Free The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie Page B

than
others."
               
She had come into the fullness of her beauty, long hair left loose, and she was
no stick-figure these days. Five hours after she entered his dressing-room they
were in bed, and he passed out. When he awoke she explained "I slipped you
a mickey finn." He never worked out whether or not she had been telling
the truth.
               
Zeenat Vakil made Saladin her project. "The reclamation of," she
explained. "Mister, we're going to get you back." At times he thought
she intended to achieve this by eating him alive. She made love like a cannibal
and he was her long pork. "Did you know," he asked her, "of the
well-established connection between vegetarianism and the man-eating
impulse?" Zeeny, lunching on his naked thigh, shook her head. "In
certain extreme cases," he went on, "too much vegetable consumption
can release into the system biochemicals that induce cannibal fantasies."
She looked up and smiled her slanting smile. Zeeny, the beautiful vampire.
"Come off it," she said. "We are a nation of vegetarians, and
ours is a peaceful, mystical culture, everybody knows."
               
He, for his part, was required to handle with care. The first time he touched
her breasts she spouted hot astounding tears the colour and consistency of
buffalo milk. She had watched her mother die like a bird being carved for
dinner, first the left breast then the right, and still the cancer had spread.
Her fear of repeating her mother's death placed her chest off limits. Fearless
Zeeny's secret terror. She had never had a child but her eyes wept milk.
               
After their first lovemaking she started right in on him, the tears forgotten
now. "You know what you are, I'll tell you. A deserter is what, more
English than, your Angrez accent wrapped around you like a flag, and don't
think it's so perfect, it slips, baba, like a false moustache."
               
"There's something strange going on," he wanted to say, "my
voice," but he didn't know how to put it, and held his tongue.
               
"People like you," she snorted, kissing his shoulder. "You come
back after so long and think godknowswhat of yourselves. Well, baby, we got a
lower opinion of you." Her smile was brighter than Pamela's. "I
see," he said to her, "Zeeny, you didn't lose your Binaca
smile."
                Binaca . Where had that come from, the long forgotten toothpaste
advertisement? And the vowel sounds, distinctly unreliable. Watch out, Chamcha,
look out for your shadow. That black fellow creeping up behind.
               
On the second night she arrived at the theatre with two friends in tow, a young
Marxist film-maker called George Miranda, a shambling whale of a man with
rolled-up kurta sleeves, a flapping waistcoat bearing ancient stains, and a
surprisingly military moustache with waxed points; and Bhupen Gandhi, poet and
journalist, who had gone prematurely grey but whose face was baby-innocent
until he unleashed his sly, giggling laugh. "Come on, Salad baba,"
Zeeny announced. "We're going to show you the town." She turned to
her companions. "These Asians from foreign got no shame," she
declared. "Saladin, like a bloody lettuce, I ask you."
               
"There was a TV reporter here some days back," George Miranda said.
"Pink hair. She said her name was Kerleeda. I couldn't work it out."
               
"Listen, George is too unworldly," Zeeny interrupted. "He
doesn't know what freaks you guys turn into. That Miss Singh, outrageous. I
told her, the name's Khalida, dearie, rhymes with Dalda, that's a cooking
medium. But she couldn't say it. Her own name. Take me to your kerleader. You
types got no culture. Just wogs now. Ain't it the truth?" she added, suddenly
gay and round-eyed, afraid she'd gone too far. "Stop bullying him,
Zeenat," Bhupen Gandhi said in his quiet voice. And George, awkwardly,
mumbled: "No offence, man.