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

ody got the bit? Yes headmaster here it is. Thank you nurse. Probably no us
e but you never know. Hold this while I drive, Saleem… and holding up my se
vered finger dp in my unmutilated left hand, I am driven to the Breach Cand
y Hospital through the echoing streets of night.
At the hospital: white walls stretchers everyone talking at once. Words po
ur around me like fountains. 'O God preserve us, my little piece of the mo
on, what have they done to you?' To which old Crusoe, 'Heh heh. Mrs Sinai.
Accidents will happen. Boys will be.' But my mother, enraged, 'What kind
of school? Mr Caruso? I'm here with my son's finger in pieces and you tell
me. Not good enough. No, sir.' And now, while Crusoe, 'Actually the name'
s like Robinson, you know heh heh,' the doctor is approaching and a questi
on is being asked, whose answer will change the world.
'Mrs Sinai, your blood group, please? The boy has lost blood. A transfusion
may be necessary.' And Amina: 'I am A; but my husband, O.' And now she is
crying, breaking down, and still the doctor, 'Ah; in that case, are you awa
re of your son's…' But she, the doctor's daughter, must admit she cannot an
swer the question: Alpha or Omega? 'Well in that case a very quick test; bu
t on the subject of rhesus?' My mother, through her tears: 'Both my husband
and I, rhesus positive.' And the doctor, 'Well, good, that at least.'
But when I am on the operating table 'Just sit there, son, I'll give you a
local anaesthetic, no, madam, he's in shock, total anaesthesia would be imp
ossible, all right son, just hold your finger up and still, help him nurse,
and it'll be over in a jiffy' while the surgeon is sewing up the stump and
performing the miracle of transplanting the roots of the nail, all of a su
dden there's a fluster in the background, a million miles away, and 'Have y
ou got a second Mrs Sinai' and I can't hear properly… words float across th
e in finite distance… Mrs Sinai, you are sure? ? and A? A and O? And rhesus
negative, both of you? Heterozygous or homozygous? No, there must be some
mistake, how can he be… I'm sorry, absolutely clear… positive… and neither
A nor… excuse me, Madam, but is he your… not adopted or… The hospital nurse
interposes herself between me and miles away chatter, but it's no good, be
cause now my mother is shrieking, 'But of course you must believe me, docto
r; my God, of course he is our son!'
Neither A nor O. And the rhesus factor: impossibly negative. And zygosity o
ffers no clues. And present in the blood, rare Kell antibodies. And my moth
er, crying, crying crying, crying… 'I don't understand. A doctor's daughter
, and I don't understand.'
Have Alpha and Omega unmasked me? Is rhesus pointing its unanswerable fin
ger? And will Mary Pereira be obliged to… I wake up in a cool, white, Ven
etian blinded room with All India Radio for company. Tony Brent is singin
g: 'Red Sails In The Sunset'.