Salman Rushdie - Grimus

Flapping Eagle saw Virgil stand up. He covered his face with his hands, and an extraordinary thing happened: he seemed to grow . Not in height. Not in width.

In depth.

The only phrase that seemed to fit had a curious second meaning.

He added several dimensions to himself .

Flapping Eagle thought: it seems we each must fight a battle; but I was ready and Virgil is weak. And his opponent has chosen the ground.

Virgil was thinking along similar lines; but was very pleased at his continuing reawakening. The dimensions seemed his to visit again, after all this time, after all. That. Pain.

He turned to face the Gorf.

– Mr Jones, said the Gorf. A word of warning before the contest. In case you should win.

– Yes? said Virgil. (Was this a delaying tactic?)

– I am not the only irrelevance on the island, Mr Jones. I fear you are another.

Virgil said nothing, but he knew the Gorf had succeeded in wounding him. This renaissance of his was a fragile thing. Doubts assailed it easily.

– Just an intuition, Mr Jones, said the disembodied voice. I rather fancy you will take little part in the final Ordering. Truly. It gives a certain symmetry to this contest, wouldn’t you say?

– Let’s get on with it, barked Virgil Jones.

To the watching Flapping Eagle, it appeared that there followed a period of complete inactivity. Not being versed in the Outer Dimensions, he could not enter the battlefield. Virgil Jones stood frozenly, head bowed, arms outstretched, hands splayed, like a man pushing against a very heavy door. Then, without warning, he collapsed. Inert matter in a heap on the forest floor.

Flapping Eagle rushed forward.

Virgil Jones came round slowly.

– Shouldn’t have bothered, he said. No contest, really. Not a hope. Flea trying to rape an elephant. Couldn’t Order him back. Not in a million years. It’s his game.

– Where is he? asked Flapping Eagle, looking around.

– Who knows, said Virgil. Doesn’t matter. Won’t trouble us again. I won that point, anyway. And then, in a brave attempt at lightheartedness, he said: -Who will rid me of this meddlesome Gorf?

Something had gone out of Virgil Jones’ face. His defeat had drained him of a great deal more than energy. He seemed to Flapping Eagle now as he had first seemed: shambling, bumbling, ineffectual. The decisive figure of the Inner Dimensions had gone, nursed once more behind a skin of failure.

– Virgil, said Flapping Eagle. Virgil. Thank you.

Virgil Jones snorted.

And fainted.

The roles of nurse and patient were reversed.

ONCE. THEN. AGO. Before. The terror of the titties, I. They came easily into my hands. They came. Easily. Gently does it, though some like it rough. Gently to the peaks of pleasure. Softly to the peaks of pain. Breasts like twin peaks, they had then, mountains yielding to the touch. Mine. Sweet things. What things they are. A randy bugger, then. All organs decay through disuse. Pulled out all the stops, then. Let me have it, Virgie! Give and take, give and take, pingpong of bodies possessed. O, Virgil, you know how to please . Please… pleas, they pleaded and I kneaded their soft volcanoes. I needed their soft. A virgin, eh? My name’s Virgil. What’s one consonant between friends? That worked once. Then. Birds. The coo of a turtledove in my ear as it nibbled and the quake of the great turtle itself as we came. Then. Before. Ah, a bird-fancier, I, no fancier bird than I. Ornithology’s no substitute for sex. Feathers go best in a bed, in a pillow, under the bouncing bodies. All I could wish for, more wishing for me than I wished for, squeeze me, please, me! Once. Then. Ago. Go anywhere, inside, outside, fornication never changes. Odd. The pleasure principle transcends all boundaries. Contraception stretches into a million different places, different worlds, different techniques, vive la difference, I was there, where the pill was, my skill was, where the coil, my toil, and they came. Easily. In my hand. Once. Then. Ago. Before. Liv.

Drink this, Virgil. Water from the stream .

Eat this, Virgil, berries from the tree .

Rest now, Virgil, don’t talk, rest. Sleep. It heals .

Guilt. My fault. Mea maxima. Sorry I spoke. Sorry I moved. Sorry I lived. Sorry. On my knees. Forgive me. Liv. Forgive. It rhymes. Or accurately. Leev. Relieve. She was always Liv to me, her name married to sieve and give as she was wife to me. Ah the terror of her titties. Terrible beautiful white. I scaled them and fell. The strong do not forgive the weak. Their. Lessness. Brightly we burned like any star, brighter than brightest, my moth to her flame, I was scalded and fell. The heat is cruel to the hike. Warm. Toad, she said and I croaked. Go, she said and I went. In terror of the titties. Then. But. Before. Daughter of the Rising Son, I thought she loved me. In the house of pleasure and I paid in kindness. So kind , she said, so kind , I thought she loved me. Love grows and swallows its love, digests and spits it out. Seared by the gastric juices of her loving. Sorry. Liv. From the house of rising suns to the black hole, hole-black house, your rise and partial fall. Bitterness succeeding your pride, I’m sorry. She’d ruffle my hair, one day she tore a handful from the root. Dark lady with the fair skin fair hair fair eyes so fair and so unfair and yet so fair. Fire in her to burn a man, ice in her to heal him. I was not the man. For. Her. Liv, ice-peak of perfection, how she cast me off, how sorry I…mea, maxima, thing. Then. Ago. Before. The strong do not forgive. The weak their lessness.

– LIV WAS MY wife, said Virgil, sitting up at the edge of the clearing, propped against a tree. She should have had a stronger man.

Flapping Eagle had already decided never to pry further into Virgil than he was willing to reveal; he had no wish to bring him pain. So he asked no questions about Liv.

– I remember K, mused Virgil absently, when they first came. To settle, to marry, to whore. And one or two… went a bit further.

– Like Grimus? asked Flapping Eagle sharply.

– Well, said Virgil, pursing his lips, I don’t know if I do.

– What?

– Like Grimus.

Even in his frustration, Flapping Eagle had to laugh.

– You’re certainly well again, he said, if you can perpetrate jokes like that.

– My dear fellow, said Virgil. It was no joke.

– I know, said Flapping Eagle, still laughing. Small pleasantry .

Virgil shrugged.

– Virgil, repeated Flapping Eagle, who or what is he? Grimus.

– Yes, said Virgil Jones.

– A sad fact, said Virgil Jones as they climbed. One’s environment is a great deal more epic than oneself. Events may be epic: people rarely are. Which is why they find such an environment appalling. I once mentioned to you that I was superstitious because this was a place where anything could happen; I’m sure you understand what I meant now. But there’s another reaction. It is this: if anything can happen, we’d better make damn sure it never does .

– You mean like Dolores, said Flapping Eagle.

Virgil did not answer.

– BUGGER, SAID NICHOLAS DEGGLE.

He was standing on Calf Beach, having arrived through the “gate” he had despatched Flapping Eagle through two weeks earlier; and he was feeling very angry with himself, and, therefore, with the universe. He had made a mistake so elementary it was mind-defying: he had failed to consider where on Calf Island the gate would deposit him, and as a result, here he was, the wrong side of the Forest, with a mountainful of climbing to do.