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

my hour has come, my darling Madam, only let me go peacefully, do not put
me in the jailkhana!' And also, 'Eleven years, my Madam, see if I haven't
loved you all, ? Madam, and that boy with his face like the moon; but now
I am killed, I am no good woman, I shall burn in hell! Funtoosh!' cried Ma
ry, and again, 'It's finished; funloosh!'
Still I did not guess what was coming; not even when Mary threw herself upo
n me (I was taller than her now; her tears wet my neck): 'O baba, baba; tod
ay you, must learn a thing, such a thing I have done; but come now…' and th
e little woman drew herself up with immense dignity, '… I will tell you all
before that Joseph does. Begum, children, all you other great sirs and mad
ams, come now to sahib's office, and I will tell.'
Public announcements have punctuated my life; Amina in a Delhi gully, an
d Mary in a sunless office… with my whole family trooping amazedly behin
d us, I went downstairs with Mary Pereira, who would not let go of my ha
nd.
What was in the room with Ahmed Sinai? What had given my father a face fr
om which djinns and money had been chased away and replaced by a look of
utter desolation? What sat huddled up in the corner of the room, filling
the air with a sulphurous stench? What, shaped like a man, lacked fingers
and toes, whose face seemed to bubble like the hot springs of New Zealan
d (which I'd seen in the Wonder Book of Wonders)?… No time to explain, be
cause Mary Pereira has begun to talk, gabbling out a secret which has bee
n hidden for over eleven years, pulling us all out of the dream world she
invented when she changed name tags, forcing us into the horror of the t
ruth. And all the time she held on to me; like a mother protecting her ch
ild, she shielded me from my family. (Who were learning… as I was… that t
hey were not…)
… It was just after midnight and in the streets there were fireworks and cr
owds, the many headed monster roaring, I did it for my Joseph, sahib, but p
lease don't send me to jail, look the boy is a good boy, sahib, I am a poor
woman, sahib, one mistake, one minute in so many years, not jailkhana sahi
b, I will go, eleven years I gave but I will go now, sahib, only this is a
good boy, sahib, you must not send him, sahib, after eleven years he is you
r son… O, you boy with your face like the sun coming out, ? Saleem my piece
of the moon, you must know that your father was Winkie and your mother is
also dead…
Mary Pereira ran out of the room.
Ahmed Sinai said, in a voice as faraway as a bird: 'That, in the corner, is m
y old servant Musa, who tried to rob me once.'
(Can any narrative stand so much so soon? I glance towards Padma; she appea
rs to be stunned, like a fish.)
Once upon a time there was a servant who robbed my father; who swore he was