The TV is still tuned to the Salyan Jarkot channel on which, earlier, I was watching myself do my bit on the Potpourri Yendo show.
        As a rule, Salyan Jarkot TV only broadcasts its own programs (news, weather, traffic reports, local news and the like) between six in the morning and eleven at night. At this hour of night, they usually take a feed from Coyote Merlercia, the gung ho hyper-patriotic Merlercian news channel, and I assume that's what I'm watching now.
        That big burning building with the flames leaping out of it, that must be somewhere in Rathnog Carta, the unfortunate nation where the Merlercian war machine is busy demonstrating that, yes, the things which are designed to go bang really do go bang. And disintegrate human beings into clots of flying blood in the process.
        Then the camera turns from the burning building to a TV announcer. Zooms right in on her face. And I do a double take. That's Ilamindi Wasaba! She's right here in Yendo, isn't she? I saw her on TV only two days back, interviewing someone about the paroled pedophile, the guy who was giving away balloons to little kids in Naji Porissa Park, the big park near Yendo Central Hospital.
        "People inside the building are calling on their cellphones saying the fire exits are chained shut," says Ilamindi. "Let's go to the studio where Felno has someone on the phone."
        And we're transitioned to the Salyan Jarkot studio where a young guy, captioned on the screen as Felno Selstrodo, has a panic-stricken citizen on the line. The citizen is gabbling about smoke, flames, no way out. Screams in the background. Sounds of something crashing, falling.
        "Bars on the windows!" says the citizen.
        And I remember the bars on the windows in Aunt Chariot's apartment. Her window is barred even though it's on the tenth floor. Her apartment block had problems with people jumping. Taking the suicide route.
        "But it can't be," I say, disputing the reality of what I'm seeing.
        This can't be Aunt Chariot's building. A fire like this does not belong to my domesticated universe. Rather, it belongs to the domain of the improbable, the sphere of melodrama where people get abducted by aliens, eaten by sharks, kidnapped by chainsaw enthusiasts or infected by red parrot fever.
        Then the phone call that we're following courtesy of the TV show goes dead. Maybe the caller has dropped the phone. Or has been hit by a falling balk of burning timber. Or has succumbed to smoke inhalation. Felno gabbers at the phone. Hello? Hello? Anyone there? Nobody. So we're transitioned back to the scene of the fire. On the screen, the building, burning.
        "We're here at the scene of a major disaster," says Ilamindi Wasaba. "A building is on fire here in the heart of Yendo. It's an old folks home, Dolagataka Dignity Domiciles. Rescue efforts are being hampered by the fact that fire exit doors have been chained shut."
        Though the TV is insisting that this scene is part of my local reality, I still can't believe this. This is not the comfortable remoteness of Merlercia's war in Rathnog Carta. This is here, now, right here in the city of Yendo. This is my aunt's building on fire. And where is Aunt Chariot now? I've left my cellphone upstairs, so I pad across to the landline. I haven't memorized Aunt Chariot's number, but it's there on the "family numbers" list pinned to the corkboard over the phone.
        I slip off the wireless headphones which I've been using to listen to the TV, and I pick up the phone and dial.
        Aunt Chariot's cellphone is, or so I'm told, either switched off or out of range.
        "Or melted," I say.
        It's an unpleasant thing to say. An unpleasant thing to think. But I have a strong image of Aunt Chariot's cellphone buckling in the heat, slobbing into a flux of liquescent disintegration.
        I dial the main number for Dolagataka Dignity Domiciles but it's engaged.
        So I put the headphones back on, resume my seat and watch the drama unfolding on TV. Feeling ashamed of myself. Because I don't feel the horror that I should. Shock? Sure. I'm shocked. The unexpectedness of the disaster is like a slap in the face. The carnage of burning buildings is not a part of my neighborhood's world. But what I don't feel, what I should feel but can't, is the grief of tragedy.
        Aunt Chariot is dead. That's pretty much a certainty. She was on the tenth floor, and, from what I can see on the TV screen, the building is a killing zone. And Aunt Chariot, when I saw her yesterday, was in a wheelchair. Can she walk? Even if she can, I don't think it will make much difference. I wouldn't fancy my own chances of getting out of there alive.
        Which means I'm richer.
        Aunt Chariot dies. And, by dying, loses her claim to her share of her generation's payout from the Udamana Zekotalora Trust.
        This is a shameful thought. Not a thought I want to have. I don't want my mind to be running on these lines. But the calculating thought is unstoppable. Aunt Chariot is dead so I am richer. Unless Melshu gets to take the share earmarked for the upper generation, those aged sixty and over.
        Tuesday. Today is Tuesday. I won't, obviously, be having my meeting with lawyer Kavanath Pondicherry. But, sometime, fairly soon, I will need to have another talk with someone about Melshu's legal status.
        What did Mitodarni say? He said that if we dissolve the Udamana Zekotalora Trust (and, assuming that we're going to sell our land, we're going to have to) then we will have to ask the Family Court to rule on the question of whether Melshu is or is not entitled to a share of the spoils.
        "Well," I say, "that's something I can get on to after the funeral."