Stephen Kelman - Man on Fire

Bibhuti cried the way he laughed, with his whole body. He shook and shivered and let out a noise that was harrowing and inhuman. It shredded the air and scarred everyone in the room. The Guinness official reached for the bowl of food on his desk and held it down until Bibhuti was done.

‘Sir, you cannot do this to me,’ Bibhuti said. His lips trembled and tears rolled down his cheeks.

For the first time I thought of him as a weak thing, prone to the same disappointments as any other man.

‘I am a sportsman of high standing, my record is there for all to see. You are mistaken if you think I am not up to this task, nothing is beyond my abilities. Please, sir, you must listen to your conscience. You cannot deny this to me.’

The Guinness man picked at his food with fingers yellowed with turmeric. He told Bibhuti that he lacked the power to intervene on his behalf. The decision had been made above his head. The Guinness organisation took the safety of its applicants very seriously. Our record was considered too dangerous to ratify.

‘I have achieved many dangerous things before with no bad consequences,’ Bibhuti argued. ‘This time will be no different, I assure you of this.’

‘We are not satisfied that this record can be achieved without serious injury. We would not wish to see you meet an unfortunate accident.’

‘My Baba cannot be hurt!’ Jolly Boy shouted, his eyes welling with tears. ‘You are stupid!’

He ran out of the room, tearing a book from a shelf as he passed it. A three-year-old copy of the Guinness Book of World Records . It landed with a slap on the floor, spine up and splayed like a banana skin.

‘Have you considered applying to Limca?’ the Guinness man suggested. ‘Perhaps you will have better luck with them.’

Bibhuti smoothed his moustache, composed himself. His voice took on an even instructive tone, a grown-up explaining a law of nature to a child with cloth ears.

‘This will be my final record. After this I will have nothing left to give to the world. I know this in my heart, I have heard God tell me this in the nights when I am waiting for sleep to come. Sir, Limca is not the place for me. My last record will mean nothing without the name of Guinness behind it. I have had a long and distinguished career as staunch promoter of the Guinness philosophy. I have shed one thousand drops of blood and broken many bones to share your message far and wide. I must have your blessing.’

He stuck his hands together in an earnest namaste.

‘Sir, tell me what I can do to make you believe. Anything you say and I will do it. Sir, please. I am begging you.’

The Guinness man stared at him unconvinced.

I went to the car and got a bat out of the boot.

When I came back Bibhuti was still rooted to the spot. Jolly Boy had returned and was picking absently at the prayer bracelet round his father’s wrist. They both rose up rebellious when they saw what I had in mind.

The Guinness man tilted back in his chair, dodging a phantom swing.

‘Let me show you what he’s made of,’ I told him. ‘Watch closely. Then you can tell him if you fancy his chances.’

Bibhuti took up his ready position, his legs spread in front of the desk. I made myself some room and bunted Bibhuti across the shoulder, a short backswing just for example.

The Guinness man flinched as the bat hit home.

‘It’s okay,’ I told him, ‘it doesn’t hurt him. He broke his leg three weeks ago, now it’s better. You couldn’t even tell. Look.’

I hit the leg. Nothing snapped. Bibhuti smiled vaudeville and I got a flash of us as a double act on a sepia stage, busting our guts for the amusement of some dozing philistine.

‘You see?’ Jolly Boy yelped. ‘My Baba cannot be hurt! He is strong! He will win!’

‘You may hit me if you wish,’ Bibhuti invited.

The Guinness man waved his hands no.

I hit Bibhuti again a couple of times to prove our point.

The Guinness man knitted his fingers into a roof for his thoughts. Throats were cleared and the rain threw itself against the glass. The ceiling fan chopped at the resinous air. I said something I thought was key in the circumstances.

‘I’ll stay away from the head.’

‘This is how we have practised it,’ Bibhuti confirmed.

The Guinness man let out a weary sigh. Bibhuti swayed on his feet and I grabbed his elbow to steady him.

‘It is a man’s dying wish also,’ Bibhuti added, and explained that I had cancer. The Guinness man raised his eyebrows.

‘It’s true,’ I said.

Bibhuti told him how I’d come all the way from England to help him. That I was running out of time. Jolly Boy picked up the book he’d felled, put it back on the shelf with care.

‘I cannot guarantee that your request will be granted,’ the Guinness man said.

‘Just ask them,’ I said. ‘There’s no harm in trying. It’s our destiny. I’ve got money.’

‘That will not be necessary,’ the Guinness man said. He picked up the phone and dialled with a fat middle finger.

Bibhuti sang all the way home. Cars were babystepping in the darkness. Their tail lights smeared blood on the road. The horns sounded fretful, all their cocky exuberance muffled to a whimper by the drumming of the rain.

A giant Ganesh glided past us, trussed to the back of a pick-up. Bibhuti’s dashboard Ganesh averted its gaze as if ashamed of its brother’s capture.

The rain stopped abruptly, a tap twisted shut.

The women were waiting in the courtyard to hear the verdict. The tension had infected them in different ways since Bibhuti had received the call to say that Guinness was withdrawing its support for the attempt. Ellen had been outspoken in hoping some bureaucratic intervention would bring our madness to an end. The untold difficulties of her journey had made her impatient of our foolishness and she nipped at our ears with reminders of my abandoned life and the pressing need to go back and fix it.

Bibhuti’s wife had kept her distance, straying to opposite corners of the rooms Bibhuti occupied, turning her face away whenever he looked to her for understanding. Sometimes I’d hear her humming a low honeyed lament for her former years of anguish. She coloured her hair while her husband locked himself in the bedroom to meditate on his options. While he scrambled for God’s guidance she dashed to the arms of the woman she’d been before his sporting mania had unsweetened her. A hurried reunion while the hope flared that Bibhuti might come back to her as a man uncomplicated by ambition.

She greeted the news without comment. She was up the stairs and the door was slammed shut behind her before Bibhuti was out of the car.

Ellen had been introduced to the neighbours’ feeding ritual. She held a striped tiger in the palm of her hand, watched it suck on a piece of banana. It tired of feeding and fluttered away, came to rest on a black skin dangling from the washing line. The neighbour’s wife consoled her with assurances of her butterflies’ loyalty. They’d carry on making visits as long as there was food for them and kind hands for perches.

‘You’re staying then,’ Ellen said.

‘Destiny cannot be argued with,’ Bibhuti said.

‘I suppose not.’ She shuffled away, her special shoes squeaking on the damp concrete. She pulled herself slowly up the stairs. A butterfly rode her back. It fanned its wings in praise of itself and the sun that warmed its blood. She didn’t know it was there and I didn’t tell her. I wanted her to be something beauty felt a kinship with.

The roundabout statues of imperial patrons pricked at the night sky, their paternal reprimands shouted down by the traffic. We cruised by the forgotten ones sleeping top to tail in the park across the road from the Victoria Terminus, street traders catching some shut-eye between shifts selling cigarettes to the white collars. Bibhuti stopped the car and we got out to breathe the air and gawp at the grand building, its halls still ringing with the ghosts of terrorist gunfire.