The Satanic Verses

deny the knowledge he sees there. ‘Wha,’ he begins, and gives up.
What are you going to do
? Fire is falling all around them now: a sizzle of golden rain. ‘Why’d you do it?’ Gibreel asks, then dismisses the question with a wave of the hand. ‘Damnfool thing to be asking. Might as well inquire, what possessed you to rush in here? Damnfool thing to do. People, eh, Spoono? Crazy bastards, that’s all.’
    Now there are pools of fire all around them. Soon they will be encircled, marooned in a temporary island amid this lethal sea. Chamcha is kicked a second time in the chest, and jerks violently. Facing three deaths – by fire, by ‘natural causes’, and by Gibreel – he strains desperately, trying to speak, but only croaks emerge. ‘Fa. Gur. Mmm.’
Forgive me
. ‘Ha. Pa.’
Have pity
. The café tables are burning. More beams fall from above. Gibreel seems to have fallen into a trance. He repeats, vaguely: ‘Bloody damnfool things.’
    Is it possible that evil is never total, that its victory, no matter how overwhelming, is never absolute?
    Consider this fallen man. He sought without remorse to shatter the mind of a fellow human being; and exploited, to do so, an entirely blameless woman, at least partly owing to his own impossible and voyeuristic desire for her. Yet this same man has risked death, with scarcely any hesitation, in a foolhardy rescue attempt.
    What does this mean?
    The fire has closed around the two men, and smoke is everywhere.It can only be a matter of seconds before they are overcome. There are more urgent questions to answer than the
damnfool
ones above.
    What choice will Farishta make?
    Does he have a choice?
    Gibreel lets fall his trumpet; stoops; frees Saladin from the prison of the fallen beam; and lifts him in his arms. Chamcha, with broken ribs as well as arms, groans feebly, sounding like the creationist Dumsday before he got a new tongue of choicest rump. ‘Ta. La.’
It’s too late
. A little lick of fire catches at the hem of his coat. Acrid black smoke fills all available space, creeping behind his eyes, deafening his ears, clogging his nose and lungs. – Now, however, Gibreel Farishta begins softly to exhale, a long, continuous exhalation of extraordinary duration, and as his breath blows towards the door it slices through the smoke and fire like a knife; – and Saladin Chamcha, gasping and fainting, with a mule inside his chest, seems to see – but will ever afterwards be unsure if it was truly so – the fire parting before them like the red sea it has become, and the smoke dividing also, like a curtain or a veil; until there lies before them a clear pathway to the door; – whereupon Gibreel Farishta steps quickly forward, bearing Saladin along the path of forgiveness into the hot night air; so that on a night when the city is at war, a night heavy with enmity and rage, there is this small redeeming victory for love.

    Conclusions.
    Mishal Sufyan is outside the Shaandaar when they emerge, weeping for her parents, being comforted by Hanif. – It is Gibreel’s turn to collapse; still carrying Saladin, he passes out at Mishal’s feet.
    Now Mishal and Hanif are in an ambulance with the two unconscious men, and while Chamcha has an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth Gibreel, suffering nothing worse than exhaustion, is talking in his sleep: a delirious babble about a magictrumpet and the fire that he blew, like music, from its mouth. – And Mishal, who remembers Chamcha as a devil, and has come to accept the possibility of many things, wonders: ‘Do you think – ?’ – But Hanif is definite, firm. ‘Not a chance. This is Gibreel Farishta, the actor, don’t you recognize? Poor guy’s just playing out some movie scene.’ Mishal won’t let it go. ‘But, Hanif,’ – and he becomes emphatic. Speaking gently, because she has just been orphaned, after all, he absolutely insists. ‘What has happened here in Brickhall tonight is a socio-political phenomenon. Let’s not fall into the trap of some damn mysticism. We’re talking about history: an event in the history of Britain. About the process of change.’
    At once Gibreel’s voice changes, and his subject-matter also. He mentions
pilgrims
, and a
dead baby
, and
like in ‘The Ten Commandments’
, and a
decaying mansion
, and a
tree;
because in the aftermath of the purifying fire he is dreaming, for the very last time, one of his serial dreams; – and Hanif says: ‘Listen, Mishu, darling. Just