Manil Suri - The City of Devi

There seemed little choice but to leave myself. The HRM had become increasingly brazen in their attempts to take over the area, and my store of rice had almost run out. The few times I’d managed to reach Colaba, I had seen no sign of Sarita, cutting off my last link to Karun. I’d gambled by staying and lost—pushed too hard and scared Karun off. It was time to give in to my self-preservation instincts and head to safety.

But as I left the flat this morning, an overwhelming wave of nostalgia carried me south. I felt I had to make one final sentimental pilgrimage to Karun’s building, an homage of sorts. I stood there for an hour, looking up at his floor, trying to imagine the two of us ensconced safely behind the empty windows. How would our life have played out? What unreachable part of myself had I lost when I lost him? Just as I bid my last maudlin farewell, Sarita emerged.

WE RECLINE SIDE by side in our bridal suite. Despite my vigorous protests that Sarita and I would be fine camping out on the dance floor with the other stragglers (the ones who didn’t leave on the ferry back to Mahim, like Zara), Sequeira has insisted we spend a few hours alone in this room. “It’s your wedding night, your suhaag raat. You’re going to need every bit of privacy we can muster. Not the best setup for what you’ll be up to, but I’m sure you’ll find a way.” I can still feel Sarita glare a hole through me as he laughs. “Sleep well. Though I suppose that’s hardly the point, is it?”

The “suite” is little more than a storeroom behind the Air India set. Our bridal bed consists of two surplus airplane seats that Sequeira informed us didn’t quite fit in with the rest. “They’re first-class, so I couldn’t use them—too much of a recline.” He’s right—I’ve never been so comfortable in any plane flown in my life. Sarita seems equally at ease—fluorescing serenely, snoring softly.

As I marvel at the absurdity of the situation (the Jazter and his slumbering liebling , on the night of their eternal union), a sudden thought sobers me. Unlike me, Sarita has been through a suhaag raat before. With Karun. Who must have lain by her side and gazed at her face with the same proximity as I do now. And then? They had kissed and caressed, most certainly. What had her lips felt like? Had he been aroused by the fragrance of her body?

I lean forward to take a good sniff, but don’t smell anything. Try as I might, I cannot see Sarita through Karun’s eyes. I cannot picture him consummating their wedding night. Perhaps it’s my personal prejudices, the innate Jazter skepticism for Kinsey one through five. What if Karun’s the fabled perfect three? If through all our years together, he’s harbored a closeted ambidexterity?

Except that wouldn’t explain his agitation at my reappearance, his attempt to flee from me. Or rather from his own cravings. The Jazter remains confident he could beat Sarita any day in desirability. Sadly, though, for the Karuns of the world, sex isn’t everything. What if he’s developed feelings for this glow-in-the-dark woman next to me? In addition to her wifely loyalty, chances are she has a pleasing personality. And then there’s the whole unfair issue of reproductive capability. Can the Jazter really be so cocksure of victory?

It occurs to me that I have no strategy for tomorrow. What will I say to conquer Karun when we confront him side by side? How will I explain away all my lies to Sarita? What if Karun pretends not to know me?—will I unmask him in front of his wife? Not that she’s necessarily so unsuspecting. After our little laser joust, I have no idea how much she knows, what she herself might be plotting. I drift off to sleep watching her luminous breasts fall and rise.

Sequeira wakes us at noon with a breakfast tray laden with eggs and tea, toast and biscuits. “For the newlyweds, the special Sequeira breakfast—believe it or not, fresh eggs from real hens.” He beams happily when I say protein is exactly what the missus and I need to replenish what we expended overnight. Frau Hassan scowls again—chalk one up for the Jazter, who at least has a sense of humor (though perhaps Karun isn’t the best one to appreciate it, given his own deficiency in that department). We fill up on the food, and pack away as many biscuit rolls as we can carry, since we don’t know when we’ll eat next. Sarita gives me the jar of Marmite for safekeeping, so that she doesn’t finish it all at once.

Sequeira has a house at the northern edge of Bandra, and offers to drop us off in his car at Sarita’s “brother’s” place. I can see her itching to get away from me and go her own way, but of course she can hardly desert her new husband so brazenly. “He lives on Carter Road, near Otters Club,” she reveals reluctantly.

The day has a whitewashed, almost Mediterranean look to it. Waves lap at the rocks shoring up the wall next to the road; the sea is refreshed, rejuvenated, since last evening’s low tide. “You really should settle down here if we ever get past the nineteenth,” Sequeira says. “A mixed couple like you won’t find any other place so welcoming.” He gives us a short history of Bandra ( Bandora , as he says the island was called) from the time the Portuguese first built their church of Santa Ana. “With all the Christians we have, nobody cares if you’re Hindu or Muslim. It’s truly the queen of suburbs, the only one with such a cosmopolitan feel.”

“But aren’t you afraid the Limbus will take over? Or, more probably, Bhim?”

“They haven’t, so far. I have a hunch they might actually like us as a buffer in between. Not that we take any chances. War or no war, this is Bombay—money still rules everything. We pay them off—their men make the rounds of all the businesses every week.”

We sit squeezed together in an implausibly tiny Nano, which Sequeira deftly maneuvers around abandoned cars and large chunks of debris on the road. An impassable pile of rubble from a bombing raid forces him to detour east. He points to a tall building on a corner, with sleek elliptical balconies that seem to float in the air, like a real estate agent might. “Nobody lives there, can you believe it?—all the people who’ve fled the city. You could walk right in and have your pick of empty flats for free. Think of when the war is over—these places worth millions of rupees.”

“ If they’re still standing. There’s a reason they’re so empty.”

Sequeira nods. “True. The bomb. But nothing’s happened yet, and chances are nothing will on the nineteenth. That’s what I tell myself, in any case—that neither side will be so foolhardy. Just three more days of uncertainty.

“Afsan, the ferry captain, thinks I’m crazy. He’s quitting on the eighteenth—making one final trip to Madh Island, then continuing on to some faraway place for safety. He keeps asking me to join him—he’s even offered to make Diu his destination. That’s where the Sequeiras are from, where my brothers and sister live. I might take him up on his offer—he certainly knows how to tempt me. Except my children here would be so dismayed, the ones at the club who’ve come to depend on me. I have this superstition that I can keep them safe as long as I keep the party going every night.” He kisses a small locket around his neck, then touches it to his heart.

The lanes leading down to Carter Road all seem blocked—one by a fallen building, another by an overturned truck. Sequeira stops the Nano a few blocks away to let us out. “Who knows what’s the best course of action—to stay or to flee? You’re a very inspiring couple. God be with you, whatever you decide.”

Sarita turns to me the minute Sequeira has driven off. “I have no idea how to thank you for all your help. But now that it’s safe, I can really make it from here by myself.”