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

too, to strange fears. When the Chinese road in the Aksai Chin region was d
iscovered, he became convinced that the yellow hordes would be arriving at
Methwold's Estate in a matter of days; and it was Alice who comforted him w
ith ice cold Coca Cola, saying, 'No good worrying. Those Chinkies are too l
ittle to beat our jawans. Better you drink your Coke; nothing is going to change.'
In the end he wore her out; she stayed with him, finally, only because she
demanded and received large pay increases, and sent much of the money to Go
a, for the support of her sister Mary; but on September 1st, she, too, succ
umbed to the blandishments of the telephone.
By then, she spent as much time on the instrument as her employer, particu
larly when the Narlikar women called up. The formidable Narlikars were, at
that time, besieging my father, telephoning him twice a day, coaxing and
persuading him to sell, reminding him that his position was hopeless, flap
ping around his head like vultures around a burning godown… on September 1
st, like a long ago vulture, they flung down an arm which slapped him in t
he face, because they bribed Alice Pereira away from him. Unable to stand
him any more, she cried, 'Answer your own telephone! I'm off.'
That night, Ahmed Sinai's heart began to bulge. Overfull of hate resentment s
elf pity grief, it became swollen like a balloon, it beat too hard, skipped b
eats, and finally felled him like an ox; at the Breach Candy Hospital the doc
tors discovered that my father's heart had actually changed shape a new swell
ing had pushed lumpily out of the lower left ventricle. It had, to use Alice'
s word, 'booted'.
Alice found him the next day, when, by chance, she returned to collect a fo
rgotten umbrella; like a good secretary, she enlisted the power of telecomm
unications, telephoning an ambulance and tele gramming us. Owing to censors
hip of the mails between India and Pakistan, the 'heartboot cable' took a f
ull week to reach Amina Sinai.'Back to Bom!' I yelled happily, alarming air
port coolies. 'Back to Born!' I cheered, despite everything, until the newl
y sober Jamila said, 'Oh, Saleem, honestly, shoo!' Alice Pereira met us at
the airport (a telegram had alerted her); and then we were in a real Bombay
black and yellow taxi, and I was wallowing in the sounds of hot channa hot
hawkers, the throng of camels bicycles and people people people, thinking
how Mumbadevi's city made Rawalpindi look like a village, rediscovering esp
ecially the colours, the forgotten vividness of gulmohr and bougainvillaea,
the livid green of the waters of the Mahalaxmi Temple 'tank', the stark bl
ack and white of the traffic policemen's sun umbrellas and the blue and yel
lowness of their uniforms; but most of all the blue blue blue of the sea… o
nly the grey of my father's stricken face distracted me from the rainbow ri
ot of the city, and made me sober up.
Alice Pereira left us at the hospital and went off to work for the Narlikar
women; and now a remarkable thing happened. My mother Amina Sinai, jerked