Fireproof

by Raj Kamal Jha

  At first it was a tiny flame that licked the end of Juggler’s trousers, almost dancing over his shoes as if in step with him and then it spread. Over his calves, hugging his trouser legs, up his thighs to his overcoat, catching his shirtsleeves until Juggler himself was on fire, the flames engulfing his entire body. Juggler screamed but the applause was now so deafening that no one heard him, Clown 6 was dancing, repeatedly pointing to the fire, Clowns 1 to 5 sat in the ring, staring at Juggler with their mouths wide open.

  One by one, the balls fell to the floor, as did the steel rings, with a clatter, and Juggler was now running from one end of the stage to the other, blazing, still shuffling his feet, performing his trot and his jig as if the flames weren’t there. There was a smell of burnt rubber in the air as Juggler fell down, playing dead, the clowns began crying, their tears mixing with the paint on their faces as they lifted one of his hands, still burning, and then let it fall as if it belonged to a corpse.

  They dragged his fiery, inert frame across the stage, over the sawdust, they dragged him like he was a gunny bag, his arms flopping by his sides, one of them stepped onto his face and pounded it with his shoes and all this while the crowd kept laughing, the fire kept burning.

  Clown 6, who had slunk into a corner of the stage, was now back in action, but this time he came on empty-handed, stood beside the burning Juggler and then went down on his knees and began licking the flames. Clown 6 had become the Fire-Eater.

  Like a dog sniffing or nibbling at a bag lying on the street, Clown 6 started from Juggler’s feet. His tongue darting in and out, his face stretched tight with the paint, drenched with sweat and his eyes glowing, Clown 6 was eating the fire, swallowing the flames. By now, the crowd in the gallery behind me was on its feet cheering him and the other clowns stood in a line, clapping, as Clown 6 moved up the legs over the knees over the waist the coat the shirt the neck the hair. And his lips and his tongue left in their wake wisps of smoke on Juggler’s frame until the last flame had been licked clean.

  Juggler got up, his clothes charred, his face surprisingly untouched, hugged Clown 6 and, together, they walked off the stage in a cloud of blue-black smoke. Clown 6 threw his head back, began to blow smoke rings from the fire he had just eaten.

  More applause.

  ‘You didn’t want Ithim to see this, did you?’

  In all the excitement, I hadn’t even noticed that Bright Shirt was back, sitting next to me, without Ithim.

  ‘He’s sleeping, Mr Jay, don’t worry, I didn’t want to bring him here in all this noise. He has had a long day,’ Bright Shirt said.

  He smiled. ‘Sorry, Mr Jay, I told them it was a silly idea but Miss Glass said let them do it, at least it will serve as a distraction, just to keep these people entertained, to let them know that they shouldn’t be afraid of fire. It’s the next act where you come in, Mr Jay, that’s where all your questions, the questions you have been carrying all along, will be answered. So listen carefully. And you have to excuse me, since I am involved in it, too. I will meet you backstage once the whole thing is over. And don’t worry about Ithim, he’s absolutely safe.’

  Bright Shirt got up, stopped after he had taken a few steps, turned back and said: ‘And Miss Glass is in this, Mr Jay, Miss Glass, our Angel you named last night.’ And then he vanished into the dark.

  What followed next, I shall not describe, I shall only report.

  I shall not comment lest you charge me later with deception.

  I shall not do anything to influence you. That’s why I have to change the narrative itself, present events just as they were. The last act, so to speak, in this drama of the absurd.

  A play, in two short acts.

  22. The Last Act – I

  AS the curtains begin to go up, they reveal a stage draped in darkness. The audience is silent, you can hear only the rustle of the curtains and the sound of water lapping, sloshing, flowing, gurgling. Soft at one time, loud at another. Clowns 1, 2, and 3 glide noiselessly through the water, each holding a high chair, with a small backrest. They leave the chairs and walk off the stage. You can see there’s something on each chair, although what those things are you can’t see. The curtains are fully drawn, the lights come on, bright and harsh, three overhead spotlights trained below, one on each chair. And then the lights move. They move across to show that the entire stage is flooded, the water almost knee-deep; just like in The Hideout, it laps against the legs of the chairs, against the low wall that skirts the edge of the stage to prevent the water from spilling over. The lights then travel behind the chairs, up above the wall, where the water cannot reach, where you can see three pictures, the pictures we saw earlier in the attachments: Tariq’s burnt house, the burnt auto-rickshaw belonging to Shabnam’s father and Father’s burnt kitchen. But each picture now has been blown up, to almost life size, so you can see details that until now were invisible. Like the number of leaves in the sapling on the pavement outside the house, 17; the red and yellow lines on the No-Entry plate of the auto-rickshaw; in Abba’s house, the ceiling fan burnt, its three blades twisted and drooped, like grey trousers left out to dry and the number of steel dishes, 9; the number of small white china plates, 8. After your eyes have registered these three pictures, you can now see clearly what lies on each chair. There is BOOK on the first chair from the left, WATCH in the middle and TOWEL on the last chair, the legs of each chair submerged in the water which reflects the lights in its ripples.

  From off stage, a voice speaks.

  It belongs to a woman and it’s clearly MISS GLASS.

  She remains off stage throughout.

  MISS GLASS Forgive the flooding; we had to do this to make everyone here feel safe, just like we have done in The Hideout. Because everyone here said we aren’t walking anywhere, we aren’t sitting anywhere until we are sure that there’s water, at least up to our knees. So that we feel the cold, so that we feel the wet. (Sound of splashing.) Because we have never heard of any one setting water on fire. (For one moment, the splashing gets louder, there is a murmur in the audience before silence descends again.)

  BOOK (Flaps a few of its pages, speaks in a boy’s voice.) Miss Glass, I don’t need water, my pages take too long to dry. As for fire, when I am closed, air can’t reach my pages, can’t feed the flames. You can char my edges, of course. As they did last night.

  WATCH (Speaks in a man’s voice.) Fire melts my straps but water fogs my dial. Best to leave me high, best to leave me dry.

  (They both look at TOWEL, who is silent.)

  MISS GLASS Just look at Towel, she knows when to speak, when not to disturb. Let me finish. We begin tonight with three characters who are special, special because of what they endured before we picked them up. Look at the pictures on the wall, the charred house, the charred auto-rickshaw, the charred kitchen, these three survived it all. Well, almost. If you don’t count Book’s charred ears, Watch’s cracked dial and the hole in Towel. A little bit of trimming and binding, some polishing and fixing, some stitching and washing and these three will be back in action. They are here because they are eyewitnesses and they are earwitnesses. And unlike us, people who were killed, these three are objects. That’s why their story will be objective. And their words will, therefore, carry more weight. Book shall begin. Watch will follow and then Towel.

  (The stage falls dark again, there is now the sound of a wind blowing. One spotlight is switched on, its beam lights up BOOK, the other two are switched off. The water is now still. BOOK catches a bit of the wind, lifts its cover, then lets it fall, begins to speak.)

  BOOK My name is Learning to Communicate, I was edited and illustrated in New Delhi, many of my 124 pages were originally written in London, I was packed in Mumbai, I came to this city in a cardboard box, on a train, there were 500 of us. It was raining and they had wrapped us in plastic and canvas so that water couldn’t seep in. When we reached the city, at the station, there was a man from the school who had come to pick us up. We all went our different ways, I reached the
house of a boy called Tariq. That’s my introduction. Now to that night. It was, in fact, early in the morning, very early. (The sound of the wind gets louder, the water is still.) Tariq had opened me to page 43, he had homework to do. He switched the fan on and to keep my pages from flapping, he put a pencil on my spine, my favourite pencil. Tariq never studies at the table, he lies down on the floor, props his face on one elbow, like he did that morning as he began writing the answers on my page. The chapter he was working on was called Fire in a Hotel. It was about a man called John Brown and a dog called Chum.

  John Brown is a blind man, Chum is his dog, his seeing-eye dog. One day, Mr Brown decided he needed a vacation and so he and Chum took the train to the village. As I told you, this chapter was written in London, so this is an English village with rolling hills and forests and meadows and a narrow country road, smooth, no potholes, no dirt, like in this city . . .

  WATCH We get it, we get it, an English village. We have seen it on TV. There was a similar picture in an ad for me once, the picture of a woman at the door, looking at her watch, waiting for the school bus. She was a British woman.

  BOOK I don’t know about that but I have a picture right here of the village, on page 45, maybe someone can turn me to that later. Well, to cut a long story short, after a day of relaxation, Mr Brown sat in a chair and enjoyed the breeze on his face, the smell of the grass. Chum chased rabbits, sheep, butterflies. And they both were very tired.

  WATCH Aren’t we all?

  (A voice once again, from off stage, it’s MISS GLASS.)

  MISS GLASS (Clearly admonishing.) Please, Watch, let him finish. Too many interruptions. You will get your turn, too. Book, continue, please.

  BOOK That night, a tired Mr Brown and Chum went to sleep. Being a dog, Chum smelled it first, the smoke, and began barking. The hotel was on fire. (The wind gets louder, ripples begin to disturb the surface of the water.) Chum barked and barked until Mr Brown woke up, struck with fear. He had been blinded when he was only five or six years old and had therefore never seen a fire in his life. It was late night, the hotel staff were fast asleep. None of them had heard the fire or smelled the smoke. Helped by Chum, who kept pushing him in the leg with his wet snout, Mr Brown walked to the windows, opened them wide for the fresh air to enter. But the fire was in the hallway, smoke came in through the gap beneath the door. Any other dog would have hidden under the bed but Chum was Chum. All that mattered to him was his master’s well-being so he jumped onto the bed and began pawing at the bed sheet. When Mr Brown reached out his hand to stroke the dog, his fingers felt the bed sheet and he realized what Chum was doing. He walked to the bathroom, Chum by his side, wet the bed sheet and jammed it in the gap at the bottom of the door. Fire couldn’t cross the water in the towel and the sheets. Smoke couldn’t enter and fresh air from the windows ensured that Mr Brown was safe. Chum wagged his tail. By this time, the Fire Brigade had arrived.

  WATCH That was a good children’s story, Book.

  BOOK (Ignores this interruption.) Tariq had read this story over and over again, he had learnt the lines by heart. For his homework, he had to answer three questions. Where did Mr Brown and Chum go on their vacation? What did they do with the towels and the bed sheet? And describe Chum in fifty words. The boy knew all these answers. In fact, if the wind tonight is strong, I will let the pages flap and you can see that his teacher has always marked Very Good in all his homework lessons, he was a bright boy. But before he could answer these questions, they came.

  WATCH Who came, who came, who, who who? Tell us, Book.

  BOOK If you keep butting in, I can never tell.

  TOWEL (Speaks for the first time; hers is the softest voice.) Watch, unlike you, I can’t hear very clearly, I am all folded up, I’m also the farthest away from Book, I have to strain to catch every word. Let Book finish and then you can ask your questions.

  BOOK Thank you, Towel, I will try to speak louder. I heard Tariq scream, I heard him run, I heard the mother call out to him to go and hide. The pencil rolled out, the one Tariq had placed in my pages to keep them from flapping. Then they walked in, I could see their feet, their legs, their trousers, their slippers, some rubber, some leather. I stood still, I held my breath so hard the pages stopped flapping. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself because they would have seen me on the floor, opened, they would have known that there was a boy in the house. I felt something wet and cold touch me, it was the kerosene they had poured onto the floor. I saw the flames. (The water rises up the legs of the chair on which BOOK sits.) I heard one of them laugh, kick me hard, to the edge of the door from where he kicked me again, out into the street. By then, my ears had caught fire, from page 74 on. But once I was outside, it helped, the wind wasn’t so strong, the flames died leaving my edges only scorched. I don’t know how to say it, it sounds so selfish, but you know what went through my head at that time?

  MISS GLASS (From off stage.) You are among friends, Book, just say what’s on your mind, don’t bother how it makes you look. We are not here to judge.

  BOOK Thank you, Miss Glass. When the smoke filled the room, when I heard Tariq scream, when I heard his mother scream, when I saw the flames, when I saw the men, I thought of only one thing, I thought of the little pencil. I thought of the wood in the pencil catching fire. (Maybe the lead would not have burnt, who knows?) I wish they had thrown the pencil out. The pencil, you see, was my best friend. We were always together. Even when I was in Tariq’s bag and he was in his box, we were always close.

  (BOOK falls silent. Once again, you hear the sound of water on the stage.)

  WATCH Are you there, Book?

  BOOK Where was I? Yes, I was out on the street. And by late that evening, when both of you, Watch and Towel, had joined me, along with the others, the curtain, the slippers, all of us lying in that heap, Tariq came. He wasn’t crying, I think he had finished up all his tears for the day. How I wish there had been a wind then so my pages would have flapped, he would have noticed me, he would have picked me up. Taken me home, to my friend, the pencil. But there was nothing. I tried my best to turn a page but I could not move even a millimetre without a wind.

  WATCH You saw them? You saw their faces?

  BOOK I saw them. I cannot forget their faces. D went for the mother, B stood by his side, C started the fire, A kicked me outside.

  (The lights switch off, the stage is dark, the sound of the wind again and the water. After a pause, of about fifteen seconds, the second overhead light switches on, this time revealing WATCH.)

  MISS GLASS (Off stage.) Watch, it’s your turn now. And, please, no interruptions.

  WATCH Time is, and has always been, of the essence to me. So unlike Book, I am not going to waste it by going into my background, where I was born, which town, which machine, which watchmaker, which store room, which case, which nonsense. I am going to come straight to the hour, the minute, that second it happened, when they pulled me from Father’s wrist. Even Shabnam, the daughter, who was standing there, right there, does not know the details I am about to tell you. Father had parked his auto-rickshaw and walked into the house. The whole day, sitting on his wrist, I had travelled across the city, I had trembled every time he switched gears, I was drenched with his sweat, my dial covered with dust.

  BOOK This isn’t about you, Watch, tell us what happened to Father.

  WATCH (Ignores this interruption.) Father walked in, he went straight to the kitchen where Mother was and said the city was on fire. That an angry crowd had stopped his auto-rickshaw, a crowd with petrol cans, one of them was about to smash his windscreen and only when he had told them his name, that he was one of them, did they let him pass. Mother said she had heard what happened to the little boy’s mother early that morning, just down the street, and she was afraid the mob would come for them, for Shabnam. Father said, don’t worry, there is a very important leader who lives down the street, he was once a Member of Parliament, and they don’t kill such people just like that. These people can pull s
trings. On his way home, Father told her, he had stopped at the entrance to Leader’s house and Leader told him not to worry, just stay at home, I have told the police, I am a VIP. But Mother wasn’t so sure and while Father was telling her all this, she held his hand, trembling, her hand on my dial. I could see through the gaps between her fingers; I saw her face, frightened, I saw Shabnam in the other room, pacing, her eyes closed, praying. Father said, let me go and wash now, I am hungry. But Mother didn’t let go of his hand, I was counting the seconds, thirty-one, thirty-two, forty, forty-five and she held his wrist, her fingers pressed so hard to my dial, so close that the gaps were gone, I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t breathe. Father then freed himself from her, took me off and put me on a side table just underneath a lamp. I don’t like that, Father always did that in the evening, letting the light fall directly on my face.

  BOOK Father and Mother are about to be killed and you are worried about some light falling on your stupid face.

  WATCH It’s very important to tell you all this in detail. Because of what happened later. Father came out of the bathroom, his hands and his face wet, and to my surprise, he picked me up, wiped me with a towel so I was fresh and clean again and he put me back on his wrist. He walked to the kitchen where Mother was kneading the flour. He walked up to her and wrapped both his arms around her; my strap was pressing against her stomach, I could see right in front the flames in the gas burner, the pressure cooker, the steam began fogging my glass. Then he put his hand on her head, her hair was all over me then, I smelled shampoo from her hair, soap from his wrist. Mother told him, careful, Shabnam is in the other room. And it’s at that moment, thirty-seven minutes past seven, both my hands almost together, pressed flat, pointed south-west by south, that they came. (WATCH stops suddenly.)