The Satanic Verses (64 page)

           
What Saladin Chamcha understood that day was that he had been living in a state
of phoney peace, that the change in him was irreversible. A new, dark world had
opened up for him (or: within him) when he fell from the sky; no matter how
assiduously he attempted to re-create his old existence, this was, he now saw,
a fact that could not be unmade. He seemed to see a road before him, forking to
left and right. Closing his eyes, settling back against taxicab upholstery, he
chose the left-hand path.

           
1

           
The temperature continued to rise; and when the heatwave reached its highest
point, and stayed up there so long that the whole city, its edifices, its
waterways, its inhabitants, came perilously close to the boil,―then Mr.
Billy Battuta and his companion Mimi Mamoulian, recently returned to the
metropolis after a period as guests of the penal authority of New York,
announced their "grand coming-out" party. Billy's business
connections downtown had arranged for his case to be heard by a well-disposed
judge; his personal charm had persuaded every one of the wealthy female
"marks" from whom he'd extracted such generous amounts for the
purpose of the re-purchase of his soul from the Devil (including Mrs.
Struwelpeter) to sign a clemency petition, in which the matrons stated their
conviction that Mr. Battuta had honestly repented him of his error, and asked,
in the light of his vow to concentrate henceforth on his startlingly brilliant
entrepreneurial career (whose social usefulness in terms of wealth creation and
the provision of employment to many persons, they suggested, should also be
considered by the court in mitigation of his offences), and his further vow to
undergo a full course of psychiatric treatment to help him overcome his
weakness for criminal capers,―that the worthy judge settle upon some
lighter punishment than a prison sentence, "the deterrent purpose
underlying such incarceration being better served here," in the ladies'
opinion, "by a judgment of a more Christian sort". Mimi, adjudged to
be no more than Billy's love-duped underling, was given a suspended sentence;
for Billy it was deportation, and a stiff fine, but even this was rendered
considerably less severe by the judge's consent to Billy's attorney's plea that
his client be allowed to leave the country voluntarily, without having the
stigma of a deportation order stamped into his passport, a thing that would do
great damage to his many business interests. Twenty-four hours after the
judgment Billy and Mimi were back in London, whooping it up at Crockford's, and
sending out fancy invitation cards to what promised to be
the
party of
that strangely sweltering season. One of these cards found its way, with the assistance
of Mr. S. S. Sisodia, to the residence of Alleluia Cone and Gibreel Farishta;
another arrived, a little belatedly, at Saladin Chamcha's den, slipped under
the door by the solicitous Jumpy. (Mimi had called Pamela to invite her,
adding, with her usual directness: "Any notion where that husband of yours
has gotten to?"―Which Pamela answered, with English awkwardness,
yes
er but
. Mimi got the whole story out of her in less than half an hour,
which wasn't bad, and concluded triumphantly: "Sounds like your life is
looking up, Pam. Bring 'em both; bring anyone. It's going to be quite a
circus.")

           
The location for the party was another of Sisodia's inexplicable triumphs: the
giant sound stage at the Shepperton film studios had been procured, apparently
at no cost, and the guests would be able, therefore, to take their pleasures in
the huge re-creation of Dickensian London that stood within. A musical
adaptation of the great writer's last completed novel, renamed
Friend!
,
with book and lyrics by the celebrated genius of the musical stage, Mr. Jeremy
Bentham, had proved a mammoth hit in the West End and on Broadway, in spite of
the macabre nature of some of its scenes; now, accordingly,
The Chums
,
as it was known in the business, was receiving the accolade of a big-budget
movie production. "The pipi PR people," Sisodia told Gibreel on the
phone, "think that such a fufufuck,
function
, which is to be most
ista ista istar ista ista istudded, will be good for their bibuild up
cacampaign."

           
The appointed night arrived: a night of dreadful heat.

           
* * * * *

           
Shepperton!―Pamela and Jumpy are already here, borne on the wings of
Pamela's MG, when Chamcha, having disdained their company, arrives in one of
the fleet of coaches the evening's hosts have made available to those guests
wishing for whatever reason to be driven rather than to drive.―And
someone else, too,―the one with whom our Saladin fell to earth,―has
come; is wandering within.―Chamcha enters the arena; and is amazed.―Here
London has been altered―no,
condensed
,―according to the
imperatives of film.―Why, here's the Stucconia of the Veneerings, those
bran-new, spick and span new people, lying shockingly adjacent to Portman
Square, and the shady angle containing various Podsnaps.―And worse:
behold the dustman's mounds of Boffin's Bower, supposedly in the near vicinity
of Holloway, looming in this abridged metropolis over Fascination Fledgeby's
rooms in the Albany, the West End's very heart!―But the guests are not
disposed to grumble; the reborn city, even rearranged, still takes the breath
away; most particularly in that part of the immense studio through which the
river winds, the river with its fogs and Gaffer Hexam's boat, the ebbing Thames
flowing beneath two bridges, one of iron, one of stone.―Upon its cobbled
banks the guests' gay footsteps fall; and there sound mournful, misty,
footfalls of ominous note. A dry ice pea-souper lifts across the set.

           
Society grandees, fashion models, film stars, corporation bigwigs, a brace of
minor royal Personages, useful politicians and suchlike riff-raff perspire and
mingle in these counterfeit streets with numbers of men and women as
sweat-glistened as the "real" guests and as counterfeit as the city:
hired extras in period costume, as well as a selection of the movie's leading
players. Chamcha, who realizes in the moment of sighting him that this
encounter has been the whole purpose of his journey,―which fact he has
succeeded in keeping from himself until this instant,―spots Gibreel in
the increasingly riotous crowd.

           
Yes: there, on London Bridge Which Is Of Stone, without a doubt,
Gibreel!―And that must be his Alleluia, his Icequeen Cone!―What a
distant expression he seems to be wearing, how he lists a few degrees to the
left; and how she seems to dote on him―how everyone adores him: for he is
among the very greatest at the party, Battuta to his left, Sisodia at Allie's
right, and all about a host of faces that would be recognized from Peru to
Timbuctoo!―Chamcha struggles through the crowd, which grows ever more
dense as he nears the bridge;―but he is resolved―Gibreel, he will
reach Gibreel!―when with a clash of cymbals loud music strikes up, one of
Mr. Bentham's immortal, showstopping tunes, and the crowd parts like the Red
Sea before the children of Israel.―Chamcha, off-balance, staggers back,
is crushed by the parting crowd against a fake half-timbered edifice―what
else?―a Curiosity Shop; and, to save himself, retreats within, while a great
singing throng of bosomy ladies in mobcaps and frilly blouses, accompanied by
an over-sufficiency of stovepipe-hatted gents, comes rollicking down the
riverside street, singing for all they're worth.

           
What kind of fellow is Our Mutual Friend?

           
What does he intend?

           
Is he the kind of fellow on whom we may depend?

           
etc. etc. etc.

           
"It's a funny thing," a woman's voice says behind him, "but when
we were doing the show at the C- Theatre, there was an outbreak of lust among
the cast; quite unparalleled, in my experience. People started missing their
cues because of the shenanigans in the wings."

           
The speaker, he observes, is young, small, buxom, far from unattractive, damp
from the heat, flushed with wine, and evidently in the grip of the libidinous
fever of which she speaks.―The "room" has little light, but he
can make out the glint in her eye. "We've got time," she continues
matter-of-factly. "After this lot finish there's Mr. Podsnap's solo."
Whereupon, arranging herself in an expert parody of the Marine Insurance
agent's selfimportant posture, she launches into her own version of the
scheduled musical Podsnappery:

           
Ours is a Copious Language,

           
A Language Trying to Strangers;

           
Ours is the Favoured Nation,

           
Blest, and Safe from Dangers . . .

           
Now, in Rex-Harrisonian speech-song, she addresses an invisible Foreigner.
"And How Do You Like London?―'Aynormaymong rich?'―Enormously
Rich, we say. Our English adverbs do Not terminate in Mong.―And Do You
Find, Sir, Many Evidences of our British Constitution in the Streets of the
World's Metropolis, London, Londres, London?―I would say," she adds,
still Podsnapping, "that there is in the Englishman a combination of qualities,
a modesty, an independence, a responsibility, a repose, which one would seek in
vain among the Nations of the Earth."

           
The creature has been approaching Chamcha while delivering herself of these
lines;―unfastening, the while, her blouse;―and he, mongoose to her
cobra, stands there transfixed; while she, exposing a shapely right breast, and
offering it to him, points out that she has drawn upon it,―as an act of
civic pride,―the map of London, no less, in red magic-marker, with the
river all in blue. The metropolis summons him;―but he, giving an entirely
Dickensian cry, pushes his way out of the Curiosity Shop into the madness of
the street.

           
Gibreel is looking directly at him from London Bridge; their eyes―or so
it seems to Chamcha―meet. Yes: Gibreel lifts, and waves, an unexcited
arm.

           
* * * * *

           
What follows is tragedy.―Or, at the least the echo of tragedy, the
full-blooded original being unavailable to modern men and women, so it's
said.―A burlesque for our degraded, imitative times, in which clowns
re-enact what was first done by heroes and by kings.―Well, then, so be
it.―The question that's asked here remains as large as ever it was: which
is, the nature of evil, how it's born, why it grows, how it takes unilateral
possession of a many-sided human soul. Or, let's say: the enigma of Iago.

           
It's not unknown for literary-theatrical exegetes, defeated by the character,
to ascribe his actions to "motiveless malignity". Evil is evil and
will do evil, and that's that; the serpent's poison is his very
definition.―Well, such shruggings-off will not pass muster here. My
Chamcha may be no Ancient of Venice, my Allie no smothered Desdemona, Farishta
no match for the Moor, but they will, at least, be costumed in such
explanations as my understanding will allow.―And so, now, Gibreel waves
in greeting; Chamcha approaches; the curtain rises on a darkening stage.

           
* * * * *

           
Let's observe, first, how isolated this Saladin is; his only willing companion
an inebriated and cartographically bosomed stranger, he struggles alone through
that partying throng in which all persons appear to be (and are not) one
another's friends;―while there on London Bridge stands Farishta, beset by
admirers, at the very centre of the crowd; and, next, let us appreciate the
effect on Chamcha, who loved England in the form of his lost English
wife,―of the golden, pale and glacial presence by Farishta's side of
Alleluia Cone; he snatches a glass from a passing waiter's tray, drinks the
wine fast, takes another; and seems to see, in distant Allie, the entirety of
his loss;

           
and in other ways, as well, Gibreel is fast becoming the sum of Saladin's
defeats;―there with him now, at this very moment, is another traitor;
mutton dressed as lamb, fifty plus and batting her eyelashes like an
eighteen-year-old, is Chamcha's agent, the redoubtable Charlie
Sellers;―you wouldn't liken him to a Transylvanian bloodsucker, would
you, Charlie, the irate watcher inwardly cries;―and grabs another
glass;―and sees, at its bottom, his own anonymity, the other's equal
celebrity, and the great injustice of the division;

           
most especially―he bitterly reflects―because Gibreel, London's
conqueror, can see no value in the world now falling at his feet!―why,
the bastard always sneered at the place, Proper London, Vilayet, the English,
Spoono, what cold fish they are, I swear;―Chamcha, moving inexorably
towards him through the crowd, seems to see,
right now
, that same sneer
upon Farishta's face, that scorn of an inverted Podsnap, for whom all things
English are worthy of derision instead of praise;―O God, the cruelty of
it, that he, Saladin, whose goal and crusade it was to make this town his own,
should have to see it kneeling before his contemptuous rival!―so there is
also this: that Chamcha longs to stand in Farishta's shoes, while his own
footwear is of no interest whatsoever to Gibreel.

           
What is unforgivable?

           
Chamcha, looking upon Farishta's face for the first time since their rough
parting in Rosa Diamond's hall, seeing the strange blankness in the other's
eyes, recalls with overwhelming force the earlier blankness, Gibreel standing
on the stairs and doing nothing while he, Chamcha, horned and captive, was
dragged into the night; and feels the return of hatred, feels it filling him
bottom-to-top with fresh green bile,
never mind about excuses
, it cries,
to hell with mitigations and what-could-he-have-dones; what's beyond
forgiveness is beyond. You can't judge an internal injury by the size of the
hole
.