She burned for more than twelve hours, through the day and into the night. In the darkness stray dogs gathered around and stretched out on the ground to sleep, warming themselves by the hearth. What I would not have given to lie down beside them and rest, just another dog among the dogs. But I never moved from my place, never turned my eyes away, I kept faithful vigil into the night since that was my duty. One by one our entire mixed multitude, including our inner core of eunuchs and Bulbul and Fetter Feivish, crept away. Manika, alone at her post overlooking the inferno, and I, in the ninth circle in the pit down below, were left standing in the dark, my little Virgil priest still joined to me at the hip, paid by the hour.

The body laid out on top of the altar had been reduced to pulverized white bone dust and ash that the Doms would collect and dump into the river. Only the skull remained, resting with unseeing eyes in its place as on a pillow. In accordance with my duty as mourner in chief and eldest son, I accepted the bamboo stick from the hands of the priest in order to perform the last rite. I smashed it down on the skull, cracking it open and liberating the soul.

Ma, Ma, she sobbed.

But I scuttled away and never looked back.

Maya

Maya

1

O MY DAUGHTER, Maya, my daughter, my daughter, Maya—twice you fell in love, at twelve and at thirteen, both times in Bombay under the lashing rains of the monsoon, most dangerous of seasons, the nighttime of the gods. The gods of the East understood the demonic power of the rains to seed wild growth and release passion and calamity. That is why the gods go to sleep during the monsoon, and holy men are forbidden to travel. But you Maya, child of water and illusion, you went out.