The Satanic Verses

and the lovers rushed apart; now Don Enrique drew his small pistol and aimed at his rival’s heart, –
    – and he felt Aurora stabbing him in the heart, over and over, this is for Juan, and this is for abandoning me, and this is for your grand English whore, –
    – and he felt his victim’s knife entering his heart, as Rosa stabbed him, once, twice, and again, –
    – and after Henry’s bullet had killed him the Englishman took the dead man’s knife and stabbed him, many times, in the bleeding wound.
    Gibreel, screaming loudly, lost consciousness at this point.
    When he regained his senses the old woman in the bed was speaking to herself, so softly that he could barely make out the words. ‘The pampero came, the south-west wind, flattening the thistles. That’s when they found him, or was it before.’ The last of the story. How Aurora del Sol spat in Rosa Diamond’s face at the funeral of Martín de la Cruz. How it was arranged that nobody was to be charged for the murder, on condition that Don Enrique took Doña Rosa and returned to England with all speed. How they boarded the train at the Los Alamos station and the men inwhite suits stood on the platform, wearing borsalino hats, making sure they really left. How, once the train had started moving, Rosa Diamond opened the holdall on the seat beside her, and said defiantly,
I brought something. A little souvenir
. And unwrapped a cloth bundle to reveal a gaucho’s silver-hafted knife.
    ‘Henry died the first winter home. Then nothing happened. The war. The end.’ She paused. ‘To diminish into this, after being in that vastness. It isn’t to be borne.’ And, after a further silence: ‘Everything shrinks.’
    There was a change in the moonlight, and Gibreel felt a weight lifting from him, so rapidly that he thought he might float up towards the ceiling. Rosa Diamond lay still, eyes closed, her arms resting on the patchwork counterpane. She looked:
normal
. Gibreel realized that there was nothing to prevent him from walking out of the door.
    He made his way downstairs carefully, his legs still a little unsteady; found the heavy gabardine overcoat that had once belonged to Henry Diamond, and the grey felt trilby inside which Don Enrique’s name had been sewn by his wife’s own hand; and left, without looking back. The moment he got outside a wind snatched his hat and sent it skipping down the beach. He chased it, caught it, jammed it back on.
London shareef, here I come
. He had the city in his pocket: Geographers’ London, the whole dog-eared metropolis, A to Z.
    ‘What to do?’ he was thinking. ‘Phone or not phone? No, just turn up, ring the bell and say, baby, your wish came true, from sea bed to your bed, takes more than a plane crash to keep me away from you. – Okay, maybe not quite, but words to that effect. – Yes. Surprise is the best policy. Allie Bibi, boo to you.’
    Then he heard the singing. It was coming from the old boathouse with the one-eyed pirate painted on the outside, and the song was foreign, but familiar: a song that Rosa Diamond had often hummed, and the voice, too, was familiar, although a little different, less quavery;
younger
. The boathouse door was unaccountably unlocked, and banging in the wind. He went towards the song.
    ‘Take your coat off,’ she said. She was dressed as she had been on the day of the white island: black skirt and boots, white silk blouse, hatless. He spread the coat on the boathouse floor, its bright scarlet lining glowing in the confined, moonlit space. She lay down amid the random clutter of an English life, cricket stumps, a yellowed lampshade, chipped vases, a folding table, trunks; and extended an arm towards him. He lay down by her side.
    ‘How can you like me?’ she murmured. ‘I am so much older than you.’

3

    W hen they pulled his pyjamas down in the windowless police van and he saw the thick, tightly curled dark hair covering his thighs, Saladin Chamcha broke down for the second time that night; this time, however, he began to giggle hysterically, infected, perhaps, by the continuing hilarity of his captors. The three immigration officers were in particularly high spirits, and it was one of these – the popeyed fellow whose name, it transpired, was Stein – who had ‘debagged’ Saladin with a merry cry of, ‘Opening time, Packy; let’s see what you’re made of!’ Red-and-white stripes were dragged off the protesting Chamcha, who was reclining on the floor of the