The Death of Vishnu

Leaning forward, he plucked the sheet out of Short Ganga’s hands, just as she was beginning to fold it up.
    “This is Vishnu’s,” he announced, and arranged the sheet over Vishnu’s body. “We really have to get a pillow for his head.”
    As the Pathaks were helping him up the first of the stairs, Mr. Jalal suddenly clasped each of them by the forearm. “It’s finally happened, hasn’t it?” he said, pulling them closer to him and looking from one to the other.
    Mrs. Pathak’s bangles jingled in protest as she tried to free herself, but Mr. Jalal’s grip was too insistent.
    “Even to me it’s happened. I can’t believe it,” Mr. Jalal said, scanning first Mr. Pathak’s face for confirmation, then Mrs. Pathak’s, and failing entirely to notice her agitation at having her arm seized by a man not her husband.
    “It’s so amazing. I’ve received my sign,” continued Mr. Jalal, still oblivious to Mrs. Pathak, and to the alarm now spreading across Short Ganga’s face as well. Fortunately, just at the point when Mrs. Pathak’s scream seemed imminent (with Short Ganga getting ready to run for the cigarettewalla and Mr. Pathak still wondering how to intervene), Mr. Jalal released his grip and allowed himself to be led up to his flat.

    T HE LANDING IS deserted again. Mr. Jalal’s revelation drifts silently over the steps.
    Could it be true?
    He is Vishnu.
    Can Mr. Jalal’s vision be trusted? Does he know what he is saying?
    He is a god.
    Could that be why he has become weightless? Is that how he can will himself from step to step?
    He is Vishnu.
    Yes, it must be true. How else could his hearing be so sharp that he catches Radiowalla’s music, his vision so acute that he sees through brick and stone?
    He is the god Vishnu.
    Isn’t that what his mother always told him? Isn’t that why she gave him his name? How did that saying go, the one she used to make him repeat?
    I am Vishnu, he says. He hasn’t said it since he was a child.
    I am Vishnu, he practices saying. It sounds right to him.
    But what, suddenly, has made him a god? What has changed, after all these years as a mortal? Or was he a god all along, just did not know his power? Was it there within him, waiting all this time to be set free if he tried?
    I am Vishnu. Keeper of the universe, keeper of the sun.
    If he is a god, shouldn’t he consort from now on only with other gods? Isn’t he above ordinary humans—people in this building, people on the street? He has heard Mr. Jalal tell them they should submit to him, venerate him. What if they don’t—how is he to punish them? How will he deal with those who have wronged him in the past, those who dare deny him in the future?
    There is only darkness without me.
    Can he take away the sun and the moon? Can he plunge the universe into night? Everything that lives, does it live in his light? Must every desire of his be accommodated, every whim obeyed?
    But what is it he wants? What are gods supposed to desire?
    I am Vishnu, he says to himself. He is eager to learn the new ways and powers.

    I T WAS NINE o’clock in the morning before Mrs. Asrani entered Kavita’s room. Ordinarily, she would have allowed her daughter to sleep much longer on a Sunday, even until noon, but in light of the “I think I would like to say yes” answer from last night, Mrs. Asrani wasn’t sure she could hold it in herself any longer not to seek a confirmation. She had been so excited all morning that she had hardly paid attention to Short Ganga’s gossip about Mr. Jalal being found asleep on Vishnu’s landing, and of his attempted assault on Mrs. Pathak. She was surprised now to find Kavita’s bed all made up, since her daughter almost never did that, and more surprised to find that the bathroom was empty, since Kavita spent what seemed like hours there every morning.
    “Have you seen Kavita?” Mrs. Asrani asked. Shyamu and Mr. Asrani looked up from the breakfast table. “Did she go outside?”
    Mr. Asrani shook his head. “No one’s been outside since I got the newspaper.”
    “I’ll find her for you,” Shyamu offered. “Kavita,” he called out. “Kaveeetaaaaaaa…”
    There was no reply. “She’s not there,” he said. “I guess she ran away with the Jalals’ son after all, so we can all live happily ever after.”
    It was definitely the wrong thing to say. Mrs. Asrani’s inaugural slap of the day was so energetic that Shyamu burst out crying. “Go inside to your room,” Mrs. Asrani