Manil Suri - The City of Devi

Bhim shakes his head. “Tell your husband to relax and enjoy the show—there’s nothing he can do to help. Devi ma just imagines she’s doing the igniting—we light it by remote from up here.” As he speaks, a burst of laser-like rays sparks from the girl’s trident.

Karun is still screaming when a small flame pops alive on the buffalo’s skin. It climbs up the face and leaps onto the neck, burning along the nape like a fiery mane. Smoke wafts out of the nostrils, buds of orange sprout along the legs. As they burgeon and flower, people start cheering from the beach below.

With a luxurious whoosh, a cloak of flame enwraps the buffalo. Strings of firecrackers burst forth from the eyes, a volley of rockets zooms out of the mouth. Responding to the crowd’s acclamation, the Devi holds her trident victoriously aloft. The fire burns right through the posterior from tail to haunches, leaving the underlying frame exposed. I try to make out the grisly sight I know the interior imprisons, but already there is too much smoke.

A tremendous explosion rips the belly apart, generating a fireball large enough to swallow the entire animal. Bits of debris flame through the sky like meteor remnants, a shower of cinders drops sizzling into the infinity pool. The heat is so intense that the cable holding the frame melts right through, the remnants crash out of view below. Attendants rush down the terrace to douse the fronds of a palm set ablaze in its pot.

“Good show,” Bhim says. He inhales deeply, as if pleased to be breathing in smoke from the air. “See, that wasn’t too traumatic. Stop looking so horrified—don’t you realize this means you’re free? One day you’ll thank me—competing with such a hobby is not so easy.”

The guards try to lead Karun back, but his legs give way under him. I rush over as they prop him up against a ledge by the pool. I cradle him in my arms, tell him neither he nor I could have done anything. But my efforts barely penetrate. “So little time. We had so little time together,” he keeps repeating.

Holding his stricken face between my hands, I see what he has managed to hide so well even this afternoon (or is it simply something I have refused to acknowledge?). The bond I ascribed to sexual attraction is deeper, more threatening. Despite the horror of what has passed, I want to ask: What if it had been me in the fire instead? Would his expression be as tortured, his devastation as complete? Or would his grief be more sculpted, staid—a bereaved spouse’s dutiful mourning? “So little time,” he says again. Hasn’t he spent even fewer years with me?

But then his suffering overwhelms me. I find myself dissolve in his anguish, cry for the love he has felt and lost, for the love I have for him, and for the love, even if not as strong, I know he has for me. I hold him close to my body, kiss his face repeatedly, tell him I’m there to comfort him, I will always be by his side. Somehow, I think, we will put Jaz behind us, find a way, no matter how painful, to focus again on the two of us.

I’m wondering where we go from here, what tentative steps we take into our future, when the first shots ring out. The Devi screams, as Das, accompanying her back from the turret, slaps his neck as though bitten by a gnat, and crumples.

THE FIRST THING I DO WHEN SARAHAN’S MEN PULL ME OUT IS retch. My tongue feels coated with gunpowder, my throat with fear—I double up on the ground, trying to expel the taste, the smell. Sarahan, meanwhile, gets busy smacking the person who unties his hands. “What were you waiting for? A few more minutes and I’d be a tandoori chicken, roasting in the air.”

“Forgive us, sahib—the guards we managed to bribe, but they told us Das usually stops by just before the end.” The man looks down morosely at his feet, trying not to flinch as Sarahan rains down more slaps.

Although the small courtyard in which Sarahan delivers his whispered upbraiding (right next to Birbal the buffalo) is, indeed, unguarded, there’s no point tempting fate. “Couldn’t we continue this somewhere else?” I suggest.

We repair to the nearby emergency stairwell, where Sarahan unveils the grand plans for the revolution. “Kill Bhim. It’s not terribly complicated.” He seems to have recovered enough from the near-death ordeal to affect his earlier nonchalance. “Have you handled a gun before?” he asks, and I nod vigorously—a technical truth, given the way the question is phrased. “Good. I want you to be the one to do it.”

“You want me to—?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll back you up, shoot from our hiding places as well. I’ve thought things over and it really makes the most sense. We can simply blame it on a Muslim infiltration this way—we won’t have any problem afterwards rallying Bhim’s men.” He hands me a revolver weighing twice as much as the pistol I’ve stashed in Guddi’s bathroom. “Of course, they’ll probably want to kill you, tear you apart and chop up your limbs. But you have my word, I’ll personally make sure you escape with your friend.”

Sarahan flicks his eyes between the revolver and my face, as if aware of the risk he’s taking with the firearm, of the calculations spooling in my brain. Except he’s wrong—I don’t have the slightest intention of trying out my marksmanship on him. I stuff the gun into my waistband—with the most macho swagger I can muster, I tell him to lead the way.

We take the steps up to the Devi’s level. A single follower awaits us on the landing, instead of the army I expect. I’m no expert at coups, but surely four people (five with the newly recruited Jazter) is a bit skimpy. Sarahan brushes this number off. “They’ll join us in swarms. Once you’ve slain Bhim.”

We slip in during Devi ma’s show, right as Karun races along the pool to save me (the Jazter’s insides wrench with emotion). Our deployment leaves much to be desired—all five of us clump around the entrance to the stairs. The plan seems so rickety, so harebrained, that I almost make a break for it, dive back into the stairwell. But Sarahan and his men are too jumpy for me to take the chance. They gesture at me to advance, and when I don’t, one uses his gun to prod me along.

Das drops as soon as the shots start flying. Sadly, I fail to discharge my gun yet again, ducking behind a storage tank as soon as a volley of fire comes our way. When I emerge, one of Sarahan’s men is dead, and the rest (including Sarahan himself) have fled. “Don’t shoot,” I say, and raise my hands into the air.

They bring me to Bhim, for whose unscathed condition the Jazter head must surely hang in shame. At least we got Das, I think, but his wound turns out to be no more than a skin graze. Both of them express astonishment—not only at my escape from the buffalo pyre, but also at my apparent intrepidity at masterminding this coup (a failure, but still). Then they remember Sarahan. “He’s the one behind this, not you, isn’t it?” Bhim asks, and I’m only too glad to relinquish credit.

Which doesn’t quite save me, since they start discussing the relative merits of immediate execution versus torturing me for information first. Das wants to investigate whether I’m part of some larger Muslim conspiracy, but Bhim deems it a waste of time. “We already talked to him, didn’t we?—at the annex with his friend. Just do away with the gandu—he didn’t seem to know anything back then.”

By now, Karun has realized I’m still alive—I see him run up, Sarita in tow, and struggle to get through the encirclement of guards. Bhim notices too, pointing him out to Das with a tilt of his head. “See—a gandu, nothing more, just like I said. Surely if it were a plot, they’d send a proper man.” He inquires if they have more buffaloes ready. “Go find Sarahan—I like them stuffed in as a pair. Two sacrifices in one night—the crowd will be thrilled.”