Midnights Children

two fine! Too fine, madams, joke, you see?” And a switch of mood as he introduces a dramatic notion, an overpowering, crucial thought: “Ladies, gentlemen, how can you feel comfortable here, in the middle of Mr. Methwold Sahib’s long past? I tell you: it must be strange; not real; but now it is a new place here, ladies, ladahs, and no new place is real until it has seen a birth. The first birth will make you feel at home.” After which, a song: “Daisy, Daisy …” And Mr. Methwold, joining in, but still there’s something dark staining his brow …
    … And here’s the point: yes, it is guilt, because our Winkie may be clever and funny but he’s not clever enough, and now it’s time to reveal the first secret of the center-parting of William Methwold, because it had dripped down to stain his face: one day, long before ticktock and lockstockandbarrel sales, Mr. Methwold invited Winkie and his Vanita to sing for him, privately, in what is now my parents’ main reception room; and after a while he said, “Look here, Wee Willie, do me a favor, man: I need this prescription filling, terrible headaches, take it to Kemp’s Corner and get the chemist to give you the pills, the servants are all down with colds.” Winkie, being a poor man, said Yes Sahib at once Sahib and left; and then Vanita was alone with the center-parting, feeling it exert a pull on her fingers that was impossible to resist, and as Methwold sat immobile in a cane chair, wearing a lightweight cream suit with a single rose in the lapel, she found herself approaching him, fingers outstretched, felt fingers touching hair; found center-parting; and began to rumple it up.
    So that now, nine months later, Wee Willie Winkie joked about his wife’s imminent baby and a stain appeared on an Englishman’s forehead.
    “So?” Padma says. “So what do I care about this Winkie and his wife whom you haven’t even told me about?”
    Some people are never satisifed; but Padma will be, soon.
    And now she’s about to get: even more frustrated; because, pulling away in a long rising spiral from the events at Methwold’s Estate—away from goldfish and dogs and baby contests and center-partings, away from big toes and tiled roofs—I am flying across the city which is fresh and clean in the aftermath of the rains; leaving Ahmed and Amina to the songs of Wee Willie Winkie, I’m winging towards the Old Fort district, past Flora Fountain, and arriving at a large building filled with dim fustian light and the perfume of swinging censers … because here, in St. Thomas’s Cathedral, Miss Mary Pereira is learning about the color of God.
    “Blue,” the young priest said earnestly. “All available evidence, my daughter, suggests that Our Lord Christ Jesus was the most beauteous, crystal shade of pale sky blue.”
    The little woman behind the wooden latticed window of the confession fell silent for a moment. An anxious, cogitating silence. Then: “But how, Father? People are not
blue
. No people are blue in the whole big world!”
    Bewilderment of little woman, matched by perplexity of the priest … because this is not how she’s supposed to react. The Bishop had said, “Problems with recent converts … when they ask about color they’re almost always that … important to build bridges, my son. Remember,” thus spake the Bishop, “God is love; and the Hindu love-god, Krishna, is always depicted with blue skin. Tell them blue; it will be a sort of bridge between the faiths; gently does it, you follow; and besides blue is a neutral sort of color, avoids the usual color problems, gets you away from black and white: yes, on the whole I’m sure it’s the one to choose.” Even bishops can be wrong, the young father is thinking, but meanwhile he’s in quite a spot, because the little woman is clearly getting into a state, has begun issuing a severe reprimand through the wooden grille: “What type of answer is blue, Father, how to believe such a thing? You should write to Holy Father Pope in Rome, he will surely put you straight; but one does not have to be Pope to know that the mens are not ever blue!” The young father closes his eyes; breathes deeply; counter-attacks. “Skins have been dyed blue,” he stumbles. “The Picts; the blue Arab nomads; with the benefits of education, my daughter, you would see …” But now a violent snort echoes in the confessional. “What, Father? You are comparing Our Lord to
junglee
wild men? O Lord, I must