The Death of Vishnu

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