Grimus - By Salman Rushdie Page 0,96

inside as out, and cluttered with a quite amazing variegation of objects and books. There are a number of stuffed birds and evidence of wide travel. There are pictures, Oriental I think, everywhere, and again the theme is preponderantly ornithological. Grimus is interested in mythical birds and as he talked he seemed curiously bird-like himself, his hands fluttering and his voice a rushing twitter. In my amateur way, I share his interests; moreover he has the quality of interesting others in his own preoccupations, so we were not bored.

It is not his real name, Grimus. He told us so freely. He changed it from something unpronounceable when he arrived in this country some thirty years ago. True to himself, his adopted name is derived anagrammatically from a mythical bird: the Simurg.

—The Simurg, he told us eagerly, is the Great Bird. It is vast, all-powerful and singular. It is the sum of all other birds. There is a Sufi poem in which thirty birds set out to find the Simurg on the mountain where he lives. When they reach the peak, they find that they themselves are, or rather have become, the Simurg. The name, you see, means Thirty Birds. Si, thirty. Murg, birds. Fascinating. Fascinating. The myth of the Mountain of Kâf.

—Calf? asked Nicholas Deggle.

—Kâf, Grimus enunciated. The Arabic letter K.*

He would have rambled on thus for ages, but Deggle cut him short, reminding him about the Rose.

—Ah yes, he said. The rose. The rose has Power.

—You are an occultist? I asked, depressed. I am always depressed by the occult. It is so cheerless.

—Not exactly, he twittered. Broad-minded. That is what. If the rose has Power, we must learn of what kind.

—Open the coffin, he said to me. I resented the order, but found myself obeying. Grimus moved swiftly to the rose and before we knew what he was doing, grasped it. He cried aloud in pain, but did not release his hold. I saw his eyes dilate and widen.

Then he disappeared. The Rose stayed where it was, but I swear he did not. He softly and silently vanished away.

A few minutes later, he reappeared, beaming and shaking his head.

—Wonderful, he said. Truly wonderful.

I looked at Nicholas Deggle and he at me. —You must both try it, said Grimus. You must.

We both did in the end, after a large measure of Grimus’ excellent brandy. We were both scared but I am sure Deggle was the more so. He had an entire posture of superiority to lose, after all. Deggle is not an humble man.

I cannot describe the planet Thera to you as yet. I must form my opinions of it more completely first. Suffice to say that we have travelled through … what? I do not know, and met a life-form vastly superior to our own. The world is suddenly filled with marvellous possibilities.

And it was I who found it!

—I will leave out the next part, said Liv formally. It is an account of other journeys they made.

The room was black now. Eagle listened riveted to the flat recitative.

Moonday 1st July.

Today Grimus made his greatest discovery and propounded his grand design. I must say it enthralls me. Deggle is surly and withdrawn and, I think, disapproves; but the Rose has him gripped as tightly as any of us. Even though he has continued to refuse to use it after that first visit to Thera.

—One has enough problems, he said today, without any of this trickery. He still comes though: comes every evening when we gather around the coffin in Grimus’ living-room to go on the Conceptual Travels which Dota explained to us. He comes to sit and glower as Grimus and I take turns to visit our worlds.

How rapidly I have come to accept a new universe, to sit in an exotic suburban living-room watching a man disappear and reappear and doing so myself! Evidently, like Grimus, I too am (his word) broad-minded. Fortunate. But today the broadmindedness received a nasty test. Grimus brought something back from his Travel. It is the first time those other universes have entered ours. He brought back two bottles. One filled with yellow liquid. One filled with blue.

—Yellow for eternal life. Blue for eternal death, he says.

This is his grand design. In his own words. Or as nearly as I can remember.

—We have now the situation of being able to dispense the gift of life, he said in his feathery Slavonic voice. I propose we accept the responsibility. The necessary first step is that