Stephen Kelman - Man on Fire

Bibhuti’s wife stayed in the car, singing lullabies to Jolly Boy in a secretive tongue.

Bibhuti had insisted on giving us the tour of Old Bombay’s landmarks as a gesture of welcome to Ellen, and for us a dip into normal pleasures before we departed for the wild lands. Decency had demanded it be a family affair and Bibhuti’s wife had caged her disenchantment for the night. Still it was there with us, a muted bird that shamed us with its silence.

‘It is very beautiful,’ Bibhuti prompted, and Ellen agreed.

‘My city has not yet recovered from the damage. People are still afraid that another attack will come without warning. Fear is harming them as much as bombs and bullets. I would like to show them that fear can be dismissed. It can be blown away like a seed on the wind. When they see this the joy will return to them.’

‘Aren’t you scared of dying?’ Ellen asked him.

‘I am never afraid. I am in God’s hands. He holds me like a bird. I am always safe there. When he releases me I will fly directly to my heavenly abode. No pain is there. Everything is the way it should be.’

The ghost bullets faded out and I found a quiet spot on the border of the park to be sick in. Then back in the car and on to the next point of interest, Ellen granted the passenger seat and me shameful in the back with Bibhuti’s wife, placid as a lake that hides a nation’s corpses.

Today was a surgery day for the god of the rain and Bibhuti’s wife had come to bargain with him for an end to the destruction. At the temple she’d kiss his statue’s feet and say a prayer that would scare the stormclouds into disbanding. All the floating atrocities spat from the flood would be auctioned for good causes and peace would return to the land.

‘You do not kiss the statue,’ she corrected. ‘Only lay flowers.’

Bibhuti was scornful. ‘People are praying to one god for the monsoon to come and asking another god to stop it when it becomes too wet. They are very undecided like this.’

We slowed to a crawl behind a relay of buses sprinkling pilgrims onto a street lined with food sellers and women sitting on the pavement spinning garlands for the latecomers. We parked up at the kerb, stretched our legs among the dying dogs and shitting cows. The queue for the temple snaked half a mile up the road and there were machine-gun nests at every corner, the privates watching from behind their sandbags for any scattering or thunderclaps that might spell trouble.

So many people all waiting patiently to beg for their lives with a plaster mediator. All stepping softly around the toes of their neighbours as they shuffled towards the temple, hanging on to each other’s shoulders, clutching their flowers and their children. A sea of pepper, no two grains either separate or alike. Bibhuti’s wife bought her offering flowers and joined the line. Jolly Boy and Ellen were wary accomplices. Bibhuti led me round the corner to a small square that skirted one side of the temple. We’d wait for them there unaccosted by their beliefs.

‘I do not need to put flowers on a statue’s feet to feel close to the almighty,’ Bibhuti said. ‘The almighty is everywhere and all around us.’

He took a sweeping look around the square to illustrate his point. I copied him. I saw the pineapple patterns on the bark of a palm tree, heard the low trill of secular lovers as they strolled past, untouching hands hung formal at their sides.

‘I’ve never believed in anything,’ I said. It was the first time I’d confessed out loud to being empty inside. It brought on a wave of remembered loneliness from days and moments past, a wave so strong that I had to sit down before it took my legs from under me.

Bibhuti’s eyes misted with pity. He sat down beside me, smoothed his palm over the damp grass between us.

‘Do you believe in me?’ he asked. ‘Do you believe in what we are doing?’

‘It’s crazy when you think about it.’

‘Nothing is crazy. The world is full of mystery behind every door. Only few people open this door because they are afraid to see the truth. I am not afraid. Neither are you, or you would not come here. Together we will bring another truth into the world for everyone to see. They will use our example to live their own dreams. This way happiness is spread throughout the globe. I am very happy to be here. I will thank you for the rest of my life.’

I listened to the traffic circling the park, horns blaring to assert their dominance over the insects.

Bibhuti’s wife came back from paying her respects, still veiled in the silence of the temple. Ellen wore the glazed-eyed look of someone who’d witnessed the acting out of a miracle by children with tinfoil halos. Heads bowed, we walked back to the car, our closeness making the air we breathed heavy and sweet as rotting fruit.

Bibhuti steered us towards the sea. I could feel it as it got nearer, the slow pull of something historic. When we made the coast I looked out and saw the sweep of the harbour behind me, a string of pearls glowing orange under the black sky, stretching away to a distant anchor point where the twenty-first century must have been born.

Marine Drive sparkled with sightseer horses, their heads bowed under festive plumages. Neon-dripped carriages pulled expectant romancers through a night of negotiated mystery. We sailed gently around the hooves and parked up in front of the Gateway of India, shining gold against the black wash of the bay.

Bibhuti stood us between the Gateway’s legs and took our picture. I gave Ellen’s stick to Jolly Boy to hold and put my arm round her shoulder. There was a stiffness that incriminated me.

‘Smile,’ I said.

Bibhuti aimed his phone at us and I held my pose, listening to the sea whispering at my back. Bibhuti persuaded his wife and Jolly Boy to flank us for some group shots. He gave the phone to his wife and got in on the act. He hugged me with more meaning than Ellen had done. He had the luxury of never knowing the real me.

When I saw the images we’d made my chest fluttered with the small wings of belonging, as if I’d swallowed a songbird whole.

I patted the nose of the horse Ellen had chosen, a grey mare with a pot belly and egglike eyes opaque with sadness. I whispered soothing noises to her and told her my name. We set off in silence. The first pothole we hit jolted Ellen out of her seat and I took her hand to steady her. She kept it there. I watched Mumbai wash over her and leave no visible traces.

I told her I’d wanted her to follow me. I couldn’t face dying without her by my side.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘That’s why you made such a pig’s ear of leaving.’

‘Do you mind?’

‘You could’ve just told me the truth. You could’ve said you were scared and you needed time alone or something. I might’ve understood that. I’m scared too. You didn’t have to make out you were dead already, that’s like you’ve given up. It’s like you want to be dead. That doesn’t make me feel very important, does it?’

‘I know. It was stupid. Maybe I wanted to see how upset you’d be.’

‘Did you get your answer?’

‘I’m sorry.’

It seemed to make no difference to her. She only had eyes for the horse and the whip that drove it through the night.

I didn’t know how much of me was left or how quickly I might fade. I didn’t know about you then. Maybe the only way to die as myself was to get Ellen’s love back. I needed to be gentle again once I’d broken Bibhuti the way he’d asked me to. Maybe it would be easier to be gentle after we’d scratched that itch. Cheating his death might brace me against my own and with that strength I could be a balm to others. I rested my hand on Ellen’s. I’d put my ring back on and it felt loose. I fell into the Indian night with her and drifted to the sound of hooves.