Salman Rushdie: Luka and the Fire of Life

‘Stop, please stop,’ Luka begged. ‘It doesn’t matter what they’re called – what they’re doing is more than enough.’ What they were doing was this: they were blowing away the Rain Cats. With many loud roars and yowls the Rain Cats lost their grip on the bubble around the flying carpet and were sent flying to nowhere, blown head over heels into the depths of the broken sky. A great cry of happiness went up from everyone aboard the Resham , and then the Wind Gods really got going, and the carpet began to travel at the most amazing speed. Even Soraya with all her skill could not have made it go half as fast. The Magic World below them and the sky above became a blur. All Luka could see was the carpet itself and the massed Wind Gods behind it, blowing him all the way home. ‘ Get me back in time ,’ he thought fervently once again. ‘ Please don’t let me be too late, just get me back in time .’

The wind dropped, the carpet landed, the Wind Gods disappeared, and Luka was home: not on the bank of the Silsila as he had expected, but in his very own lane, in front of his very own house, in the very place where he first heard Dog and Bear speak, where he first met Nobodaddy and embarked on his great adventure. The colours of the world were still strange, the sky still too blue, the dirt too brown, the house much pinker and greener than usual; nor was it normal for a flying carpet to be parked here, with a Sultana of the Magic World, a Titan, a Coyote and two Elephant Birds aboard, all of them looking distinctly ill at ease.

‘The truth is we don’t belong here, at the Frontier,’ said Soraya, as Luka, Dog the bear and Bear the dog stepped off Resham into the dusty lane. ‘So, since you have to go, go quickly, so that we also can be off. Go to that other Soraya who lives in that house, and when you pop that Ott Potato into your father’s mouth, don’t forget it was the Insultana of Ott who gave it to you; and afterwards, as you grow into a young man, think about that Insultana sometimes, if you don’t completely forget.’

‘I’ll never forget you,’ Luka said, ‘but please, can I ask you one last question: can I pick up an Ott Potato with my bare hands? And if I put it into my dad’s mouth, won’t it burn him to bits?’

‘The Fire of Life does not wound those it touches,’ said Soraya of Ott. ‘Rather, it heals wounds. You will not find that glowing vegetable too hot to pick up. Nor will it do your father anything but good. There are six Ott Potatoes in that Pot, by the way,’ she concluded, ‘one for each of you, if that’s what you decide.’

‘Goodbye, then,’ said Luka, and then he turned to the Old Boy and added, ‘And I meant to say, I’m sorry about what happened to Captain Aag, because he was your brother, after all.’ The Old Boy shrugged. ‘Nothing to be sorry about,’ he said. ‘I never liked him anyway.’ Then, without further ado, the Insultana Soraya raised her arms, and the Flying Carpet of King Solomon the Wise rose into the sky and vanished with only a soft whoosh for farewell.

Luka looked at his front door, and saw, standing on the doorstep, glistening in the day’s first light, a large golden orb: the Saving Point for the end of Level Nine, the end of the ‘game’ that hadn’t been a game at all but, as Nobodaddy had said, a matter of life and death. ‘Come on,’ he shouted to Dog and Bear, ‘let’s go home.’ He ran towards the Saving Point and just as he reached it he stumbled, as he had known he would; he managed to kick the point with his left leg as he lurched awkwardly to his right; he heard, for the last time, the tell tale ding that confirmed his achievement; he saw all the numbers vanish from his field of vision; he felt oddly giddy for a moment; then he regained his balance, and saw that the golden orb had vanished, and the colours of the world had returned to normal. He understood that he had left the World of Magic behind, and was back where he needed to be. ‘And it looks like the same exact time it was when I left,’ he marvelled. ‘So all of that never happened, except, of course, that it did.’ The Ott Pot was still hanging from his neck, and he could feel its warmth on his chest. He took a deep breath and ran indoors and up the stairs as fast as he could run, and Bear the dog and Dog the bear came too.

The sweet smells of home welcomed him back: his mother’s perfume, the thousand and one mysteries of the kitchen, the freshness of clean sheets, the accumulated fragrances of everything that had happened between those walls during all the years of his life, and the older, more obscure scents that had hung in the air since before he was born. And at the top of the stairs was his brother Haroun, with a strange expression on his face. ‘You’ve been somewhere, haven’t you?’ Haroun said. ‘You’ve been up to something. I can see it on your face.’ Luka charged past him, saying, ‘I don’t have time to explain it right now, to be honest with you,’ and Haroun turned and ran after him. ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘You’ve had your adventure! So come on, out with it! And by the way, what’s that hanging from your neck?’ Luka ran on without replying, and Bear the dog and Dog the bear pushed their way past Haroun as Luka rushed into his father’s bedroom. They had been part of the adventure, too, and they didn’t intend to miss the final scene.

Rashid Khalifa lay in his bed, Asleep with his mouth open, just as he had been when Luka had last seen him, and the tubes were still running into his arm, and the monitor by his bedside showed that his heart was still beating, but very, very faintly. He looked happy, though, he still looked happy, as if he were being told a story that he loved. And by his bedside stood Luka’s mother Soraya, with her fingers fluttering at her lips, and Luka understood, the moment he ran into the room and saw her, that she was about to kiss her fingertips and then touch Rashid’s mouth, because she was saying goodbye.

‘What on earth are you doing, running in here like a crazy person?’ Soraya cried, and then Bear the dog, Dog the bear and Haroun charged in as well. ‘Stop it, all of you,’ she demanded. ‘What is this? A playground? A circus? What?’

‘Please, Mum,’ Luka begged, ‘there’s no time to explain – please just let me do what I have to do.’ And without waiting for his mother’s reply, he popped an Ott Potato, glowing with the Fire of Life, into his father’s open mouth, where, to his amazement, it dissolved instantly. Luka, staring fiercely through his father’s lips, saw little tongues of fire dive down into Rashid’s insides; and then they were gone, and for an instant nothing happened, and Luka’s heart sank. ‘Aah,’ his mother was complaining, ‘what on earth have you done, you silly boy…?’ But then the scolding words died on her lips because she, and everyone else in the room, saw the colour return to Rashid’s face; after which a glow of health spread across his cheeks, almost as if he were blushing with embarrassment; and the monitor by the bedside began to drum out a firm, regular heartbeat.

Rashid’s hands began to move. His right hand darted out without warning and started tickling Luka, and Soraya gasped to see it, half with delight at the miracle of it, half with something like fear. ‘Stop tickling me, Dad,’ Luka said joyfully, and Rashid Khalifa said without opening his eyes, ‘I’m not tickling you – Nobody is,’ and then he turned over on his side to attack Luka with his left hand as well. ‘You are, you are tickling me,’ Luka laughed, and Rashid Khalifa, opening his eyes, and grinning widely, said innocently, ‘Me? Tickling you? No, no. That’s just Nonsense.’

Rashid sat up, stretched, yawned, and gave Luka a funny, inquisitive look. ‘I’ve been having the strangest dream about you,’ he said. ‘Let me see if I can remember it. You went adventuring in the World of Magic, I think that was it, and the whole place was falling apart. Hmm, and there were Elephant Birds, and Respecto-Rats, and a real, honest-to-goodness Flying Carpet, and then there was the little matter of becoming a Fire Thief and stealing the Fire of Life. You wouldn’t by any chance know anything about that dream, young Luka? You wouldn’t by some unlikely chance be able to fill in the blanks?’