Shame by Salman Rushdie

Godlessness, for had they not allied themselves by this infamous
act of correspondence with a slut who cracked jokes about prayer?
'Behold,' Ibadalla yelled energetically as Omar Khayyam touched
the ground, 'there stands the Devil's seed.'
    There now occurred an unfortunate incident. Ibadalla, incensed
by the Azra business, had spoken up first, thus incurring the dis-
pleasure of his patron Maulana Dawood, a loss of divine support
which ruined the postman's chance of future promotion and
intensified his hatred of all Shakils; because of course the Maulana
thought it his right to begin the assault on the poor, fat, prema-
turely-pubescent symbol of incarnate sin. In an attempt to regain
the initiative Dawood flung himself to his knees in the dust
at Omar's feet; he ground his forehead ecstatically into the dirt by
Omar's toes, and called out: 'O God! O scourging Lord! Bring
down upon this human abomination Thy sizzling fountain of fire!'
Etcetera. This grotesque display greatly irritated the three who had
kept the original vigil. 'Whose husband died for a dumb-waiter?'
Farida Balloch hissed to her friend. 'That shouting oldie's? Then
who should be speaking now?' Her brother Bilal did not stop for
speech; rope of shoes in hand, he strode forward, bellowing in
that stentorian voice that was almost the equal of the fabled voice
of his namesake, that first, black Bilal, the Prophet's muezzin:
'Boy! Flesh of infamy! Think yourself lucky I do no more than
this! You think I couldn't squash you flat like one mosquito?' � And
in the background, like raucous echoes, urchins washerwomen
clerks were chanting: 'Devil's seed! - Fountain of fire! - Whose
husband died? - Like one mosquito!' - They were all closing in,
Ibadalla and Maulana and three vengeful vigilantes, while Omar
stood like a cobra-hypnotized mongoose, but all around him
things were unfreezing, the twelve-year-old, suspended prejudices
of the town were springing back to life . . . and Bilal could wait
no longer, he rushed up to the boy as Dawood prostrated himself
for the seventeenth time; the garland of shoes was hurled in
Omar's direction; and just then the Maulana straightened up to
    Shame ? 38
    howl at God, interposing scrawny gizzard between insulting
footwear and its target, and there, next thing anyone knew, was
the fateful necklace, hanging around the divine's accidental neck.
    Omar Khayyam began to giggle: such can be the effects of fear.
And urchins giggled with him; even the widow Balloch had to
fight back the laughter until it came out as water from her eyes. In
those days, people were not so keen on the servants of God as we
are told they have become at present . . . Maulana Dawood rose
up with murder in his face. Being no fool, however, he quickly
turned this face away from the giant Bilal and reached out his
claws for Omar Khayyam - who was saved by the blessed figure,
shouldering its way through the mob, of Mr Eduardo Rodrigues,
schoolmaster, who had arrived as arranged to fetch the new pupil
to class. And with Rodrigues was a vision of such joy that moon-
struck Khayyam at once forgot the danger that had come so close.
'This is Farah,' Rodrigues told him, 'she is two standards senior to
you.' The vision looked at Omar; then at the shoe-necked
Maulana, who in his rage had neglected to remove the garland;
then put back its head and roared.
    'God, yaar,' she said to Omar, her first word a casual blas-
phemy, 'why you didn't sit on at home? This town was already
full of fools.'
    3
    Melting Ice
    Cool, white as a refrigerator, it stood amidst offensively green
lawns: the Cantonment School. In its gardens trees also
flourished, because the Angrez sahibs had diverted large quantities
of the region's sparse water supplies into the hoses with which the
Cantt gardeners strolled around all day. It was clear that those
curious grey beings from a wet northern world could not sur-
vive unless grass and bougainvillaea