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

ound our Telefunken radiogram, while telecommunications struck the fear of
God and China into our hearts. And my father now said a fateful thing: 'Wi
fe,' he intoned gravely, while Jamila and I shook with fear, 'Begum Sahiba,
this country is finished. Bankrupt. Funtoosh.' The evening paper proclaime
d the end of the optimism disease: public morale drains away. And after tha
t end, there were others to come; other things would also drain away.
I went to bed with my head full of Chinese faces guns tanks… but at midnig
ht, my head was empty and quiet, because the midnight Conference had drain
ed away as well; the only one of the magic children who was willing to tal
k to me was Parvati the witch, and we, dejected utterly by what Nussie the
duck would have called 'the end of the world', were unable to do more tha
n simply commune in silence.
And other, more mundane drainages: a crack appeared in the mighty Bhakra N
angal Hydro Electric Dam, and the great reservoir behind it flooded throug
h the fissure… and the Narlikar women's reclamation consortium, impervious
to optimism or defeat or anything except the lure of wealth, continued to
draw land out of the depths of the seas… but the final evacuation, the on
e which truly gives this episode its title, took place the next morning, j
ust when I had relaxed and thought that something, after all, might turn o
ut all right… because in the morning we heard the improbably joyous news t
hat the Chinese had suddenly, without needing to, stopped advancing; havin
g gained control of the Himalayan heights, they were apparently content; c
easefire! the newspapers screamed, and my mother almost fainted in relief.
(There was talk that General Kaul had been taken prisoner; the President
of India, Dr Radhakrishan, commented, 'Unfortunately, this report is compl
etely untrue.')
Despite streaming eyes and puffed up sinuses, I was happy; despite even the
end of the Children's Conference, I was basking in the new glow of happine
ss which permeated Buckingham Villa; so when my mother suggested, 'Let's go
and celebrate! A picnic, children, you'd like that?' I naturally agreed wi
th alacrity. It was the morning of November 21st; we helped make sandwiches
and parathas; we stopped at a fizzy drinks shop and loaded ice in a tin tu
b and Cokes in a crate into the boot of our Rover; parents in the front, ch
ildren in the back, we set off. Jamila Singer sang for us as we drove.
Through inflamed sinuses, I asked: 'Where are we going? Juhu? Elephanta? Ma
rve? Where?' And my mother, smiling awkwardly: 'Surprise; wait and see.' Th
rough streets filled with relieved, rejoicing crowds we drove… 'This is the
wrong way,' I exclaimed; 'This isn't the way to a beach?' My parents both
spoke at once, reassuringly, brightly: 'Just one stop first, and then we're
off; promise.'
Telegrams recalled me; radiograms frightened me; but it was a telephone w
hich booked the date time place of my undoing… and my parents lied to me.