Salman Rushdie - The Satanic Verses

He was a fortress with clanging gates. – He was drowning. – She was drowning, too. He saw the water fill her mouth, heard it begin to gurgle into her lungs. Then something within him refused that, made a different choice, and at the instant that his heart broke, he opened.

His body split apart from his adam's-apple to his groin, so that she could reach deep within him, and now she was open, they all were, and at the moment of their opening the waters parted, and they walked to Mecca across the bed of the Arabian Sea.

Eighteen months after his heart attack, Saladin Chamcha took to the air again in response to the telegraphed news that his father was in the terminal stages of multiple myeloma, a systemic cancer of the bone marrow that was ‘one hundred per cent fatal’, as Chamcha's GP unsentimentally put it when he telephoned her to check. There had been no real contact between father and son since Changez Chamchawala sent Saladin the proceeds from his felled walnut-tree all those eternities ago. Saladin had sent a brief note reporting that he had survived the Bostan disaster, and had been sent an even terser missive in return: ‘Rec.'d yr. communication. This information already to hand.’ When the bad news telegram arrived, however – the signatory was the unknown second wife, Nasreen II, and the tone was pretty unvarnished: FATHER GOING FAST + IF DESIROUS OF SEEING BETTER MOVE IT + N CHAMCHAWALA (MRS)– he discovered to his surprise that after a lifetime of tangled relationships with his father, after long years of crossed wires and ‘irrevocable sunderings’, he was once again capable of an uncomplicated reaction. Simply, overwhelmingly, it was imperative that he reach Bombay before Changez left it for good.

He spent the best part of a day first standing in the visa queue at the consular section of India House, and then trying to persuade a jaded official of the urgency of his application. He had stupidly forgotten to bring the telegram, and was told, as a result, that ‘it is issue of proof. You see, anybody could come and tell that their father is dying, isn't it? In order to expedite.’ Chamcha fought to restrain his anger, but finally burst, ‘Do I look like a Khalistan zealot to you?’ The official shrugged. ‘I'll tell you who I am,’ Chamcha bellowed, incensed by that shrug, ‘I'm the poor bastard who got blown up by terrorists, fell thirty thousand feet out of the sky because of terrorists, and now because of those same terrorists I have to be insulted by pen-pushers like you.’ His visa application, placed firmly at the bottom of a large pile by his adversary, was not granted until three days later. The first available flight was thirty-six hours after that: and it was an Air India 747, and its name was Gulistan .

Gulistan and Bostan, the twin gardens of Paradise – one blew apart, and then there was one... Chamcha, moving down one of the drains through which Terminal Three dripped passengers into aircraft, saw the name painted next to the 747`s open door, and turned a couple of shades paler. Then he heard the sari-clad Indian stewardess greeting him in an unmistakably Canadian accent, and lost his nerve, spinning away from the plane in a reflex of straightforward terror. As he stood there, facing the irritable throng of passengers waiting to board, he was conscious of how absurd he must look, with his brown leather holdall in one hand, two zippered suit-hanger bags in the other, and his eyes out on stalks; but for a long moment he was entirely unable to move. The crowd grew restive; if this is an artery , he found himself thinking, then I'm the blasted clot . ‘I used to chichi chicken out also,’ said a cheerful voice. ‘But now I've got the titrick. I fafa flap my hands during tatake-off and the plane always mama makes it into the isk isk isky.’

‘Today the top gogo goddess is absolutely Lakshmi,’ Sisodia confided over whisky once they were safely aloft. (He had been as good as his word, flapping his arms wildly as Gulistan rushed down the runway, and afterwards settled back contentedly in his seat, beaming modestly. ‘Wowoworks every time.’ They were both travelling in the 747's upper deck, reserved for business class non-smokers, and Sisodia had moved into the empty seat next to Chamcha like air filling a vacuum. ‘Call me Whisky,’ he insisted. ‘What lie lie line are you in? How mum much do you earn? How long you bibi been away? You know any women in town, or you want heh heh help?’) Chamcha closed his eyes and fixed his thoughts on his father. The saddest thing, he realized, was that he could not remember a single happy day with Changez in his entire life as a man. And the most gladdening thing was the discovery that even the unforgivable crime of being one's father could be forgiven, after all, in the end. Hang on , he pleaded silently. I'm coming as fast as I can . ‘In these hihighly material times,’ Sisodia explained, ‘who else but goddess of wewealth? In Bombay the young businessmen are hoho holding all night poopoo pooja parties. Statue of Lakshmi presides, with hands tuturned out, and lightbulbs running down her fifi fingers, lighting in sequence, you get me, as if the wealth is paw paw pouring down her palms.’ On the cabin's movie screen a stewardess was demonstrating the various safety procedures. In a corner of the screen an inset male figure translated her into sign language. This was progress, Chamcha recognized. Film instead of human beings, a small increase in sophistication (the signing) and a large increase in cost. High technology at the service, ostensibly, of safety; while in reality air travel got daily more dangerous, the world's stock of aircraft was ageing and nobody could afford to renew it. Bits fell off planes every day, or so it seemed, and collisions and near-misses were also on the up. So the film was a kind of lie, because by existing it said: Observe the lengths we'll go to for your security. We'll even make you a movie about it . Style instead of substance, the image instead of the reality... ‘I'm planning a big bubudget picture about her,’ Sisodia said. ‘This is in strictest coco confidence. Maybe a Sridevi weewee wehicle, I hohope so. Now that Gibreel's comeback is flaw flaw flopping, she is number one supreme.’

Chamcha had heard that Gibreel Farishta had hit the comeback trail. His first film, The Parting of the Arabian Sea , had bombed badly; the special effects looked home-made, the girl in the central Ayesha role, a certain Pimple Billimoria, had been woefully inadequate, and Gibreel's own portrayal of the archangel had struck many critics as narcissistic and megalomaniac. The days when he could do no wrong were gone; his second feature, Mahound , had hit every imaginable religious reef, and sunk without trace. ‘You see, he chochose to go with other producers,’ Sisodia lamented. ‘The greegreed of the ista ista istar. With me the if if effects always work and the good tataste also you can take for gug, grunt, granted,’ Saladin Chamcha closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat. He had drunk his whisky too fast on account of his fear of flying, and his head had begun to spin. Sisodia appeared not to recall his past connection to Farishta, which was fine. That was where the connection belonged: in the past. ‘Shh shh Sridevi as Lakshmi,’ Sisodia sang out, not very confidentially. ‘Now that is sosolid gold. You are an ack actor. You should work back hohome. Call me. Maybe we can do bubusiness. This picture: solid pap pap platinum .’

Chamcha's head whirled. What strange meanings words were taking on. Only a few days ago that back home would have rung false. But now his father was dying and old emotions were sending tentacles out to grasp him. Maybe his tongue was twisting again, sending his accent East along with the rest of him. He hardly dared open his mouth.