And then we were leaving and the staff were cooing over Milan and saying how nice it was for them to have little children in the house, because prime ministers had tended to be older and their children to be grown up, but now there was the frequent patter of the little feet of the younger Blairs and it brought the old house to life. We liked that, Elizabeth and I, and we liked seeing the enormous teddy bear in the front hall, a gift from a foreign head of state, the president, perhaps, of Darkest Peru, “What’s it called,” I asked, and Cherie said you hadn’t thought of a name yet, and without pausing to think I said, “You should call it Tony Bear.” Which I admit may not have been brilliant, but it was quick, at least, so perhaps it merited just a tiny smile?, but no, your face was stone and you said, “No, I don’t think that’s a good name at all,” and I left thinking, Oh, no, the prime minister doesn’t have a sense of humor.
But I didn’t care. Your government was on my side and that meant the small jarring notes could be ignored, and even later in your premiership, when the jarring notes became louder and more discordant and it really was hard not to pay attention to them, I always had a soft spot for you, I could never hate you the way so many people began to hate you, because you, or at least your Mr. Cook and Mr. Fatchett, set out sincerely to change my life for the better. And, in the end, they succeeded. Which may not quite cancel out the invasion of Iraq, but it weighed in my personal scales, that’s for sure.
Thanks again for a lovely evening.
On the day after the Chequers dinner—the day the news of it was released—Iran announced that it was “surprised” by Robin Cook’s call for the end of the fatwa. “It will last for ten thousand years,” the Iranian statement asserted, and he thought, Well, if I get to live for ten thousand years, that will do just fine.
And on the day after that, in the Ambassadors Waiting Room at the Foreign Office, he and Robin Cook stood side by side and faced the press and photographers, and Cook made a number of tough, uncompromising remarks, and another loud, clear message was sent to the Khatami government in Iran. His protection officer Keith Williams murmured to him as they left the building, “They’ve done you proud, sir.”
The newly assertive British government position seemed to be having some effect.
Mary Robinson, the ex-president of Ireland and the new UN commissioner for human rights, went to Tehran and met high-ranking officials and announced after her visit that Iran “in no way supported” carrying out the fatwa. The UN special rapporteur on Iran was told there “might be some progress possible on the fatwa.” And Italy’s foreign minister, Lamberto Dini, met with his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharrazi, and was told that Iran was “completely prepared to cooperate with Europe to solve existing political problems.”
Now they had a family home. One of the policemen’s bedrooms was being turned into Milan’s room, and their “living room,” where the furniture was all but worn out, could be a playroom, and then there were two spare bedrooms. “If the house is blown it will be a huge problem,” they were constantly told, but the truth was this: The house was never blown. It never became known, never got into the newspapers, never became a security problem, never required the threatened “colossal” expenditure on security equipment and man-hours. That didn’t happen, and one of the reasons, he came to believe, was the good nature of ordinary people. He remained certain that the builders who had worked on the house knew whose house they were working on, and didn’t buy the “Joseph Anton” story; and not long after the police moved out and Frank started working for him there was a problem with the garage door—a suspiciously heavy wooden door with steel plating hidden inside, whose weight meant its opening mechanism often developed a fault—and the company that had installed the door sent a mechanic over, who chattily said to Frank as he went to work, “You know whose house this used to be, don’t you? It was that Mr. Rushdie. Poor bastard.” So people had known who “shouldn’t” have known. But nobody gossiped, nobody went to the papers. Everyone knew it was serious. Nobody talked.
And for the first time in nine years he had a “dedicated team” of protection officers for his “public” adventures (meals in restaurants, walks on Hampstead Heath, the occasional movie, and every so often a literary event—a reading, a book signing, a lecture). Bob Lowe and Bernie Lindsey, the handsome devils who became the heartthrobs of the London literary scene, alternating with Charles Richards and Keith Williams, who didn’t. And the OFDs, Russell and Nigel alternating with Ian and Paul. These officers were not just “dedicated” in the sense of working only on Malachite and on no other prot. They were also committed to his cause, totally on his side, ready to fight his battles. “We all admire your endurance,” Bob told him. “We really do.” They took the view that there was no reason why he shouldn’t have as rich a life as he wanted to have, and that it was their job to make it possible. They persuaded the security chiefs of several reluctant airlines, who had been put off by the continued British Airways refusal to fly him, that they should not follow BA’s lead. They wanted his life to get better, and they were ready to help. He would never forget, or cease to value, their friendship and support.
They remained on their guard. Paul Topper, the team’s supervisor at the Yard, said that intelligence reports indicated “activity.” It was not a time to be careless.
There was some sad news: Phil Pitt—the officer known to his colleagues as “Rambo”—had been forced into retirement by a degenerative disease of the spine, and might end up in a wheelchair. There was something very shocking about the fall of one of these large, fit, strong, active men. And these men were professional protectors. It was their job to make sure other people were all right. They weren’t supposed to crumble. It was the wrong way around.
Elizabeth wanted another child, and she wanted it right away. His heart sank. Milan was such a great gift, such a great joy, but he did not want to take any more spins on the roulette wheel of genetics. He had two beautiful sons and they were more than enough. But Elizabeth was a determined woman when there was something she really wanted—one might even use the word “mulish”—and he feared he would lose her, and with her Milan, if he refused. His own need was not for another baby. It was for freedom. That need might never be met.
This time she conceived quickly, while she was still breast-feeding Milan. But this time they were not lucky. Two weeks after the pregnancy was confirmed the chromosomal tragedy of the early miscarriage occurred.
After the miscarriage Elizabeth turned away from him and devoted herself exclusively to little Milan. A nanny was found, Susan, the daughter of a Special Branch officer, but she resisted employing her. “I just want someone for an hour or two a day,” she said. “Just a bit of child-minding help.”
Their lives became very separate. She didn’t even want to travel in the same car as him, preferring to be in her own car with the baby. He hardly saw her during the day and in the big empty house he felt his life becoming empty too. Sometimes they had an omelet together at around 10 P.M. and then she was “too tired to stay awake,” while he was too wakeful to sleep. She didn’t want to go anywhere with him, do anything with him, spend the evening with him, and she grew resentful if he suggested going out without her. So the imprisonment-by-baby continued. “I want two more children,” she said flatly. There wasn’t much more conversation than that.
Their friends began to notice the growing distance between them. “She never looks at you anymore,” Caroline Michel said, worried. “She never touches you. What’s the matter?” But he didn’t want to say what the matter was.
Milan began to walk. He was ten and a half months old.
Random House took the paperback of The Satanic Verses into their warehouse, and at once the British press did its best to stir things up. The Guardian ran a provocative front-page story suggesting that Random House’s decision would “revive” the trouble, and at once it did revive. The Evening Standard threatened to run a piece saying that Random House had gone ahead without taking police
advice. Dick Stark called them to say that that was incorrect, so instead the paper threatened a story saying that Random House had published in spite of police advice. Dick Stark checked with the men in the Christmas tree fortress and they said there was “minimal” risk, which reassured Gail Rebuck. Andrew, Gillon and he had kept the Consortium paperback edition in print for five years now, so this change of warehousing arrangements should not have been news. Paperback publication had been “normalized” across Europe and in Canada and even in the United States, where Henry Holt’s Owl imprint had taken over distribution without any trouble. But a few hostile news stories might make the British experience very different. Random House and the Special Branch worked hard to reassure the Standard and in the end its story did not run. And in The Telegraph there was a balanced, measured, wholly sensible piece. The risk diminished. However, Random House brought bomb scanners into their mailroom and warned their staff. All the senior executives were still worried about the press stirring up a big Islamist reaction. But to their great credit they were readying themselves to reprint and to issue the Vintage edition. “I’m sure the worst thing we can do is flinch or delay,” said Simon Master. “If we have a good weekend, we’ll print.” In Russia the publishers of The Satanic Verses were being threatened by local Muslims. That was alarming. But as things turned out, nothing happened in England, and at long last paperback publication of The Satanic Verses was taken over by Vintage Books, and normal service was resumed. The Consortium was dissolved.
There were some more small, good things. Gloria B. Anderson of the New York Times syndication department came back four years after her bosses had prevented her from following through on her offer to give him a syndicated column to say that this time everyone was very keen that he should write for the paper. There was nothing to be gained by bearing a grudge. This was The New York Times, and it would give him a monthly platform all around the world. And it would probably pay for Whispering Frank and Beryl the cleaning lady and maybe a nanny too.
His niece Mishka, a pale, stick-thin little girl of six, had been revealing astonishing musical gifts in a largely tone-deaf family. Now the Purcell School and the Menuhin School were fighting over her. Sameen chose the Purcell because Mishka was not just a musical virtuoso, she was years ahead of her age group academically as well, and the Purcell was better at providing their students with a good general education. The Menuhin was a one-track-minded musical hothouse. Mishka’s extraordinary precocity came at a price. She was too bright for her own age group and too young for her academic equals, so it was and would be a lonely childhood. But she had knocked them flat at the Purcell and Menuhin and already at her tender age it was clear that this, a life in music, was what she wanted. One day in the family car when her parents were arguing out the pros and cons of the two schools, little Mishka piped up from the backseat, “Shouldn’t that be my decision?”
The Purcell School told Sameen that Mishka was exceptionally gifted, and that they would be privileged to have her. She could start in September, because they were not insured to teach students younger than that, and she would be the youngest person ever to be given a full scholarship at the school. High excitement! A bright new star was rising in the family and they would have to protect and guide her until she was old enough to shine by herself.
He was awarded the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature and went to receive it. In Budapest the mayor, Gábor Demszky, who had been a leading publisher of samizdat texts during the Soviet era, opened up the glass-fronted cabinet in his office to reveal the precious books, formerly illegal, which were now the emblems of his greatest pride. They had been printed on a portable printing press from Huddersfield that they moved secretly from apartment to apartment at night to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands; a machine so important that they never mentioned it in conversation, using a woman’s name instead. “Huddersfield was an important part of the fight against Communism,” Demszky said. Then they got onto the mayoral motorboat and zoomed up and down the Danube at speed. The grand prize itself was a surprise: a small engraved metal box that, when opened, was filled with crisp new U.S. dollars. Very useful.
Zafar went to do an Italian course in Florence, and was very happy. There were several new girls in his life, an opera singer with whom he broke up “because she suddenly began to remind me of my mum,” and a tall, somewhat older blonde. Evie was now his best friend and he had grown so close to her family the Daltons that his mother and father were sometimes almost jealous of them. But Zafar was having a ball, planning excursions to Siena, Pisa, and Fiesole. He had not had the easiest of childhoods and it was a fine thing to see him growing up into this great fellow, so full of confidence, stretching his wings.
Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser came to dinner at Bishop’s Avenue. Robert McCrum, a little slower than he used to be, with a sweet, vague smile on his face, and his wife, Sarah Lyall, were the other guests, and when Harold discovered that Robert worked for the Observer, with which he had some unmemorable political quarrel, and that Sarah worked for the hated, because American, New York Times, he launched into one of his loudest, longest, least attractive bouts of Pintering.
Dear Harold,
You know my admiration for you and, I hope, that I value our friendship highly; but I can’t let the events of last night pass unremarked upon. Robert, a good man bravely fighting back from a stroke, is simply not able to speak and argue as freely as he once did, and retreated under your assault into a miserable silence. Sarah, whom I like very much, was almost reduced to tears and, worse, amazed to find herself in the position of defending U.S. Zionism-imperialism as embodied by The New York Times. Elizabeth and I both felt that our hospitality had been abused and our evening ruined. The grand slam, in fact. I can’t help saying that I mind very much about all this. It happens all the time, and as your friend I must ask you to STOP IT. On Cuba, on East Timor, on so many issues you are much more right than wrong, but these tirades—when you appear to assume that others have failed to notice the offenses that outrage you—are just plain tiresome. I think you owe us all an apology.
With much love, Salman
Dear Salman,
Your letter was very painful for me to read but I am grateful to you for it. You write as a true friend. What you say is absolutely true and in this case the truth is bitter. There is no justification for my behavior and I have no defense. I can only say this: I hear myself bullying and boring but it’s like a St. Vitus’ dance, a fever, an appalling sickening—and of course drunken—descent into incoherence and insult. Lamentable. Your letter was really a whip of iced water and has had a great effect on me. I have to believe it’s not too late for me to grow up. I do send heartfelt apologies to you and Elizabeth. I care for you both so much. I have written to the McCrums.
With my love, Harold.
Dear Harold,
Thank you for your letter. We love you very much. Water under the bridge.
Salman
The day after Milan’s first birthday they flew to America to spend three months—Three months! It would be their longest stretch of freedom—in the house on Little Noyac Path. It was a year since they had been at John Avedon’s house and heard about Diana’s death and then there had been the global phenomenon of her death and the miracle of the flowers and so on and now he was back in Bridgehampton with his imaginary Ormus and Vina and the ground was opening up beneath Vina’s feet and she was swallowed by the earth and turned into a global phenomenon, too. He was approaching the end of his novel, finishing the chapter “Beneath Her Feet” and writing the chapter “Vina Divina” and of course Diana’s dying had affected Vina’s and it felt right that he wrote this passage in the place where he’d been when he heard the news. He wrote a song for Ormus, the song Ormus wrote for her, his Orphic hymn to lost love, what I worshipped stole my love away, it was the ground beneath her feet, and pressed on toward the Lennonesque end of his unending book
In the months that followed the book was completed, revi
sed, polished, printed, and given to others to read. On the day he finished working on it, in the little study up its own staircase that had become his summer aerie, he made himself a promise. The Ground Beneath Her Feet was one of his three really long books, along with The Satanic Verses and Midnight’s Children. “No more 250,000-word monsters,” he told himself. “Shorter books, more often.” For more than a decade he kept that promise, writing two short and two medium-length novels between 2000 and 2009. Then he got to work on his memoir, and realized that he had fallen off the wagon.
It was the Summer of Monica and it was not clear that President Clinton would survive the attempt to impeach him. Dreadful black-comic jokes were circulating.
The stains on the dress couldn’t provide an incontestable ID because everyone from Arkansas has the same DNA.
“Happiness writes white,” Henry de Montherlant wrote. “It doesn’t show up on the page.” Happiness that summer was a low white house surrounded by green fields amid hills and woods, and walking with Elizabeth and his sons on the beach in the late afternoon as the sun fell low in the sky and a haze obscured the horizon. It was going to the copy shop near Bridgehampton Commons and waiting while copies of his novel were made. “You can come back later,” the woman in the store told him, but he waited. It was a first wedding anniversary dinner with Elizabeth in Sag Harbor at the American Hotel. It was a trip to Yankee Stadium with Don DeLillo to watch the Yanks play the Angels, even if they did lose the game. And it was a letter from his new editor, Michael Naumann at Henry Holt, that spoke of The Ground Beneath Her Feet in language so exalted that he couldn’t quote it to anyone. Just six days after this letter arrived, however, Michael Naumann resigned from Holt and went off to be the new German minister of culture. Oh well, he thought. It was still a wonderful letter.