Rushdie, Salmon - Th.. - hudson's home on the web

"<strong>Th</strong>e servant's heart was true when seeing what he saw. Do you, then, dare to question what was
seen?
"I saw him also at the lote--tree of the uttermost end, near which lies the Garden of Repose. When that
tree was covered by its covering, my eye was not averted, neither did my gaze wander; and I saw some of
the greatest signs of the Lord."
At this point, without any trace of hesitation or doubt, he recites two further verses.
"Have you thought upon Lat and Uzza, and Manat, the third, the other?" -- After the first verse, Hind
gets to her feet; the Grandee of Jahilia is already standing very straight. And Mahound, with silenced eyes,
recites: "<strong>Th</strong>ey are the exalted birds, and their intercession is desired indeed."
As the noise -- shouts, cheers, scandal, cries of devotion to the goddess Al-Lat -- swells and bursts
within the marquee, the already astonished congregation beholds the doubly sensational spectacle of the
Grandee Abu Simbel placing his thumbs upon the lobes of his ears, fanning out the fingers of both hands
and uttering in a loud voice the formula: "Allahu Akbar." After which he falls to his knees and presses a
deliberate forehead to the ground. His wife, Hind, immediately follows his lead.
<strong>Th</strong>e water-carrier Khalid has remained by the open tent-flap throughout these events. Now he stares in
horror as everyone gathered there, both the crowd in the tent and the overflow of men and women outside
it, begins to kneel, row by row, the movement rippling outwards from Hind and the Grandee as though they
were pebbles thrown into a lake; until the entire gathering, outside the tent as well as in, kneels
bottom--in--air before the shuteye Prophet who has recognized the patron deities of the town. <strong>Th</strong>e
Messenger himself remains standing, as if loth to join the assembly in its devotions. Bursting into tears, the
water--carrier flees into the empty heart of the city of the sands. His teardrops, as he runs, burn holes in
the earth, as if they contain some harsh corrosive acid.
Mahound remains motionless. No trace of moisture can be detected on the lashes of his unopened eyes.
o o o
On that night of the desolating triumph of the businessman in the tent of the unbelievers, there take
place certain murders for which the first lady of Jahilia will wait years to take her terrible revenge.
<strong>Th</strong>e Prophet's uncle Hamza has been walking <strong>home</strong> alone, his head bowed and grey in the twilight of
that melancholy victory, when he hears a roar and looks up, to see a gigantic scarlet lion poised to leap at
him from the high battlements of the city. He knows this beast, this fable. _<strong>Th</strong>e iridescence of its scarlet
hide blends into the shimmering brightness of the desert sands. <strong>Th</strong>rough its nostrils it exhales the horror of
the lonely places of the earth. It spits out pestilence, and when armies venture into the desert, it consumes
them utterly_. <strong>Th</strong>rough the blue last light of evening he shouts at the beast, preparing, unarmed as he is,
to meet his death. "Jump, you bastard, manticore. I've strangled big cats with my bare hands, in my time."
When I was younger. When I was young.
<strong>Th</strong>ere is laughter behind him, and distant laughter echoing, or so it seems, from the battlements. He
looks around him; the manticore has vanished from the ramparts. He is surrounded by a group of Jahilians
in fancy dress, returning from the fair and giggling. "Now that these mystics have embraced our Lat, they
are seeing new gods round every corner, no?" Hamza, understanding that the night will be full of terrors,
returns <strong>home</strong> and calls for his battle sword. "More than anything in the world," he growls at the papery
valet who has served him in war and peace for forty-four years, "I hate admitting that my enemies have a
point. Damn sight better to kill the bastards, I've always thought. Neatest bloody solution." <strong>Th</strong>e sword has
remained sheathed in its leather scabbard since the day of his conversion by his nephew, but tonight, he
confides to the valet, "<strong>Th</strong>e lion is loose. Peace will have to wait."
It is the last night of the festival of Ibrahim. Jahilia is masquerade and madness. <strong>Th</strong>e oiled fatty bodies
of the wrestlers have completed their writhings and the seven poems have been nailed to the walls of the
House of the Black Stone. Now singing whores replace the poets, and dancing whores, also with oiled
bodies, are at work as well; night-wrestling replaces the daytime variety. <strong>Th</strong>e courtesans dance and sing in
golden, bird-beaked masks, and the gold is reflected in their clients' shining eyes. Gold, gold everywhere, in
the palms of the profiteering Jahilians and their libidinous guests, in the flaming sand--braziers, in the
glowing walls of the night city. Hamza walks dolorously through the streets of gold, past pilgrims who lie
unconscious while cutpurses earn their living. He hears the wine--blurred carousing through every
golden-gleaming doorway, and feels the song and howling laughter and coin-chinkings hurting him like
mortal insults. But he doesn't find what he's looking for, not here, so he moves away from the illuminated
revelry of gold and begins to stalk the shadows, hunting the apparition of the lion.
And finds, after hours of searching, what he knew would be waiting, in a dark corner of the city's outer
walls, the thing of his vision, the red manticore with the triple row of teeth. <strong>Th</strong>e manticorc has blue eyes
and a mannish face and its voice is half-- trumpet and half-flute. It is fast as the wind, its nails are