Salman Rushdie - Luka and the Fire of Life

Luka noticed that Nobodaddy was not as transparent as he had been a while earlier, and also that he was sounding and acting more and more like the over-talkative Rashid Khalifa, whose head was always full of all sorts of nonsense. ‘ Time, ’ he was singing under his breath, ‘ like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away… ’ That did it. That was all Luka was prepared to hear. As if it wasn’t bad enough that this, this creature from the Nether World was slowly filling up with more and more of his beloved father, which meant, of course, that Rashid Khalifa, Asleep in his bed at home, was getting emptier and emptier; and that as Nobodaddy’s Rashid-ness increased Luka was confusingly filled with emotions of fondness for him, even of love; but now the strange entity in his father’s vermilion bush shirt and panama hat had actually started singing in Rashid’s unbearable singing voice, the second-worst singing voice in the known world, second only to the fabled tuneless tones of Princess Batcheat of Gup. And what a song to choose! ‘ They fly forgotten, as a dream -’

‘We’re wasting Time,’ Luka interrupted Nobodaddy angrily. ‘Instead of singing that stupid hymn, how about suggesting a way for us to travel up into the Fog of the Past and find what we’re here to find… i.e. the Dawn of Time, the Lake of Wisdom, the Mountain of Knowledge, and the -’

‘Shh,’ said Bear the dog and Dog the bear together. ‘Don’t say it aloud.’ Luka flushed a deep red at his near-mistake. ‘You know what I mean,’ he finished, much less commandingly than he had intended.

‘Hmm,’ said Nobodaddy thoughtfully. ‘Why don’t we use, for example, that incredibly powerful-looking, off-the-road-worthy, river-worthy, strong-as-a-tank, and possibly even jet-propelled, eight-wheeled-slash-flat-bottomed amphibian vehicle moored to that little pier over there?’

‘That wasn’t there a minute ago,’ said Dog the bear.

‘I don’t know how he did it,’ said Bear the dog, ‘but I don’t like the look of it.’

Luka knew that he couldn’t afford to pay attention to his friends’ worries, and marched down to the enormous craft, whose name, written in bold letters on the stern, was the Argo . His father was fading as Nobodaddy solidified, and as a result the quest had become even more urgent than before. Luka’s head was full of questions to which he did not know the answers, difficult questions about the nature of Time itself. If Time was a River, eternally flowing – and here it was, here was the River of Time! – did that mean that the Past would always be there and the Future, too, already existed? True, he couldn’t see them, because they were wreathed in mists – which could also be clouds, or fog, or smoke – but surely they had to be there, otherwise how could the River exist? But on the other hand, if Time flowed like a River, then surely the Past would have flowed away already, in which case how could he go back into it to find the Fire of Life which burned in the Mountain of Knowledge which stood by the Lake of Wisdom which was illumined by the Dawn of Days? And if the Past had flowed away, then what was back there at the River’s source? And if the Future already existed, then perhaps it didn’t matter what he, Luka, did next, because no matter how hard he was trying to save his father’s life, maybe Rashid Khalifa’s fate had already been decided. But if the Future could be shaped, in part, by his own actions, then would the River change its course depending on what he did? What would happen to the story streams it contained? Would they start telling different stories? And which was true: (a) that people made history, and the River of Time in the World of Magic recorded their achievements, or (b) that the River made history, and people in the Real World were pawns in its eternal game? Which World was more real? Who was finally in charge? Oh, and one more question, maybe the most pressing one of all: how was he going to control the Argo ? He was a twelve-year-old boy who had never driven a car or stood at the helm of a motorboat; and Dog and Bear were no use, and Nobodaddy had stretched out on the deck, put his panama hat over his face, and closed his eyes.

‘Okay,’ thought Luka grimly, ‘how hard can it be?’ He stared at the instruments on the bridge. There was this switch, which probably put the wheels down for driving on when the Argo was on land, or up when the Argo hit the water; and this button, which was pretty obviously green for ‘go’, and this one next to it, which was just as self-evidently red for ‘stop’; and this lever, which he should probably push forward to go forward, and maybe push further forward to go faster; and this wheel, which would do the steering; and all those dials and counters and needles and gauges, which he could probably just ignore.

‘Hold on, everybody,’ he announced. ‘Here goes.’

Something then happened so rapidly that Luka was not entirely sure how or what it was, but an instant later the jet-propelled amphibian craft was flipping over and over in the middle of the great waterway and then they were all in the water and a whirlpool was sucking them down and Luka just had time to wonder whether he was about to be eaten by a Sickfish or other watery beast when he lost consciousness, and woke up a moment later back at the little pier, climbing into the Argo , thinking ‘How hard can it be?’ – and the only sign that something had happened was that the counter in the top left-hand corner of his field of vision had gone down by one life: 998. Nobodaddy was snoozing on the deck of the Argo again, and Luka called out, ‘A little help?’ But Nobodaddy didn’t move, and Luka understood this was something he would have to work out for himself. Perhaps those dials and gauges were more important than he had thought.

On the second try he managed not to turn the Argo over, but he didn’t get far before the whirlpool started up and whirled the craft around and around. ‘What’s happening?’ Luka yelled, and Nobodaddy lifted his panama hat and replied, ‘It’s probably the Eddies.’ But what were the Eddies? The Argo was spinning faster and faster, and in a minute it would be sucked down again. Nobodaddy sat up. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Yes. The Eddies are definitely in the neighbourhood.’ He looked down into the water, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, ‘Nelson! Duane! Fisher! Stop playing now! Go torment somebody else!’ But then the Argo was pulled underwater, and there was the blackout again, and they were back at the pier with the counter at 997. ‘Fish,’ said Nobodaddy briefly. ‘Eddyfish. Small, speedy rogues. Causing whirlpools is their favourite sport.’ ‘And what’s to be done about them?’ Luka wanted to know. ‘You have to work out how it is,’ Nobodaddy said, ‘that people manage to reach back into the Past.’

‘I guess… by remembering it?’ Luka offered. ‘By not forgetting it?’

‘Very good,’ said Nobodaddy. ‘And who is it that never forgets?’

‘An elephant,’ said Luka, and that’s when his eye fell upon a pair of absurd creatures with duck-like bodies and large elephant heads who were bobbing about in the water not far from the Argo ’s mooring. ‘And,’ he said slowly, remembering, ‘here in the World of Magic, an Elephant Bird as well.’

‘Full marks,’ Nobodaddy replied. ‘The Elephant Birds spend their lives drinking from the River of Time; nobody’s memories are longer than theirs. And if you want to travel up the River, Memory is the fuel you need. Jet propulsion will do you no good at all.’

‘Can they take us as far as the Fire of Life?’ Luka asked.

‘No,’ said Nobodaddy. ‘Memory will only get you so far, and no further. But a long Memory will get you a long way.’