Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses

The things one's memory threw up! But perhaps this pharmaceutical Tamburlaine was not such a bad eulogy for the fallen monarch lying here in his bookwormed study, staring into three worlds, waiting for the end. ‘Come on, Abba,’ he marched cheerily into the presence. ‘Time to save your life.’

Still in its place, on a shelf in Changez's study: a certain copper-and-brass lamp, reputed to have the power of wish fulfilment, but as yet (because never rubbed) untested. Somewhat tarnished now, it looked down upon its dying owner; and was observed, in its turn, by his only son. Who was sorely tempted, for an instant, to get it down, rub three times, and ask the turbanned djinni for a magic spell... however, Salahuddin left the lamp where it was. There was no place for djinns or ghouls or afreets here; no spooks or fancies could be permitted. No magic formulae; just the impotence of the pills. ‘Here's the medicine man,’ Salahuddin sang out, rattling the little bottles, rousing his father from sleep. ‘Medicine,’ Changez grimaced childishly. ‘Eek, bhaak, thoo.’

That night, Salahuddin forced Nasreen and Kasturba to sleep comfortably in their own beds while he kept watch over Changez from a mattress on the floor. After his midnight dose of Isosorbide, the dying man slept for three hours, and then needed to go to the toilet. Salahuddin virtually lifted him to his feet, and was astonished at Changez's lightness. This had always been a weighty man, but now he was a living lunch for the advancing cancer cells ... in the toilet, Changez refused all help, ‘He won't let you do one thing,’ Kasturba had complained lovingly. ‘Such a shy fellow that he is.’ On his way back to bed he leaned lightly on Salahuddin's arm, and shuffled along flat-footed in old, worn bedroom slippers, his remaining hairs sticking out at comical angles, his head stuck beakily forward on its scrawny, fragile neck. Salahuddin suddenly longed to pick the old man up, to cradle him in his arms and sing soft, comforting songs. Instead, he blurted out, at this least appropriate of moments, an appeal for reconciliation. ‘Abba, I came because I didn't want there to be trouble between us any more...’ Fucking idiot. The Devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon. In the middle of the bloody night! And if he hasn't guessed he's dying, that little deathbed speech will certainly have let him know . Changez continued to shuffle along; his grip on his son's arm tightened very slightly. ‘That doesn't matter any more,’ he said. ‘It's forgotten, whatever it was.’

In the morning, Nasreen and Kasturba arrived in clean saris, looking rested and complaining, ‘It was so terrible sleeping away from him that we didn't sleep one wink.’ They fell upon Changez, and so tender were their caresses that Salahuddin had the same sense of spying on a private moment that he'd had at the wedding of Mishal Sufyan. He left the room quietly while the three lovers embraced, kissed and wept.

Death, the great fact, wove its spell around the house on Scandal Point. Salahuddin surrendered to it like everyone else, even Changez, who, on that second day, often smiled his old crooked smile, the one that said I know what's up, I'll go along with it, just don't think I'm fooled. Kasturba and Nasreen fussed over him constantly, brushing his hair, coaxing him to eat and drink. His tongue had grown fat in his mouth, slurring his speech slightly, making it hard to swallow; he refused anything at all fibrous or stringy, even the chicken breasts he had loved all his life. A mouthful of soup, pureed potatoes, a taste of custard. Baby food. When he sat up in bed Salahuddin sat behind him; Changez leaned against his son's body while he ate.

‘Open the house,’ Changez commanded that morning. ‘I want to see some smiling faces here, instead of your three glum mugs.’ So, after a long time, people came: young and old, half-forgotten cousins, uncles, aunts; a few comrades from the old days of the nationalist movement, poker-backed gentlemen with silver hair, achkan jackets and monocles; employees of the various foundations and philanthropical enterprises set up by Changez years ago; rival manufacturers of agricultural sprays and artificial dung. A real bag of allsorts, Salahuddin thought; but marvelled, also, at how beautifully everyone behaved in the presence of the dying man: the young spoke to him intimately about their lives, as if reassuring him that life itself was invincible, offering him the rich consolation of being a member of the great procession of the human race, – while the old evoked the past, so that he knew nothing was forgotten, nothing lost; that in spite of the years of self-imposed sequestration he remained joined to the world. Death brought out the best in people; it was good to be shown Salahuddin realized – that this, too, was what human beings were like: considerate, loving, even noble. We are still capable of exaltation, he thought in celebratory mood; in spite of everything, we can still transcend. A pretty young woman – it occurred to Salahuddin that she was probably his niece, and he felt ashamed that he didn't know her name – was taking Polaroid snapshots of Changez with his visitors, and the sick man was enjoying himself hugely, pulling faces, then kissing the many proffered cheeks with a light in his eyes that Salahuddin identified as nostalgia. ‘It's like a birthday party,’ he thought. Or: like Finnegan's wake. The dead man refusing to lie down and let the living have all the fun.

‘We have to tell him,’ Salahuddin insisted when the visitors had left. Nasreen bowed her head; and nodded. Kasturba burst into tears.

They told him the next morning, having asked the specialist to attend to answer any questions Changez might have. The specialist, Panikkar (a name the English would mispronounce and giggle over, Salahuddin thought, like the Muslim ‘Fakhar’), arrived at ten, shining with self-esteem. ‘I should tell him,’ he said, taking control. ‘Most patients feel ashamed to let their loved ones see their fear.’

‘The hell you will,’ Salahuddin said with a vehemence that took him by surprise. ‘Well, in that case,’ Panikkar shrugged, making as if to leave; which won the argument, because now Nasreen and Kasturba pleaded with Salahuddin: ‘Please, let's not fight.’ Salahuddin, defeated, ushered the doctor into his father's presence; and shut the study door.

‘I have a cancer,’ Changez Chamchawala said to Nasreen, Kasturba and Salahuddin after Panikkar's departure. He spoke clearly, enunciating the word with defiant, exaggerated care. ‘It is very far advanced. I am not surprised. I said to Panikkar: “This is what I told you the very first day. Where else could all the blood have gone?”’ – Outside the study, Kasturba said to Salahuddin: ‘Since you came, there was a light in his eye. Yesterday, with all the people, how happy he was! But now his eye is dim. Now he won't fight.’

That afternoon Salahuddin found himself alone with his father while the two women napped. He discovered that he, who had been so determined to have everything out in the open, to say the word, was now awkward and inarticulate, not knowing how to speak. But Changez had something to say.

‘I want you to know,’ he said to his son, ‘that I have no problem about this thing at all. A man must die of something, and it is not as though I were dying young. I have no illusions; I know I am not going anywhere after this. It's the end. That's okay. The only thing I'm afraid of is pain, because when there is pain a man loses his dignity. I don't want that to happen.’ Salahuddin was awestruck. First one falls in love with one's father all over again, and then one learns to look up to him, too . ‘The doctors say you're a case in a million,’ he replied truthfully. ‘It looks like you have been spared the pain.’ Something in Changez relaxed at that, and Salahuddin realized how afraid the old man had been, how much he'd needed to be told... ‘Bas,’ Changez Chamchawala said gruffly. ‘Then I'm ready. And by the way: you get the lamp, after all.’