Midnights Children

monster, a creature with heads and heads and heads; but she corrects herself, no, of course not a monster, these poor poor people—what then? A power of some sort, a force which does not know its strength, which has perhaps decayed into impotence through never having been used … No, these are not decayed people, despite everything. “I’m frightened,” my mother finds herself thinking, just as a hand touches her arm. Turning, she finds herself looking into the face of—impossible!—a white man, who stretches out a raggedy hand and says in a voice like a high foreign song, “Give something, Begum Sahiba …” arid repeats and repeats like a stuck record while she looks with embarrassment into a white face with long eyelashes and a curved patrician nose—embarrassment, because he was white, and begging was not for white people. “… All the way from Calcutta, on foot,” he was saying, “and covered in ashes, as you see, Begum Sahiba, because of my shame at having been there for the Killing—last August you remember, Begum Sahiba, thousands knifed in four days of screaming …” Lifafa Das is standing helplessly by, not knowing how to behave with a white man, even a beggar, and “… Did you hear about the European?” the beggar asks, “… Yes, among the killers, Begum Sahiba, walking through the town at night with blood on his shirt, a white man deranged by the coming futility of his kind; did you hear?” … And now a pause in that perplexing song of a voice, and then: “He was my husband.” Only now did my mother see the stifled breasts beneath the rags … “Give something for my shame.” Tugging at her arm. Lifafa Das tugging at the other, whispering Hijra, transvestite, come away, Begum Sahiba; and Amina standing still as she is tugged in opposite directions wants to say Wait, white woman, just let me finish my business, I will take you home, feed you clothe you, send you back into your own world; but just then the woman shrugs and walks off empty-handed down the narrowing street, shrinking to a point until she vanishes—now!—into the distant meanness of the lane. And now Lifafa Das, with a curious expression on his face, says, “They’re funtoosh! All finished! Soon they will all go; and then we’ll be free to kill each other.” Touching her belly with one light hand, she follows him into a darkened doorway while her face bursts into flames.
    … While at the Old Fort, Ahmed Sinai waits for Ravana. My father in the sunset: standing in the darkened doorway of what was once a room in the ruined walls of the fort, lower lip protruding fleshily, hands clasped behind his back, head full of money worries. He was never a happy man. He smelled faintly of future failure; he mistreated servants; perhaps he wished that, instead of following his late father into the leathercloth business, he had had the strength to pursue his original ambition, the rearrangement of the Quran in accurately chronological order. (He once told me: “When Muhammed prophesied, people wrote down what he said on palm leaves, which were kept any old how in a box. After he died, Abubakr and the others tried to remember the correct sequence; but they didn’t have very good memories.” Another wrong turning: instead of rewriting a sacred book, my father lurked in a ruin, awaiting demons. It’s no wonder he wasn’t happy; and I would be no help. When I was born, I broke his big toe.) … My unhappy father, I repeat, thinks bad-temperedly about cash. About his wife, who wheedles rupees out of him and picks his pockets at night. And his ex-wife (who eventually died in an accident, when she argued with a camel-cart driver and was bitten in the neck by the camel), who writes him endless begging letters, despite the divorce settlement. And his distant cousin Zohra, who needs dowry money from him, so that she can raise children to marry his and so get her hooks into even more of his cash. And then there are Major Zulfikar’s promises of money (at this stage, Major Zulfy and my father got on very well). The Major had been writing letters saying, “You must decide for Pakistan when it comes, as it surely will. It’s certain to be a goldmine for men like us. Please let me introduce you to M. A. J. himself …” but Ahmed Sinai distrusted Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and never accepted Zulfy’s offer; so when Jinnah became President of Pakistan, there would be another wrong turning to think about. And, finally, there were letters