At first it was rumoured that several teachers had died along with the children. But with the passage of time it was revealed that no, none of them had died. They had managed to escape in time. Eighty children had died, all aged seven or eight. Many more were in the state general hospital, expected to die very soon.

A photograph in an English-language daily brought her to her knees. A Tamil father was weeping, holding in his arms a blackened piece of wood. It was his child … No, this was too much so early in the morning.

Quickly folding the papers, she threw them into the bedroom. She switched on the microwave to make herself some tea. She wanted to escape from the news. Instead, she found herself trapped, helpless, in the time between the beginning of the fire and its being put out – the time in which those eighty, ninety, one hundred children had burned to death – and stood stock still, picturing the flames licking at her own skin, flesh and bone marrow, while the water for the tea boiled away into steam.

Then she went to have a shower to allay her agony and wept, heaving, in a terrible rage.

The phone rang. She stepped out of the shower, wrapped herself in a towel and went to answer it. She explained that she’d just been in the shower. Yes, she had been naked. Yes, she had soaped herself. Yes, she would soap herself again with you in mind and, fingering herself, say exactly three times – ‘I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours.’ She would need ten minutes more to get dressed. You could leave now, and in the meantime she would finish showering, get dressed, then come downstairs to wait for you. Yes, you were coming over to take her out shopping, for all the things to turn the flat into a home. A house, a householder, a home. That’s what you wanted. ‘Make yourself at home.’

She went back to finish her shower. Afterwards, she put on the clothes she’d set out. Combed her hair. Sprayed herself with perfume. Went downstairs. You picked her up.

She was out the whole day, buying all manner of things. The two of you had dinner, then she returned to the flat. Unlocked the padlocks one by one and went straight into the bedroom.

When she switched on the light, the morning’s newspapers were there on the bed. The photographs on each front page seemed to come alive when they saw her. Shrinking back, she burned in those flames, the fire that rages at the circumference of life, engulfing the escape route.

The phone was ringing. It was you, calling to tell her to ‘go to sleep’. She answered, ‘I had a son, he was six. One day there was a fire in our high-rise. On an afternoon when I was far away, lying beneath a man I barely knew. My son was alone with the live-in maid – his father was also far away. When the girl became aware of the fire she fled, leaving the boy behind. He called me on my mobile and told me what was happening. The floor beneath his feet had become very hot, he said. The flames had come into the room through the windows, shattering the glass. He was coughing, choking. But I could still hear the hurt in his voice as he asked, “Why did you go away, Maa, why did you leave me?” Then I heard an explosion. That was all. There was no other sound after that, only the crackling of the flames …’