The Devourers Read Online Free PDF Page A

dish.
    “Mr. Half Werewolf. Mr. H. Werewolf. If you had to, out of all these people, which one would you pick to eat?” I ask, my lips and brain sloppy with sudden late-night nutrition. He just smiles, though he does look through the crowd as if considering the question. His gaze lands back on me. I can’t tell whether that’s deliberate.
    And then I’m done eating, and this long night is over. So abrupt I can barely believe it, standing once again in the chill of the open air, stomach taut with food. It’s dawn, but still dark. My companion lights another joint. I realize the kitten is gone, and am disappointed. I don’t ask what happened to it.
    “Thank you for the meal,” I say.
    “You’re welcome. Now go home, Professor. It’s late, and you’ve listened enough,” he says.
    “I don’t know about that. Will I see you again?” I ask.
    “I don’t know. Would you like to see me again?”
    “Yes. I want to hear the end of the first story.”
    He closes his eyes and takes a deep drag. His lips are still ruddy from whatever it was that he put on them while I was in his storytelling trance, despite being washed in milky tea. “You and your endings, Professor. They’ll be the end of
you,
someday.”
    “You started it,” I say.
    “And I’m still living it,” he says, and wipes his mouth. “Tomorrow. Oly Pub. Five thirty.”
    “I’ll be there.”
    We walk over to a parked taxi nearby. The driver looks at us suspiciously and demands an extra fifty rupees this time.
    “The price is going up, I see,” I tell the stranger. “Can’t you hypnotize him into not charging me extra?”
    The stranger says nothing, and I’m embarrassed. “Do you want to share the cab? I’m heading toward Jodhpur Park. Where do you live?”
    The stranger hitches with a silent laugh. “That’s all right. Get home safely, Professor.”
    “Thank you. For the stories,” I say, opening the taxi door and getting in.
    The stranger smiles his red smile and walks away, sleeping kitten cradled in one arm, joint in the other hand. I almost don’t notice this. I could have sworn the kitten was gone. I feel very far from the present. As the taxi rolls down Ballygunge Circular Road and its overhanging canopy of trees, past the yellow walls of the army base, I look back and lose sight of the stranger. Heart thundering, I wait to get home. Ever-present, the dogs watch from the sides of the road, their eyes throwing back the headlights.



A new day. I take the metro, emerge at Park Street station, and walk down the street to Oly. Park Street is the Times Square of Kolkata. Any devout Kolkatan will tell you this. That doesn’t mean it’s anything like Times Square, of course. But for a quiet man like me, it’s enough. It’s not as if I have a lot of friends to go bar-hopping and dancing with, or anything like that. So if you haven’t been there already, imagine a wide street (well, compared with the usually narrow streets of this city), adorned with restaurants and stores and coffee shops and stalls and bars that have barnacled the smog-stained remnants of colonial British architecture. Add more recent buildings that stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these reformed mansions, and fill the whole place with people. That’s one thing Park Street does have equal to Times Square—people. On the street walking side by side with passing cars, on the pavement rubbing shoulders like the buildings around them. They’re everywhere, as you would expect in one of the most densely populated areas of the planet.
I am there, on Sunday, in the twilight that forms between the buildings of cities when the sun is too low to shine directly on the asphalt. The streetlights have come alive, but day still clings on. I’ve lived here so long, but meeting someone who claims to be more than human makes me see everything differently, like at the dhaba last night. My eyes linger on every street dog, curled by the passing feet of pedestrians or exploring the