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

, attempted to plunge behind the great gold and silken sheet with its sing
le hole, Major Alauddin Latif restrained him with beatific good humour, pr
eventing him from seeing Jamila Singer's face without even bloodying his n
ose. The evening ended when all the guests fell asleep at their tables; bu
t Jamila Singer was escorted to her rooms by a sleepily, beaming Latif.
At midnight, Saleem awoke to find that he still clutched the magical parchm
ent of Mutasim the Handsome in his right hand; and since the wind from the
north was still blowing gently through his room, he made up his mind to cre
ep, in chappals and dressing gown, through the darkened passages of the lov
ely palace, past all the accumulated debris of a decaying world, rusting su
its of armour and ancient tapestries which provided centuries of food for t
he palace's one billion moths, giant mahaseer trout swimming in glass seas,
and a profusion of hunting trophies including a tarnished golden teetar bi
rd on a teak plinth which commemorated the day on which an earlier Nawab, i
n the company of Lord Curzon and party, had shot III, III teetars in a sing
le day; he crept past the statues of dead birds into the zenana chambers wh
ere the women of the palace slept, and then, sniffing the air, he selected
one door, turned the handle and went inside.
There was a giant bed with a floating mosquito net caught in a stream of co
lourless light from the maddening, midnight moon; Saleem moved towards it,
and then stopped, because he had seen, at the window, the figure of a man t
rying to climb into the room. Mutasim the Handsome, made shameless by his i
nfatuation and the hashashin wind, had resolved to look at Jamila's face, n
o matter what the cost .. .And Saleem, invisible in the shadows of the room
cried out: 'Hands up! Or I shoot!' Saleem was bluffing; but Mutasim, whose
hands were on the window sill, supporting his full weight, did not know th
at, and was placed in a quandary: to hang on and be shot, or let go and fal
l? He attempted to argue back, 'You shouldn't be here yourself,' he said, '
I'll tell Amina Begum.' He had recognized the voice of his oppressor; but S
aleem pointed out the weakness of his position, and Mutasim, pleading, 'Oka
y, only don't fire,' was permitted to descend the way he'd come. After that
day, Mutasim persuaded his father to make a formal proposal of marriage to
Jamila's parents; but she, who had been born and raised without love, reta
ined her old hatred of all who claimed to love her, and turned him down. He
left Kif and came to Karachi, but she would not entertain his importunate
proposals; and eventually he joined the Army and became a martyr in the war
of 1965.
The tragedy of Mutasim the Handsome, however, is only a subplot in our s
tory; because now Saleem and his sister were alone, and she awakened by
the exchange between the two youths, asked, 'Saleem? What is happening?'
Saleem approached his sister's bed; his hand sought hers; and parchment wa
s pressed against skin. Only now did Saleem, his tongue loosened by the mo