Salman Rushdie - Midnight's children

What tiny grain of grit, in the sea of old age now washing over the old bearer, lodged between bis lips to fatten into the dark pearl of hatred-into what unaccustomed torpors did Musa fall, becoming leaden of hand and foot, so that vases were broken, ashtrays spilled, and a veiled hint of forthcoming dismissal-from Mary's conscious or unconscious lips?-grew into an obsessive fear, which rebounded upon the person who started it off?

And (not to omit social factors) what was the brutalizing effect of servant status, of a servants' room behind a blackstoved kitchen, in which Musa was obliged to sleep along with gardener, odd-job boy, and hamal-while Mary slept in style on a rush mat beside a new-born child?

And was Mary blameless or not? Did her inability to go to church-because in churches you found confessionals, and in confessionals secrets could not be kept-turn sour inside her and make her a little sharp, a little hurtful?

Or must we look beyond psychology-seeking our answer in statements such as, there was a snake lying in wait for Mary, and Musa was doomed to learn about the ambiguity of ladders? Or further still, beyond snake-and-ladder, should we see the Hand of Fate in the quarrel-and say, in order for Musa to return as explosive ghost, in order for him to adopt the role of Bomb-in-Bombay, it was necessary to engineer a departure… or, descending from such sublimities to the ridiculous, could it be that Ahmed Sinai-whom whisky provoked, whom djinns goaded into excesses of rudeness-had so incensed the aged bearer that his crime, with which he equalled Mary's record, was committed out of the injured pride of an abused old servitor-and was nothing to do with Mary at all?

Ending questions, I confine myself to facts: Musa and Mary were perpetually at daggers drawn. And yes: Ahmed insulted him, and Amina's pacifying efforts may not have been successful; and yes: the fuddling shadows of age had convinced him he would be dismissed, without warning, at any moment; and so it was that Amina came to discover, one August morning, that the house had been burgled.

The police came. Amina reported what was missing: a silver spittoon encrusted with lapis lazuli; gold coins; bejewelled samovars and silver tea-services; the contents of a green tin trunk. Servants were lined up in the hall and subjected to the threats of Inspector Johnny Vakeel. 'Come on, own up now'-lathi-stick tapping against his leg-'or you'll see what we can't do to you. You want to stand on one leg all day and night? You want water thrown over you, sometimes boiling hot, sometimes freezing cold? We have many methods in the Police Force…' And now a cacophony of noise from servants, Not me, Inspector Sahib, I am honest boy; for pity's sake, search my things, sahib! And Amina: 'This is too much, sir, you go too far. My Mary I know, anyway, is innocent. I will not have her questioned.' Suppressed irritation of police officer. A search of belongings is instituted-'Just in case, Madam. These fellows have limited intelligence-and maybe you discovered the theft too soon for the felon to abscond with the booty!'

The search succeeds. In the bedroll of Musa the old bearer: a silver spittoon. Wrapped in his puny bundle of clothes: gold coins, a silver samovar. Secreted under his charpoy bed: a missing tea-service. And now Musa has thrown himself at Ahmed Sinai's feet; Musa is begging, 'Forgive, sahib! I was mad; I thought you were going to throw me into the street!' but Ahmed Sinai will not listen; the freeze is upon him; 'I feel so weak,' he says, and leaves the room; and Amina, aghast, asks: 'But, Musa, why did you make that terrible oath?'

… Because, in the interim between line-up in passageway and discoveries in servants' quarters, Musa had said to his master: 'It was not me, sahib. If I have robbed you, may I be turned into a leper! May my old skin run with sores!'

Amina, with horror on her face, awaits Musa's reply. The bearer's old face twists into a mask of anger; words are spat out. 'Begum Sahiba, I only took your precious possessions, but you, and your sahib, and his father, have taken my whole life; and in my old age you have humiliated me with Christian ayahs.'

There is silence in Buckingham Villa-Amina has refused to press charges, but Musa is leaving. Bedroll on his back, he descends a spiral iron staircase, discovering that ladders can go down as well as up; he walks away down hillock, leaving a curse upon the house.

And (was it the curse that did it?) Mary Pereira is about to discover that even when you win a battle; even when staircases operate in your favour, you can't avoid a snake.

Amina says, 'I can't get you any more money, Ismail; have you had enough?' And Ismail, 'I hope so-but you never know-is there any chance of… ?' But Amina: 'The trouble is, I've got so big and all, I can't get in the car any more. It will just have to do.'

… Time is slowing down for Amina once more; once again, her eyes look through leaded glass, in which red tulips, green-stemmed, dance in unison; for a second time, her gaze lingers on a clocktower which has not worked since the rains of 1947; once again, it is raining. The racing season is over.

A pale blue clocktower: squat, peeling, inoperational. It stood on black-tarred concrete at the end of the circus-ring-the flat roof of the upper storey of the buildings along Warden Road, which abutted our two-storey hillock, so that if you climbed over Buckingham Villa's boundary wall, flat black tar would be under your feet. And beneath black tar, Breach Candy Kindergarten School, from which, every afternoon during term, there rose the tinkling music of Miss Harrison's piano playing the unchanging tunes of childhood; and below that, the shops, Reader's Paradise, Fatbhoy Jewellery, Chimalker's Toys and Bombelli's, with its windows filled with One Yards of Chocolates. The door to the clocktower was supposed to be locked, but it was a cheap lock of a kind Nadir Khan would have recognized: made in India. And on three successive evenings immediately before my first birthday, Mary Pereira, standing by my window at night, noticed a shadowy figure floating across the roof, his hands full of shapeless objects, a shadow which filled her with an unidentifiable dread. After the third night, she told my mother; the police were summoned; and Inspector Vakeel returned to Methwold's Estate, accompanied by a special squad of crack officers-'all deadeye shots. Begum Sahiba; just you leave it all to us!'-who, disguised as sweepers, with guns concealed under their rags, kept the clocktower under surveillance while sweeping up the dust in the circus-ring.

Night fell. Behind curtains and chick-blinds, the inhabitants of Methwold's Estate peered fearfully in the direction of the clocktower. Sweepers, absurdly, went about their duties in the dark. Johnny Vakeel took up a position on our verandah, rifle just out of sight… and, at midnight, a shadow came over the side wall of the Breach Candy school and made its way towards the tower, with a sack slung over one shoulder… 'He must enter,' Vakeel had told Amina; 'Must be sure we get the proper johnny.' The johnny, padding across flat tarred roof, arrived at the tower; entered.

'Inspector Sahib, what are you waiting for?'

'Shhh, Begum, this is police business; please go inside some way. We shall take him when he comes out; you mark my words. Caught,' Vakeel said with satisfaction, 'like a rat in a trap.'

'But who is he?'

'Who knows?' Vakeel shrugged. 'Some badmaash for sure. There are bad eggs everywhere these days.'

… And then the silence of the night is split like milk by a single, sawn-off shriek; somebody lurches against the inside of the clocktower door; it is wrenched open; there is a crash; and something streaks out on to black tarmac. Inspector Vakeel leaps into action, swinging up his rifle, shooting from the hip like John Wayne; sweepers extract marksmen's weapons from their brushes and blaze away… shrieks of excited women, yells of servants… silence.