Man on Fire

7

Bibhuti’s wife hasn’t said more than a handful of words since her husband fell asleep. She’s barely looked at anyone else in case she misses the moment of his waking up. Her vigil is quiet and spiteful. She wills her husband to come back to her with a force that shakes the birds from the trees. Her hands have been balled into fists that hold hope like a bleeding stone. I remember how I told her with confidence that her husband would go global thanks to me. If I catch her eye I’ll be turned to stone myself, I’m sure of it.

She looks at her husband, waiting. She counts the bruises she can see under his plaster casts and imagines soldering his cuts back together again. Her name is still a mystery to me and now there’ll never be a right time to ask it.

I smell the solder in the air, from the summer job Ellen had making piecemeal circuit-board connections at the kitchen table, back when we were saving up for a nursery and all the things a child might need to make it strong and happy. The radio on and the window open to the sounds of the street, kids playing football on the new patch of grass and her fingers glossy and black from an assortment of painless burns. I remember how ashamed I’d been that she’d had to take a second job because I couldn’t bring her golden eggs, and I remember telling her we’d try again and get it perfect when the first life we made fell short of the sunlight.

Promises. I used to make a lot of them back then. Now I know how stupid it is to say something that can’t be taken back.

The two women sit next to each other now, Ellen having woken up with a start and felt the need to remove herself from me before word gets around that she’s on my side. The nurse has just been in to change Bibhuti’s piss bag. We were all drawn to the colour. Brown isn’t good. It’s a powerful feeling to know that you can change the colour of a man’s water. It’s not a feeling I’m enjoying.

His wife’s first inclination was to feed me. She gave me her food without reservation and it revived me. The flavours brought me pleasure while I thought about the possibility of killing her husband. When I coughed at the initial heat of it she passed me water and a tissue to dab my nose. When I asked for more she filled my bowl again.

Bibhuti’s apartment was in a low-rise concrete box on stilts a couple of minutes’ drive from the hotel. Japanese cars slept under its belly in various states of undress, shedding their superficial parts like a dog shaking loose its fleas. The little courtyard was bare except for a badminton net Bibhuti had put up so he and Jolly Boy could play in the evenings when the temperature drops and the boy needs a dose of the ennobling power of competitive sport.

An elbow-high wall divided his building from the bungalow next door and where it was broken I could see the neighbours as we pulled up, sitting on plastic chairs in their front yard. A young couple with eyes that shone brazen with contentment, as if they knew the steps to all the world’s dances and would happily teach them to me if I showed the first sign of wanting to learn them. The wife was peeling almonds, her skilful hands a blur. The husband watched the sky for thieves and kept the bucket centred between her feet to catch the stream of kernels as they fell. Bibhuti waved to him and pointed me out. They spoke briefly in their language and the husband gave me a thumbs-up. He welcomed me to his country and wished me good luck. I thanked him and fled to the shade of the stairwell that led up to the apartments.

To reach Bibhuti’s door we had to tiptoe past a prosthetic leg that someone had left on the stairs. The little moulded toes were so poignant that I felt like crying.

A swastika was painted on the wall next to Bibhuti’s door in a small meticulous hand. I knew it meant something different here than in the West and I wasn’t afraid to look at it.

I copied Bibhuti by taking off my shoes and leaving them outside. He opened the door and Jolly Boy slipped past him into the apartment and flopped down on the zebra-print sofa that dominated the small living room. He clicked the TV on and in a moment he was lost to the events onscreen.

The plane-crash site had become a feeding ground for ghouls. The reporters were fighting over the walking wounded. The interviewee couldn’t hear their questions and her hair was smoking.

I felt nervous and alone. The absence of familiar TV programming reminded me that I was now nationless and spun free of all my comforts.

One side of the room was a shrine to Bibhuti’s madness. His Guinness and Limca certificates hung from the wall in an irregular flock. The newspaper cuttings of all his records were propped in tortoiseshell frames on the sideboard. Every one was real and in each he looked lifeless, the shock of strange victory draining the history from his eyes. Sitting on a disciple’s shoulders for a sweat-soaked fool’s parade. Straddling the slab at the instant the sledgehammer struck.

I saw a picture of him topless punching a fish and I had to bite off a smile.

‘This is not from a record,’ Bibhuti explained, ‘this is from a long time ago, when I was thinking of becoming a model. The stream I am standing in is feeding Thane Creek, which divides Navi Mumbai from the mainland. I did not want these photographs to be taken but I was persuaded when my fame started to grow. They did not reach wide distribution. I am keeping this one here because my wife likes it.’

I looked in his eyes for the light of sincerity that was missing in the photographs. Finding it, my fears for his mental rigidity were dispelled.

‘Welcome to my home,’ he said. ‘Now it is your home also. We usually are only eating two meals a day, one in the morning and one in the evening, but we make a special lunch for you. You are my visitor from across the seven seas, this is a big blessing for all of us.’

Bibhuti’s wife came in then, quiet and expressionless, trailed by a jealous fog of cooking smells. Sweat from the kitchen trickled from the folds of her neck. She said a shy hello to me and put three glasses of orange squash down on the coffee table. I could see her handprints in the steam on the sides of the glasses. I could smell the work she put in to making her world seem fresh and new at the start of every day. She wouldn’t look at me and I couldn’t blame her. As far as she knew I was the angel of death come to herd her husband to the next world before she could redeem the promises he’d made her in their private moments.

We ate in the bedroom, a brightly coloured shawl draped over the bed they all shared to make a tablecloth. My quick acceptance into their intimate arrangements made me feel uncomfortable. When Bibhuti asked me if I had a wife I told him she was dead. It came out before I could stop it. Shame whispered over me and stood my hairs on end. I hated myself for always being too weak to tell the truth.

They were very sorry for my loss. They knew how difficult it must be for me without her.

‘I would not wish to be the one left behind,’ his wife said, and shot Bibhuti a quick ferocious look. He didn’t catch it.

‘This will not happen,’ he said to me, charging his bread with something I’d soon come to know as aloo gobi.

I copied his technique, my fingers recoiling at the first touch of the food and then relaxing into their new expectations.

‘I am under the protection of the almighty and no harm can occur. I could go into the road now and a car could strike me and I would walk away without one scratch. This is the strength that God has given me.’

‘You said you will not try this again,’ his wife said.

Bibhuti waved away her complaint. ‘I began an attempt to stop one car travelling at forty kilometres per hour,’ he explained. ‘In practice it was not successful so I aborted the plan. This was long time ago. I escaped with small injury, a fracture to my pelvis only. I think perhaps I should lower the speed to thirty kilometres. Perhaps I will try again one day. God tells me when the record is not meant to be. I am only going where he puts me.’

His wife bit off more than she could chew, and there was a tense wait while she safely swallowed what she needed to. Everyone ate their food with renewed determination. Our eating noises made it feel like we were all the same. I was glad Ellen wasn’t there to see the mess I was making.

Before I could hold a bat I had to prepare my body and my mind. No more meat. Bibhuti had followed a strict vegetarian diet for many years and it was to this that he attributed his mental fortitude and immunity to all illnesses. His wife would cook all my meals. I was not to accept anything from outside.

No alcohol, no tobacco, no caffeine. Sugar only in moderation. I was permitted sexual release but not to excess. I could keep hold of my money and distribute it when the need arose.

Bibhuti was an early riser and he expected me to conform to his schedule. Every day would start at 5 a.m. with fitness training. I’d need loose clothing and a good pair of sneakers with adequate cushioning around the ankles. The ankles were prone to sprains if not properly supported.

I’d be required to do what he said without hesitation or challenge. He was the expert after many years of training and competition. He knew what was best. It would be hard. It would demand every drop of blood and sweat I had to give. It would be the making of me. When we reached the end I’d be changed for ever. I’d know what it felt like to defy death and all the fears that make the lives of others so small. I’d know the face of God.

I told him I was in.

First of all I had to learn how to breathe. I told Bibhuti I already knew how, but he was having none of it.

‘Your breathing is all wrong, I noticed this when first we met.’

‘What’s wrong with it? It’s breathing.’

‘It is all wrong. Very bad. You are lucky to be alive for so long if this is the way you have always been.’

He took me to the courtyard underneath his apartment and made me sit on the concrete with my legs crossed. Everything was done outside, in full view of the world. Shame wasn’t in the national character and if I wanted to fit in here I’d have to get comfortable with eyes and hands on me.

Bibhuti knelt on the concrete behind me so that his thighs rubbed against my back. He took hold of my shoulders and set my back straight. At my resistance he placed a hand on my chest and pulled me up to my full stretch, then plied me into a shape that pleased him.

Jolly Boy lounged on the floor in front of me, propped up on a puppy-fat arm, staring at me in a kind of prurient trance. He wore a shirt embroidered with a silver dragon for warding off death, and a plastic stopwatch slung round his neck, ready on his father’s cue to assist us in counting down the seconds to our date with destiny.

Bibhuti’s neighbour rested his elbows on the dividing wall and followed my manipulations. Behind him his wife hung banana skins from the washing line. They were black and dripping. Some murky invocation to charm the gods into blessing me and the attempt.

Breathe in through the nose to the count of seven.

Hold to the count of five.

Breathe out through the mouth to the count of seven.

Rest to five and repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

This is the way to breathe. This is how dragons are slain.

‘It feels hard,’ I said. My chest felt like it had been stuffed with thorns. Every inhale and exhale, when asked to comply with this ideal new formula, came tight and panicked. My body wasn’t used to paying such close attention to itself. I was built for living with my eyes closed.

‘It is very natural,’ Bibhuti insisted. ‘You will pick it up easily. A little time only and then it will become automatic. You will feel the benefit immediately. It will save you much trouble and add many years to your span.’

I tried. I tired. With Jolly Boy timing the movements I chased the rebirth Bibhuti promised when the breaths clicked like locks into their prefabricated places. Nothing happened. The sun beat down and I crabbed to the shade of the car port to deny the neighbour the spectacle of my failure. I realised I’d always been doing everything wrong.

I drank the rest of the bottle down when I got back to the hotel. The humiliation of improper breathing had cast a weight over me that only drunkenness could lift. Once I’d loosened up I took an account of my second day as a castaway and a mythmaker and I called it a qualified success. Nobody had died and the various bugs I’d been worried about hadn’t shown themselves yet.