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audience that he was Russian, Chinese, Sicilian, the President of the United States. Once, in a radio play for thirty—seven voices, he interpreted every single part under a variety of pseudonyms and nobody ever worked it out. With his female equivalent, Mimi Mamoulian, he ruled the airwaves of Britain. They had such a large slice of the voiceover racket that, as Mimi said, “People better not mention the Monopolies Commission around us, not even in fun.” Her range was astonishing; she could do any age, anywhere in the world, any point on the vocal register, angelic Juliet to fiendish Mae West. “We should get married sometime, when you’re free,” Mimi once suggested to him. “You and me, we could be the United Nations.”

“You’re Jewish,” he pointed out. “I was brought up to have views on Jews.”

“So I’m Jewish,” she shrugged. “You’re the one who’s circumcised. Nobody’s perfect.”

Mimi was tiny with tight dark curls and looked like a Michelin poster. In Bombay, Zeenat Vakil stretched and yawned and drove other women from his thoughts. “Too much,” she laughed at him. “They pay you to imitate them, as long as they don’t have to look at you. Your voice becomes famous but they hide your face. Got any ideas why? Warts on your nose, cross—eyes, what? Anything come to mind, baby? You goddamn lettuce brain, I swear.”

It was true, he thought. Saladin and Mimi were legends of a sort, but crippled legends, dark stars. The gravitational field of their abilities drew work towards them, but they remained invisible, shedding bodies to put on voices. On the radio, Mimi could become the Botticelli Venus, she could be Olympia, Monroe, any damn woman she pleased. She didn’t give a damn about the way she looked; she had become her voice, she was worth a mint, and three young women were hopelessly in love with her. Also, she bought property. “Neurotic behaviour,” she would confess unashamedly. “Excessive need for rooting owing to upheavals of Armenian—Jewish history. Some desperation owing to advancing years and small polyps detected in the throat. Property is so soothing, I do recommend it.” She owned a Norfolk vicarage, a farmhouse in Normandy, a Tuscan belltower, a sea—coast in Bohemia. “All haunted,” she explained. “Clanks, howls, blood on the rugs, women in nighties, the works. Nobody gives up land without a fight.”

Nobody except me, Chamcha thought, a melancholy clutching at him as he lay beside Zeenat Vakil. Maybe I’m a ghost already. But at least a ghost

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