Manil Suri - The City of Devi

WE STAND WITH our elbows on the railing of the ferry and watch Bombay ebb. The creek, the sandbar, the fort on the knoll, all blend in, until only a crust of land rises above the waves. Sequeira explains we’ll follow the coastline to Daman, before turning west towards the southernmost tip of the lobster-claw landmass of Gujarat, where our destination of Diu is located. “Have you ever been there? Such a sleepy and peaceful place. So few people, especially after Bombay.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to cut across the sea and go straight there?” Jaz asks. “That way, you’d be less likely to encounter any roving fighter planes.”

Sequeira laughs. “See that green and blue flag Afsan’s raised? It’s to warn the pilots off. Part of the protection package for which I pay the gangsters controlling the coast.”

It’s difficult to think of enemy jets while gliding over the waves. The sea frolics around, spattering us playfully with spray, as if it’s pegged us as weekenders out on a sail. The land in the distance has turned green, the city tones replaced by the coastal lushness of Gorai and Bassein. Nothing ominous flies past above—only seagulls swoop down from the sky.

“This is it,” Karun says, to Jaz or me or both, I can’t say. “The great escape.” I’m learning not to wonder too much to whom exactly his words are directed—Jaz or me. The important thing, I tell myself, is to find the joy in them and celebrate. He leans over the railing and opens his mouth to breathe the breeze in. “I feel so lucky.”

It occurs to me that I’ve never seen him this carefree, this uninhibited. The fact that he’s losing his house and livelihood, the possibility that his city will cease to exist, the unknown nautical and nuclear dangers ahead, not to mention the pitfalls in relationships—none of these dampen his spirit. Has he even given any thought to how he proposes to appease Jaz and me, standing side by side, looking at him in shared amusement? “The wind,” Karun says, his eyes tearing with the force of it. “Can you feel it?”

I do feel it. More than the wind, his unspoken belief that we will work it out, this trinity he has assembled. I look from Jaz to him. Perhaps there is room for optimism. I can’t see it now, can’t imagine how, but given his energy, perhaps it will be okay.

Maybe I can blame it on the wind that Karun keeps drawing our attention to—combined with the sea and the waves and the spray. Or maybe it’s the roar of the boat that drowns out everything else, though I know these are but excuses. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m the real culprit, for letting my vigil down, for letting Karun’s buoyancy so carry me away. It’s true that the arrow of jets doesn’t fly overhead first in a warning pass, that by the time I see the rogue plane it’s already too late. The same plane that’s set to weave its deadly loop in future nightmares—to ensure, no matter how I defend myself, that the guilt remains.

One instant, Karun gestures towards us, to come join him at the railing, together breathe in the fresh and free coastal air. The next, he flies forward, the force of the bullets lifting him off his feet. Somewhere behind me the deck bursts into flame, with Sequeira calling all hands to battle the blaze. Jaz runs across the planks, pulling out a gun, firing uselessly at the sky.

But Karun. I turn him over, unmindful of the explosions rocking the boat, the smell of smoke and burning wood, the rasping drone of the jet as it nonchalantly flies away. He moves his lips but the sounds don’t emerge—the line I love gets smudged and thick. Jaz comes over and rips open his shirt to try to staunch the blood—joining hands and laps, together we cradle him. Karun looks at the two of us and tries to grasp our fingers, he tries to speak or smile or reassure but the effort is beyond him. A bubble of red forms between his lips, and he turns to look at the sky as if the stars are beckoning him.

I lose track of the boat—whether we drift, or head back, or prepare to sink. Perhaps I hear Sequeira shouting, perhaps I even feel the heat from the flames. Jaz and I sit there, with Karun between us, as if we have just put him to sleep with a relay of fairy tales. We hunch over a little so that our shadows combine to block out the sun, to form a protective veil over his face.

My mind is capable of a single task—trying to rewind the reel. The plane recedes into a malignant dot, one I can forever rub off the film. Karun stands once more at the railing, gesturing us to join him. His request seems audacious, but only because it’s so innocent—he’s asking for something, he doesn’t want to be greedy, it’s only if we can accommodate him. Neither Jaz nor I can resist his schoolboy earnestness, the dash of guileless charm mixed in.

He’s awkward at first, holding us stiffly on each arm as we sidle up. The pose is new, he was only half expecting to succeed, he hasn’t quite learnt this language. But then he relaxes and draws us closer—so close that we could all three kiss if we wanted. His arms around our necks, he hugs us closer yet, as if this is a group shot and he wants to make sure he squeezes us entirely into the frame.

This is the still I will carry with me, the image by which I will remember him. His eyes glistening with gratefulness, his smile joyfully lit, as if he can’t believe his luck, the fortune he’s hit. The unsureness that’s always lingered like an underlying shadow replaced by the new radiance of belonging on his face.

The sea spreads out as carefree as before, smoke from the smoldering deck tinges the spray. We rise and fall under the empty sky, borne back towards the land by the frisking waves.

WHO KNEW THE JAZTER WOULD BE CONDEMNED TO COMPOSE THESE thoughts? That his story would be led so astray? This, then, is the harsh lesson he must learn. Endings need to be lived, they cannot be ordained.

Afsan manages to steer us into Arnala, a small port just north of Bombay. While Sequeira uses his mafia connections to wrangle another boat, Sarita and I search the brush above the shore for wood. Some of the pieces are too green, others too thick—many of the branches are little more than twigs. I try not to think of what they’re for, try to focus on the task at hand through my shock.

We set up the pyre on the beach itself, well above the tide line. Sarita says she will light it alone, but relents at the last minute, inviting me to assist. Together, we hold a burning branch to the stack on which Karun reposes—it seems to take forever to catch. As the flames leap up, singeing the body I’ve cradled and caressed and loved, I have to hold on to Sarita to be able to watch. She clutches me as well. Neither of us wants to leave before the embers cool, but Sequeira eases us away. He arranges for one of the fishermen to sort through the ashes in our absence and immerse the remains.

Back at sea, my grief gives way to rage. Rage against the enemy, rage against the war, rage against everything that’s conspired to snatch Karun away. How arbitrary, how wasteful and unfair, after the impossible gauntlet of hurdles we overcame. I scour the sky like King Kong, ready to reach up and pluck off Pakistani planes. Bring on your worst, I silently rail—bullets, bombs, nuclear explosions—I’m ready to confront them all.

But the horizon remains untroubled by jets or mushroom clouds. The sky doesn’t rend, no seaquake announced the arrival of the scheduled doomsday. We journey through the night, reaching Diu on the nineteenth around eleven a.m.

The town is in a panic, even though Ahmedabad, the nearest target on the list of eight, lies three hundred kilometers north. People crowd the dock waiting for long-departed boats to convey them to safe havens (where these might be located, nobody can probably pinpoint). Some hunker down in their houses, hoping their bolted doors and shuttered windows will persuade any impending malignancy to move on; others roam the streets with clubs and pellet guns and old muskets, searching, perhaps, for the leader seasoned enough to mobilize them. “Why did you leave Mumbai?” an acquaintance asks upon spotting Sequeira. “Hasn’t the Devi appeared there in person to keep away the bomb?”