Shalimar the Clown

by Salman Rushdie

  The first phone call set that up. The second was a gamble. But the Malaysian intermediary’s phone number was a real number, and was answered by a voice that spoke and understood Arabic, and the codes he had been given seemed to mean something, the message he needed to send was accepted for transmission, and an instruction was given in return. But nothing could be done until he crossed the Line of Control. As things turned out, however, that wasn’t his biggest problem. The passeur showed up and did his work on the Indian side of the LoC and the fighter he thought of as the doorway, the militant known as Dar, whom he called Naked Mountain, was waiting for him across the line with a group of hoodlums who didn’t seem pleased to see him. “I’m sorry,” Naked Mountain said in Kashmiri, “but you know how it goes.” This was Shalimar the clown’s last human contact with his old life. He was blindfolded and taken for debriefing in a windowless room where he was tied to a chair and invited to explain how it was that he alone had survived the massacre at Shirmal, and to give his intelligence interlocutors one good reason why he should not be thought of as a dirty traitorous asshole and shot within the hour. Blindfolded, not knowing the name of his interrogator, he spoke the coded phrase he had been given on the satphone and there was a long silence in the room. Then the interrogator left and after several hours another man entered. “Okay, it checks out,” the second man said. “You’re a lucky bastard, you know that? Our plan was to cut off your balls and stuff them between your teeth but it seems you have friends in high places, and if the ustadz wants you alongside him then that, my friend, is exactly where you will go.”

  After that the real world ceased to exist for Shalimar the clown. He entered the phantom world of the run. In the phantom world there were business suits and commercial aircraft, and he was passed from hand to hand like a package. At one point he was in Kuala Lumpur but that was just an airport and a hotel room and then an airport again. At the far end of the phantom run there were place-names that meant next to nothing: Zamboanga, Lamitan, Maluso, Isabela. There were several boats. Around the main Basilan island there were sixty-one smaller islands and on one of these, a part of the Pilas group, he emerged from the phantom world in a palm-thatched stilt-house in a village smelling of tuna and sardines, and was greeted by a familiar face. “So, godless man,” the ustadz said in his bad, cheerful Hindi, “as you see I am back to fisherman again, but also—right? right?—one pretty good fisher of men.”

  Abdurajak Janjalani had wealthy backers but his Abu Sayyaf group was in its infancy. There were less than six hundred fighters in all. “So, my friend, we need good fighter killer like you.” The plan was simple. “Everywhere in Basilan and western Mindanao we ambush Christians, we bomb Christians, we burn Christian business, we kidnap Christian tourists for ransom, we execute Christian soldiers, and then we ambush them some more. In between we show you good time. Land of plenty! Plenty fish, plenty rubber, plenty corn, plenty palm oil, plenty pepper, plenty coconut, plenty women, plenty music, plenty Christians to take it all and leave nothing for plenty Muslim. Plenty language. Want to learn? Chavacano, sort of Spanish. Also Yakan, Tausug, Samal, Cebuano, Tagalog. Forget it, never mind. Now we bring our new language. In our language few words are needed. Ambush, bomb, kidnap, ransom, execute. No more mister nice guy! We are the Bearers of the Sword.” They were eating mackerel and rice in the fisherman’s hut. The ustadz leaned in close. “I know you, my friend. I remember your quest. But how will you find your quarry? He knows the secret world, and the world, also, is large.” Shalimar the clown shrugged. “Maybe he will find me,” he said. “Maybe God will bring him to me for justice.” Janjalani laughed merrily. “Godless fighter killer, you are funny man.” His voice dropped. “Fight with me one year. What else is there for you? We will try to find him. Who knows? The world is full of ears. Maybe we are fortunate.”

  Exactly one year later—one year to the day!—they were in Latuan, to the east of Isabela, and had just finished burning a rubber plantation called Timothy da Cruz Filipinas. Against an apocalyptic backdrop of flame Abdurajak Janjalani turned to him wearing a red and white Palestinian keffiyeh and the sudden glory of his big smile. “Wonderful news! My friend! I keep my word.” Shalimar the clown took the envelope the ustadz was holding out. “The ambassador, no?” Janjalani grinned. “His picture, his name, his home address. Now we will send you on your mission. Look inside, look inside! Los Angeles, my friend! Hollywood and Vine! Malibu Colony! Beverly Hills 90210! We will send you to become big big movie star and soon to be kissing American girls on TV and driving fancy motorcars and making stupid thank-you speech at Oscars! I am man of my word, don’t you agree?”

  Shalimar the clown looked at the envelope. “How did you do this?” he asked. Janjalani shrugged. “Like I say. Maybe we got lucky. Filipinos are everywhere, with eyes to see and ears to hear.” A thought struck Shalimar the clown. “How long have you known? You’ve known all along, haven’t you?” Ustadz Abdurajak Janjalani pretended to look remorseful. “My friend! Fighter killer! Please forgive. I needed you for one year. Thank you! This was the deal. And now I send you where you need to go. Thank you! Our stories touched. Okay. It’s enough. This is my good-bye gift.”

  And after another plunge into the phantom world, after boats, cars and planes, after a Canadian border crossing by helicopter shuttle from Vancouver to Seattle and a bus ride south, after a strange assignation at the IHOP on Sunset and Highland with his local contact, a middle-aged Filipino gentleman sporting slicked-down hair and a silk smoking jacket, after a night’s sleep in a downtown flophouse across the street from the Million Dollar Hotel, he stood in his business suit outside high gates on Mulholland Drive and spoke open-sesame words into an entry-phone. I am for Ambassador Max and my name is Shalimar the clown. No, sir, not tradesman. Sir, I am not understanding. You please to inform Ambassador Max, sir, wait on sir, sir, please, sir. And on the second day, again, the speech to the unnamed voice, the hostile, aloof, dismissive voice, the voice of security, taking no risks, considering the worst-case scenario, taking steps. On the third day there were dogs on the other side of the gate. Sir, he said, no dogs, please. I am known to Ambassador Max. No trouble, sir, please. Only please to inform Excellency and I will wait on his pleasure.

  He slept in the rough grasses below the road’s rim, keeping out of sight of the cruising patrol cars. He was trained in many things. He could have caught the dogs by their jaws and ripped their heads in half. He could have faced the security voice and shown it some tricks, could have forced it to roll over like a dog and play dead like a dog. It was a dog’s voice and its owner could be killed like a dog. But he controlled himself, was humble, supplicant, mild. When the ambassador’s Bentley came out through the gates on the fourth day Shalimar the clown rose into view. Security guards raised their weapons but he had a woollen Kashmiri hat in his hands, his head was bowed and his demeanor was worshipful and sad. The window of the car came down and there was the target, Ambassador Max, old now but still the man he wanted, his prey. One’s prey can be hunted in many ways. Some of these are stealthy. Who are you, the ambassador was saying, why do you keep coming here. Sir, he said, my name is Shalimar the clown and once in Kashmir you met my wife. She danced for you. Anarkali. Yes, sir, Shalimar. Yes, sir, Boonyi, my wife. No, sir, I don’t want trouble. What’s done is done. No, sir, unfortunately she is deceased. Yes, sir. Some while back. Sad, yes, sir, very sad. Life is short and full of sorrow. Yes, sir, thank you for asking. I am happy to be here in land of frees home of braves. Only I am in need of employment. This, for her sake, sir, I ask. Sir, if you are able, for love. God bless you, sir. I will not disappoint.

  Come tomorrow, the ambassador said. We’ll talk then. He bowed his head and backed off. On the fifth day he buzzed again. I am for Ambassador Max and my name is Shalimar the clown.

  The gates opened.

  He was more than a driver. He was a valet, a body servant, the ambassador’s shadow-self. There were no limits to his willingness to serve. He wanted to draw the am
bassador close, as close as a lover. He wanted to know his true face, his strengths and weaknesses, his secret dreams. To know as intimately as possible the life he planned to terminate with maximum brutality. There was no hurry. There was time.

  He knew the ambassador had a wife, from whom he was estranged. He knew there was a daughter who had been raised by the wife but now lived in Los Angeles also. Mr. Khadaffy Andang, the odd-looking Filipino gentleman, was a connection of the ustadz’s connections, a long-term sleeper planted in California by the operatives of the Base, and had been activated by the Sheikh at the ustadz’s request, to assist Shalimar the clown. By chance, or divine intervention, the sleeper resided in the same apartment building as the Ophuls girl. He talked to her at the laundry machines and his gentle courteous old-world manner put her at her ease. This was how the information about the ambassador had come to light. This was the way of the world. Sometimes your heart’s desire hung from the highest branch of the highest tree and you could never climb high enough to reach it. Or else you just waited patiently and it fell into your lap.

  The ambassador kept no framed photographs of his family on his desk. That was his preference, to be low key in family matters. Then it was his daughter’s birthday and the ambassador sent him up to her apartment with flowers. When he saw her, when those green eyes speared him, he began to tremble. The flowers shook in his hands and she took them quickly from him, looking amused. In the elevator he couldn’t take his eyes off her until she saw him staring and then he dragged his gaze away and forced himself to look down at the floor. She spoke to him. His heart pounded. The voice was incredible. It was the ambassador’s voice on the surface but beneath the English words he could hear a voice he knew. He was from Kashmir, he said, answering her question. He made his English sound worse than it was, to prevent a conversation from beginning. He couldn’t speak to her. He could barely speak. He wanted to reach out to her. He didn’t know what he wanted. She let her hair down and there were tears in his eyes. He watched her drive away with her father and all he could think was, She’s alive. He didn’t know what he wanted. She was living in America now and by some miracle she was twenty-four years old again, mocking him with her emerald eyes, she was the same and not the same, but she was still alive.

  He had warned Boonyi against leaving him. In Khelmarg long ago he promised her, “I’ll never forgive you. I’ll have my revenge. I’ll kill you and if you have any children by another man I’ll kill the children too.” And here now was that child, the child she had concealed from him until the end, the child in whom the mother was reborn. How beautiful she was. He would love her if he still knew how to love. But he had forgotten the way. All he knew now was slaughter. I’ll kill the children too.

  What was justice, the old ladies chorused, the toothless old ladies from Croatia, Georgia, Uzbekistan, the widows in their dark cassocks swaying in slow unison with Olga Volga the house super naked at their head, grinding her hips, rotating her lumpy white body like a giant peeled potato, there was no justice, the women keened, your husbands died, your children abandoned you, your fathers were murdered, there was no justice but revenge.

  After a while India Ophuls didn’t even have to be asleep to see the dream, it came to her whenever she closed her eyes, whenever she sat stiff-backed in a Shaker chair in her little vestibule, waiting for whatever she was waiting for. When she saw the gossipy old ladies in the corridors now she immediately pictured them dressed in cassocks and when she ran into Olga Simeonovna she imagined her without her clothes on, which made an intimacy between them. The former Astrakhani sorceress had taken the grief-distracted younger woman under her

  wing, becoming her newest surrogate mother, tidying her apartment for her while she stared silently into space, and cooking her thick-gravied meat stews with dumplings and potatoes, or potato soup, or, when time was short, getting organic vegeburgers and Ore-Ida french fries out of the freezer. She was putting potatoes to work in other, more occult ways as well. The manhunt for Shalimar the assassin was coming up empty, infuriating Olga. “The LAPD, excuse me, they couldn’t catch a cold in a Russian draft,” she said contemptuously. “But by the power of potato magic we will haul in that asshole’s ass.”

  In a distant part of her consciousness India knew that she was filling the hole in Olga Simeonovna’s heart left behind by the two departed daughters whose names she never spoke, the twin sisters who had offended against their mother’s moral code by posing for saucy pictures and developing an innuendo-rich blond bombshell sister act to go with them, and who were probably languishing now in some Vegas flea pit or worse, some Howard Johnson hell of multiple ruinations, their noses ruined by drug habits, their mouths and breasts ruined by cheap plastic surgery gone wrong, their finances ruined by the managers slash husbands who ran off with such pathetic assets as they had managed to amass. They had dropped off the map, probably too ashamed to come home and face the mother who daily cursed their names but in whose ample bosom they might nevertheless find redemption, or, at least, themselves.

  People were moving out of the building in a hurry, and some of the remaining tenants had suggested unkindly that India should be the one to move, that she was putting them all in danger by staying. Olga reacted to these suggestions with unconcealed maternal fury. “They say me it once, maybe, if they dare,” she told India, bridling, “but, I swear, they don’t gonna say me it twice.” There was a large sign outside the apartment building advertising vacancies but blood takes time to wash away. The arrest, or, to use his preferred word, the word his lawyer used, the surrender of Mr. Khadaffy Andang had spooked many residents already rendered fearful by the murder on their doorstep, the, to use a word that had appeared in the newspaper, execution. The word sleeper was frightening. “All that time I thought he was only waiting for his wife,” Olga Simeonovna marveled in her dark apartment with postcards of Roublev icons and travel agency posters of the Caspian Sea pinned to the wall, pouring India many cups of dark tea—the cups were glasses, really, glass receptacles held in beaten-metal frames—and sighing a deep, Caspian sigh. “Turns out he was a bad guy in spite of his silk dressing-gowns. Asleep, like Rip Van Winkle, but gone over to the Dark Side.” Mr. Khadaffy Andang had shouted up at India as she stood on her balcony and watched his last shuffling exit, his hands cuffed behind his back, the burly LAPD officers ungentle all around him, the street ablaze with the flashing lights of police cars and journalists’ cameras, the air full of megaphoned orders and microphoned reports, everybody go inside, but she stayed on her balcony with her arms crossed over her heart, with her hands hugging her shoulders, not caring about the upturned snouts of the cameras in the street, looking at the police operation, the white vans of the information media with the uplink dishes on their roofs, the police snipers on the building across the road, the crime reporters filing copy, the pool photographers taking her picture; and because she was out there, floating above the event, feeling a little crazy, she heard what Mr. Khadaffy Andang shouted out, twisting himself around and looking right at her just before a police officer put a hood over his head, I don’t buzz him in, Miss India, he shouted. Miss India, he want me to buzz him but I don’t buzz.

  She guessed then that Mr. Khadaffy Andang might have surrendered in part on her account, partly because he had chatted to her in the laundry room and she had listened to his tales of his homeland and he didn’t want her blood on his hands, but probably also because he was just a silver-haired cuckolded old gent nowadays, a loser with a fondness for silk who might have agreed to be a sleeper years ago but who never expected to “awake,” and he just wanted out of the sleeper business, because it scared him, too.

  After that she accepted she was possibly in danger herself, just as the police officers had told her she was, she knew she should move out in spite of her obstinate desire to stick around here just to spite her cowardly neighbors, Maybe a few weeks with a family member or friend, the police officers suggested, you could use the emotional support, she was her father’s
only heir, the lawyers told her, all of it came to her, starting with the big house on Mulholland Drive, fully staffed, with all the latest high-security equipment and twenty-four-hour Jerome security, all the codes had already been changed, procedures reviewed, and personnel numbers would be augmented if she moved in, so Shalimar’s inside knowledge of the property, of security configurations and staffing levels, wouldn’t help him. But she wasn’t ready to move back, to live up there on the skyway again, to step into her dead father’s outsized shoes and sleep in his bed and go through the papers in his mahogany-paneled study, she wasn’t ready for the smell of his cologne or the secrets in his safe, so she stayed on in her apartment and found herself thinking that if the killer showed up to finish the job she really didn’t care, let him come, she might even welcome him in.

  The world does not stop but cruelly continues, the widows chorused in the hallways. At a time of tragedy you wonder at it, the world’s capacity for continuing. When our husbands left us we expected the planet to cease its spinning so we could all float off into space, we expected silence, respect, but the traffic doesn’t care what the heart needs, the billboards don’t care, things move right along. There’s a new giant lady holding a golden beer bottle up near the Château. There’s a new place a mile east, women dance on the bar while the smart kids howl with lust. Lust continues, sure it does, honey, power continues, bargains are struck, hands are shaken and arms are twisted, winners and losers continue, honey, dog walking continues, right on our block the dogs walk past the scene of the crime every morning, dogs don’t care, they move on. The new horror movies open every Friday, business is business, and real-life horror continues too, here it is on TV, the unexplained sacrifice of goats at the Hollywood Bowl in the middle of the night, the discovery in the morning of maybe forty stinking carcasses and the blood, all that congealing blood, craziness continues, black magic continues, the darkness never ends. Clothes are on sale all around. Clothes go on, also goes on the hunger of the citizens and the relief of hunger. There is fine pizza to be had. Valet parking continues. The stars come out to play. A woman’s father dies, she mourns alone. His death is already old news.