Salman Rushdie - Midnight's children

'Sir an animal sir!'

The hand pulls harder higher. 'Again.' Standing on my toenails now, I yelp: 'Aiee sir an animal an animal please sir aiee!'

And still harder and still higher… 'Once more!' But suddenly it ends; my feet are flat on the ground again; and the class has fallen into a deathly hush.

'Sir,' Sonny Ibrahim is saying, 'you pulled his hair out, sir.'

And now the cacophony: 'Look sir, blood.' 'He's bleeding sir.1 'Please sir shall I take him to the nurse?'

Mr Zagallo stood like a statue with a clump of my hair in his fist. While I-too shocked to feel any pain-felt the patch on my head where Mr Zagallo had created a monkish tonsure, a circle where hair would never grow again, and realized that the curse of my birth, which connected me to my country, had managed to find yet one more unexpected expression of itself.

Two days later, Croaker Crusoe announced that, unfortunately, Mr Emil Zagallo was leaving the staff for personal reasons; but I knew what the reasons were. My uprooted hairs had stuck to his hands, like bloodstains that wouldn't wash out, and nobody wants a teacher with hair on Ids palms, 'The first sign of madness,' as Glandy Keith was fond of saying, 'and the second sign is looking for them.'

Zagallo's legacy: a monk's tonsure; and, worse than that, a whole set of new taunts, which my classmates flung at me while we waited for school buses to take us home to get dressed for the Social: 'Snot-nose is a bal-die!' and, 'Sniffer's got a map-face!' When Cyrus arrived in the bus-queue, I tried to turn the crowd against him, by attempting to set up a chant of'Cyrus-the-great, Born on a plate, In nineteen hundred and forty-eight,' but nobody took up the offer.

So we come to the events of the Cathedral School Social. At which bullies became instruments of destiny, and fingers were transmuted into fountains, and Masha Miovic, the legendary breast-stroker, fell into a dead faint… I arrived at the Social with the nurse's bandage still on my head. I was late, because it hadn't been easy to persuade my mother to let me come; so by the time I stepped into the Assembly Hall, beneath streamers and balloons and the professionally suspicious gazes of bony female chaperones, all the best girls were already box-stepping and Mexican-Hatting with absurdly smug partners. Naturally, the prefects had the pick of the ladies; I watched them with passionate envy, Guzder and Joshi and Stevenson and Rushdie and Talyarkhan and Tayabali and Jussawalla and Wagle and King; I tried butting in on them during excuse-mes but when they saw my bandage and my cucumber of a nose and the stains on my face they just laughed and turned their backs… hatred burgeoning in my bosom, I ate potato chips and drank Bubble-Up and Vimto and told myself, 'Those jerks; if they knew who I was they'd get out of my way pretty damn quick!' But still the fear of revealing my true nature was stronger than my somewhat abstract desire for the whirling European girls.

'Hey, Saleem, isn't it? Hey, man, what happened to you?' I was dragged out of my bitter, solitary reverie (even Sonny had someone to dance with; but then, he had his forcep-hollows, and he didn't wear underpants-there were reasons for his attractiveness) by a voice behind my left shoulder, a low, throaty voice, full of promises-but also of menace. A girl's voice. I turned with a sort of jump and found myself staring at a vision with golden hair and a prominent and famous chest… my God, she was fourteen years old, why was she talking to me?… 'My name is Masha Miovic,' the vision said, 'I've met your sister.'

Of course! The Monkey's heroines, the swimmers from Walsingham School, would certainly know the Schools champion breast-stroker!… 'I know…' I stuttered, 'I know your name.'

'And I know yours,' she straightened my tie, 'so that's fair.' Over her shoulder, I saw Glandy Keith and Fat Perce watching us in drooling paroxysms of envy. I straightened my back and pushed out my shoulders. Masha Miovic asked again about my bandage. 'It's nothing,' I said in what I hoped was a deep voice, 'A sporting accident.' And then, working feverishly to hold my voice steady, 'Would you like to… to dance?'

'Okay,' said Masha Miovic, 'But don't try any smooching.'

Saleem takes the floor with Masha Miovic, swearing not to smooch. Saleem and Masha, doing the Mexican Hat; Masha and Saleem, box-stepping with the best of them! I allow my face to adopt a superior expression; you see, you don't have to be a prefect to get a girl!… The dance ended; and, still on top of my wave of elation, I said, 'Would you care for a stroll, you know, in the quad?'

Masha Miovic smiling privately. 'Well, yah, just for a sec; but hands off, okay?'

Hands off, Saleem swears. Saleem and Masha, taking the air… man, this is fine. This is the life. Goodbye Evie, hello breast-stroke… Glandy Keith Colaco and Fat Perce Fishwala step out of the shadows of the quadrangle. They are giggling: 'Нее hee.' Masha Miovic looks puzzled as they block our path. 'Hoo hoo,' Fat Perce says, 'Masha, hoo hoo. Some date you got there.' And I, 'Shut up, you.' Whereupon Glandy Keith, 'You wanna know how he got his war-wound, Mashy?' And Fat Perce, 'Нее hoo ha.' Masha says, 'Don't be crude; he got it in a sporting accident!' Fat Perce and Glandy Keith are almost falling over with mirth; then Fishwala reveals all. 'Zagallo pulled his hair out in class!' Нее hoo. And Keith, 'Snotnose is a bal-die!' And both together, 'Sniffer's got a map-face!' There is puzzlement on Masha Miovic's face. And something more, some budding spirit of sexual mischief… 'Saleem, they're being so rude about you!'

'Yes,' I say, 'ignore them.' I try to edge her away. But she goes on, 'You aren't going to let them get away with it?' There are beads of excitement on her upper lip; her tongue is in the corner of her mouth; the eyes of Masha Miovic say, What are you? A man or a mouse?… and under the spell of the champion breast-stroker, something else floats into my head: the image of two irresistible knees; and now I am rushing at Colaco and Fishwala; while they are distracted by giggles, my knee drives into Glandy's groin; before he's dropped, a similar genuflection has laid Fat Perce low. I turn to my mistress; she applauds, softly. 'Hey man, pretty good.'

But now my moment has passed; and Fat Perce is picking himself up, and Glandy Keith is already moving towards me… abandoning all pretence of manhood, I turn and run. And the two bullies are after me and behind them comes Masha Miovic calling, 'Where are you running, little hero?' But there's no time for her now, mustn't let them get me, into the nearest classroom and try and shut the door, but Fat Perce's foot is in the way and now the two of them are inside too and I dash at the door, I grab it with my right hand, trying to force it open, get out if you can, they are pushing the door shut, but I'm pulling with the strength of my fear, I have it open a few inches, my hand curls around it, and now Fat Perce slams all his weight against the door and it shuts too fast for me to get my hand out of the way and it's shut. A thud. And outside, Masha

Miovic arrives and looks down at the floor; and sees the top third of my middle finger lying there like a lump of well-chewed bubble-gum. This was the point at which she fainted.

No pain. Everything very far away. Fat Perce and Glandy Keith fleeing, to get help or to hide. I look at my hand out of pure curiosity. My finger has become a fountain: red liquid spurts out to the rhythm of my heart-beat. Never knew a finger held so much blood. Pretty. Now here's nurse, don't worry, nurse. Only a scratch. Your parents are being phoned; Mr Crusoe is getting his car keys. Nurse is putting a great wad of cotton-wool over the stump. Filling up like red candyfloss. And now Crusoe. Get in the car, Saleem, your mother is going straight to the hospital. Yes sir. And the bit, has anybody got the bit? Yes headmaster here it is. Thank you nurse. Probably no use but you never know. Hold this while I drive, Saleem… and holding up my severed finger-dp in my unmutilated left hand, I am driven to the Breach Candy Hospital through the echoing streets of night.