The Satanic Verses

do that the waters will part for them.’ Mirza Saeed’s voice sounded weak, and the Inspector, Chatnapatna’s Station Head Officer, was unconvinced. ‘Are you serious, ji?’ Mirza Saeed said: ‘Not me.
They
, but, are serious as hell. I’m planning to change their minds before anything crazy happens.’ The SHO, all straps, moustachioes and self-importance, shook his head. ‘But, see here, sir, how can I permit so many individuals to congregate on the street? Tempers can be inflamed; incident is possible.’ Just then the crowd of pilgrims parted and Srinivas saw for the first time the fantastic figure of the girl dressed entirely in butterflies, with snowy hair flowing down as far as her ankles. ‘Arré deo,’ he shouted, ‘Ayesha, is it you?’ And added, foolishly: ‘Then where are my Family Planning dolls?’
    His outburst was ignored; everybody was watching Ayesha as she approached the puff-chested SHO. She said nothing, but smiled and nodded, and the fellow seemed to grow twenty years younger, until in the manner of a boy of ten or eleven he said, ‘Okay okay, mausi. Sorry, ma. No offence. I beg your pardon, please.’ That was the end of the police trouble. Later that day, in the afternoon heat, a group of town youths known to have RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad connections began throwing stones from nearby rooftops; whereupon the Station Head Officer had them arrested and in jail in two minutes flat.
    ‘Ayesha, daughter,’ Srinivas said aloud to the empty air, ‘what the hell happened to you?’
    During the heat of the day the pilgrims rested in whatever shade they could find. Srinivas wandered among them in a kind of daze, filled up with emotion, realizing that a great turning-point in his life had unaccountably arrived. His eyes kept searching outthe transformed figure of Ayesha the seer, who was resting in the shade of a pipal-tree in the company of Mishal Akhtar, her mother Mrs Qureishi, and the lovesick Osman with his bullock. Eventually Srinivas bumped into the zamindar Mirza Saeed, who was stretched out on the back seat of his Mercedes-Benz, unsleeping, a man in torment. Srinivas spoke to him with a humbleness born of his wonderment. ‘Sethji, you don’t believe in the girl?’
    ‘Srinivas,’ Mirza Saeed sat up to reply, ‘we are modern men. We know, for instance, that old people die on long journeys, that God does not cure cancer, and that oceans do not part. We have to stop this idiocy. Come with me. Plenty of room in the car. Maybe you can help to talk them out of it; that Ayesha, she’s grateful to you, perhaps she’ll listen.’
    ‘To come in the car?’ Srinivas felt helpless, as though mighty hands were gripping his limbs. ‘There is my business, but.’
    ‘This is a suicide mission for many of our people,’ Mirza Saeed urged him. ‘I need help. Naturally I could pay.’
    ‘Money is no object,’ Srinivas retreated, affronted. ‘Excuse, please, Sethji. I must consider.’
    ‘Don’t you see?’ Mirza Saeed shouted after him. ‘We are not communal people, you and I. Hindu-Muslim bhai-bhai! We can open up a secular front against this mumbo-jumbo.’
    Srinivas turned back. ‘But I am not an unbeliever,’ he protested. ‘The picture of goddess Lakshmi is always on my wall.’
    ‘Wealth is an excellent goddess for a businessman,’ Mirza Saeed said.
    ‘And in my heart,’ Srinivas added. Mirza Saeed lost his temper. ‘But goddesses, I swear. Even your own philosophers admit that these are abstract concepts only. Embodiments of shakti which is itself an abstract notion: the dynamic power of the gods.’
    The toy merchant was looking down at Ayesha as she slept under her quilt of butterflies. ‘I am no philosopher, Sethji,’ he said. And did not say that his heart had leapt into his mouth because he had realized that the sleeping girl and the goddess in the calendar on his factory wall had the identical, same-to-same, face.

    When the pilgrimage left town, Srinivas accompanied it, turning a deaf ear to the entreaties of his wild-haired wife who picked up Minoo and shook her in her husband’s face. He explained to Ayesha that while he did not wish to visit Mecca he had been seized by a longing to walk with her a while, perhaps even as far as the sea.
    As he took his place among the Titlipur villagers and fell into step with the man next to him, he observed with a mixture of incomprehension and awe that infinite butterfly swarm over their heads, like a gigantic