Midnights Children

of which it was said that the statue of Sivaji had come to life to ride stonily at its head. The demonstrators carried black flags; many of them were shopkeepers on hartal; many were striking textile-workers from Mazagaon and Matunga; but on our hillock, we knew nothing about their jobs; to us children, the endless ant-trail of language in Warden Road seemed as magnetically fascinating as a light-bulb to a moth. It was a demonstration so immense, so intense in its passions, that it made all previous marches vanish from the mind as if they had never occurred—and we had all been banned from going down the hill for even the tiniest of looks. So who was the boldest of us all? Who urged us to creep at least half-way down, to the point where the hillock-road swung round to face Warden Road in a steep U-bend? Who said, “What’s to be scared of? We’re only going halfway for a
peek
”? … Wide-eyed, disobedient Indians followed their freckled American chief. (“They killed Doctor Narlikar—marchers did,” Hairoil warned us in a shivery voice. Evie spat on his shoes.)
    But I, Saleem Sinai, had other fish to fry. “Evie,” I said with quiet offhandedness, “how’d you like to see me bicycling?” No response. Evie was immersed in the spectacle … and was that her fingerprint in Sonny Ibrahim’s left forcep-hollow, embedded in Vaseline for all the world to see? A second time, and with slightly more emphasis, I said, “I can do it, Evie. I’ll do it on the Monkey’s cycle. You want to watch?” And now Evie, cruelly, “I’m watching this. This is good. Why’d I wanna watch
you?
” And me, a little snivelly now, “But I
learned
, Evie, you’ve
got
to …” Roars from Warden Road below us drown my words. Her back is to me; and Sonny’s back, the backs of Eyeslice and Hairoil, the intellectual rear of Cyrus-the-great … my sister, who has seen the fingerprint too, and looks displeased, eggs me on: “Go on. Go on, show her. Who’s she think she is?” And up on her bike … “I’m doing it, Evie, look!” Bicycling in circles, round and round the little cluster of children, “See? You
see?
” A moment of exultation; and then Evie, deflating impatient couldn’t-care-less: “Willya get outa my way, fer Petesake? I wanna see
that!
” Finger, chewed-off nail and all, jabs down in the direction of the language march; I am dismissed in favor of the parade of the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti! And despite the Monkey, who loyally, “That’s not fair! He’s doing it really
good!
”—and in spite of the exhilaration of the thing-in-itself—something goes haywire inside me; and I’m riding round Evie, fasterfasterfaster, crying sniffing out of control, “So what is it with you, anyway? What do I have to do to …” And then something else takes over, because I realize I don’t have to ask her, I can just get inside that freckled mouth-metalled head and find out, for once I can really get to know what’s going on … and in I go, still bicycling, but the front of her mind is all full up with Marathi language-marchers, there are American pop songs stuck in the corners of her thoughts, but nothing I’m interested in; and now, only now, now for the very first time, now driven on by the tears of unrequited love, I begin to probe … I find myself pushing, diving, forcing my way behind her defenses … into the secret place where there’s a picture of her mother who wears a pink smock and holds up a tiny fish by the tail, and I’m ferreting deeperdeeperdeeper, where is it, what makes her tick, when she gives a sort of jerk and swings round to stare at me as I bicycle roundandroundand-roundandroundand …
    “Get out!” screams Evie Burns. Hands lifted to forehead. I bicycling, wet-eyed, diving ininin: to where Evie stands in the doorway of a clapboard bedroom holding a, holding a something sharp and glinty with red dripping off it, in the doorway of a, my God and on the bed a woman, who, in a pink, my God, and Evie with the, and red staining the pink, and a man coming, my God, and no no no no no …
    “ GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT !” Bewildered children watch as Evie screams, language march forgotten, but suddenly remembered again, because Evie has grabbed the back of the Monkey’s bike WHAT’RE YOU DOING EVIE as she pushes it THERE GET OUT YA BUM THERE GET OUT TO HELL !—She’s pushed me hard-as-hard, and I losing control hurtling down the slope round the end of the U-bend downdown, MY GOD THE