A Vision of Fire

by Gillian Anderson

Beside her stood a small Indian man with graying hair, somewhere in his sixties. He had remarkably lopsided ears and a gentleness in his eyes that made him seem instantly friendly.

  “I am Vahin,” he said with a smile that warmed and comforted her.

  “I’m Caitlin,” she replied. She looked around. “Where is Maryam?”

  “She is outside,” he said, taking a seat in a shabby armchair opposite her. “The dear lady and I have very different business in this city but she . . . crossed lines, shall we say? She thought you and I should speak.”

  “I’m grateful to you both. What do you do, Vahin?”

  “I am something like a clergyman to the Hindu community.”

  “Forgive me, but are you allowed to do that here?”

  “We have a small community in and around the city,” he said. “Iran allows us our religious freedom and India allows her resident Shia Muslims to visit Iran. It is a mutually beneficial relationship.”

  “If you like living at the stress point between two vastly different cultures,” she said.

  “Some of us have that calling.” He smiled mysteriously. “But now, to your situation. Tell me what your tears told the cup. Omit nothing.”

  While Vahin sipped his tea Caitlin told him everything, not just about Atash but about Maanik and Gaelle, the Norse and Mongolian connections, Jack London’s reactions, and her own glimpses of impossible visions. Vahin sat quietly throughout, nodding now and then, and occasionally dipping his head to one side.

  “So,” said Caitlin upon finishing, “how crazy does that all sound to you?”

  “Not at all,” Vahin replied. “You seem to feel that because you cannot rationalize what you have experienced it is therefore irrational. That is not the case. We do not blame words for being insufficient to express new ideas. We simply find better words. Do you know who put forth that idea?”

  Caitlin shook her head.

  “The Norse,” he told her.

  “Vikings,” she said, starting slightly.

  “Yes. They understood that the energy that binds us, one to the other, was manifest in each of us as thought . . . and thought as language. But it was what you would call a two-way street. If you changed the words you could change the way you thought about the energy.” He rose and carried their cups into the kitchen, and Caitlin heard again the sounds of making tea. She decided to follow, and as she entered the room he smiled and continued. “In 1984, I traveled to Bhopal just after the Union Carbide tragedy. Do you remember that?”

  “I do,” she said. “The factory that accidentally released the poisonous gas.”

  “The factory was making a pesticide. The gas spread through the slums surrounding the factory and thousands upon thousands of people died. It was most ghastly. I was part of the local clergy asked to help relocate the orphans of this disaster. I kept track of my orphans and visited them when I could over the years.” He placed another cup of tea in Caitlin’s hands. “A fresh cup.” He smiled. “No tears.”

  “Thank you.” Caitlin smiled back as she followed him back into the living room. This time he joined her on the couch.

  “As to why Maryam brought you here. We have a mutual friend, one of the children in my care who was in the hospital with her. For many decades after the Bhopal tragedy, he spoke in tongues. It was involuntary, in no way linked with any religious ceremony. And she has heard me tell of another child, a young girl, whose arms would sometimes flare in a rash that looked like a chemical burn. The girl called it a motu-cazh.”

  His words caused Caitlin to start again. This time he noticed.

  “You’ve heard that?” Vahin asked.

  “The second part sounded familiar,” she said.

  “Well, I disagreed with a psychologist who was part of my group. He argued that it resembled stigmata, a physiological expression of psychological distress. I thought it was much more.”

  Caitlin drank her tea and waited patiently. Vahin seemed to be searching for the words to express his thoughts precisely. Finally, he leaned forward and set his tea on the table.

  “Let me first tell you something that is clear to me,” he continued. “The left-hand, right-hand activity you mentioned. With your left hand you collected enormous force from the snake, with the right hand you pushed a girl against a wall without touching her. That is the natural flow of things.”

  “To become superhuman?”

  “No,” he said patiently. “To be a conduit for the energy of the universe. The left hand receives energy, the right hand emits it. This is very old knowledge from Tantric Buddhism. It is similar to chi energy among the Shaolin monks in China.”

  He cupped his hands around an invisible sphere and pushed it toward Caitlin. A subtle sensation of warmth washed over her throat.

  “I—I felt that,” she marveled.

  He continued. “Buddhism, Hinduism, the Vedas, Chinese Taoism, Tai Chi, the paganism that fathered the Viking faiths—the seeds of our minds were not planted in straight rows with walls between them. Every culture has discovered this same phenomenon of energy, both inside of us and surrounding us, all the while connecting us.”

  “You mentioned Tai Chi,” Caitlin said, remembering the men and women from the park.

  “Tai Chi is an example of great strength used to empower, not to destroy.” He moved his hands in a way that reminded Caitlin of Maanik’s gestures. “Movement stirs the energy inside our bodies and it also opens us to energy from the outside. When those two energies merge we are enlightened, uplifted.”

  “Are you talking about life energy or—the soul?” she asked, not entirely comfortable using the latter term.

  “Both.”

  “Something that survives death.”

  He nodded once and pointed to the tea on the table. “When the leaves are gone, the scent remains in the air . . . and in the mind. It is rekindled, the memory is refreshed, when new tea is brewed. So it is with the soul. With death, the soul hovers until it finds a new body.”

  “Hovers how? Where?” Caitlin challenged. “Limbo? Heaven?”

  “I prefer to call it the transpersonal plane,” he replied. “As to where?” He paused and gestured simply “out there.”

  Caitlin sighed. “I have problems with that idea.”

  “Much of the world, throughout history, has embraced some form of that concept.”

  “I mean no disrespect, but there are still flat-earthers too,” she said.

  He smiled benignly. “Tell me why you reject it.”

  She collected her thoughts. “I don’t believe in a cosmic scorekeeper. That seems to be the general conception of God, with heaven as a reward for subjective behavior that changes from culture to culture. I also don’t believe that a soul is a kind of immaterial flash drive where things get stored and then dumped into—”

  She stopped herself.

  “Yes?” Vahin smiled. “A waiting body? A body weakened by injury or trauma, a body hungry for strong, healing energy?”

  Caitlin shook her head. “No. I don’t accept it. That isn’t what’s happening.”

  “Self-immolation. A father almost assassinated. A stepmother’s near-drowning. The loss of parents in a horrible mass poisoning.”

  “That’s trauma and natural human empathy,” Caitlin said. “I see it all the time. Obviously, I’m feeling it, yet I haven’t suffered a trauma.”

  “Haven’t you? Haven’t you shared the traumas of these children?”

  “As I said, empathy. That’s not the same as experiencing it firsthand.”

  “In fact, your experience could in some ways be worse,” he suggested. “You are collecting these experiences and internalizing them. They may be massing exponentially.”

  Okay, she thought. He could be right about that. Caitlin had always kept a strong emotional connection out of the doctor-patient equation. These kids had broken th
rough that.

  “But you are missing the point,” Vahin went on. “You are trying to explain away before I can explain.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “I truly am. I’m being—well, I’m doing what I always do. Forgive me. Please enlighten me.”

  Vahin took a moment to consider his approach. “I believe that the common link between these children you have met is trauma, but not just their own trauma.”

  “What are you saying?” Caitlin asked. “That there is something else that links them?”

  He nodded.

  “Your transpersonal plane? The place that’s all around us?” she guessed, still unconvinced.

  “You doubt,” Vahin said. “But accept, for a moment, the truth of what I say. Think of the bond those three children’s souls would instantly share. Then multiply that by the countless souls you have not personally met. What else could cause them to experience that level of anguish?”

  The suffering implicit in the nightmarish math of that prospect gave her a chill. “All right,” Caitlin said. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that there are traumatized souls somewhere else—let’s call it your transpersonal plane. The assaults I’ve witnessed would suggest that these ‘countless’ souls are opportunistically seeking souls inside the bodies of traumatized youths.”

  “Correct.”

  “So assuming all of that to be true, why are these loud, aggressive souls getting stronger now?”

  “That I cannot say.”

  Caitlin sat back hopelessly.

  “But as you seek understanding,” Vahin went on, “keep this in mind. These ‘aggressive souls,’ as you call them, may be from one event, souls that are already powerfully linked.”

  “One event? But where?”

  “The transpersonal plane is boundless. Do not seek them somewhere else. Look for them somewhen else.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Maanik and her mother stood bundled in their winter coats, watching the morning sun from the penthouse balcony. As the golden rays warmed their faces, the young woman said, “It feels almost like summer.”

  Hansa, shivering, hugged her daughter close, happy that she was feeling anything. This was an unexpected blessing after the difficulties of the last two days. Her husband had barely been home since the attack at Jammu. This morning when Hansa woke, he had already left again. Maanik had awakened early as well. Hansa found her lying on her side, absently stroking Jack London, and she had readily agreed to come outside.

  “What do you think?” Hansa asked, looking across the long balcony, wanting to savor the time with her. “We could do some homeschooling out here, catch up on some of your homework.”

  Her daughter seemed to be smiling, her head tilted toward the sun, her eyes shut.

  “Maanik?”

  “Yes?”

  “What do you think about that?”

  Maanik moved slowly in her natural spotlight. “I’m sorry?”

  “Homeschooling, out here.”

  “I like it,” she replied.

  Hansa gave her a little squeeze and began to rearrange the chairs, pulling a couple of large potted plants out of the way. She was startled to see how weak she had become and resolved to start her walking routine again.

  “Maanik, how do you think I would do on your father’s NordicTrack?”

  Maanik laughed.

  “Do you think that’s funny?” her mother asked, smiling. “Maybe when you’re feeling better, you can teach me.”

  “It makes me tired.”

  “That machine? You can outrun your father.”

  “I’m going back to bed,” Maanik said.

  “Don’t you want to stay out here a little longer? You look so happy here.”

  “I want to lie down.” Suddenly, she sounded frail.

  Hansa walked toward her. “Let me help—”

  “I can do it.”

  The woman watched as Maanik disappeared behind the shining glass of the terrace door. Then she continued rearranging the furniture, in case Maanik missed the fresh air and chose to return.

  From inside, Jack London howled. Hansa dropped the chair she was moving and ran toward Maanik’s bedroom. The girl was still in the hallway, blocked by the barking dog, who, facing the open bedroom door, was making short, tentative bounds forward, then skittering backward as if trying both to attack the entry and avoid it.

  “Jack London, quiet!” Hansa yelled.

  He partly obeyed, his yelps becoming low growls. Hansa turned toward her daughter.

  “No!” she cried.

  Maanik’s left arm had stiffened and her right hand had extended.

  “Maanik, stay with me,” she implored.

  The dog began to bark again.

  “Quiet!” Hansa yelled.

  Kamala arrived, roused by the commotion.

  “Take him away!” Hansa snapped.

  Kamala edged around them, reaching for the beagle. Maanik made a swift, sweeping motion with her right hand in the air and without being touched, Jack London flew across the floor and hit the wall to their right. His howling turned into tiny frightened yips and he cowered low by the wall where he’d been thrown.

  “Maanik!” Hansa grabbed at her daughter’s left shoulder and spun her around.

  Maanik’s eyes were shut, her expression relaxed. She slipped from her mother’s grip, heading toward the bedroom door.

  “Don’t go in there!” Hansa shrieked, and tried to pull her back, tried to turn her to face away from the bedroom. Maanik stiffened and shook her off. Hansa gasped as blood dripped down her daughter’s wrists and along her fingers, even though her arms were still bandaged under her coat. Maanik’s eyes opened and she began walking backward, lifting her hands and rubbing her forearms as she gazed stonily at her mother. Hansa followed her into the bedroom, reaching toward her child’s ear, but Maanik jerked away.

  “Stop!” Hansa cried, and again reached for Maanik’s ear.

  “You cannot take me back,” Maanik said.

  “From where? Please talk to me!”

  “When she burns, I burn,” Maanik said. “I have to go so it will stop.”

  “Go where?” Hansa pleaded. She was trying to think like Dr. O’Hara, trying to get information.

  “Up,” Maanik said. “That is the only escape.”

  “Up where?” Hansa asked, trembling as they moved farther into the foul air of the bedroom.

  “Beyond . . . fera-cazh.”

  “Where . . . what is ‘fera-cazh’?”

  Maanik’s answer was a full-throated scream followed by the ritual clawing at her arms. Hansa tried to hug her but once again Maanik twisted out of reach, backing against the bed. Making a concerted effort to reach her ear, Hansa practically yanked her daughter’s arm to her side—and was thrown back. Staggering, she saw a plume of smoke rising from the bed. Hansa circled, frantic, and only then saw that it was coming not from the bed but from the bottom of Maanik’s nightdress, under her coat. With a hiss, another plume rose from near one of the girl’s pockets. Maanik’s hair was lifting into the air, rising not unlike the smoke trails—and Hansa realized she smelled burning hair. She violently slapped her daughter’s hands aside, plunged her fingers toward Maanik’s ear, and shouted, “Blackberries!”

  Maanik wobbled on her feet but did not stop screaming or slapping at her arms. “Let—me—burn!” she choked out, before the seeming anguish of physical pain took over her voice again and she wailed.

  Smoke rose from Maanik’s left hand as a black spot spread across her skin. Hansa was trying to reach for it when suddenly Maanik spun and ran for the tall bedroom window. She slammed up the latch, flung open the sash, and with her bare hands struck and clawed at the screen beyond in an effort to shred it. Hansa shouted at her, grabbed at her, and struggled to keep a hold on her, but she didn’t stop. Maa
nik punctured the black mesh and pulled at the ragged hole with both hands, making a large opening. Hansa screamed for Kamala’s help as five black patches opened on the back of Maanik’s coat, smoke coiling toward the ceiling. Then just as suddenly, Maanik thrust her hand onto the upper frame of the window and, searching with her foot for the lower frame, hoisted herself up.

  Hansa felt a surge of power and adrenaline unlike anything she had ever experienced. Vaulting forward, she grabbed Maanik around the waist and wrenched her from the open window. They tumbled to the floor. She quickly pulled the lower edge of Maanik’s coat up over her daughter’s back and head and yanked it down so that her head and arms were encased. Hugging Maanik firmly, she dragged her across the bedroom to the doorway. Maanik struggled and kicked and Hansa could hear her screaming—once more in the language she did not understand. The woman wanted to vomit from fear but the noxious odor from her daughter’s hair and the impossible heat of her body kept her focused. Kamala finally arrived in the room with scratches evident from a struggle with the dog. Together they manhandled Maanik down the hall to the small bathroom with a stand-up shower. Dragging the young woman into the tiny cubicle, Hansa slammed her hand on the water lever and cold water flooded down on them. While Kamala peeled the girl’s clothes from her struggling body, Hansa maneuvered a hand into the mêlée, pinched the girl’s ear, and shouted, “Blackberries!”

  Maanik went limp.

  CHAPTER 29

  Maryam walked Caitlin to her Iran Air departure gate. It was a surprisingly emotional parting, given how little time the women had spent together, but what they had witnessed had altered them both.

  Caitlin stepped into the queue for boarding. Almost immediately she got a text from Ben: M deteriorating. Fire a real hazard.

  The person behind her clucked her tongue; the queue had moved but she had not. Caitlin stepped to the side.

  Juggling her phone, ticket, passport, and a letter from the Iranian ambassador providing clearance to go home, she typed back: I have new info. I’ll come straight from airport.

  She waited; no response. She considered calling Ben but knew the explanations would not make a short conversation. Final boarding was called. Caitlin, last in line, hurriedly presented her ticket and was waved in.