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

eyes; and then like a blur the Monkey descended on Evie and a battle began
which lasted for what seemed like several hours (but it can only have been a
few minutes). Shrouded in the dust of the circus ring they rolled kicked sc
ratched bit, small tufts of hair flew out of the dust cloud and there were e
lbows and feet in dirtied white socks and knees and fragments of frock flyin
g out of the cloud; grown ups came running, servants couldn't pull them apar
t, and in the end Homi Catrack's gardener turned his hose on them to separat
e them… the Brass Monkey stood up a little crookedly and shook the sodden he
m of her dress, ignoring the cries of retribution proceeding from the lips o
f Amina Sinai and Mary Pereira; because there in the hose wet dirt of the ci
rcus ring lay Evie Burns, her tooth braces broken, her hair matted with dust
and spittle, her spirit and her dominion over us broken for once and for al
l.
A few weeks later her father sent her home for good, 'To get a decent educat
ion away from these savages,' he was heard to remark; I only heard from her
once, six months later, when right out of the blue she wrote me the letter w
hich informed me that she had knifed an old lady who had objected to her ass
ault on a cat. 'I gave it to her all right,' Evie wrote, 'Tell your sister s
he just got lucky.' I salute that unknown old woman: she paid the Monkey's bill.
More interesting than Evie's last message is a thought which occurs to me no
w, as I look back down the tunnel of time. Holding before my eyes the image
of Monkey and Evie rolling in the dirt, I seem to discern the driving force
behind their battle to the death, a motive far deeper than the mere persecut
ion of cats: they were fighting over me. Evie and my sister (who were, in ma
ny ways, not at all dissimilar) kicked and scratched, ostensibly over the fa
te of a few thirsty strays; but perhaps Evie's kicks were aimed at me, perha
ps they were the violence of her anger at my invasion of her head; and then
maybe the strength of the Monkey was the strength of sibling loyalty, and he
r act of war was actually an act of love.
Blood, then, was spilled in the circus ring. Another rejected title for the
se pages you may as well know was 'Thicker Than Water'. In those days of wa
ter shortages, something thicker than water ran down the face of Evie Burns
; the loyalties of blood motivated the Brass Monkey; and in the streets of
the city, rioters spilled each other's blood. There were bloody murders, an
d perhaps it is not appropriate to end this sanguinary catalogue by mention
ing, once again, the rushes of blood to my mother's cheeks. Twelve million
votes were coloured red that year, and red is the colour of blood. More blo
od will flow soon: the types of blood, A and O, Alpha and Omega and another
, a third possibility must be kept in mind. Also other factors: zygosity, a
nd Kell antibodies, and that most mysterious of sanguinary attributes, know
n as rhesus, which is also a type of monkey.