The Satanic Verses

only piece that remained of Valance’s original self, the Harold that derived from history and blood and not from his own frenetic brain.
    When they left the secret chamber of the clavichords, the familiar Hal Valance instantly reappeared. Leaning on the balustrade of his terrace, he confided: ‘The thing that’s so amazing about her is the size of what she’s trying to do.’ Her? Baby? Chamcha was confused. ‘I’m talking about you-know-who,’ Valance explained helpfully. ‘Torture. Maggie the Bitch.’ Oh. ‘She’s radical all right. What she wants – what she actually thinks she can fucking
achieve –
is literally to invent a whole goddamn new middle class in this country. Get rid of the old woolly incompetent buggers from fucking Surrey and Hampshire, and bring in the new. People without background, without history. Hungry people. People who really
want
, and who know that with her, they can bloody well
get
. Nobody’s ever tried to replace a whole fucking
class
before, and the amazing thing is she might just do it if they don’t get her first. Theold class. The dead men. You follow what I’m saying.’ ‘I think so,’ Chamcha lied. ‘And it’s not just the businessmen,’ Valance said slurrily. ‘The intellectuals, too. Out with the whole faggoty crew. In with the hungry guys with the wrong education. New professors, new painters, the lot. It’s a bloody revolution. Newness coming into this country that’s stuffed full of fucking old
corpses
. It’s going to be something to see. It already is.’
    Baby wandered out to meet them, looking bored. ‘Time you were off, Chamcha,’ her husband commanded. ‘On Sunday afternoons we go to bed and watch pornography on video. It’s a whole new world, Saladin. Everybody has to join sometime.’
    No compromises. You’re in or you’re dead. It hadn’t been Chamcha’s way; not his, nor that of the England he had idolized and come to conquer. He should have understood then and there: he was being given, had been given, fair warning.
    And now the coup de grâce. ‘No hard feelings,’ Valance was murmuring into his ear. ‘See you around, eh? Okay, right.’
    ‘Hal,’ he made himself object, ‘I’ve got a contract.’
    Like a goat to the slaughter. The voice in his ear was now openly amused. ‘Don’t be silly,’ it told him. ‘Of course you haven’t. Read the small print. Get a
lawyer
to read the small print. Take me to court. Do what you have to do. It’s nothing to me. Don’t you get it? You’re history.’
    Dialling tone.

    Abandoned by one alien England, marooned within another, Mr Saladin Chamcha in his great dejection received news of an old companion who was evidently enjoying better fortunes. The shriek of his landlady –
‘Tini bénché achén!’ –
warned him that something was up. Hind was billowing along the corridors of the Shaandaar B and B, waving, it turned out, a current copy of the imported Indian fanzine
Ciné-Blitz
. Doors opened; temporary beings popped out, looking puzzled and alarmed. Mishal Sufyan emerged from her room with yards of midriff showing between shortie tank-top and 501s. From the office he maintained acrossthe hall, Hanif Johnson emerged in the incongruity of a sharp three-piece suit, was hit by the midriff and covered his face. ‘Lord have mercy,’ he prayed. Mishal ignored him and yelled after her mother: ‘What’s up? Who’s alive?’
    ‘Shameless from somewhere,’ Hind shouted back along the passage, ‘cover your nakedness.’
    ‘Fuck off,’ Mishal muttered under her breath, fixing mutinous eyes on Hanif Johnson. ‘What about the michelins sticking out between her sari and her choli, I want to know.’ Down at the other end of the passage, Hind could be seen in the half-light, thrusting
Ciné-Blitz
at the tenants, repeating, he’s alive. With all the fervour of those Greeks who, after the disappearance of the politician Lambrakis, covered the country with the whitewashed letter
Z. Zi: he lives
.
    ‘Who?’ Mishal demanded again.
    ‘Gibreel,’
came the cry of impermanent children.
‘Farishta bénché achén
.’ Hind, disappearing downstairs, did not observe her elder daughter returning to her room, – leaving the door ajar; – and being followed, when he was sure the coast was clear, by the well-known lawyer Hanif Johnson, suited and booted, who maintained this office to keep in touch with the grass roots, who was also doing well in a smart uptown practice, who was well