Salman Rushdie - Luka and the Fire of Life

‘Overrated sounds about right,’ said Dog the bear with a snort, and a number of passing Rats looked round sharply. ‘Be careful,’ Nobodaddy warned. ‘Everyone’s looking for trouble around here.’

Just then Luka caught sight of a giant billboard bearing a much-larger-than-life black-and-white portrait of what could only be the Over-Rat in person. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ he said, because the thought struck him that if the Over-Rat ever turned into a human being – if the Over-Rat could be reincarnated as a horrible twelve-year-old schoolboy from Kahani, to be precise – then he would look exactly like… that is, really exactly like …

‘Ratshit,’ Luka whispered. ‘But it’s impossible.’ Bear the dog stared at the billboard as well. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘Let’s just hope he’s not your enemy in the Magic World as well.’

Here was a place to eat! The sign over the door read ALICE’S RESTAU-RAT , which was, unfortunately, not a spelling mistake. Luka looked through the window and was reassured to see that the cooks and staff were all people, though many of the guests were Rats. He was worried, though. How would he and his friends pay for their food? ‘Don’t fret about that,’ Nobodaddy said. ‘There’s no money in the World of Magic.’

Luka was relieved. ‘But then how does anyone, well, buy anything? How do things work? It’s very odd.’ Nobodaddy gave Rashid Khalifa’s shrug again. ‘It’s,’ he replied in his own, mysterious fashion, ‘a P2C2E.’ A surge of excitement coursed through Luka’s body. ‘I know what that is,’ he said. ‘My brother told me. They had those on his adventure, too.’

‘Processes Too Complicated To Explain,’ said Nobodaddy, a little too grandly, as he led the way into the Restau-Rat, ‘are at the heart of the Mystery of Life. They are everywhere, in the Real World as well as the Magical One. Nothing anywhere would work without them. Don’t get so excited, Professor. You look like you just discovered Electricity, or China, or Pythagoras’ Theorem.’

‘Sometimes,’ Luka replied, ‘it’s obvious that you aren’t my father.’

The food was surprisingly tasty, and Luka, Dog and Bear all ate very well and too quickly. However, they were aware that all the Rats in the place were watching them closely, staring with particular hostility at Bear the dog and Dog the bear, and that was an uneasy feeling. There was a lot of muttering at the other tables in what Luka thought must be Rattish, and then, finally, one particular Rat, a narrow-eyed, suspicious creature wearing a grey kepi, got up on its hind legs and walked over. He had clearly been chosen by his friends as the newcomers’ interrogator. ‘Ssso, ssstrangers,’ said the Inquisitor Rat without preamble, ‘may I asssk what you think of our great Resssspectorate of I?’

‘I, I, sir, I, I, sir,’ all the Rats in the Restau-Rat chorused.

‘We love our country,’ the Inquisitor Rat said coldly. ‘And you? Do you love our country, too?’

‘It’s very nice,’ Luka said carefully, ‘and the food is excellent.’

The Inquisitor scratched his chin. ‘Why am I not entirely convinced?’ he asked, as if talking to himself. ‘Why do I suspect there may be something insulting lurking beneath your superficial charm?’

‘We must be going,’ Luka said hastily, standing up. ‘It was good to meet -’ But the Inquisitor extended a claw-tipped arm and grasped Luka by the shoulder. ‘Tell me this,’ he demanded roughly. ‘Do you believe that two and two make five?’

Luka hesitated, unsure of how to answer – whereupon, to his immense surprise, the Inquisitor leapt up onto the dining table, scattering plates and glasses in all directions, and burst into loud, hissy, tuneless song:

‘Do you believe two and two make five?

Do you agree the world is flat?

Do you know our Bossss is the Biggest Cheese alive?

Do you Ressspect the Rat?

O, do you Ressspect the Rat?

If I sssay upside down is the right way round,

If I insissst that black is white,

If I claim that a sssqueak is the sssweetest sssound,

Do you ressspect my Right?

Say, do you Ressspect my Right?

Do you agree nothing’s better than I?

Do you approve of my hat?

Will you please ssstop asking what, how and why?

Do you Ressspect the Rat?

Do you, don’t you, don’t you, do you,

Do you Ressspect the Rat?’

And now all the Rats in the Restau-Rat leapt up on their hind legs, placed their claws upon their chests, and sang the chorus:

‘ I, I, sir,

I, I, sir,

We all say I, I, I.

There’s no need to argue, no need to sussspect,

No need to think when you’ve got Ressspect,

We all say I, I, I.’

‘That’s just nonsense!’ The words burst out of Luka before he could stop them. The Rats froze in their various poses, and then slowly, slowly, all their heads turned to look at Luka, and all their eyes glittered, and all their teeth were bared. ‘This isn’t good,’ Luka thought, and Bear and Dog drew close to him, prepared to fight for their lives. Even Nobodaddy seemed, for once, nonplussed. The Rats faced Luka, and slowly, little Rat-step by little Rat-step, they closed in around him.

‘Nonsenssse, you say,’ mused the Inquisitor Rat. ‘But, as it happens, it is also our National Sssong. Would you say, my fellow rodentsss, that this young rascal’s Manners have been Minded? Or does he deserve – hmmm – a Black Mark?’

‘Black Mark!’ the Rats screeched, all together, and bared their terrible claws. And perhaps the story of Luka Khalifa’s quest for the Fire of Life would have ended then and there at Alice’s Restau-Rat, and maybe Dog the bear and Bear the dog would have been lost, too, though they would certainly have gone down fighting and taken many Rats with them; and then Nobodaddy would have returned to Kahani to wait until the life of Rashid Khalifa had filled him up completely… and how sad all of that would have been! Instead, however, there was a cry from the street outside, and enormous quantities of red gloop and what looked like gigantic amounts of egg yolk and, following that, a hail of rotten vegetables began to descend from the sky, and all the Rats forgot entirely about Luka and his cry of ‘Nonsense!’ and charged out into the street yelling, ‘It’s the Otters!’ and, more simply, ‘It’s her again!’ because the Respectorate of I was under attack from above, and leading her aerial squadrons in the attack, swooping high and low and left and right, standing upright and unafraid on her famous flying carpet, Resham , which is to say, the Green Silk Flying Rug of King Solomon the Wise, was the feared, the fabled, the ferocious, the fabulous Insultana of Ott, shouting out, through a powerful megaphone, her blood-curdling battlecry: ‘ We expectorate on the Respectorate! ’

‘What’s going on?’ Luka shouted to Nobodaddy over the rising din, as the four travellers fled the Restau-Rat, just in case the Rats whom they had offended returned to finish them off. Outside in the street all was commotion and confusion and red gloop and egg and vegetables raining from above. They took shelter under the awning of a bakery down the road, its windows full of stale bread and unappetising-looking buns covered in grey icing. ‘Over in that direction, Over The Top of those mountains,’ Nobodaddy shouted back, pointing to a snow-capped range on the northern horizon, ‘is the unusual land of Oh-Tee-Tee, a land ringed by bright waters, whose denizens, the Otters, are devoted to all forms of excess. They talk too much, eat too much, drink too much, sleep too much, swim too much, chew too much betel nut, and they are without any question the rudest creatures in the world. But it’s an equal-opportunity impoliteness; the Otters all lay into one another without discrimination, and as a result they have all grown so thick-skinned that nobody minds what anyone else says. It’s a funny place, everyone laughs all the time while they call one another the worst things in the world. That lady up there is the Sultana, their Queen, but because she’s the most brilliant and sharp-tongued abuser of them all, everyone calls her the “Insult-ana”. It was her idea to take the battle to the Respectorate, because she respects nobody and nothing. You could almost call Ott the “Disrespectorate”, and dissing is unquestionably what they do best – Look at her!’ he broke off, admiring the Queen. ‘Isn’t she gorgeous when she’s angry?’