The Satanic Verses

‘that ol’ devil music’, leading women into lingerie and lip-gloss and men into temptation. Now he owned record stores all over town, a successful nightclub called Hot Wax, and a store full of gleaming musical instruments that was his special pride and joy. He was an Indian from Guyana, ‘but there’s nothing left in that place, sir. People are leaving it faster than planes can fly.’ He had made good in quick time, ‘by the grace of God Almighty. I’m a regular Sunday man, sir; I confess to a weakness for the English Hymnal, and I sing to raise the roof.’
    The autobiography was concluded with a brief mention of the existence of a wife and some dozen children. Gibreel offered his congratulations and hoped for silence, but now Maslama dropped his bombshell. ‘You don’t need to tell me about yourself,’ he said jovially. ‘Naturally I know who you are, even if one does notexpect to see such a personage on the Eastbourne–Victoria line.’ He winked leeringly and placed a finger alongside his nose. ‘Mum’s the word. I respect a man’s privacy, no question about it; no question at all.’
    ‘I? Who am I?’ Gibreel was startled into absurdity. The other nodded weightily, his eyebrows waving like soft antlers. ‘The prize question, in my opinion. These are problematic times, sir, for a moral man. When a man is unsure of his essence, how may he know if he be good or bad? But you are finding me tedious. I answer my own questions by my faith in It, sir,’ – here Maslama pointed to the ceiling of the railway compartment – ‘and of course you are not in the least confused about your identity, for you are the famous, the may I say legendary Mr Gibreel Farishta, star of screen and, increasingly, I’m sorry to add, of pirate video; my twelve children, one wife and I are all long-standing, unreserved admirers of your divine heroics.’ He grabbed, and pumped Gibreel’s right hand.
    ‘Tending as I do towards the pantheistic view,’ Maslama thundered on, ‘my own sympathy for your work arises out of your willingness to portray deities of every conceivable water. You, sire, are a rainbow coalition of the celestial; a walking United Nations of gods! You are, in short, the future. Permit me to salute you.’ He was beginning to give off the unmistakable odour of the genuine crazy, and even though he had not yet said or done anything beyond the merely idiosyncratic, Gibreel was getting alarmed and measuring the distance to the door with anxious little glances. ‘I incline, sir,’ Maslama was saying, ‘towards the opinion that whatever name one calls It by is no more than a code; a cypher, Mr Farishta, behind which the true name lies concealed.’
    Gibreel remained silent, and Maslama, making no attempt to hide his disappointment, was obliged to speak for him. ‘What is that true name, I hear you inquire,’ he said, and then Gibreel knew he was right; the man was a full-fledged lunatic, and his autobiography was very likely as much of a concoction as his ‘faith’. Fictions were walking around wherever he went, Gibreel reflected, fictions masquerading as real human beings. ‘I havebrought him upon me,’ he accused himself. ‘By fearing for my own sanity I have brought forth, from God knows what dark recess, this voluble and maybe dangerous nut.’
    ‘You don’t know it!’ Maslama yelled suddenly, jumping to his feet. ‘Charlatan! Poser! Fake! You claim to be the screen immortal, avatar of a hundred and one gods, and you haven’t a
foggy
! How is it possible that I, a poor boy made good from Bartica on the Essequibo, can know such things while Gibreel Farishta does not? Phoney! Phooey to you!’
    Gibreel got to his feet, but the other was filling almost all the available standing room, and he, Gibreel, had to lean over awkwardly to one side to escape Maslama’s windmilling arms, one of which knocked off his grey trilby. At once Maslama’s mouth fell open. He seemed to shrink several inches, and after a few frozen moments, he fell to his knees with a thud.
    What’s he doing down there, Gibreel wondered, picking up my hat? But the madman was begging for forgiveness. ‘I never doubted you would come,’ he was saying. ‘Pardon my clumsy rage.’ The train entered a tunnel, and Gibreel saw that they were surrounded by a warm golden light that was coming from a point just behind his head. In the glass of the sliding door, he saw the reflection of the halo around his hair.
    Maslama was