A Vision of Fire

by Gillian Anderson

  She began by asking Maanik to choose a peaceful location, somewhere she felt safe and at home. She would be able to return to this place any time she wanted.

  “Have you found a spot?” Caitlin asked.

  “Yes, I’m there,” Maanik said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I’m under a pink and yellow tent. It’s swaying back and forth.” She laughed. “It’s on the back of an elephant.”

  Everyone chuckled.

  “That’s wonderful,” Caitlin said. “You feel perfectly safe up there?”

  “Oh, yes.” Maanik sighed with contentment. “I’m in a line with men on white horses ahead of me and we’re walking slowly through the fields toward the mountains. They’re far away, though, we won’t get there tonight. It’s hot but we have a nice breeze. And I’m playing cards with my aunt. Round cards, all painted.”

  There was a quiet exclamation from the Pawars’ corner. Mrs. Pawar said, “Ganjifa cards.”

  The ambassador added, “For teaching the Mahabharata, devised centuries ago.”

  Caitlin nodded but kept the focus on Maanik, who suddenly said dreamily, as if she were quoting, “The body is ashes but the breath is immortal.”

  Ben whispered to the ambassador, “From the Vedas?”

  The ambassador nodded and Mrs. Pawar seemed surprised.

  “The Upanishads,” the woman said. She stared at her daughter and added, “Maanik has never studied them.”

  “She may have overheard me,” Mr. Pawar said, but he didn’t sound confident.

  “All right, Maanik,” Caitlin said. “Remember, you can come back to your tent on the elephant any time you want. Do you understand?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “I’m going to ask now that you find the other place, the place you’ve been visiting. The place where you’ve been having so much trouble.”

  The smile dropped from the girl’s face. “I don’t want to,” she said in the smallest voice Caitlin had ever heard.

  “I know,” Caitlin said. “I know it’s a big favor to ask. But this is to help me help you. Can you be brave and do this for yourself?”

  Maanik hesitated, then nodded. She swallowed hard and crossed her arms on her chest protectively. Caitlin could see Maanik’s eyes moving under her eyelids as she looked around. Then her entire body jerked and her eyes flew open, but she was not looking at the room she was in. Her arms flung apart and just as quickly, she began slapping at her bandaged arms, hitting them in a way that made Caitlin shudder. She grabbed Maanik by the shoulders and leaned into her to stop the attack on herself. The girl was screaming again, silently, her mouth a wide O. Jack London suddenly started howling.

  “Maanik, tell me where you are!” Caitlin said firmly.

  The girl seemed to fight to regain control of her mouth. Her tortured lips pulled together and unfamiliar words spilled from them. She began gesturing with the wide circles and sudden slashes that Ben had identified as superlatives. Caitlin could see Maanik struggling to keep speaking, to make sense—as much as those words made sense—even as her eyes twitched rapidly in fear.

  “Maanik, I know you can hear me,” Caitlin said. “Please find a way to tell me where you are.”

  “I see tall posts,” she said. “Pieces are coming off, falling around us . . .”

  “Posts? Made of wood?”

  “Stone. Carvings. There are waves beyond . . . I smell salt.”

  “The ocean?”

  Maanik didn’t acknowledge this but Caitlin thought she saw the girl’s hair stir slightly, not as a result of any movement she made but lifted by something from behind. The window was covered by drapes and Caitlin could see no vents in the floor or ceiling. Maanik seemed to shiver. Her eyes narrowed and turned upward again.

  “The sky! It is on fire!” she said.

  “Is it sunset?”

  The girl’s head shook slowly. “I don’t know.” Her brow knit. “I—I don’t think so.”

  “Please concentrate,” Caitlin pressed. “Is it day or night?”

  The girl’s head shook uncertainly and then her face twisted into another silent scream, more painful looking than if she were crying aloud. Her body stiffened and her feet struggled on the bed.

  Ambassador Pawar rose slowly. “Please, Dr. O’Hara. I know I agreed, but I insist that you stop this!” His voice was tight with grief.

  “I’m sorry, but I want her to stay with this as long as possible,” Caitlin said. “We must have the information.”

  “We?” he asked.

  “Yes, we.”

  “But it is hurting her!”

  Caitlin turned as much as she could to look directly at him. He was on his feet. “Mr. Pawar, your daughter has been experiencing this trauma for over a week. If she were any other person exhibiting such severe symptoms with an unknown cause, I would have hospitalized her days ago. But then she would have been heavily medicated and I would have had limited access to her. I don’t think either of us wants that, or the attention!”

  Caitlin felt guilty using publicity as a lever but she desperately didn’t want to interrupt this session. Not now. The ambassador was silent.

  “Cai,” Ben said, nodding toward the bed.

  Maanik was moving like an eel, her body writhing, her mouth still opening and closing in wordless cries.

  “We don’t know how deep this goes,” Caitlin said in a gentler voice, half-turning back toward the Pawars. “She can’t fully express it. If we fail to understand Maanik’s condition, I cannot, in good conscience, keep her in this bedroom much longer. But if there is a chance for us to understand, to heal her, we should take it.”

  The Pawars were silent, agonized.

  “She is strong,” Caitlin said, returning her full attention to the young woman. “I’m going to keep talking to her as long as I can.”

  She heard Mr. Pawar sit heavily behind her.

  “Please focus, Maanik,” Caitlin said. “Can you tell me if it’s day or night? Look around you.”

  The young woman forced herself to use words.

  “It is . . . night. The moon . . . so large! White light being eaten by the red light.”

  “The red light. Is it the sunset? Or is it closer? Fire?”

  “Flame,” she said. Her mouth made biting motions. “The dragon . . . red waves. So maddening!”

  Maanik’s eyes slid to Caitlin for just a moment but it was long enough to show she was still there, herself, however small. Then Caitlin saw her hands return to the gesture she’d made earlier, when Caitlin had handed her a pen and paper. The one thing she and Ben hadn’t planned for. Caitlin felt Ben shove a tablet into her hands, a drawing app already open. Caitlin slid the tablet under Maanik’s right hand and though the girl was shrieking again, she simultaneously drew several long, undulating lines on the tablet. Then she dropped it and attacked her forearms again, this time with her nails.

  As Caitlin tried to restrain her, Ben snuck the tablet from between them.

  “Maanik, go back to the elephant!” Caitlin shouted.

  Maanik shoved her body back against the pillows but then just as suddenly, she relaxed completely. Her hands fell limp, her eyes closed, and she took a very long and solid inhale.

  “Are you there, Maanik? Are you back in the pink and yellow tent?”

  It was a long moment before Maanik answered.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Caitlin saw a shudder pass through her, all the way through her.

  “That’s great, you are doing terrific work, Maanik.”

  “Yes,” she said again. But she seemed to be repeating the previous statement, not responding to Caitlin’s compliment. “Yes, I am here.”

  “I’m so proud of you—” Caitlin said, but then it hit her: was Maanik talking to her?

  “Oh no,” Maanik said, with a sudden
terror to her voice. “It found me. It’s coming here! Ashes!” Her body stiffened and she let out a scream so petrified and agonized that Mrs. Pawar gasped and Caitlin’s eyes surged with tears. Choking on a sob, Caitlin leaned in, touched Maanik’s ear, and said, “Blackberries.”

  The girl slumped back but it was an ugly movement, like all of her ligaments had been cut.

  There was a horrible, horrible silence. The queasy hush that had always hovered outside the Pawars’ apartment was now inside. Caitlin felt she could almost taste it; it was deadly. She turned at the sound of Jack London retching on the carpet under Maanik’s desk, his small body convulsing. Even as Maanik began to breathe somewhat normally, Caitlin was still on high alert. She was afraid to look around, to give credence to something she was feeling: that something had come back with the girl.

  CHAPTER 23

  Caitlin remained with Ben as he dismantled his modest camera-and-tripod setup. Mr. Pawar hunched in his chair, rubbing his forehead with three fingers, while Mrs. Pawar sat on the bed with her sleeping daughter, having called for Kamala to take care of the vomit Jack London had left on the rug.

  Caitlin was watching the dog closely. He had nearly slunk out of the bedroom but stopped just shy of the door.

  What’s going on with you? Caitlin wondered.

  She realized that the dog was trying to stay away from where he had thrown up but he did not want to desert Maanik. When no stern words or rebuke came from Kamala or Hansa, Jack London returned to the room, beginning with the edges of the windows, sniffing thoroughly with his shoulders sunk in “guard” mode.

  Caitlin was doing her own less overt analysis of her surroundings. The noxious air that had choked the area around the bed was easing somewhat. The closeness she had felt, as though something were pressing in on her, had also dissipated; she felt almost light now, the way she did when she took off her ankle weights after jogging. Caitlin suspected that Jack London had sensed the same. Still, he was very cautious about approaching the bed—and Maanik, who had been the epicenter of whatever the dog had experienced. When he eventually leaped up onto the bed and sniffed around the girl, he showed an aversion not just to her right hand but also to her head. It was just the tiniest recoil. Finally, Jack London curled up by Maanik’s feet but remained on guard, staring at the wall behind her head.

  “One good thing,” Ben said in a low voice.

  “What’s that?” Caitlin asked.

  “I’m sure Kashmir was pretty far from the ambassador’s thoughts the last half hour or so.”

  Caitlin nodded. “Sometimes any break is a good break,” she said quietly. “In the session, did you notice Maanik’s hair?” She was trying not to lead his answer.

  “I saw it move,” Ben replied. “Like it was caught in a breeze that wasn’t there.”

  She exhaled more breath than she thought she’d been holding. Ben smiled.

  “I’ll let you know if you’re going crazy, Dr. O’Hara,” he said.

  “Good,” she said, laughing a little, “because I’m starting to wonder.”

  “Cai, something definitely happened here, and like you said, it wasn’t all in Maanik’s head.”

  Caitlin and Ben left the bedroom and Jack London, who was still gazing at the wall but with his head resting on his paws. They were followed by Mrs. Pawar, who sat in the living room, clearly shaken. Mr. Pawar stayed with Maanik. Caitlin went over and sat with Hansa for a while, just listening—the woman needed to vent her worries, not just about her daughter but about her husband.

  “You can’t protect him from this,” Caitlin told her.

  “I know that. My hope is that he can handle it all without breaking.” She looked at Caitlin with sad eyes. “He had no reaction at all, himself, to the attempt on his life. It is as if he has pushed that entirely out of his mind.”

  “For now, most likely he has,” Caitlin said. “To him, these other concerns are greater.” She smiled. “Trust me, there will be time for you to care for him.”

  “What about Maanik?” the woman asked. “Has this helped you understand?”

  “I’m sure it has, I just have to sift through her answers,” Caitlin said. “We’ll be working on that this evening. I told you, we’re going to figure this out.”

  “He is a caring man,” Mrs. Pawar said, looking at Ben.

  “Very.” Caitlin beamed appreciatively.

  Mrs. Pawar asked Kamala for water, then went to the window and looked down at the city. Caitlin implored Mrs. Pawar and Kamala to make sure that Maanik’s bedroom was aired out with the windows open twice a day, not just with plug-in fresheners, and that Maanik should also sit twice daily on the balcony, bundled up against the cold. Mrs. Pawar started to object, indicating an overlooking terrace to the east, but Caitlin pointed to a Japanese folding screen and suggested they use that for privacy.

  Caitlin checked on Maanik one more time and bade the Pawars a good night. It wasn’t until Ben and Caitlin were in the elevator and nearly to the lobby that she allowed herself to ease from professional mode into her own mild release. She breathed through the slight queasiness and shakes.

  “You okay?” Ben asked, noting her fingers’ trembling.

  “Will be.”

  But the feeling only grew as they stepped outside. A burning smell surrounded her, as if someone had lit a fire in a fireplace in one of the surrounding buildings. And then she felt eyes on her again, and a cold so thorough she shivered under her coat. She stopped just as they reached the sidewalk.

  “Caitlin?” Ben asked. “What is it?”

  “I feel like I’m being watched,” she murmured. Somehow it was harder to tell Ben this than any of the other bizarre details of the past few days.

  Ben looked around. Save for a few people walking their dogs, the street was relatively free of pedestrians. He glanced up at the lowest windows in the building. There was no one looking down.

  “I’m sure it’s some kind of emotional aftershock,” she said. “Paranoia. Let’s get a cab.”

  “On second thought . . . ,” Ben said.

  “What?”

  “A security chief told me once that if you feel like you’ve got eyes on you, don’t take a cab. You don’t know who’s driving it, and you don’t know if they’ve been waiting for you out of your sight.”

  “But I don’t think anyone’s actually watching me.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We’re going to walk to the subway.”

  He put his arm around her and they headed north, then west. There was a mild crosstown wind and Caitlin didn’t stop trembling until they reached Grand Central. They went through the main door instead of one of the side entrances. The turquoise vaulted ceiling and pale stars, the brass and opal clock in the center, helped her feel that she was standing on firm ground again.

  “Better?” Ben asked.

  “Much.” She smiled. There were a great many people here, and shops were still open. It was all very normal, almost cheerful. She straightened; she hadn’t realized that she had been curling into Ben’s side. He pulled his arm away but not completely, leaving his hand on her back as they strolled to the subway entrance.

  “Let’s talk about something that has nothing to do with anything,” Ben suggested.

  His flustered tone made Caitlin laugh and he chuckled with her. It took about two seconds for Caitlin to snap back to the larger ­reality.

  “Her hair,” she said as they headed toward the subway steps. “That was just impossible. I mean, there’s no other word for it.”

  “Cai, let your brain off the hook for a while,” Ben said as he slid his MetroCard from its holder. “I know you want to drive straight at the problem, but we both know that if we don’t give our brains a rest, a real rest, it fogs up the windshield.”

  “You are right, O wise one.” She grinned. “Okay. I’ll power down. You’re taking the 6 home?”


  “No, I’ll see you home first.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know. But in case there are eyes on you, I’m taking you home.”

  Caitlin felt a rebellious kick against his white knighthood—and ignored it. She knew she had a much better chance of powering down if he was there, staying alert.

  As they walked to the Shuttle train platform, Caitlin looked at all the faces around her, allowing herself to just see them, not read them. This kind of passive observation was primarily a right-brain activity, which is why it was so relaxing for her, but it also allowed a simple love of people to come forth, the admiration of human beings that made her so happy to live in one of the world’s largest cities. Standing on the platform, she drank in the faces like fresh, pure water. And then, stepping onto the train and finding a pole to hang on to, she focused on Ben’s face as he held on beside her—that sweet, studious, heartbreaker face, all in one. The face that had been with her through some of the worst events she had ever experienced.

  The train intercom chimed and she heard the old, familiar recording, “Stand clear of the closing doors.” Ben was looking down at someone’s tablet over her shoulder, reading whatever she was reading. Caitlin reached up to Ben’s now-stubbled cheek. He gave her a half smile but didn’t look up, intent on finishing the page before the passenger scrolled to the next.

  Too bad, Caitlin thought as she gently pulled his head down and kissed him. He did not mind the interruption. To the contrary, it was something he’d been waiting patiently for—not just tonight but since he first laid eyes on her. He gave her his fullest attention and suddenly they were sheltered in complete and quiet privacy. Their lips felt like fire and water and air all in one—until the train jolted and they bumped noses and laughed. But only for a moment, because Ben pulled her in close with one arm and kissed her twenty years deep.