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

in a black hooded cloak, singing softly in a strong, low voice. <strong>Th</strong>e song is one that the women of Jahilia
chorus as they drum the men to war.
_Advance and we embrace you_,
_embrace you, embrace you_,
_advance and we embrace you_
_and soft carpets spread_.
_Turn back and we desert you_,
_we leave you, desert you_,
_retreat and we'll not love you_,
_not in love's bed_.
He recognizes Hind's voice, sits up, and finds himself naked beneath the creamy sheet. He calls to her:
"Was I attacked?" Hind turns to him, smiling her Hind smile. "Attacked?" she mimics him, and claps her
hands for breakfast. Minions enter, bring, serve, remove, scurry off. Mahound is helped into a silken robe of
black and gold; Hind, exaggeratedly, averts her eyes. "My head," he asks again. "Was I struck?" She
stands at the window, her head hung low, playing the demure maid. "Oh, Messenger, Messenger," she
mocks him. "What an ungallant Messenger it is. Couldn't you have come to my room consciously, of your
own will? No, of course not, I repel you, I'm sure." He will not play her game. "Am I a prisoner?" he asks,
and again she laughs at him. "Don't be a fool." And then, shrugging, relents: "I was walking the city streets
last night, masked, to see the festivities, and what should I stumble over but your unconscious body? Like
a drunk in the gutter, Mahound. I sent my servants for a litter and brought you <strong>home</strong>. Say thank you."
"<strong>Th</strong>ank you."
"I don't think you were recognized," she says. "Or you'd be dead, maybe. You know how the city was
last night. People overdo it. My own brothers haven't come <strong>home</strong> yet."
It comes back to him now, his wild anguished walk in the corrupt city, staring at the souls he had
supposedly saved, looking at the simurgh-effigies, the devil-masks, the behemoths and hippogriffs. <strong>Th</strong>e
fatigue of that long day on which he climbed down from Mount Cone, walked to the town, underwent the
strain of the events in the poetry marquee, -- and afterwards, the anger of the disciples, the doubt, -- the
whole of it had overwhelmed him. "I fainted," he remembers.
She comes and sits close to him on the bed, extends a finger, finds the gap in his robe, strokes his
chest. "Fainted," she murmurs. "<strong>Th</strong>at's weakness, Mahound. Are you becoming weak?"
She places the stroking finger over his lips before he can reply. "Don't say anything, Mahound. I am the
Grandee's wife, and neither of us is your friend. My husband, however, is a weak man. In Jahilia they think
he's cunning, but I know better. He knows I take lovers and he does nothing about it, because the temples
are in my family's care. Lat's, Uzza's, Manat's. <strong>Th</strong>e -- shall I call them _mosques?_ -- of your new angels."
She offers him melon cubes from a dish, tries to feed him with her fingers. He will not let her put the fruit
into his mouth, takes the pieces with his own hand, eats. She goes on. "My last lover was the boy, Baal."
She sees the rage on his face. "Yes," she says contentedly. "I heard he had got under your skin. But he
doesn't matter. Neither he nor Abu Simbel is your equal. But I am."
"I must go," he says. "Soon enough," she replies, returning to the window. At the perimeter of the city
they are packing away the tents, the long camel--trains are preparing to depart, convoys of carts are
already heading away across the desert; the carnival is over. She turns to him again.
"I am your equal," she repeats, "and also your opposite. I don't want you to become weak. You
shouldn't have done what you did."
"But you will profit," Mahound replies bitterly. "<strong>Th</strong>ere's no threat now to your temple revenues."
"You miss the point," she says softly, coming closer to him, bringing her face very close to his. "If you
are for Allah, I am for Al-Lat. And she doesn't believe your God when he recognizes her. Her opposition to
him is implacable, irrevocable, engulfing. <strong>Th</strong>e war between us cannot end in truce. And what a truce! Yours
is a patronizing, condescending lord. Al-Lat hasn't the slightest wish to be his daughter. She is his equal, as
I am yours. Ask BaaI: he knows her. As he knows me."
"So the Grandee will betray his pledge," Mahound says.