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

The road to Methwold's Estate (we are entering my kingdom now, coming into
the heart of my childhood; a little lump has appeared in my throat) turns
off Warden Road between a bus stop and a little row of shops. Chimalker's
Toyshop; Reader's Paradise; the Chimanbhoy Fatbhoy jewellery store; and,
above all, Bombelli's the Confectioners, with their Marquis cake, their On
e Yard of Chocolates! Names to conjure with; but there's no time now. Past
the saluting cardboard bellboy of the Band Box Laundry, the road leads us
home. In those days the pink skyscraper of the Narlikar women (hideous ec
ho of Srinagar's radio mast!) had not even been thought of; the road mount
ed a low hillock, no higher than a two storey building; it curved round to
face the sea, to look down on Breach Candy Swimming Club, where pink peop
le could swim in a pool the shape of British India without fear of rubbing
up against a black skin; and there, arranged nobly around a little rounda
bout, were the palaces of William Methwold, on which hung signs that would
thanks to me reappear many years later, signs bearing two words; just two
, but they lured my unwitting parents into Methwold's peculiar game: for sale.
Methwold's Estate: four identical houses built in a style befitting their o
riginal residents (conquerors' houses! Roman mansions; three storey homes o
f gods standing on a two storey Olympus, a stunted Kailash!) large, durable
mansions with red gabled roofs and turret towers in each corner, ivory whi
te corner towers wearing pointy red tiled hats (towers, fit to lock princes
ses in!) houses with verandahs, with servants' quarters reached by spiral i
ron staircases hidden at the back houses which their owner, William Methwol
d, had named majestically after the palaces of Europe: Versailles Villa, Bu
ckingham Villa, Escorial Villa and Sans Souci. Bougainvillaea crept across
them; goldfish swam in pale blue pools; cacti grew in rock gardens; tiny to
uch me not plants huddled beneath tamarind trees; there were butterflies an
d roses and cane chairs on the lawns. And on that day in the middle of June
, Mr Methwold sold his empty palaces for ridiculously little but there were
conditions. So now, without more ado, I present him to you, complete with
the centre parting in Ms hair… a six foot Titan, this Methwold, his face th
e pink of roses and eternal youth. He had a head of thick black brilliantin
ed hair, parted in the centre. We shall speak again of this centre parting,
whose ramrod precision made Methwold irresistible to women, who felt unabl
e to prevent themselves wanting to rumple it up… Methwold's hair, parted in
the middle, has a lot to do with my beginnings. It was one of those hairli
nes along which history and sexuality moved. Like tightrope walkers. (But d
espite everything, not even I, who never saw him, never laid eyes on langui
d gleaming teeth or devastatingly combed hair, am incapable of bearing him any grud
And his nose? What did that look like? Prominent? Yes, it must have been,
the legacy of a patrician French grandmother from Bergerac! whose blood
ran aquamarinely in his veins and darkened his courtly charm with somethi