Salman Rushdie: Luka and the Fire of Life

‘Maybe so and maybe no,’ said Luka shyly, ‘but you should know already, Dad, because, to be honest with you, it felt like you were right there with me all the time, advising me and filling me in, and I’d have been lost without you.’

‘That makes two of us, then,’ said the Shah of Blah, ‘because I’d be lost right now if it wasn’t for your little exploit, that’s for sure. Or, your not-so-little exploit. Or, in fact, your super-colossal ultra-exploit. Not that I want you to grow a big head or anything. But the Fire of Life. Really . Quite a feat. Hmm, hmm. Ott Potatoes, is it? And could that thing hanging from your neck in fact be an actual Ott Pot?’

‘I don’t know what you two are talking about,’ said Soraya Khalifa contentedly, ‘but it’s good to hear the old rubbish being spoken in this house again.’

That wasn’t the end of the story, however. Just as Luka was relaxing, certain that his job was done at last, he heard an unpleasant bubbling noise welling up from a corner of his father’s bedroom and there, to his horror, was a Creature he thought he had seen for the last time when the Old Boy hurled him out into the deeps of space. It wasn’t wearing a vermilion bush shirt or a panama hat any more; it was colourless and faceless, because Rashid Khalifa had gone back into himself, and though this vile death-thing was plainly trying to gather itself into some sort of human shape, it succeeded only in looking twisted and hideous and sort of sticky, as if it were made out of glue. ‘You dont’ get rid of me as easily as that,’ it hissed. ‘You know why. Somebody has to die . I told you at the beginning there was a catch, and that’s it. Once I’ve been called into being, I don’t leave until I’ve swallowed a life. No arguments, okay? Somebody has to die.’

‘Go away,’ Luka shouted. ‘You lost. My father’s fine now. Just bubble off to wherever it is you go.’

Rashid, Soraya and Haroun looked at him in amazement. ‘Who are you talking to?’ Haroun asked. ‘There’s nothing in that corner, you know.’ But Bear the dog and Dog the bear could see the Creature all right, and before Luka could say any more it was Bear who interrupted. ‘How about,’ he asked the Creature, ‘if an immortal being gives up his Immortality?’

‘Why is Bear barking like that?’ Soraya asked, bewildered. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening.’

‘Remember?’ Bear asked Luka urgently. ‘ I am Barak of the It-Barak, a thousand years old and more ? Turned into a dog by a Chinese curse? You didn’t like it much when I told you that, because you wanted me to be your dog and nothing else. Well, now that’s all I want to be, too. After a thousand years, that’s it. To hell with the past! And who wants to live for another thousand years? Enough of all that! I just want to be your dog, Bear.’

‘That’s too big a sacrifice,’ said Luka, overwhelmed by his dog’s loyalty and selfless courage. ‘I can’t ask you to make it.’

‘I’m not asking you to ask me,’ said Bear the dog.

‘That dog is a lot noisier than I recall,’ Rashid said. ‘Luka, can’t you quieten him down?’

‘An Immortality,’ said the Creature in the corner hungrily. ‘Mmm! Yes, yes! To swallow an Immortality! To suck it out of the Immortal and fill up with it, leaving the ex-Immortal behind in mortal form! Oh yes. That would be very sweet indeed.’

‘Ahem,’ said Dog the bear suddenly. ‘There is something I would like to confess.’ At that moment, Luka thought, Dog looked sheepish, not bearish at all. ‘You know that story I told you – about being a prince who could spin air into gold? And Bulbul Dev the bird-headed ogre, and so on?’

‘Of course I remember,’ Luka said.

‘See, husband, now the bear is growling, and the boy is talking to the bear,’ said Soraya helplessly. ‘These animals – and your son as well – are really getting to be impossible to control.’

‘It wasn’t true,’ admitted Dog the bear, hanging his head in shame. ‘The only thing I spun out of thin air was that yarn, that shaggy-dog story – or shaggy-bear story, maybe I should say. I just thought I ought to have a good story to tell. I thought it was expected of me at the time, especially after Bear here sang that song about himself. I made it up to make myself look good. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Luka. ‘This is a storyteller’s house. You should know what it’s like by now. Everybody here makes up stories all the time.’

‘That’s settled, then,’ said Bear the dog. ‘Only one of us has an immortal life to give up, and that one is me.’ And without waiting for any further discussion he ran to the corner where the Creature was crouching, and leapt; and Luka saw the Creature open a ghastly sort-of-mouth impossibly wide, and he saw Bear being swallowed up by that mouth; and then Bear was ejected again, looking the same, only different, and the Creature had become Bear-shaped too: No-Bear, instead of Nobodaddy. ‘Ohh,’ cried the Creature, ‘Ohh, ecstasy, ecstasy!’ And there was a sort of backwards flash, as if light were being sucked into a point instead of exploding out from a point, and the Bear-Creature imploded, whoommpppfff , and then it wasn’t there any more.

‘Woof,’ said Bear the dog, wagging his tail.

‘What do you mean, “woof”?’ Luka demanded. ‘Cat got your tongue?’

‘Growl,’ said Dog the bear.

‘Oh,’ said Luka, understanding. ‘The magic part really is over now, isn’t it? And from now on you’re just my ordinary dog and my ordinary bear, and I’m just ordinary me.’

‘Woof,’ said Bear the dog, and jumped up against Luka and licked his face. Luka hugged him tightly. ‘After what you just did,’ he said, ‘I’ll never let anybody think of dogs as bad-luck animals, because it was a lucky day for all of us when you became my dog.’

‘Will somebody please tell me what is going on?’ Soraya said faintly.

‘It’s okay, Mum,’ said Luka, hugging her as tightly as he could. ‘Calm down. Life is finally back to being ordinary again.’

‘There’s nothing ordinary about you,’ his mother answered, kissing the top of his head. ‘And, ordinary life? In this family, we know there’s no such thing.’

On the flat roof of the Khalifa house, that cool evening, a dinner table was set out under the stars – yes, the stars had come out again! – and a feast was eaten, a feast of delicious slowly roasted meat and quickly pan-fried vegetables, of sour pickles and sweetmeats and cold pomegranate juice and hot tea, but also of some rarer foods and drinks – happiness soup, curried excitement and great-relief ice cream. At the very centre of the table, in their little Ott Pot, were the remaining five Ott Potatoes, glowing softly with the Fire of Life. ‘So this other Soraya you became so fond of,’ said Soraya Khalifa to Luka, just a little too sweetly, ‘she said that if a healthy person eats one of these it can give them long life, and maybe even let them live for ever?’

Luka shook his head. ‘No, Mum,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t the Insultana of Ott who said that. It was Ra the Supreme.’

In spite of a life spent with the fabled Shah of Blah, Soraya Khalifa had never entirely liked this fanciful stuff, which she now had to put up with from both her sons as well as her storyteller husband. Tonight, though, she was making a real effort. ‘And this Ra…’ she began, and Luka finished the sentence for her, ‘… told me that personally, speaking in Hieroglyph, which was translated for me by a talking squirrel named Ratatat.’

‘Oh, never mind,’ said Soraya, giving up. ‘All’s well that ends well, and as for these so-called “Ott Potatoes”, I’ll just tuck them away in the pantry, and we can decide what to do with them on another day.’