The Death of Vishnu

Vishnu sees him bend and feel a wrist, then straighten out and shake his head. He tries to follow the man, but loses him somewhere on the landing.
    Vishnu stands before the steps, gauging the monument he must scale. He lifts a foot tentatively, then places it on the first step. The stone feels cold and smooth against his sole. He has not felt anything for some time now—the sensation is surprising, welcome. He presses down the toes, the arch, the heel, so that each part of his foot can feel the surface.
    He wonders what to do next. He pushes down with the other foot, but nothing happens. He tries to recall the mechanics of climbing—is it his ankle he should bend? Then he remembers—he has to lean his weight forward and straighten out his knee.
    Vishnu thrusts his body forward and up. The muscles in his leg flex. His foot relinquishes contact with the landing, it lifts into the air. The spell of gravity is broken, a sensation of buoyancy infuses him. He stands on the first step, and feels he can float up the rest.

C HAPTER F OUR
    M RS . J ALAL STOOD on her second-floor balcony, watching the ambulance depart. Must be for Vishnu, she thought, not allowing herself to breathe—perhaps the Pathaks or Asranis downstairs were having him admitted to a hospital. When she was six, Nafeesa had terrified her with stories about the germs released into the air by ambulances, about people inhaling them and dying horrible, twisting deaths. Her sister’s warnings still tightened around her lungs every time she heard the telltale siren. She waited until the van had reached the far intersection before cautiously sniffing a small sample of the air.
    It was Short Ganga who had told her this morning about Vishnu lying unconscious on the landing. Mrs. Jalal had been skeptical at the report—could he again be feigning some illness, as he had done so many times in the past? “The last time that happened, Mr. Jalal revived him with a ten-rupee note,” she told Short Ganga.
    “Not everything can be cured that way, memsahib. Maybe Mr. Jalal can save his ten rupees this time,” Short Ganga said without looking up, and without interrupting her ferocious scrubbing of the iron pot with rope.
    Mrs. Jalal felt her cheeks burn red. She wanted to defend herself, to protest the unfairness of the comment. How many times had Vishnu come to their doorstep with some real or fabricated ailment, and hadn’t they always sent him away with something? Even though he hardly did any errands for them, compared to all the work he did for the Pathaks and the Asranis. And the time he had stolen their car—what about that? They had not even reported him to the police, to get him the thrashing he deserved.
    “When Mr. Jalal comes home, I’ll send him down to see what can be done.”
    Short Ganga didn’t reply. She rinsed the pot out, banging it around in the basin with unnecessary violence, her pigtail snaking angrily behind her. “Is there anything else you want me to do now?” she asked when she’d finished, wiping her brow with her forearm.
    “No, nothing,” Mrs. Jalal said. She felt guilty, without being certain why. “Wait—these bananas—Mr. Jalal isn’t going to eat them. They’re not going to last another day—here—for the children.” She broke off two bananas from the bunch and thrust them into Short Ganga’s hand.
    A look of such contempt sprang into Short Ganga’s eyes that Mrs. Jalal was appalled. For a moment, she wondered if Short Ganga was going to hand the fruit back to her. Then Short Ganga wrapped the edge of her sari around the bananas and left the room.
    Mrs. Jalal took a series of tentative breaths, still alert to the possibility of pestilence in the air. What disease was going around these days that everyone was acting so bizarrely? Short Ganga storming off like that. Salim playing hide and seek with that Hindu girl from downstairs. Ahmed, her husband, whose behavior she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. She took a professional-sized gulp of the air, and satisfied that the answer didn’t lie in it, went back to the kitchen.
    The remaining bananas sat on the table. She knew she never should have bought them. Salim was never around, Ahmed ate less and less every day, and she herself had always loathed their slimy feel. If they’d been less expensive, she’d have given the whole bunch to Short Ganga. But now there were three left, and she was the only one around to dispose of them. She peeled the darkest one,