Read Online East, West by Salman Rushdie - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Salman Rushdie
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non-communication, the Gale I adore is not entirely a real person. The real Gale has become confused with my re-imagining of her, with my private elaboration of our continuing life together in an alternative universe devoid of ape-men. The real Gale may by now be beyond our grasp, ineffable.
I caught a glimpse of her recently. She was at the far end of a long, dark, subterranean bar-room guarded by freelance commandos bearing battlefield nuclear weapons. There were Polynesian snacks on the counter and beers from the Pacific rim on tap: Kirin, Tsingtao, Swan.
At that time many television channels were devoted to the sad case of the astronaut stranded on Mars without hope of rescue, and with diminishing supplies of food and breathable air. Official spokesmen told us of the persuasive arguments for the abrupt cancellation of the space exploration budget. We found these arguments powerful; influential voices complained ofthe sentimentality of the images of the dying spaceman. Nevertheless, the cameras inside his marooned craft continued to send us poignant pictures of his slow descent into despair, his low-gravity, weight-reduced death.
I watched my cousin Gale as she watched the bar’s TV. She did not see me watching her, did not know that she had become my chosen programme.
The condemned man on another planet – the condemned man on TV – began to sing a squawky medley of half-remembered songs. I was reminded of the dying computer, Hal, in the old film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hal sang ‘Daisy, Daisy’ as it was being unplugged.
The Martian – for he was now a permanent resident of that planet – offered us his spaced-out renditions of ‘Swanee’, ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’ and several numbers from The Wizard of Oz ; and Gale’s shoulders began to shake. She was crying.
I did not go across to comfort her.
I first heard about the upcoming auction of the ruby slippers the very next morning, and resolved at once to buy them, whatever the cost. My plan was simple: I would offer the miracle-shoes to Gale in all humility. If she wished, I would say, she could use them to travel to Mars and bring the spaceman back to Earth.
Perhaps I might even click the heels together three times, and win back her heart by murmuring, in soft reminder of our wasted love, There’s no place like home.
You laugh at my desperation. Ha! Go tell a drowning man not to clutch at straws. Go ask a dying astronaut not to sing. Come here and stand in my shoes. What was it the Cowardly Lion said? Put ’em up. Put ’em uuuuup. I’ll fight you with one hand tied behind my back. I’ll fight you with my eyes closed.
Scared, huh? Scared?
The Grand Saleroom of the Auctioneers is the beating heart of the earth. If you stand here for long enough all the wonders of the world will pass by. In the Grand Saleroom, in recent years, we have witnessed the auction of the Taj Mahal, the Statue of Liberty, the Alps, the Sphinx. We have assisted at the sale of wives and the purchase of husbands. State secrets have been sold here, openly, to the highest bidder. On one very special occasion, the Auctioneers presided over the sale, to an overheated and inter-denominational bunch of smouldering red demons, of a wide selection of human souls of all classes, qualities, ages, races and creeds.
Everything is for sale, and under the firm yet essentiallybenevolent supervision of the Auctioneers, their security dogs and SWAT teams, we engage in a battle of wits and wallets, a war of nerves.
There is a purity about our actions here, and also an aesthetically pleasing tension between the vast complexity of the life that turns up, packaged into lots, to go under the hammer, and the equally immense simplicity of our manner of dealing with this life.
We bid, the Auctioneers knock a lot down, we pass on.
All are equal before the justice of the gavels: the pavement artist and Michelangelo, the slave girl and the Queen.
This is the courtroom of demand.
They are
I caught a glimpse of her recently. She was at the far end of a long, dark, subterranean bar-room guarded by freelance commandos bearing battlefield nuclear weapons. There were Polynesian snacks on the counter and beers from the Pacific rim on tap: Kirin, Tsingtao, Swan.
At that time many television channels were devoted to the sad case of the astronaut stranded on Mars without hope of rescue, and with diminishing supplies of food and breathable air. Official spokesmen told us of the persuasive arguments for the abrupt cancellation of the space exploration budget. We found these arguments powerful; influential voices complained ofthe sentimentality of the images of the dying spaceman. Nevertheless, the cameras inside his marooned craft continued to send us poignant pictures of his slow descent into despair, his low-gravity, weight-reduced death.
I watched my cousin Gale as she watched the bar’s TV. She did not see me watching her, did not know that she had become my chosen programme.
The condemned man on another planet – the condemned man on TV – began to sing a squawky medley of half-remembered songs. I was reminded of the dying computer, Hal, in the old film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hal sang ‘Daisy, Daisy’ as it was being unplugged.
The Martian – for he was now a permanent resident of that planet – offered us his spaced-out renditions of ‘Swanee’, ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’ and several numbers from The Wizard of Oz ; and Gale’s shoulders began to shake. She was crying.
I did not go across to comfort her.
I first heard about the upcoming auction of the ruby slippers the very next morning, and resolved at once to buy them, whatever the cost. My plan was simple: I would offer the miracle-shoes to Gale in all humility. If she wished, I would say, she could use them to travel to Mars and bring the spaceman back to Earth.
Perhaps I might even click the heels together three times, and win back her heart by murmuring, in soft reminder of our wasted love, There’s no place like home.
You laugh at my desperation. Ha! Go tell a drowning man not to clutch at straws. Go ask a dying astronaut not to sing. Come here and stand in my shoes. What was it the Cowardly Lion said? Put ’em up. Put ’em uuuuup. I’ll fight you with one hand tied behind my back. I’ll fight you with my eyes closed.
Scared, huh? Scared?
The Grand Saleroom of the Auctioneers is the beating heart of the earth. If you stand here for long enough all the wonders of the world will pass by. In the Grand Saleroom, in recent years, we have witnessed the auction of the Taj Mahal, the Statue of Liberty, the Alps, the Sphinx. We have assisted at the sale of wives and the purchase of husbands. State secrets have been sold here, openly, to the highest bidder. On one very special occasion, the Auctioneers presided over the sale, to an overheated and inter-denominational bunch of smouldering red demons, of a wide selection of human souls of all classes, qualities, ages, races and creeds.
Everything is for sale, and under the firm yet essentiallybenevolent supervision of the Auctioneers, their security dogs and SWAT teams, we engage in a battle of wits and wallets, a war of nerves.
There is a purity about our actions here, and also an aesthetically pleasing tension between the vast complexity of the life that turns up, packaged into lots, to go under the hammer, and the equally immense simplicity of our manner of dealing with this life.
We bid, the Auctioneers knock a lot down, we pass on.
All are equal before the justice of the gavels: the pavement artist and Michelangelo, the slave girl and the Queen.
This is the courtroom of demand.
They are
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