Joseph Anton: A Memoir: A Memoir

by Salman Rushdie

  All that mattered was that he would have a place to go. It was the end of March. He moved out of Long Leys Farm, hugging James and Darryl gratefully as he gave them back their home, and he and Elizabeth went for the weekend to Deborah Rogers and Michael Berkeley’s farm in Wales. Here he was with friends for the first time in weeks. Deb and Michael were there, welcoming as ever, and Ian McEwan had come over with his two young sons. They walked in the hills and ate delicious beef lasagna. On Monday he would move into the new house. But first there was Sunday. Michael went out in the morning and got the papers. He came home looking upset. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s pretty bad.”

  Marianne had given an interview to The Sunday Times. The newspaper had put it on the front page. RUSHDIE’S WIFE SAYS HE IS SELF-OBSESSED AND VAIN, by Tim Rayment. “Salman Rushdie’s wife yesterday denounced him as a weak, self-obsessed man who had failed to live up to the role history had given him.… ‘All of us who love him, who were devoted to him, who were friends of his, wish that the man had been as great as the event. That’s the secret everyone is trying to keep hidden. He is not. He’s not the bravest man in the world, but will do anything to save his life.’ ” There was much, much more. She said he had told her he intended to meet with Colonel Gadhafi, and that was when she knew “I didn’t want to be married to him at all.” Interestingly, she now denied her previous allegation that when they separated the Special Branch had left her stranded in the English countryside next to a phone booth. No, that hadn’t happened, but she wouldn’t say what had. She accused him of leaving “screaming messages” on her phone, of manipulating the press, and of being uninterested in the broader issue of free expression. He was concerned only about himself. “The great fallacy he committed was to think he was the issue. He never was. The issues were free expression and the racist society in Great Britain, and he did not come forward and speak. What he’s been speaking for during the past two years is Salman Rushdie’s career.”

  She was an articulate speaker and it was a wounding attack. He understood what she was doing. People knew that he had been the one to end their marriage, and she had calculated that if she called him a weak cowardly Gadhafi lover and careerist, if she could erase his years of involvement on issues of free speech and liberty with British PEN and other groups, if she could wipe away the image of the young Booker Prize winner who, on the morning after his victory, was standing with a placard outside Downing Street to protest the arrest of the great Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer, then she could make him, in the public’s already jaundiced eye, a man not worth staying with, a man any decent woman would have to leave. She was delivering her exit lines.

  He thought: I gave her the weapons to strike me with. It’s not her fault. It’s mine.

  His friends—Michael Herr, Alan Yentob, Harold Pinter—called or wrote to her to express their anger and disappointment. She saw that the interview was not playing as she had hoped it would, and attempted the usual excuses, she had been misquoted, she had been “betrayed” by the newspaper, she had been publicizing her new collection of stories, she had wanted to talk about the work of Amnesty International; and she added that her husband had “ruined her career.” These arguments did not go over well.

  Imaginary Homelands had been published and for the most part it had been treated with respect, even admiration, but almost everyone lamented the final essay about his supposed “conversion.” They were right to do so. He thought: I have to undo the Dreadful Mistake. I have to unsay what I said. Until I do that I can’t live with honor. I am a man without religion pretending to be a religious man. “He will do anything to save his life,” Marianne says. Right now that sounds true. I have to make it untrue.

  All his life he had known that there was a small enclosed space at the center of his being that nobody else could enter, and that all his work and best thoughts flowed from that secret place in a way he did not fully understand. Now the bright light of the fatwa had blazed through the curtains of that little habitation and his secret self stood naked in the glare. Weak man. Not the bravest man in the world. So be it, he thought. Naked, without artifice, he would salvage his good name; and he would try to perform once again the magic trick of art. That was where his true salvation lay.

  It was a big house, full of ugly furniture, but solid feeling, durable. It was possible to imagine a future. If Zafar got into Highgate School he would be nearby. Elizabeth, who loved Hampstead Heath above all things, was happy to be living at its northern rim. He began to be able to do a little good work and that April he wrote a short story, “Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain Consummate Their Relationship,” his first short story in a very long while, and the fog of unknowing that had concealed The Moor’s Last Sigh from him began to dissipate. He wrote down names. Moraes Zogoiby, known as Moor. His mother, Aurora Zogoiby, was the painter. The family was from Cochin, where the West first met the East. The Western ships came not to conquer but to trade. Vasco da Gama was looking for pepper, the Black Gold of Malabar. He liked the idea that the whole, complex connection of Europe and India grew out of a peppercorn. He would grow his book out of a peppercorn too. The Zogoibys would be a family of spice traders. Half-Christian, half-Jewish, a “cathjew nut,” the Moor would be almost a minority of one. But the book would try to show that the entire Indian reality could be grown out of that tiny peppercorn. “Authenticity” did not belong to the majority alone, as the Hindu majoritarian politics of India was beginning to insist. Every Indian person, every Indian story, was as authentic as every other.

  But he had his own problem of authenticity. He could not go to India. How then could he write a true book about it? He remembered what his friend Nuruddin Farah had told him—Nuruddin, whose exile from Somalia had lasted twenty-two years, because the dictator Mohammed Siad Barre had wanted to see him dead. Every book Nuruddin wrote in exile had been set in a naturalistically portrayed Somalia. “I keep it here,” Nuruddin said, pointing to his heart.

  In May the two Regent’s Park imams who had been at the Paddington Green meeting declared that he was not a true Muslim because he refused to withdraw his book. Other “leaders” announced their “disappointment,” and said “we are back to square one.” He wrote a sharp reply and published it in The Independent. That felt a good deal better. He felt himself rise an inch or two off the bottom and begin the long journey back toward himself.

  Article 19 had been wondering if it was worth continuing to fund work on behalf of the International Rushdie Defense Committee. But Frances and Carmel were determined to go on, and, if anything, take the campaign to a new, more public level. As the British government slipped toward apathy on the issue, which encouraged Britain’s European partners to follow suit, it would be the defense campaign that would have to take up the fight. Frances took Harold Pinter, Antonia Fraser and Ronnie Harwood with her to a meeting at the Foreign Office with Douglas Hurd, who told them that when the Tory minister Lynda Chalker visited Iran in April she had not raised the fatwa with anyone. To do so, Hurd said, would “not necessarily be helpful for Mr. Rushdie.” Rumors that a “hit squad” had entered the country to hunt Mr. Rushdie down had begun to be reported in the press but Mr. Hurd was grimly determined to be helpful by keeping his mouth shut. Douglas Hogg, who had taken over from William Waldegrave as Hurd’s deputy, also said that for the British government to make a loud noise about the fatwa would be a mistake, and would make it harder to obtain the release of the remaining British hostages in Lebanon.

  One month later the failure of this kind of quietism became clear. Ettore Capriolo, the translator of the Italian edition of The Satanic Verses, was visited at his home by an “Iranian” man who, according to Gillon, had made an appointment to discuss “literary matters.” Once the man was inside Capriolo’s home he demanded to be given “Salman Rushdie’s address” and when he didn’t get it he attacked the translator violently, kicking and stabbing him repeatedly, then running away and leaving Capriolo bleeding on the floor. By gre
at good fortune, the translator survived.

  When Gillon told him the news he was unable to avoid the feeling that the attack was his fault. His enemies had been so good at shifting the blame onto his shoulders that now he believed it too. He wrote to Mr. Capriolo to express his sorrow and his hope that the translator’s recovery would be full and quick. He never received a reply. Afterward he heard from his Italian publishers that Capriolo was not well disposed toward him and refused to work on any of his future books.

  This was as close as the fatwa had come to its mark. And after the black arrow struck Ettore Capriolo it flew on to Japan. Eight days later, at the University of Tsukuba to the northeast of Tokyo, the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses, Hitoshi Igarashi, was found murdered in an elevator near his office. Professor Igarashi was an Arabic and Persian scholar and a convert to Islam, but that did not save him. He was stabbed over and over again in the face and arms. The murderer was not arrested. Many rumors about the killer reached England. He was an Iranian who had recently entered Japan. A footprint had been found in a flowerbed and the shoe type was only to be found in mainland China. Names of visitors entering Japan from Chinese ports of departure were correlated against the names and known work names of Islamic terrorists, and there was a match, he was told, but the name was not released. Japan produced no fuel of its own and received much of its crude oil from Iran. The Japanese government had actually tried to prevent the publication of The Satanic Verses, asking leading publishers not to produce a Japanese edition. It did not want the Igarashi murder to complicate its dealings with Iran. The case was hushed up. No charges were brought. A good man lay dead but his death was not allowed to become an embarrassment.

  Japan’s Pakistan Association did not remain silent. It rejoiced. “Today we have been congratulating each other,” it said in a statement. “God made sure that Igarashi got what he deserved. Everyone was really happy.”

  He wrote an agonized, apologetic letter to Hitoshi Igarashi’s widow. There was no reply.

  All over the world terrorist assassins were hitting their targets. In India, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated while campaigning for reelection in the southern town of Sriperumbudur. He had been defeated in the election of 1989 in part, he believed, because the heavy security around him had created an aloof, distant image. This time he was determined to be closer to the people. As a result the Tamil Tigers’ suicide bomber, a woman known as Dhanu, was able to come right up to him and detonate the belt of explosives around her waist. A photographer standing next to Rajiv was also killed but his camera remained intact and there were pictures of the assassination on the film inside. It was difficult to find enough of the former prime minister to cremate. In London, he was trying to make some sort of livable life. He mourned Hitoshi Igarashi and asked every day for news of Ettore Capriolo’s health and hoped that if his turn came he did not take anyone with him because they were standing too close.

  Joseph Anton, you must live until you die.

  Zafar’s visits to the school’s recommended counselor, Clare Chappell, had helped. He was doing better at school and proud of his teachers’ pleasure at his improvement. But now it was Elizabeth’s well-being that had become a thing to worry about. They had done their best to keep their relationship a secret, known only to the inner circle of their friends, but the story was leaking out. “Everyone at the office knows about it,” she said. “I spent all day shaking with the shock.” Bloomsbury Publishing employed relatively few Islamic terrorists but she decided she wanted to leave. She would be with him full-time and write her poetry and not have to worry about loose talk. She did not make it sound like a sacrifice but he knew it was a big one, and that she made him feel that it was really what she wanted, so he needn’t feel badly about it, was further proof of her generosity of spirit. She walked out of Bloomsbury without a qualm and never spoke a word of accusation or regret. Sections of the British tabloid press had begun to run entirely untrue stories about what “Rushdie’s new love” was costing the country, insinuating that Elizabeth’s entry into the story had upped the security budget by hundreds of thousands of pounds. As the government ceased to pursue his case, the press focus was changing to the cost of the protection. He was costing the country a fortune and was, of course, arrogant and ungrateful. And now the country had to pay for his girlfriend too.

  Elizabeth knew she wasn’t costing the country anything and her contempt for the fabricated stories was admirable.

  Most of the time the house on Hampstead Lane felt worry-free and permanent. It felt there. He didn’t spend half his day worrying about it being “blown” and having to make another sudden move. Even when tradesmen came to the house things were calm. The place was large enough for him to get on with his work while the gardener mowed the lawn or the plumber plumbed or some piece of kitchen equipment got repaired. The Bulsaras were relatively incurious landlords. Fitz was very convincing, and portrayed his boss as a high-flying international publisher, often away, sometimes there; in other words, not unlike the real Rea Hederman, even though the real Rea would never have rented an eight-bedroom house on Hampstead Lane. Fitz began to talk to them about the possibility of buying the house and Mrs. Bulsara proposed a ridiculous price. “I’ve tried to negotiate her down, sir,” said Fitz, “but she’s got pound signs in her eyes.”

  Then a new property came on to the market, very nearby in the northern (and less pricey) reaches of Bishop’s Avenue. It needed work but the asking price was relatively reasonable. The owner wanted a quick sale. Elizabeth went to see it, accompanied by Fitz and a member of the protection team, and they all liked it. “We can definitely make it work,” Elizabeth said and the police gave it the thumbs-up too. Yes, he could have a permanent base again; it had been agreed at the highest level, they said. He drove by the house twice but there was no way for him to go inside. It stood behind a double-gated forecourt, a mansion with a high-gabled roof and a whitewashed façade, anonymous and, yes, inviting. He took Elizabeth’s word for it and moved as fast as he could. Ten days after Elizabeth saw 9 Bishop’s Avenue for the first time they had exchanged contracts and the house was his. He couldn’t believe it. He had a home again. “You should understand,” he said to his new protection officer, a posh chap known to his colleagues as CHT (for Colin Hill-Thompson), “that once I move in there I’m never going to go on my travels again.” Colin was perhaps the most sympathetic of all the officers he’d had on the team so far. “Quite right,” he said. “Stick to your guns. They’ve approved it, and that’s that.”

  The new house needed a lot of work. He called an architect friend, David Ashton Hill, and drew him into the heart of the secret. David, the next in the long sequence of Friends Without Whom Life Would Have Been Impossible, set to work at once; the construction workers were not allowed into the secret but were told “the story.” 9 Bishop’s Avenue was the intended London home base of Joseph Anton, international publisher of American origin. His English girlfriend, Elizabeth, was in charge of the works and would make all necessary decisions. The building contractor, Nick Norden, was the son of the comedy writer Denis Norden, and nobody’s fool. It was difficult to explain to Nick why a publisher like Mr. Anton required bulletproof glass in the ground-floor windows, or a safe room upstairs. It was odd that Mr. Anton was never there for meetings, not even once. Elizabeth’s good-natured Englishness was reassuring, of course, and Mr. Anton’s Americanness could be blamed for a lot of his skittishness about security—Americans, as all Englishmen knew, were scared of everything; if a car backfired in Paris, everyone in America canceled their French holidays—but the truth, Mr. Anton suspected, was that Nick Norden and his builders knew perfectly well whose house they were doing up. But they didn’t say so, preferring to act as if they had swallowed the story, and nobody ever leaked a word to the press. It took nine months to prepare the house for Mr. Anton, who lived there for the following seven years, and the secret was kept throughout that time. At the very end, one of the senior officers of “A” S
quad confessed that they had expected the house to become public knowledge in a few months, and that everyone at the Yard had been amazed that it remained “covert” for eight years and more. Once again, he had reason to be grateful to the seriousness with which people responded to his plight. Everyone understood that this was an important secret to keep; and so, quite simply, they kept it.

  He asked Fitz to prolong the rental period at Hampstead Lane. Fitz took it upon himself to negotiate the rent down—“They’ve been robbing you blind, sir”—and he succeeded, even though Mrs. Bulsara implored him, “Please, Mr. Fitz, you must persuade Mr. Hederman to pay more.” He pointed out the problems with the property—there were two ovens in the kitchen, both out of order—and she said, as if it were a full and sufficient explanation, “But we are Indian, we cook on gas rings.” Mrs. Bulsara bemoaned the loss of the sale, but continued to have an absurd idea of the value of the property. However, she agreed to lower the rent. Then out of the blue there were bailiffs at the door: High Court bailiffs, arriving to “seize the Bulsaras’ assets.”