The Satanic Verses

and beneath the eyes of sugarcane-juice vendors. ‘You have brought us all to the edges of extinction, but here is an unquestionable fact: the sea. Where is your angel now?’
    She climbed up, with the villagers’ help, on to an unused thela lying next to a soft-drink stall, and didn’t answer Saeed until she could look down at him from her new perch. ‘Gibreel says the sea is like our souls. When we open them, we can move through into wisdom. If we can open our hearts, we can open the sea.’
    ‘Partition was quite a disaster here on land,’ he taunted her. ‘Quite a few guys died, you might remember. You think it will be different in the water?’
    ‘Shh,’ said Ayesha suddenly. ‘The angel’s almost here.’
    It was, on the face of it, surprising that after all the attention the march had received the crowd at the beach was no better than moderate; but the authorities had taken many precautions, closing roads, diverting traffic; so there were perhaps two hundred gawpers on the beach. Nothing to worry about.
    What
was
strange was that the spectators did not see the butterflies,or what they did next. But Mirza Saeed clearly observed the great glowing cloud fly out over the sea; pause; hover; and form itself into the shape of a colossal being, a radiant giant constructed wholly of tiny beating wings, stretching from horizon to horizon, filling the sky.
    ‘The angel!’ Ayesha called to the pilgrims. ‘Now you see! He’s been with us all the way. Do you believe me now?’ Mirza Saeed saw absolute faith return to the pilgrims. ‘Yes,’ they wept, begging her forgiveness. ‘Gibreel! Gibreel! Ya Allah.’
    Mirza Saeed made his last effort. ‘Clouds take many shapes,’ he shouted. ‘Elephants, film stars, anything. Look, it’s changing even now.’ But nobody paid any attention to him; they were watching, full of amazement, as the butterflies dived into the sea.
    The villagers were shouting and dancing for joy. ‘The parting! The parting!’ they cried. Bystanders called out to Mirza Saeed: ‘Hey, mister, what are they getting so fired up about? We can’t see anything going on.’
    Ayesha had begun to walk towards the water, and Mishal was being dragged along by her two helpers. Saeed ran to her and began to struggle with the village men. ‘Let go of my wife. At once! Damn you! I am your zamindar. Release her; remove your filthy hands!’ But Mishal whispered: ‘They won’t. Go away, Saeed. You are closed. The sea only opens for those who are open.’
    ‘Mishal!’ he screamed, but her feet were already wet.
    Once Ayesha had entered the water the villagers began to run. Those who could not leapt upon the backs of those who could. Holding their babies, the mothers of Titlipur rushed into the sea; grandsons bore their grandmothers on their shoulders and rushed into the waves. Within minutes the entire village was in the water, splashing about, falling over, getting up, moving steadily forwards, towards the horizon, never looking back to shore. Mirza Saeed was in the water, too. ‘Come back,’ he beseeched his wife. ‘Nothing is happening; come back.’
    At the water’s edge stood Mrs Qureishi, Osman, the Sarpanch, Sri Srinivas. Mishal’s mother was sobbing operatically: ‘O mybaby, my baby. What will become?’ Osman said: ‘When it becomes clear that miracles don’t happen, they will turn back.’ ‘And the butterflies?’ Srinivas asked him, querulously. ‘What were they? An accident?’
    It dawned on them that the villagers were not coming back. ‘They must be nearly out of their depth,’ the Sarpanch said. ‘How many of them can swim?’ asked blubbering Mrs Qureishi. ‘Swim?’ shouted Srinivas. ‘Since when can village folk swim?’ They were all screaming at one another as if they were miles apart, jumping from foot to foot, their bodies willing them to enter the water, to do something. They looked as if they were dancing on a fire. The incharge of the police squad that had been sent down for crowd control purposes came up as Saeed came running out of the water.
    ‘What is befalling?’ the officer asked. ‘What is the agitation?’
    ‘Stop them,’ Mirza Saeed panted, pointing out to sea.
    ‘Are they miscreants?’ the policeman asked.
    ‘They are going to die,’ Saeed replied.
    It was too late. The villagers, whose heads could be seen bobbing about in the distance, had reached the edge of the underwater shelf. Almost all together, making no visible attempt to save