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

ines against the blue; I saw a network of fissures spreading beneath his leat
hery skin; and I answered the Monkey's question: 'I think he is.' Before the
end of the forty day mourning period, my grandfather's skin had begun to spli
t and flake and peel; he could hardly open his mouth to eat because of the cu
ts in the corners of his lips; and his teeth began to drop like Flitted flies
. But a crack death can be slow; and it was a long time before we knew about
the other cracks, about the disease which was nibbling at his bones, so that
finally his skeleton disintegrated into powder inside the weatherbeaten sack
of his skin.
Padma is looking suddenly panicky. 'What are you saying? You, mister: are
you telling that you also… what nameless thing can eat up any man's bones?
Is it…'
No time to pause now; no time for sympathy or panic; I have already gone f
urther than I should. Retreating a little in time, I must mention that som
ething also leaked into Aadam Aziz from me; because on the twenty third da
y of the mourning period, he asked the entire family to assemble in the sa
me room of glass vases (no need to hide them from my uncle now) and cushio
ns and immobilized fans, the same room in which I had announced visions of
my own… Reverend Mother had said, 'He has become like a child again'; lik
e a child, my grandfather announced that, three weeks after he had heard o
f the death of a son whom he had believed to be alive and well, he had see
n with his own eyes the God in whose death he had tried all his life to be
lieve. And, like a child, he was not believed. Except by one person… 'Yes,
listen,' my grandfather said, his voice a weak imitation of his old boomi
ng tones, 'Yes, Rani? You are here? And Abdullah? Come, sit, Nadir, this i
s news where is Ahmed? Alia will want him here… God, my children; God, who
m I fought all my life. Oskar? Ilse? No, of course. I know they are dead.
You think I'm old, maybe foolish; but I have seen God.' And the story, slo
wly, despite rambles and diversions, comes inching out: at midnight, my gr
andfather awoke in his darkened room. Someone eke present someone who was
not his wife. Reverend Mother, snoring in her bed. But someone. Someone wi
th shining dust on him, lit by the setting moon. And Aadam Aziz, 'Ho, Tai?
Is it y6u?' And Reverend Mother, mumbling in her sleep, 'O, sleep, hiusba
nd, forget this…' But the someone, the something, cries in a loud startlin
g (and startled?) voice, 'Jesus Christ Almighty!' (Amid the cut glass vase
s, my grandfather laughs apologetically heh heh, for mentioning the infide
l name.) 'Jesus Christ Almighty!' and my grandfather looking, and seeing,
yes, there are holes in hands, perforations in the feet as there once were
in a… But he is rubbing his eyes, shaking his head, saying: 'Who? What na
me? What did you say?' And the apparition, startling startled, 'God! God!' And, after a