Free Shame by Salman Rushdie Page A

and engulf the planet in its brilliant cleansing fire.
The tribals who bore this tale into the bazaar of Q. were of the
opinion that the customs-wallah's fervour was so great that he
would undoubtedly succeed, so that it was worth making prepara-
tions for the end of the word.
    The last person to whom Omar Khayyam spoke before making
his escape from the town of shame was a certain Chand Moham-
mad who said afterwards, 'That fat guy didn't look so hot when I
started talking to him and he looked twice as sick when I fin-
ished.' This Chand Mohammad was a vendor of ice. As Omar
Khayyam, still unable to shake off the terribly debility which had
gripped him ever since the incident at the frontier, hauled his obe-
sity into a first-class carriage, Chand ran up and said, 'Hot day,
sahib. Ice is needed.' At first, Shakil, out of breath and gloomy,
told him, 'Be off and sell other fools your frozen water.' But
Chand persisted: 'Sahib, in the afternoon the Loo wind will blow,
and if you do not have my ice at your feet the heat will melt the
marrow out of your bones.'
    Persuaded by this convincing argument, Omar Khayyam pur-
chased a long tin tub, four feet long, eighteen inches wide, one
foot deep, in which there lay a solid slab of ice, sprinkled with
sawdust and sand to prolong its life. Grunting as he heaved it into
the carriage, the ice vendor made a joke. 'Such is life,' he said,
'one ice block returns to town and another sets off in the opposite
direction.'
    Escapes from the Mother Country ? 51
    Omar Khayyam unbuckled his sandals and placed his bare feet
on the ice, feeling the healing solace of its coldness. Peeling off
too many rupees for Chand Mohammad as he cheered up, he
asked idly, 'What rubbish are you talking? How can a block of ice
return unmelted after the journey? The tin tub, empty, or full of
melted water, you must be meaning that.'
    'O, no, sahib, great lord,' the ice-vendor grinned as he pock-
eted the cash, 'this is one ice block that goes everywhere without
melting at all.'
    Colour drained from fat cheeks. Plump feet jumped off ice.
Omar Khayyam, looking around fearfully as if he thought she
might materialize at any moment, spoke in tones so altered by fury
that the ice-vendor backed off, frightened. 'Her? When? You are
trying to insult . . . ?' He caught the ice-man by his ragged shirt,
and the poor wretch had no option but to tell it all, to reveal that
on this very train, a few hours back, Mrs Farah Rodrigues (nee
Zoroaster) had returned shamelessly to the scene of her infamy
and headed straight out to her father's frontier post, 'even
though he threw her in the street like a bucket of dirty water,
sahib, just think.'
    When Farah came back, she brought neither husband nor child.
Nobody ever found out what had become of Eduardo and the
baby for which he had sacrificed everything, so of course the sto-
ries could circulate without fear of disproof: a miscarriage, an
abortion in spite of Rodrigues's Catholic faith, the baby exposed
on a rock after birth, the baby stifled in its crib, the baby given to
the orphanage or left in the street, while Farah and Eduardo like
wild lovers copulated on the postcard beaches or in the aisle of the
vegetation-covered house of the Christian God, until they tired of
each other, she gave him the boot, he (tired of her lascivious flirt-
ings) gave her the boot, they gave each other simultaneous boots,
who cares who it was, she is back so lock up your sons.
    Farah Rodrigues in her pride spoke to no one in Q. except to
order food and supplies in the shops; until, in her old age, she
began to frequent the covert liquor joints, which was where she
    Shame ? 52
    would reminisce, years later, about Omar Khayyam, after his
name got into the papers. On her rare visits to the bazaar she made
her purchases without looking anyone in the eye, pausing only to
gaze at herself in every available mirror with a frank affection
which proved to