. Trying to find the words into her room, into her heart.
    Padmini smiles her half-smile. “Wait here till I am done,” she says, and runs her fingers lightly across his lips. He tries to catch them, to kiss them, but only her attar remains.
    He cannot remember how long he sits outside her building. Listening to the music float by, watching the people file in and out. He gets up when the sound of the ghungroos chiming inside becomes too much to bear.
    Is the sky still dark when he makes his way to the beach? Are the stars still out when he lays back his head on the sand? He lies by the water and thinks he has not felt this way with any of the other girls. This desire to be consumed with Padmini in one fiery instant, this feeling that he wants them to spend a lifetime together.
    But now the sun is up, and the day demands more practical pursuits. He watches a seagull making its way across the beach in search of food. It hops through the sand, stops to peck at a piece of plastic, then hops on. It stops each time it sees something yellow or orange, and tests it with its beak. A wad of paper, a cigarette butt, a dried mango pit—everything inedible is spit back out.
    The bird gets closer and Vishnu sees how ugly it is. The head is dark and shiny, as if dipped in oil. The feathers are streaked with black and look oily too. Gobs of brown cling to the legs.
    The gull walks up to where he is sitting and lunges at a crust of bread in the sand. Vishnu watches the bread disappear into the beak, and imagines it traveling in one large piece down the bird’s gullet. His own stomach rumbles its emptiness.
    The bird stares at his toe, and Vishnu wonders if it will peck at it. He sits completely stationary, tempting the bird with his stillness, hands poised at his sides, ready to twist the white-and-black neck. The bird lifts its head, looks beadily at his face, then turns and hops away.
    The sun hovers above the water. The hunger in his stomach rises, a roiling tide inside. He tries to remember when he has last eaten. Did Padmini tear off a bite for him from her cotton candy?
    A small boy walks up to him. “Would you like some crabs?” he asks, holding out a bright yellow plastic pail with a toy spade in it. Vishnu notices the boy is wearing bathing shorts made of striped red nylon. They look expensive.
    “I caught too many of them,” the boy explains, “and Mummy said we can only take one of them home. Would you like the rest?” The boy stirs the spade in the pail and Vishnu hears the contents scrape against the plastic.
    “How big are they?” Vishnu asks, looking