The Death of Vishnu

brink of something equally grand? What if he was going to be the next great unifier, the one whose destiny it was to change the land? Was that the sign he had just received, the message he had just been given, the one that would bring people together across the country? After all, wasn’t he born a Muslim, just like Akbar—could that be why he had been chosen by Vishnu?
    Mr. Jalal peered at Vishnu. Yes, that was a smile of acknowledgment on his face, a smile of encouragement, a smile that indicated great things were in store. Vishnu was giving him the blessing he had come for, telling him to go forth and heal the world. Perhaps he should descend this very minute, go downstairs and convert the cigarettewalla, the paanwalla. Knock on every door he could find, stop at the shops in the adjacent building, go to the church across the street, to Mahalakshmi, to Haji Ali.
    But first he would try once more with Arifa. She was his wife, Salim was his son. Before he saved anyone else, it was his duty to save them.
    Mr. Jalal looked at the mango next to Vishnu’s head. The offering had pleased Vishnu. There was no need for flowers or incense.

    M ANGOES. SO FULL , so sweet, so scented, the oranges and yellows of sunlight. So this is the food gods get offered, Vishnu thinks. Ah, mangoes.
    From the orchard mist she emerges. The mango goddess. Her figure lush with mango leaves as she makes her way across the shadows of trees. She stands in front of Vishnu and lets her cloak of leaves drop. Her body is bountiful with fruit underneath. Mangoes, ripe and perfumed, grow from her bosom, they swing from her arms, hang heavily from her thighs.
    Vishnu brings his face to her neck and breathes her fragrance in. He touches a mango attached to her breast, and traces the curve of its smooth skin. His fingers linger at the node at the base, swollen, and yielding to his touch. He closes his hand over the mango, she quivers as he plucks it off her skin. Sap oozes out of the rupture, he puts his lips on her breast to stem the flow. She presses her arms around his head and lets him taste her essence.
    She directs him to another mango, growing between her thighs. He touches it and pulls on it, anticipation plays on her lips. He detaches it with a snap, and sees pain twinge across her face. Sap flows out again, more abundant, more fertile this time, filling his mouth with her feminine nectar.
    One by one, he plucks all the mangoes from her body. When he is done, she stands before him naked, clothed only in the scars of her harvest. He spreads her cloak of mango leaves on the ground and she lays herself down upon it. He kneels between her legs, and kisses a scar still wet with sap.
    She guides his body into hers. Tears moisten her eyes. As he fills her with seed, she arches back her neck to face the dying sun.
    Afterwards, he drapes the cloak around her. He watches her tread to her orchard through the twilight. Underneath the leaves, he knows, her scars are already beginning to sprout. With buds of fruits barely visible, fruits that will grow and ripen in the next day’s sun.
    He looks at the mangoes she has left behind, scattered on the ground. They will sustain all his creatures, they will sustain the universe until she returns.

    T HIS GODLY WAY with mangoes. Vishnu is not impressed. What about the act of eating to which mortals are accustomed? The essence of mangoes, their taste, their feel. The satisfaction of separating pulp from peel by scraping slices between the teeth. He wonders if gods are allowed only heavenly bliss, if earthly pleasure is beyond their reach.
    He sees himself lying naked with Padmini under the sheets. It is the summer his brother has sent him a mango basket. He has brought it to Padmini, she has invited him in.
    Padmini turns over on her stomach and drags the basket to the bed. “So many mangoes,” she says, gazing at the basket. She looks up. “Are you sure they’re all for me?”
    “Every one of them,” he says, exhilarated by the greed he glimpses in her eyes. He feels the pang of a familiar longing. How many baskets would he need to make her forever his own?
    She rolls a mango between her palms to soften the insides. “Lajjo says the foreign mems eat mangoes with spoons, can you imagine?” She laughs. “Maybe that’s what I should do—be your English memsahib.” She bats her eyelids and puckers her mouth into an exaggerated kiss.
    “Maybe you should,” he says. He wills the longing to disappear. He