The Devourers Read Online Free PDF

footpaths, so different from their predatory nocturnal incarnations. But more than the dogs, it’s the people, the city that suddenly seems strange, yet not strange enough. Everything feels like a comedown from a trip, an intense high—so much so that it’s physical, a headache growing behind my skull and promising to break at the notes of the stranger’s voice.
    I keep to the footpath, avoid the streaks of odorous water and garbage clotting the gutters. Steamy food-shacks offer passing clouds of warmth from winter’s chill, the heat of open-air cooking trapped under blue plastic tarpaulins stretched over the sidewalks to shelter their customers. I pass hawkers selling snacks, sachets of supari, cigarettes, perfumes and colognes, pirated movies, discounted books and magazines, condoms both imported and not—all operating right beside less ephemeral retail outlets and eateries with glass walls that look into different worlds.
    Everywhere, the behavior of our different packs and clans and tribes on display. Beggars hover close to the transparency of storefront windows in the hope of absorbing some of the opulence within. I pass the well-lit glitz that hovers around the entrance to Park Hotel and its fashionable discos and restaurants, edging by young men and women emerging from chauffeured cars, bodies musked with cologne. I’m careful not to touch any of the girls by accident (I hesitate to call them women), as I don’t want to attract the ire of their well-groomed male companions. A pimp, probably on the lookout for hotel patrons, asks me in flamboyant English if I’d like to spend the night with a college girl, and I shake my head and keep walking. Not too far from there, I reach the popular refuge of the firmly middle classes, Oly Pub. It looks plain and weathered next to the higher-profile stretch of pavement real estate by the hotel, though the building does hint at a faded grandeur. I make a quick supper of a chicken and egg roll at Kusum’s Rolls and Kebabs right next door, and head into the pub.
    I nod to the doorman who probably recognizes me, and duck into the fluorescent-lit gloom. I go upstairs to the windowless sanctum of the air-conditioned section, hoping that the stranger will also go there. A cigarette haze hangs over the Formica tables, as if the winter mist has followed me inside.
    I search the faces in the room till a waiter gives me a grumpy glance, pointing out the fact that I’m standing in the middle of the carpeted thoroughfare without saying a word. The stranger isn’t here. My aching head feels heavier at his absence. Though it’s still light out, Oly is already crowded. I find a table in the corner and order a whiskey double with water, hoping it will calm the headache. The same waiter brings me the drink and takes a while doing it. I bide my time, sipping my watered whiskey and nibbling at the pile of dirty-yellow daalmoot in the little plastic plate by my glass, feeling more and more guilty for taking up an entire table all by myself while the pub fills up.
    —
    But he does show up.
    He appears by my table without warning, half an hour later. It looks like he’s wearing the same flimsy kurta and worn jeans he wore yesterday, and his hair tumbles down to his shoulders again, the ponytail he left with last night abandoned. He’s carrying a dusty blue-and-black JanSport backpack that makes him look younger. Like one of my students, except for those quivers of gray in his hair.
    “Professor. I trust you weren’t waiting long?” He takes off the backpack and slides it under the table with one foot. He’s still wearing those sandals.
    “Oh no. I was just, you know,” I say.
    “Waiting?”
    “Yes. No, I mean, it hasn’t been that long. Please, sit. Thanks for coming.”
    He pulls up the chair opposite and sits down. I blush, and am thankful for the smoke and dim lighting. I get the feeling that he knows I’ve been waiting a long time and likes it. Nervous sipping has almost