The Death of Vishnu

almost smiled back. But she caught herself in time, summoning up a glare instead. A glare, she hoped, that would burn with the same intensity as that of the kerosene lamp blazing at the center of the stand. It worked—not only did Ahmed look away, but he motioned to the chaatwalla that he had had enough, and was ready to pay.
    As they searched for turnips in the market afterwards, she told Nafeesa what had happened.
    “The nerve of these hooligans,” her sister responded. “They grow more audacious day by day. Just imagine, while eating pani-puri, no less!” Nafeesa shook her head. “But tell me, Arifa, what did he look like—was he at least handsome, this Romeo of yours?”
    “He wasn’t my Romeo,” Arifa snapped, “and I was only trying to eat my golgappas, not be a judge in some beauty contest.”
    “Of course you did the right thing. But such severity? He was only smiling at you after all, the bechara.”
    She had been about to berate her sister for being so naive when suddenly there was Ahmed, at the Ijazat Hotel counter.
    “Oh my God, it’s him, ” she whispered. “And he’s talking to Anwar chacha.”
    What her sister did next was supposed to have been a prank. But it changed everything, it changed her life.
    “Let’s have some fun,” Nafeesa said, and holding her by the wrist, pulled her to Ahmed.
    She had never quite decided how much gratitude and how much resentment to feel towards her sister. Over the years, she had felt both, maybe even in equal measure. Ahmed turned out to be the son of a friend of Anwar chacha, and with his credentials thus established, acquired an immediate sheen of respectability—and eligibility. Nafeesa quickly pronounced him too ugly, and was surprised that the meeting developed into anything more. (“All those scars on his face—so unfortunate he had smallpox, but does that mean one has to marry him out of pity?”) But Arifa looked beyond the face, beyond the scars, into the intensity burning in his eyes. She was fascinated by it, fascinated and a little frightened, because she could not tell from where it sprang, or how deep one would have to delve to find its source.
    And she was flattered. Here was someone who was interested in her . Not Nafeesa, the glamorous one, but her, Arifa, the one with the awkward limbs and the gawky body, the one whose face, according to her aunt, so serenely radiated its plainness, the one with the personality, she had been advised, that could only aspire to pleasantness. A man, a suitor, who wanted to know what she thought, what she felt; who gave the promise, so recklessly professed, that he would carry her away and change her world. She had trembled in the little green tract near the masjid, as Ahmed had held her hand and said this. The buildings behind them had listened on in silence, the windows all around had borne witness.
    She would always remember that pouring July afternoon, not too many days later, when they sneaked upstairs to the third-floor verandah. She had spent all morning experimenting with Nafeesa’s makeup, and as Ahmed led her through the doorway, she wondered if the rain was going to wash it all off. He pulled her to him and embraced her, and she felt the heat of his skin through the wetness of his shirt. The flower pots on the ledge began to fill, and she watched the water, red with earth, run over the rims and disappear down to the street below. Drops of rain splashed off his face onto hers, and she was surprised to find her mouth seeking his. Their lips, amazingly, made contact, and she stood there, riveted by the shock of the kiss.
    Ahmed did keep his promise, taking her away from her world—from the masjid, the market, from her house, her family. She had felt so strange moving into his flat, sandwiched as it was between Hindu families both above and below. Instead of a masjid, there was a church across the street, the tip of its white cross visible when she lay down and stared through her bedroom window. She had missed the market the most, the fruitwalla here next to Variety Stores being overpriced and arrogant, the meat shop too far to walk to, and no Anwar chacha to greet her at the Irani hotel downstairs.
    It had taken some time before she had learnt to listen for the vendors carrying meat and produce from house to house, shouting the names of their wares and looking at the balconies for customers. Mrs. Taneja, from upstairs, had shown her where the chaatwallas sat near Breach Candy, and she had