The Satanic Verses (16 page)

           
"Do as you're told," are Abu Simbel's last words to him. "You
have no choice."

           
* * * * *

           
The Grandee lolls in his bedroom while concubines attend to his needs. Coconut-oil
for his thinning hair, wine for his palate, tongues for his delight.
The boy
was right. Why do I fear Mahound?
He begins, idly, to count the concubines,
gives up at fifteen with a flap of his hand.
The boy. Hind will go on seeing
him, obviously; what chance does he have against her will?
It is a weakness
in him, he knows, that he sees too much, tolerates too much. He has his
appetites, why should she not have hers? As long as she is discreet; and as
long as he knows. He must know; knowledge is his narcotic, his addiction. He
cannot tolerate what he does not know and for that reason, if for no other,
Mahound is his enemy, Mahound with his raggle-taggle gang, the boy was right to
laugh. He, the Grandee, laughs less easily. Like his opponent he is a cautious
man, he walks on the balls of his feet. He remembers the big one, the slave,
Bilal: how his master asked him, outside the Lat temple, to enumerate the gods.
"One," he answered in that huge musical voice. Blasphemy, punishable
by death. They stretched him out in the fairground with a boulder on his chest.
How many did you say?
One, he repeated, one. A second boulder was added
to the first.
One one one
. Mahound paid his owner a large price and set
him free.

           
No, Abu Simbel reflects, the boy Baal was wrong, these men are worth our time.
Why do I fear Mahound? For that: one one one, his terrifying singularity.
Whereas I am always divided, always two or three or fifteen. I can even see his
point of view; he is as wealthy and successful as any of us, as any of the
councillors, but because he lacks the right sort of family connections, we
haven't offered him a place amongst our group. Excluded by his orphaning from
the mercantile elite, he feels he has been cheated, he has not had his due. He
always was an ambitious fellow. Ambitious, but also solitary. You don't rise to
the top by climbing up a hill all by yourself. Unless, maybe, you meet an angel
there . . . yes, that's it. I see what he's up to. He wouldn't understand me,
though.
What kind of idea am I?
I bend. I sway. I calculate the odds,
trim my sails, manipulate, survive. That is why I won't accuse Hind of
adultery. We are a good pair, ice and fire. Her family shield, the fabled red
lion, the many-toothed manticore. Let her play with her satirist; between us it
was never sex. I'll finish him when she's finished with. Here's a great lie,
thinks the Grandee of Jahilia drifting into sleep: the pen is mightier than the
sword.

           
* * * * *

           
The fortunes of the city of Jahilia were built on the supremacy of sand over
water. In the old days it had been thought safer to transport goods across the
desert than over the seas, where monsoons could strike at any time. In those
days before meteorology such matters were impossible to predict. For this
reason the caravanserais prospered. The produce of the world came up from Zafar
to Sheba, and thence to Jahilia and the oasis of Yathrib and on to Midian where
Moses lived; thence to Aqabah and Egypt. From Jahilia other trails began: to
the east and north-east, towards Mesopotamia and the great Persian empire. To
Petra and to Palmyra, where once Solomon loved the Queen of Sheba. Those were
fatted days. But now the fleets plying the waters around the peninsula have
grown hardier, their crews more skilful, their navigational instruments more
accurate. The camel trains are losing business to the boats. Desert-ship and
sea-ship, the old rivalry, sees a tilt in the balance of power. Jahilia's
rulers fret, but there is little they can do. Sometimes Abu Simbel suspects
that only the pilgrimage stands between the city and its ruin. The council
searches the world for statues of alien gods, to attract new pilgrims to the
city of sand; but in this, too, they have competitors. Down in Sheba a great temple
has been built, a shrine to rival the House of the Black Stone. Many pilgrims
have been tempted south, and the numbers at the Jahilia fairgrounds are
falling.

           
At the recommendation of Abu Simbel, the rulers of Jahilia have added to their
religious practices the tempting spices of profanity. The city has become
famous for its licentiousness, as a gambling den, a whorehouse, a place of
bawdy songs and wild, loud music. On one occasion some members of the tribe of
Shark went too far in their greed for pilgrim money. The gatekeepers at the
House began demanding bribes from weary voyagers; four of them, piqued at
receiving no more than a pittance, pushed two travellers to their deaths down
the great, steep flight of stairs. This practice backfired, discouraging return
visits. . . Today, female pilgrims are often kidnapped for ransom, or sold into
concubinage. Gangs of young Sharks patrol the city, keeping their own kind of
law. It is said that Abu Simbel meets secretly with the gangleaders and organizes
them all. This is the world into which Mahound has brought his message: one one
one, Amid such multiplicity, it sounds like a dangerous word.

           
The Grandee sits up and at once concubines approach to resume their oilings and
smoothings. He waves them away, claps his hands. The eunuch enters. "Send
a messenger to the house of the kahin Mahound," Abu Simbel commands.
We
will set him a little test. A fair contest: three against one
.

           
* * * * *

           
Water-carrier immigrant slave: Mahound's three disciples are washing at the
well of Zamzam. In the sand-city, their obsession with water makes them
freakish. Ablutions, always ablutions, the legs up to the knees, the arms down
to the elbows, the head down to the neck. Dry-torsoed, wet-limbed and
damp-headed, what eccentrics they look! Splish, splosh, washing and praying. On
their knees, pushing arms, legs, heads back into the ubiquitous sand, and then
beginning again the cycle of water and prayer. These are easy targets for Baal's
pen. Their water-loving is a treason of a sort; the people of Jahilia accept
the omnipotence of sand. It lodges between their fingers and toes, cakes their
lashes and hair, clogs their pores. They open themselves to the desert: come,
sand, wash us in aridity. That is the Jahilian way from the highest citizen to
the lowest of the low. They are people of silicon, and water-lovers have come
among them.

           
Baal circles them from a safe distance―Bilal is not a man to trifle
with―and yells gibes. "If Mahound's ideas were worth anything, do
you think they'd only be popular with trash like you?" Salman restrains
Bilal: "We should be honoured that the mighty Baal has chosen to attack
us," he smiles, and Bilal relaxes, subsides. Khalid the water-carrier is jumpy,
and when he sees the heavy figure of Mahound's uncle Hamza approaching he runs
towards him anxiously. Hamza at sixty is still the city's most renowned fighter
and lion-hunter. Though the truth is less glorious than the eulogies: Hamza has
many times been defeated in combat, saved by friends or lucky chances, rescued
from lions' jaws. He has the money to keep such items out of the news. And age,
and survival, bestow a sort of validation upon a martial legend. Bilal and
Salman, forgetting Baal, follow Khalid. All three are nervous, young.

           
He's still not home, Hamza reports. And Khalid, worried: But it's been hours,
what is that bastard doing to him, torture, thumbscrews, whips? Salman, once
again, is the calmest: That isn't Simbel's style, he says, it's something
sneaky, depend upon it. And Bilal bellows loyally: Sneaky or not, I have faith
in him, in the Prophet. He won't break. Hamza offers only a gentle rebuke: Oh,
Bilal, how many times must he tell you? Keep your faith for God. The Messenger
is only a man. The tension bursts out of Khalid: he squares up to old Hamza,
demands, Are you saying that the Messenger is weak? You may be his uncle . . .
Hamza clouts the water-carrier on the side of the head. Don't let him see your
fear, he says, not even when you're scared half to death.

           
The four of them are washing once more when Mahound arrives; they cluster
around him, whowhatwhy. Hamza stands back. "Nephew, this is no damn
good," he snaps in his soldier's bark. "When you come down from Coney
there's a brightness on you. Today it's something dark."

           
Mahound sits on the edge of the well and grins. "I've been offered a
deal."
By Abu Simbel
? Khalid shouts.
Unthinkable. Refuse
.
Faithful Bilal admonishes him: Do not lecture the Messenger. Of course, he has
refused. Salman the Persian asks: What sort of deal. Mahound smiles again.
"At least one of you wants to know."

           
"It's a small matter," he begins again. "A grain of sand. Abu
Simbel asks Allah to grant him one little favour." Hamza sees the
exhaustion in him. As if he had been wrestling with a demon. The water-carrier
is shouting: "Nothing! Not a jot!" Hamza shuts him up.

           
"If our great God could find it in his heart to concede―he used that
word,
concede
―that three, only three of the three hundred and
sixty idols in the house are worthy of worship . . ."

           
"There is no god but God!" Bilal shouts. And his fellows join in:
"Ya Allah!" Mahound looks angry. "Will the faithful hear the
Messenger?" They fall silent, scuffing their feet in the dust.

           
"He asks for Allah's approval of Lat, Uzza and Manat. In return, he gives
his guarantee that we will be tolerated, even officially recognized; as a mark
of which, I am to be elected to the council of Jahilia. That's the offer."

           
Salman the Persian says: "It's a trap. If you go up Coney and come down
with such a Message, he'll ask, how could you make Gibreel provide just the
right revelation? He'll be able to call you a charlatan, a fake." Mahound
shakes his head. "You know, Salman, that I have learned how to listen.
This
listening
 is not of the ordinary kind; it's also a kind of
asking. Often, when Gibreel comes, it's as if he knows what's in my heart. It
feels to me, most times, as if he comes from within my heart: from within my
deepest places, from my soul."

           
"Or it's a different trap," Salman persists. "How long have we
been reciting the creed you brought us? There is no god but God. What are we if
we abandon it now? This weakens us, renders us absurd. We cease to be
dangerous. Nobody will ever take us seriously again."

           
Mahound laughs, genuinely amused. "Maybe you haven't been here long
enough," he says kindly. "Haven't you noticed? The people do not take
us seriously. Never more than fifty in the audience when I speak, and half of
those are tourists. Don't you read the lampoons that Baal pins up all over
town?" He recites:

           
Messenger, do please lend a

           
careful ear. Your monophilia,

           
your one one one, ain't for Jahilia.

           
Return to sender.

           
"They mock us everywhere, and you call us dangerous," he cried.

           
Now Hamza looks worried. "You never worried about their opinions before.
Why now? Why after speaking to Simbel?"

           
Mahound shakes his head. "Sometimes I think I must make it easier for the
people to believe."

           
An uneasy silence covers the disciples; they exchange looks, shift their
weight. Mahound cries out again. "You all know what has been happening.
Our failure to win converts. The people will not give up their gods. They will
not, not." He stands up, strides away from them, washes by himself on the
far side of the Zamzam well, kneels to pray.

           
"The people are sunk in darkness," says Bilal, unhappily. "But
they will see. They will hear. God is one." Misery infects the four of
them; even Hamza is brought low. Mahound has been shaken, and his followers
quake.

           
He stands, bows, sighs, comes round to rejoin them. "Listen to me, all of
you," he says, putting one arm around Bilal's shoulders, the other around
his uncle's. "Listen: it is an interesting offer."

           
Unembraced Khalid interrupts bitterly: "It is a
tempting
deal." The others look horrified. Hamza speaks very gently to the
water-carrier. "Wasn't it you, Khalid, who wanted to fight me just now
because you wrongly assumed that, when I called the Messenger a man, I was
really calling him a weakling? Now what? Is it my turn to challenge you to a
fight?"

           
Mahound begs for peace. "If we quarrel, there's no hope." He tries to
raise the discussion to the theological level. "It is not suggested that
Allah accept the three as his equals. Not even Lat. Only that they be given
some sort of intermediary, lesser status."

           
"Like devils," Bilal bursts out.

           
"No," Salman the Persian gets the point. "Like archangels. The
Grandee's a clever man."

           
"Angels and devils," Mahound says. "Shaitan and Gibreel. We all,
already, accept their existence, halfway between God and man. Abu Simbel asks
that we admit just three more to this great company. Just three, and, he
indicates, all Jahilia's souls will be ours."

           
"And the House will be cleansed of statues?" Salman asks. Mahound
replies that this was not specified. Salman shakes his head. "This is
being done to destroy you." And Bilal adds: "God cannot be
four." And Khalid, close to tears: "Messenger, what are you saying?
Lat, Manat, Uzza―they're all
females!
For pity's sake! Are we to
have goddesses now? Those old cranes, herons, hags?"