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

mpossibly adult gaze of young Emerald, the brightest of the 'three bright l
ights', he saw that she had understood his future, and forgiven him, becaus
e of it, for his appearance; and before he left, he had decided to marry he
r after a decent interval. ('Her?' Padma guesses. 'That hussy is your mothe
r?' But there are other mothers to be, other future fathers, wafting in and
out through the silence.)
In that marshy time without words the emotional life of grave Alia, the el
dest, was also developing; and Reverend Mother, locked up in the pantry an
d kitchen, sealed behind her lips, was incapable because of her vow of exp
ressing her distrust of the young merchant in reccine and leathercloth who
came to visit her daughter. (Aadam Aziz had always insisted that his daug
hters be permitted to have male friends.) Ahmed Sinai 'Ahaa!' yells Padma
in triumphant recognition had met Alia at the University, and seemed intel
ligent enough for the bookish, brainy girl on whose face my grandfather's
nose had acquired an air of overweight wisdom; but Naseem Aziz felt uneasy
about him, because he had been divorced at twenty. ('Anyone can make one
mistake,' Aadam had told her, and that nearly began a fight, because she t
hought for a moment that there had been something overly personal in his t
one of voice. But then Aadam had added, 'Just let this divorce of his fade
away for a year or two; then we'll give this house its first wedding, wit
h a big marquee in the garden, and singers and sweetmeats and all.' Which,
despite everything, was an idea that appealed to Naseem.) Now, wandering
through the walled jn gardens of silence, Ahmed Sinai and Alia communed wi
thout speech; but although everyone expected him to propose, the silence s
eemed to have got through to him, too, and the question remained unasked.
Alia's face acquired a weigh tiness at this time, a jowly pessimistic qual
ity which she was never entirely to lose. ('Now then,' Padma reproves me,
'that's no way to describe your respected motherji.')
One more thing: Alia had inherited her mother's tendency to put on fat. She
would balloon outwards with the passing years.
And Mumtaz, who had come out of her mother's womb black as midnight? Mumta
z was never brilliant; not as beautiful as Emerald; but she was good, and
dutiful, and alone. She spent more time with her father than any of her si
sters, fortifying him against the bad temper which was being exaggerated n
owadays by the constant itch in his nose; and she took upon herself the du
ties of caring for the needs of Nadir Khan, descending daily into his unde
rworld bearing trays of food, and brooms, and even emptying his personal t
hunderbox, so that not even a latrine cleaner could guess at his presence.
When she descended, he lowered his eyes; and no words, in that dumb house
, were exchanged between them.
What was it the spittoon hitters said about Naseem Aziz? 'She eavesdropped
on her daughters' dreams, just to know what they were up to.' Yes, there's