The Death of Vishnu

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