Salman Rushdie Midnight's children Salman Rushdie Midnight's ...

The fisherman's pointing finger
Is it possible to be jealous of written words? To resent nocturnal scribblin
gs as though they were the very flesh and blood of a sexual rival? I can thi
nk of no other reason for Padma's bizarre behaviour; and this explanation at
least has the merit of being as outlandish as the rage into which she fell
when, tonight, I made the error of writing (and reading aloud) a word which
should not have been spoken… ever since the episode of the quack doctor's vi
sit, I have sniffed out a strange discontent in Padma, exuding its enigmatic
spoor from her eccrine (or apocrine) glands. Distressed, perhaps, by the fu
tility of her midnight attempts at resuscitating my 'other pencil', the usel
ess cucumber hidden in my pants, she has been waxing grouchy. (And then ther
e was her ill tempered reaction, last night, to my revelation of the secrets
of my birth, and her irritation at my low opinion of the sum of one hundred
rupees.) I blame myself: immersed in my autobiographical enterprise, I fail
ed to consider her feelings, and began tonight on the most unfortunate of fa
lse notes.
'Condemned by a perforated sheet to a life of fragments,' I wrote and read
aloud, 'I have nevertheless done better than my grandfather; because while
Aadam Aziz remained the sheet's victim, I have become its master and Padma
is the one who is now under its spell. Sitting in my enchanted shadows, I v
ouchsafe daily glimpses of myself while she, my squatting glimpser, is capt
ivated, helpless as a mongoose frozen into immobility by the swaying, blink
less eyes of a hooded snake, paralysed yes! by love.'
That was the word: love. Written and spoken, it raised her voice to an unus
ually shrill pitch; it unleashed from her lips a violence which would have
wounded me, were I still vulnerable to words. 'Love you?' our Padma piped s
cornfully, 'What for, my God? What use are you, little princeling,' and now
came her attempted coup de grace 'as a lover?' Arm extended, its hairs glo
wing in the lamplight, she jabbed a contemptuous index finger in the direct
ion of my admittedly nonfunctional loins; a long, thick digit, rigid with j
ealousy, which unfortunately served only to remind me of another, long lost
finger… so that she, seeing her arrow miss its mark, shrieked, 'Madman fro
m somewhere! That doctor was right!' and rushed distractedly from the room.
I heard footsteps clattering down the metal stairs to the factory floor; f
eet rushing between the dark shrouded pickle vats; and a door, first unbolt
ed and then slammed.
Thus abandoned, I have returned, having no option, to my work.
The fisherman's pointing finger: unforgettable focal point of the picture wh
ich hung on a sky blue wall in Buckingham Villa, directly above the sky blue
crib in which, as Baby Saleem, midnight's child, I spent my earliest days.
The young Raleigh and who else? sat, framed in teak, at the feet of an old,