The Death of Vishnu

Vishnu, he could sense it everywhere—a premonition of momentousness, a cognizance in the air, that floated through the dark and landed around his shoulders like a shawl. Mr. Jalal wanted to wrap himself tight within the feeling, he wanted to be irradiated by the energy spreading everywhere through the landing from Vishnu.
    Tonight, he had decided, he would go one step further than before. He would spend the night with Vishnu. Stretch out on the landing next to him, and sleep right there beside him. He would be like Mother Teresa, like St. Francis, and embrace Vishnu as a brother. Not shrinking at the smell, the filth, or the possibility of infection. Perhaps someone would notice him, but he would not care.
    Mr. Jalal returned to his book. His fingers trembled as they smoothed out the page in front of him. The time would soon be at hand. When he, too, would see.

    I T HAD HAPPENED several years ago. It was not as if Vishnu had intended to steal the Jalals’ Fiat. “Pick me up in a motor, and I will let you drive me anywhere,” Padmini had promised. The only way to collect on the offer had been to borrow the car.
    It had taken some effort, too.
    “Sahib, I will be your driver from now on,” he had announced to Mr. Jalal on the staircase one day.
    Mr. Jalal was taken aback at the offer. “Since when did you learn to drive?”
    “Me? Hah! So many years, I’ve been driving. Fiat, Ambassador, even imported, no problem. I can show you, now only, let’s go to your car.”
    Mr. Jalal waved him away, saying he did not need a driver.
    “Even Indira Gandhi I once or twice drove,” Vishnu cried after Mr. Jalal, who did not look back.
    When his badgering did not yield results, Vishnu tried another tactic. Mr. Jalal came downstairs one morning to find him polishing the car with a filthy piece of cotton.
    “All clean and shiny, sahib,” Vishnu said, saluting smartly. Then, noticing one of several oil stains he had missed, he spat robustly into the cloth and rubbed the moisture into the metal.
    “There,” Vishnu said, and Mr. Jalal noted that the stain was now evenly distributed over a larger area.
    The morning came when, against his better judgment, Mr. Jalal caved in. After checking Vishnu’s breath to make sure he hadn’t started drinking already, he instructed Vishnu to drive them to the Binny showroom at Opera House. Relaxing in the backseat, Mr. Jalal noted that although Vishnu’s chauffeuring was not anything Indira Gandhi could have possibly been accustomed to, it was a luxury, nevertheless, to be driven around.
    “This was very nice, but we really can’t afford to keep a driver,” he told Vishnu afterwards, offering him a two-rupee note.
    “Who said anything about money, sahib? I just want to do it to get a chance to drive again.”
    Perhaps Mr. Jalal should have listened to the warning bells beginning to peal so lustily in his head, but he didn’t. Instead, he asked Vishnu to drive him the next day to Crawford Market. There, while he argued with the merchants about the price of a basket of mangoes, Vishnu stole away to the keysmith to have the car key duplicated. And that night, as Mr. Jalal fantasized about being driven to Juhu Beach or perhaps even Versova, Vishnu and Padmini were coasting in the Fiat along Marine Drive, enjoying the sound of the waves rolling in rhythmically from the Arabian Sea.

    A BREEZE BLOWS down the staircase. Vishnu can suddenly smell the sea.
    “I feel so light. Like I am floating,” Padmini says, opening the car window and holding her head out.
    Vishnu looks at her, her face framed against the yellow of the dupatta billowing up around her. He puts his hand on her thigh, and she does not push it off.
    “Someday, I want to ride in an aeroplane,” Padmini says, closing her eyes against the wind, and Vishnu’s hand glides against her skin and meets no resistance.
    “Will you take me on a plane?” she asks again later, searching his face, as he unbuttons her blouse in the backseat. They are parked just below the overlook of Hanging Gardens, in the darkness of a building under construction. Down below, curving next to the inkiness of the bay, each pearl of light glitters in its setting along Marine Drive. He lays his cheek against her breast, and feels the resilience of her flesh.
    “We’ll go together—we’ll go to Agra, and see the Taj,” he says, rubbing his nose against her nipple, and smelling the scent of her which attar cannot conceal.
    “Promise?” she