Salman Rushdie - Shalimar the Clown

The ambassador’s idea was that if he could persuade both governments to work together on multilateral projects (GOI/GOP-MP) they could start getting used to interdependence instead of conflict. Mastering the language of unpronounceable acronyms which was the true lingua franca of the subcontinent’s political class, he proposed a fuel exchange program, or FEP: Pakistan would export its gas (PG) to India and India would send coal (IC) to Pakistan. He further proposed that the two nations cooperate over hydroelectric and irrigation projects (HAIP) in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Tista river system (GBTRS or, colloquially, GABTRIS). He spoke to the Indian government minister for planning and social work (GOIMPSW or MINPLASOC), Asoka Mehta, and assured him of World Bank support. He encouraged his old pal the minister for foreign affairs, GOIMFA Swaran Singh, to send out a feeler to his GOP counterpart concerning the possibility of back-channel arms limitation talks (BALT). Indira Gandhi was settling in as GOIPM, a.k.a. MADAM, and Max urged her to move down the path of reconciliation. The result of all his cajoling and bullying was the briefly celebrated Islamabad Joint Statement, the so-called IJOSTAT or GOIGOPJS(ISL)66. Max received personal messages of congratulations from both POTUS and UNSGUT. Of late, America had been infected by a Western strain of the South Asian disease of acronymial initialitis. JFK, RFK, MLK, and POTUS of course was LBJ and UNSGUT was the secretary-general of the United Nations, U Thant.

The ugliness of the bureaucratic terminology, its aggressive uninterest in euphony, marked it out as power-speech. Power had no need for prettification, no need to make things easy. By showing its contempt for verbal felicity it revealed itself as itself, naked and unadorned. The iron fist took off the velvet glove.

Euphoria over the Islamabad accords proved short-lived. The estranged nations’ common fondness for alphabet soup did not mean they had developed a taste for peace. MADAM summoned Max to tell him of her anger at the cancellation of all joint projects. The military back-channel proposals had been for territorial adjustments along the cease-fire line; India might compensate Pakistan for lost strategic areas. Or, if this were not acceptable to Pakistan, India had suggested it might agree to accept guarantees of more adequate controls by the U.N. Mrs. Gandhi told Max the actual numbers of the war dead on both sides. They were much higher than the published figures. “We can’t go on letting our young men perish like this,” she said. “And the Pakistanis agree, you know. The generals are furious with Zulfy”-GOPMFA Zulfikar Ali Bhutto-“for leading them into a battle over a stretch of icy wasteland. Quelques arpents de neige, isn’t it.” In spite of the two nations’ common concerns, there would be no effective moves toward greater cross-border understanding. Two powerful men combined to sabotage the Ophuls Plan. The old Congress grandee Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon-the great left-wing orator and wit who had once, at the Security Council, filibustered for eight hours without a prepared text on the subject of India’s inalienable right to have and hold Kashmir; who called himself a “tea-totaller” because although he consumed no alcohol he drank a total of thirty-six cups of tea a day, and consequently spoke more rapidly than any man in India; whose rudeness was legendary; and who was considered an enemy by Indira Gandhi even though he had been her father’s friend-had worked assiduously to sabotage the détente. He had found a willing ally in home minister Gulzarilal Nanda, who had been caretaker prime minister twice, for a few days each, first after Jawaharlal Nehru’s death and again after Shastri’s, whose resentment of those who got the job for real was bitter and absolute, and whose nose was still out of joint because Shastri had overruled him about the wisdom of letting Max Ophuls visit the war zone in Kashmir. Together Nanda and Krishna Menon worked hard to build opposition to Ophuls inside the Indian cabinet and parliament, while simultaneously bolstering the Indian army’s military control over the Kashmir valley. At that early stage in her career Mrs. Gandhi was obliged to confess that she had allowed herself to be outmaneuvered. “You also, Mr. Ophuls,” she said. “GOIMHA Nanda and VKKM have foxed you too. Honestly! What a schmuck.” SCHMUCK? wondered Max. Ah… Sabotage of Cooperative… what?… Harmony-Motivated Undertakings Concerning Kashmir? The prime minister of India stroked his arm gently. “It’s not an acronym,” she said.

Boonyi left Pachigam without her husband, because the Americans had only asked Abdullah Noman for a dance act. She had been commanded to give her Anarkali again, to dazzle the capital’s grandees on a specially constructed stage in the residence’s central atrium, below a pyramidal lantern. Himal and Gonwati were with her, to dance behind and beside her, content with their supporting roles, happy to shine a little in her reflected light. Habib Joo the old dance teacher was going, too, and a trio of musicians. “Pachigam sending a troupe to New Delhi, to the American embassy,” Abdullah Noman said happily at the bus stop, embracing each of them. “What honor you bring on us all.”

Shalimar the clown had come to see her off. When the bus arrived, making its usual devil-squawk of a racket and daubed with warnings to motorists and pedestrians alike, Noman climbed onto the roof with her bedroll and made sure everything was safely tied down. When Boonyi said good-bye to him she knew it was an ending. He understood nothing, did not foresee the breaking of his heart. He loved her too much to suspect her of having a traitorous soul. But he was just a clown, and his love led nowhere, would change nothing, would not take her where it was her destiny to go. As she went up through the door of the bus she looked back and saw Shalimar the clown standing with her damaged friend Zoon Misri, a vague drifting presence, half-human, half-phantom, whose place at his side was like a portent of the damage that she, Boonyi, would shortly be inflicting on him. She gave him her best, brightest smile and he lit up in return, as always. This was how she would remember him, his beauty illumined by love. Then the bus set off with a jerk and a rush, and turned a corner, and he was gone, and she began to prepare for what was about to happen. What do you want, the ambassador had asked her. She knew what he wanted. He wanted what men want. But to have an answer to his question was important. To know exactly what she wanted and what she was prepared to offer in return.

When he came to her she was ready. Edgar Wood, that peculiar young man, had arranged everything perfectly. The dancing girls were allocated comfortable rooms in the Roosevelt House guest wing, and Wood was careful to seek Mrs. Ophuls’s approval of the arrangements. Mrs. Ophuls’s private suite was at the far end of the building-she and the ambassador preferred not to share a bedroom-and Beaver Wood had handpicked the Marines guarding the route between the distinguished couple’s quarters, and also the Marines stationed in the corridor outside the dancing girls’ rooms. (After his arrival in New Delhi the Beaver had made it his first business to establish which members of the embassy security detail he could rely on, the ones who understood that their absolute loyalty lay to the ambassador and not to their Midwestern parents’ conservative moral values or even to God.) It was embassy policy, Wood informed the young women, that in order to ensure their safety the residence’s corridors would be off-limits until breakfast time, even for themselves. Himal and Gonwati made no objection, particularly as their rooms were filled with bolts of fabric, bottles of perfume and necklaces and wrist-cuffs made of antique silver, and with wicker baskets overflowing with good things to eat and drink. With cries of delight they rushed toward their gifts. Meanwhile Habib Joo and his trio of male musicians were taken to a suite of rooms at the Ashoka, where they made the acquaintance of minibars for the first time in their lives and decided contentedly that their religion made a special blind-eye exception for expenses-paid nights away from home in deluxe five-star hotels.