Midnights Children

Shiva had no intention of refusing. He listened sympathetically to their little tragedies—impotent husbands, beatings, lack-of-attention—to whatever excuses the lovely creatures wished to offer. Like my grandmother at her petrol pump (but with more sinister motives) he gave patient audience to their woes; sipping whisky in the chandeliered splendor of ballrooms, he watched them batting their eyelids and breathing suggestively while they moaned; and always, at last, they contrived to drop a handbag, or spill a drink, or knock his swagger-stick from his grasp, so that he would have to stoop to the floor to retrieve whatever-had-fallen, and then he would see the notes tucked into their sandals, sticking daintily out from under painted toes. In those days (if the Major is to be believed) the lovely scandalous begums of India became awfully clumsy, and their chappals spoke of rendezvous-at-midnight, of trellises of bougainvillaea outside bedroom windows, of husbands conveniently away launching ships or exporting tea or buying ball-bearings from Swedes. While these unfortunates were away, the Major visited their homes to steal their most prized possessions: their women fell into his arms. It is possible (I have divided by half the Major’s own figures) that at the height of his philanderings there were no less than ten thousand women in love with him.
    And certainly there were children. The spawn of illicit midnights. Beautiful bouncing infants secure in the cradles of the rich. Strewing bastards across the map of India, the war hero went his way; but (and this, too, is what he told Parvati) he suffered from the curious fault of losing interest in anyone who became pregnant; no matter how beautiful sensuous loving they were, he deserted the bedrooms of all who bore his children; and lovely ladies with red-rimmed eyes were obliged to persuade their cuckolded husbands that yes, of course it’s your baby, darling, life-of-mine, doesn’t it look just like you, and of course I’m not sad, why should I be, these are tears of joy.
    One such deserted mother was Roshanara, the child-wife of the steel magnate S. P. Shetty; and at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse in Bombay, she punctured the mighty balloon of his pride. He had been promenading about the paddock, stooping every few yards to return ladies’ shawls and parasols, which seemed to acquire a life of their own and spring out of their owners’ hands as he passed; Roshanara Shetty confronted him here, standing squarely in his path and refusing to budge, her seventeen-year-old eyes filled with the ferocious pique of childhood. He greeted her coolly, touching his Army cap, and attempted to pass; but she dug her needle-sharp nails into his arm, smiling dangerously as ice, and strolled along beside him. As they walked she poured her infantile poison into his ear, and her hatred and resentment of her former lover gave her the skill to make him believe her. Callously she whispered that it was so funny, my God, the way he strutted around in high society like some kind of rooster, while all the time the ladies were laughing at him behind his back, O yes, Major Sahib, don’t fool yourself, high-class women have always enjoyed sleeping with animals peasants brutes, but that’s how we think of you, my God it’s disgusting to watch you eat, gravy down your chin, don’t you think we see how you never hold teacups by their handles, do you imagine we can’t hear your belches and breakings of wind, you’re just our pet ape, Major Sahib, very useful, but basically a clown.
    After the onslaught of Roshanara Shetty, the young war hero began to see his world differently. Now he seemed to see women giggling behind fans wherever he went; he noticed strange amused sidelong glances which he’d never noticed before; and although he tried to improve his behavior, it was no use, he seemed to become clumsier the harder he tried, so that food flew off his plate on to priceless Kelim rugs and belches broke from his throat with the roar of a train emerging from a tunnel and he broke wind with the rage of typhoons. His glittering new life became, for him, a daily humiliation; and now he reinterpreted the advances of the beautiful ladies, understanding that by placing their love-notes beneath their toes they were obliging him to kneel demeaningly at their feet … as he learned that a man may possess every manly attribute and still be despised for not knowing how to hold a spoon, he felt an old