Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [51]
Mrs Dalal stuck her tongue out at him and carried the plates to the kitchen.
‘What’s karma?’ asked Zaki.
‘It means you cause what happens to you,’ said Anusha. ‘If you do good things, then good things will happen to you.’
‘More or less,’ said Mr Dalal. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’
‘So if bad things are happening, then you must have done something wrong,’ said Zaki, and the empty, hopeless feeling started to grow inside him again.
A quick look passed between father and daughter.
‘What’s happening now can be to do with something in a previous life, and you can be affected by other people’s karma, and some people believe in the karma of places, even countries – collective karma if you like,’ said Mr Dalal.
‘Is it like you’re being punished?’ asked Zaki.
‘No, no, no.’ Mr Dalal waved his hands. ‘Karma should not be confused with rewards and punishments. This is not the way to think about karma. No, no. Karma is more like a natural force – like gravity. Listen – if I park my car on a hill and forget to put on the handbrake, what will happen?’
‘It will roll down the hill.’
‘Yes, and most likely smash into something at the bottom. But was the car trying to punish me?’
‘Not really.’
‘No, of course not. The car was just doing what it had to do because of gravity and no handbrake. Now, I might feel as though I was being punished for being stupid, but the car wasn’t punishing me, God wasn’t punishing me, it was simply cause and effect – physics. You see? Karma is more like that.’
Zaki nodded. ‘Do you think we really do have other lives?’ he asked.
‘This is getting very serious,’ remarked Mrs Dalal, who was leaning in the kitchen doorway listening to their conversation.
‘Yes, but very interesting!’ said Mr Dalal with enthusiasm.
‘Wouldn’t we remember being alive before if – you know – we had been here before?’
‘Can you remember being a baby?’ asked Mr Dalal.
Zaki shook his head.
‘But you wouldn’t deny that you were a baby! Can you remember having a very vivid dream?’
Zaki nodded. He’d had rather a lot of those recently.
‘But while you were having that dream you were actually lying in your bed and not flying through the air, or whatever it was you remember doing in your dream. True?’
‘Well, yes I suppose.’
‘So what we do or don’t remember is not a very good guide to what has actually taken place. Just because you don’t remember being here before doesn’t mean you weren’t here. Does it?’
‘But, Dad,’ Anusha interrupted, ‘our bodies weren’t here before. How could we be here before our bodies were even born!?’
‘It depends whether or not we’re just bodies and it depends what we mean by “before”. Time, to a mathematician, is a very interesting thing.’
‘Speaking of time,’ said Mrs Dalal, ‘I think it’s time Zaki called his father.’
Zaki felt instantly miserable. He hadn’t spoken to his father since stepping out of the van that morning. Now, Zaki thought, I’ll be in trouble for skipping school. Well, it wasn’t his fault everything was such a mess!
‘I told my dad I might come here,’ he said, rather weakly.
Zaki saw a look pass between Anusha and her mother.
Mrs Dalal smiled. ‘Would you prefer me to call him?’
Zaki could think of nothing he would like more.
‘Would you like to stay over? We’ve got a spare room?’ asked Mrs Dalal.
He felt a great surge of relief. ‘Would that be OK?’
‘Tell me your number and I’ll see what I can do,’ said Mrs Dalal.
Zaki told her the number and she left the room.
‘Now, where were we?’ asked Mr Dalal, clapping his hands together. ‘The problems of life and time – yes? The question of who we really are and where we really are. What is life? What is real?’ His eyes sparkled as he looked from Zaki to his daughter. He was obviously enjoying himself.
‘Well, are you going to tell us?’ Anusha demanded.
‘Me?!’ cried Mr Dalal, throwing up his hands. ‘What makes you think I know?’
‘You’re older. You’ve lived longer.’
‘Ah! Only in this life,’ said Mr Dalal with a sly chuckle.
‘What’s the point of having other lives if you can’t remember them?’ asked Zaki.
‘Does there have to be