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

sealed by maternal command, I was unable to ask for comfort. Muhammad, at
forty, sought and received reassurance from wife and friends: 'Verily,' the
y told him, 'you are the Messenger of God'; I, suffering my punishment at n
earlynine, could neither seek Brass Monkey's assistance nor solicit softeni
ng words from Mary Pereira. Muted for an evening and a night and a morning,
I struggled, alone, to understand what had happened to me; until at last I
saw the shawl of genius fluttering down, like an embroidered butterfly, th
e mantle of greatness settling upon my shoulders.
In the heat of that silent night (I was silent; outside me, the sea rustled
like distant paper; crows squawked in the throes of their feathery nightma
res; the puttering noises of tardy taxi cabs wafted up from Warden Road; th
e Brass Monkey, before she fell asleep with her face frozen into a mask of
curiosity, begged, 'Come on, Saleem; nobody's listening; what did you do? T
ell tell tell!'… while, inside me, the voices rebounded against the walls o
f my skull) I was gripped by hot fingers of excitement the agitated insects
of excitement danced in my stomach because finally, in some way I did not
then fully understand, the door which Toxy Catrack had once nudged in my he
ad had been forced open; and through it I could glimpse shadowy still, unde
fined, enigmatic my reason for having been born.
Gabriel or Jibreel told Muhammad: 'Recite!' And then began The Recitation
, known in Arabic as Al Quran: 'Recite: In the Name of the Lord thy Creat
or, who created Man from clots of blood…' That was on Mount Hira outside
Mecca Sharif; on a two storey hillock opposite Breach Candy Pools, voices
also instructed me to recite: Tomorrow!' I thought excitedly. 'Tomorrow!'
By sunrise, I had discovered that the voices could be controlled I was a rad
io receiver, and could turn the volume down or up; I could select individual
voices; I could even, by an effort of will; switch off my newly discovered
inner ear. It was astonishing how soon fear left me; by morning, I was think
ing, 'Man, this is better than All India Radio, man; better than Radio Ceylo
n!'
To demonstrate the loyalty of sisters: when the twenty four hours were up,
on the dot, the Brass Monkey ran into my mother's bedroom. (It was, I think
, a Sunday: no school. Or perhaps not that was the summer of the language m
arches, and the schools were often shut, because of the danger of violence
on the bus routes.)
'The time's up!' she exclaimed, shaking my mother out of sleep. 'Amma, wake
up: it's time: can he talk now?'
'All right,' my mother said, coming into a sky blue room to embrace me, 'yo
u're forgiven now. But never hide in there again…'
'Amma,' I said eagerly, 'my Ammi, please listen. I must tell you something.
Something big. But please, please first of all, wake Abba.'
And after a period of 'What?' 'Why?' and 'Certainly not,' my mother saw so