Midnights Children

and there were no teeth in his mouth. (During India’s China war, when our loyalties were different, my mother had given gold bangles and jeweled ear-rings to the “Ornaments for Armaments” campaign; but what was that when set against the sacrifice of an entire mouthful of gold?) “The nation,” he said indistinctly through his untoothed gums, “must not, darn it, be short of funds on account of one man’s vanity!”—But did he or didn’t he? Were teeth truly sacrificed in the name of holy war, or were they sitting in a cupboard at home? “I’m afraid,” Uncle Puffs said gummily, “you’ll have to wait for that special dowry I promised.”—Nationalism or meanness? Was his baring of gums a supreme proof of his patriotism, or a slimy ruse to avoid filling a Puffia-mouth with gold?
    And were there parachutists or were there not? “… have been dropped on every major city,” Voice of Pakistan announced. “All able-bodied persons are to stay up with weapons; shoot on sight after dusk curfew.” But in India, “Despite Pakistani air-raid provocation,” the radio claimed, “we have not responded!” Who to believe? Did Pakistani fighter-bombers truly make that “daring raid” which caught one-third of the Indian Air Force helplessly grounded on tarmac? Did they didn’t they? And those night-dances in the sky, Pakistani Mirages and Mystères against India’s less romantically-titled MiGs: did Islamic mirages and mysteries do battle with Hindu invaders, or was it all some kind of astonishing illusion? Did bombs fall? Were explosions true? Could even a death be said to be the case?
    And Saleem? What did he do in the war?
    This: waiting to be drafted, I went in search of friendly, obliterating, sleep-giving, Paradise-bringing bombs.
    The terrible fatalism which had overcome me of late had taken on an even more terrible form; drowning in the disintegration of family, of both countries to which I had belonged, of everything which can sanely be called real, lost in the sorrow of my filthy unrequited love, I sought out the oblivion of—I’m making it sound too noble; no orotund phrases must be used. Baldly, then: I rode the night-streets of the city, looking for death.
    Who died in the holy war? Who, while I in bright white kurta and pajamas went Lambretta-borne into the curfewed streets, found what I was looking for? Who, martyred by war, went straight to a perfumed garden? Study the bombing pattern; learn the secrets of rifle-shots.
    On the night of September 22nd, air-raids took place over every Pakistani city. (Although All-India Radio …) Aircraft, real or fictional, dropped actual or mythical bombs. It is, accordingly, either a matter of fact or a figment of a diseased imagination that of the only three bombs to hit Rawalpindi and explode, the first landed on the bungalow in which my grandmother Naseem Aziz and my aunty Pia were hiding under a table; the second tore a wing off the city jail, and spared my cousin Zafar a life of captivity; the third destroyed a large darkling mansion surrounded by a sentried wall; sentries were at their posts, but could not prevent Emerald Zulfikar from being carried off to a more distant place than Suffolk. She was being visited, that night, by the Nawab of Kif and his mulishly unmaturing daughter; who was also spared the necessity of becoming an adult woman. In Karachi, three bombs were also enough. The Indian planes, reluctant to come down low, bombed from a great height; the vast majority of their missiles fell harmlessly into the sea. One bomb, however, annihilated Major (Retired) Alauddin Latif and all his seven Puffias, thus releasing me from my promise for ever; and there were two last bombs. Meanwhile, at the front, Mutasim the Handsome emerged from his tent to go to the toilet; a noise like a mosquito whizzed (or did not whiz) towards him, and he died with a full bladder under the impact of a sniper’s bullet.
    And still I must tell you about two-last-bombs.
    Who survived? Jamila Singer, whom bombs were unable to find; in India, the family of my uncle Mustapha, with whom bombs could not be bothered; but my father’s forgotten distant relative Zohra and her husband had moved to Amritsar, and a bomb sought them out as well.
    And two-more-bombs demand to be told.
    … While I, unaware of the intimate connection between the war and myself, went foolishly in search of bombs; after the curfew-hour I rode, but vigilante bullets failed to find their target