It soars up and up in a glowing scatter of green and red. Sparks tumble down and the whole garden jumps into relief. All the shadows are scalpel-sharp, frozen in their places by that brief, beautiful glare. The rocket arcs over the back wall, and even after it lands in the Jelai, the compound’s still lit by the last glowing pinpoints that it left behind. I turn around and see Ammuma silhouetted at her upstairs window. Her face is in shadow, and I wave at her. At this distance, I wonder if she can see me smile.
She lifts a hand in response and I turn back to pull out the next firework. I feel lighter now, with the kind of excitement I always used to have at Diwali. I choose the biggest firework in the bag to light next, something that looks a bit like a Catherine wheel. A couple of rockets have been tied together, and nailed loosely to a small wooden post. I set the end of the post into the dirt and hold a match to the rockets, but just like before they don’t burn immediately. The wooden post’s swollen in the damp air and the nail holding everything together feels hot to touch. I try with another match but the rockets just hang there in a sulk of reddened smoke.
A movement at the window catches my eye. It’s Ammuma, putting her hands on her hips. Get on with it, Durga, she’s saying, those evil spirits don’t have all day. I scrape my damp hair back and light another match. This time I shove it deep into the body of one of the rockets, and there’s a little spurt of flame. The rocket moves – once, twice, and it’s spinning in a shower of golden sparks. They rise this time, in a blown breath of honey-coloured light. I can hear a ripping sound, and then I see that the end of one rocket’s come loose, flinging gunpowder into the air as it spins. A second later the whole rocket rips open, flaring up in a bright naphtha glare. It tumbles high as the palm trees, head over tail in a fizzle of sparks.
I take a step back, my eyes fixed on it. And then it comes apart in the air, one chunk soaring towards the house and another flying back near the Jelai. I take a few steps to the back wall, pulling myself up to lean on the chest-high stones. I can see the fragment of firework that’s heading for the Jelai. It plunges down, high over my head but still spitting brave sparks. It looks like it’s going to land in the jungle and I hold my breath, but instead it plummets straight into the water. As soon as it’s extinguished, I can’t see anything. My eyes are dazzled from the flare, and the lights from the house seem fitful and dim. Not a success, they tell me quietly.
I prop myself up on the compound wall. The light in Ammuma’s room has gone out – she’s not going to watch, not after that performance – and I turn back to the compound wall. The scrubland belukar stretches for fifty metres or so on the other side, and then the jungle takes over. Peony and Tom and I used to play a game out here, I remember, after dark. We’d climb over the compound wall into that scrubland and creep slowly towards the looming darkness. The winner was the first to reach the point – the infinitesimal, knife-edge point – where the jungle suddenly became grey and green and brown instead of featureless black. Where it stopped being terror and turned back into trees.
I look back at the house, but Ammuma’s light’s still defiantly out. I sigh, dropping the bag. I’ll take a few breaths of air before going back, I think, before swallowing my pride and sparking up Tom’s fireworks. I trail my hand along the rough top of the stones, walking carefully until I reach the corner of the yard. The wall’s crumbling here, and there’s a pile of bricks that have worked their way loose. There could be scorpions in there, I think, there could be spiders and centipedes and who knows what else. It’s a Canadian thought, well scrubbed and careful.
I look back at the house once, then step onto the tumbled bricks. They give way underneath my feet, sliding and shifting until I’m grabbing at the gritty wall. It takes the skin off my palms. As I pull myself up to sit sideways on the top I feel my nails tear, and then I’m over and in the wide spaces of Pahang.
It’s the first time I’ve been out at night here since I came back. I never used to be scared. I’d been good at our game, sometimes making out the shapes of jungle trees while I was still in arm’s reach of the compound wall. Then a second later Peony would sing out in triumph – I see them! – and finally Tom with his pale, poor eyes. But I’m walking steadily forward now, and I must be nearly at the end of the scrubland but I still can’t see a thing. The house is round a bend and downhill, and even the lights from it are cut off. The river seethes behind its mudbanks on my left and there’s a rattle of wings as a guinea fowl takes off from somewhere. I can hear the trees – I can even feel them in the slap of cool air as the wind forces their leaves up and out. I just can’t see where I’m
