Midnights Children

or suspecting, found himself and his life worked upon by his wife until, little by little, he came to resemble—and to live in a place that resembled—a man he had never known and an underground chamber he had never seen. Under the influence of a painstaking magic so obscure that Amina was probably unaware of working it, Ahmed Sinai found his hair thinning, and what was left becoming lank and greasy; he discovered that he was willing to let it grow until it began to worm over the tops of his ears. Also, his stomach began to spread, until it became the yielding, squashy belly in which I would so often be smothered and which none of us, consciously at any rate, compared to the pudginess of Nadir Khan. His distant cousin Zohra told him, coquettishly, “You must diet, cousinji, or we won’t be able to reach you to kiss!” But it did no good … and little by little Amina constructed in Old Delhi a world of soft cushions and draperies over the windows which let in as little light as possible … she lined the chick-blinds with black cloths; and all these minute transformations helped her in her Herculean task, the task of accepting, bit by bit, that she must love a new man. (But she remained susceptible to the forbidden dream-images of … and was always drawn to men with soft stomachs and longish, lankish hair.)
    You could not see the new city from the old one. In the new city, a race of pink conquerors had built palaces in pink stone; but the houses in the narrow lanes of the old city leaned over, jostled, shuffled, blocked each other’s view of the roseate edifices of power. Not that anyone ever looked in that direction, anyway. In the Muslim muhallas or neighborhoods which clustered around Chandni Chowk, people were content to look inwards into the screened-off courtyards of their lives; to roll chick-blinds down over their windows and verandahs. In the narrow lanes, young loafers held hands and linked arms and kissed when they met and stood in hip-jutting circles, facing inwards. There was no greenery and the cows kept away, knowing they weren’t sacred here. Bicycle bells rang constantly. And above their cacophony sounded the cries of itinerant fruit-sellers:
Come all you greats-O, eat a few dates-O!
    To all of which was added, on that January morning when my mother and father were each concealing secrets from the other, the nervous clatter of the footsteps of Mr. Mustapha Kemal and Mr. S. P. Butt; and also the insistent rattle of Lifafa Das’s dugdugee drum.
    When the clattering footsteps were first heard in the gullies of the muhalla, Lifafa Das and his peepshow and drum were still some distance away. Clatter-feet descended from a taxi and rushed into the narrow lanes; meanwhile, in their corner house, my mother stood in her kitchen stirring khichri for breakfast overhearing my father conversing with his distant cousin Zohra. Feet clacked past fruit salesmen and hand-holding loafers; my mother overheard: “… You newlyweds, I can’t stop coming to see,
cho chweet
I can’t tell you!” While feet approached, my father actually colored. In those days he was in the high summer of his charm; his lower lip really didn’t jut so much, the line between his eyebrows was still only faint … and Amina, stirring khichri, heard Zohra squeal, “Oh look, pink! But then you are so fair, cousinji! …” And he was letting her listen to All-India Radio at the table, which Amina was not allowed to do; Lata Mangeshkar was singing a waily love-song as “Just like me, don’tyouthink,” Zohra went on. “Lovely pink babies we’ll have, a perfect match, no, cousinji, pretty white couples?” And the feet clattering and the pan being stirred while “How awful to be black, cousinji, to wake every morning and see it staring at you, in the mirror to be shown proof of your inferiority! Of course they know; even blackies know white is nicer, don’tyouthinkso?” The feet very close now and Amina stamping into the dining-room pot in hand, concentrating hard at restraining herself, thinking Why must she come today when I have news to tell and also I’ll have to ask for money in front of her. Ahmed Sinai liked to be asked nicely for money, to have it wheedled out of him with caresses and sweet words until his table napkin began to rise in his lap as something moved in his pajamas; and she didn’t mind, with her assiduity she learned to love this also, and when she needed money there were strokes and “Janum, my life,