Salman Rushdie - Midnight's children

'What is left in this India?' Reverend Mother asked, hand slicing air. 'Go, leave it all, go to Pakistan. See how well that Zulfikar is doing-he will give you a start. Be a man, my son-get up and start again!'

'He doesn't want to speak now,' Amina said, 'he must rest.'

'Rest?' Aadam Aziz roared. 'The man is a jelly!'

'Even Alia, whatsitsname,' Reverend Mother said, 'all on her own, gone to Pakistan-even she is making a decent life, teaching in a fine school. They say she will be headmistress soon.'

'Shhh, mother, he wants to sleep… let's go next door…'

'There is a time to sleep, whatsitsname, and a time to wake! Listen: Mustapha is making many hundreds of rupees a month, whatsitsname, in the Civil Service. What is your husband? Too good to work?'

'Mother, he is upset. His temperature is so low…'

'What food are you giving? From today, whatsitsname, I will run your kitchen. Young people today-like babies, whatsitsname!'

'Just as you like, mother.'

'I tell you whatsitsname, it's those photos in the paper. I wrote-didn't I write?-no good would come of that. Photos take away pieces of you. My God, whatsitsname, when I saw your picture, you had become so transparent I could see the writing from the other side coming right through your face!'

'But that's only…'

'Don't tell me your stories, whatsitsname! I give thanks to God you have recovered from that photography!'

After that day, Amina was freed from the exigencies of running her home. Reverend Mother sat at the head of the dining-table, doling out food (Amina took plates to Ahmed, who stayed in bed, moaning from time to time, 'Smashed, wife! Snapped-like an icicle!'); while, in the kitchens, Mary Pereira took the time to prepare, for the benefit of their visitors, some of the finest and most delicate mango pickles, lime chutneys and cucumber kasaundies in the world. And now, restored to the status of daughter in her own home, Amina began to feel the emotions of other people's food seeping into her-because Reverend Mother doled out the curries and meatballs of intransigence, dishes imbued with the personality of their creator; Amina ate the fish salans of stubbornness and the birianis of determination. And, althiough Mary's pickles had a partially counteractive effect-since she had stirred into them the guilt of her heart, and the fear of discovery, so that, good as they tasted, they had the power of making those who ate them subject to nameless uncertainties and dreams of accusing fingers-the diet provided by Reverend Mother filled Amina with a kind of rage, and even produced slight signs of improvement in her defeated husband. So that finally the day came when Amina, who had been watching me play incompetently with toy horses of sandal wood in the bath, inhaling the sweet odours of sandalwood which the bathwater released, suddenly rediscovered within herself the adventurous streak which was her inheritance from her fading father, the streak which had brought Aadam Aziz down from bis mountain valley; Amina turned to Mary Pereira and said, 'I'm fed up. If nobody in this house is going to put things right, then it's just going to be up to me!'

Toy horses galloped behind Amina's eyes as she left Mary to dry me and marched into her bedroom. Remembered glimpses of Mahalaxmi Racecourse cantered in her head as she pushed aside saris and petticoats. The fever of a reckless scheme flushed her cheeks as she opened the lid of an old tin trunk… filling her purse with the coins and rupee notes of grateful patients and wedding-guests, my mother went to the races.

With the Brass Monkey growing inside her, my mother stalked the paddocks of the racecourse named after the goddess of wealth; braving early-morning sickness and varicose veins, she stood in line at the Tote window, putting money on three-horse accumulators and long-odds outsiders. Ignorant of the first thing about horses, she backed mares known not to be stayers to win long races; she put her money on jockeys because she liked their smiles. Clutching a purse full of the dowry which had lain untouched in its trunk since her own mother had packed it away, she took wild flutters on stallions who looked fit for the Schaapsteker Institute… and won, and won, and won.

'Good news,' Ismail Ibrahim is saying, 'I always thought you should fight the bastards. I'll begin proceedings at once… but it will take cash, Amina. Have you got cash?'

'The money will be there.'

'Not for myself,' Ismail explains, 'My services are, as I said, free, gratis absolutely. But, forgive me, you must know how things are, one must give little presents to people to smooth one's way…'

'Here,' Amina hands him an envelope, 'Will this do for now?'

'My God,' Ismail Ibrahim drops the packet in surprise and rupee notes in large denominations scatter all over his sitting-room floor, 'Where did you lay your hands on…' And Amina, 'Better you don't ask-and I won't ask how you spend it.'

Schaapsteker money paid for our food bills; but horses fought our war. The streak of luck of my mother at the race-track was so long, a seam so rich, that if it hadn't happened it wouldn't have been credible… for month after month, she put her money on a jockey's nice tidy hair-style or a horse's pretty piebald colouring; and she never left the track without a large envelope stuffed with notes.

'Things are going well,' Ismail Ibrahim told her, 'But Amina sister, God knows what you are up to. Is it decent? Is it legal?' And Amina: 'Don't worry your head. What can't be cured must be endured. I am doing what must be done.'

Never once in all that time did my mother take pleasure in her mighty victories; because she was weighed down by more than a baby-eating Reverend Mother's curries filled with ancient prejudices, she had become convinced that gambling was the next worst thing on earth, next to alcohol; so, although she was not a criminal, she felt consumed by sin.

Verrucas plagued her feet, although Purushottam the sadhu, who sat under our garden tap until dripping water created a bald patch amid the luxuriantly matted hair on his head, was a marvel at charming them away; but throughout the snake winter and the hot season, my mother fought her husband's fight.

You ask: how is it possible? How could a housewife, however assiduous, however determined, win fortunes on the horses, day after racing day, month after month? You think to yourself: aha, that Homi Catrack, he's a horse-owner; and everyone knows that most of the races are fixed; Amina was asking her neighbour for hot tips! A plausible notion; but Mr Catrack himself lost as often as he won; he saw my mother at the race-track and was astounded by her success. ('Please,' Amina asked him, 'Catrack Sahib, let this be our secret. Gambling is a terrible thing; it would be so shaming if my mother found out.' And Catrack, nodding dazedly, said, 'Just as you wish.') So it was not the Parsee who was behind it-but perhaps I can offer another explanation. Here it is, in a sky-blue crib in a sky-blue room with a fisherman's pointing finger on the wall: here, whenever his mother goes away clutching a purse full of secrets, is Baby Saleem, who has acquired an expression of the most intense concentration, whose eyes have been seized by a singleness of purpose of such enormous power that it has darkened them to deep navy blue, and whose nose is twitching strangely while he appears to be watching some distant event, to be guiding it from a distance, just as the moon controls the tides.

'Coming to court very soon,' Ismail Ibrahim said, 'I think you can be fairly confident… my God, Amina, have you found King Solomon's Mines?'

The moment I was old enough to play board games, I fell in love with Snakes and Ladders. О perfect balance of rewards and penalties! О seemingly random choices made by tumbling dice! Clambering up ladders, slithering down snakes, I spent some of the happiest days of my life. When, in my time of trial, my father challenged me to master the game of shatranj, I infuriated him by preferring to invite him, instead, to chance his fortune among the ladders and nibbling snakes.