Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie [133]
“Oh God, you and your stories,” she cries, “all day, all night—you have made yourself sick! Stop some time, na, what will it hurt?” I set my lips obstinately; and now she, with a sudden change of mood: “So, tell me now, mister: is there anything you want?”
“Green chutney,” I request, “Bright green—green as grasshoppers.” And someone who cannot be named remembers and tells Padma (speaking in the soft voice which is only used at sickbeds and funerals), “I know what he means.”
… Why, at this crucial instant, when all manner of things were waiting to be described—when the Pioneer Café was so close, and the rivalry of knees and nose—did I introduce a mere condiment into the conversation? (Why do I waste time, in this account, on a humble preserve, when I could be describing the elections of 1957—when all India is waiting, twenty-one years ago, to vote?) Because I sniffed the air; and scented, behind the solicitous expressions of my visitors, a sharp whiff of danger. I intended to defend myself; but I required the assistance of chutney …
I have not shown you the factory in daylight until now. This is what has remained undescribed: through green-tinged glass windows, my room looks out on to an iron catwalk and then down to the cooking-floor, where copper vats bubble and seethe, where strong-armed women stand atop wooden steps, working long-handled ladles through the knife-tang of pickle fumes; while (looking the other way, through a green-tinged window on the world) railway tracks shine dully in morning sun, bridged over at regular intervals by the messy gantries of the electrification system. In daylight, our saffron-and-green neon goddess does not dance above the factory doors; we switch her off to save power. But electric trains are using power: yellow-and-brown local trains clatter south towards Churchgate Station from Dadar and Borivli, from Kurla and Bassein Road. Human flies hang in thick white-trousered clusters from the trains; I do not deny that, within the factory walls, you may also see some flies. But there are also compensating lizards, hanging stilly upside-down on the ceiling, their jowls reminiscent of the Kathiawar peninsula … sounds, too have been waiting to be heard: bubbling of vats, loud singing, coarse imprecations, bawdy humor of fuzz-armed women; the sharp-nosed, thin-lipped admonitions of overseers; the all-pervasive clank of pickle-jars from the adjacent bottling-works; and rush of trains, and the buzzing (infrequent, but inevitable) of flies … while grasshopper-green chutney is being extracted from its vat, to be brought on a wiped-clean plate with saffron and green stripes around the rim, along with another plate piled high with snacks from the local Irani shop; while what-has-now-been-shown goes on as usual, and what-can-now-be-heard fills the air (to say nothing of what can be smelled), I, alone in bed in my office, realize with a start of alarm that outings are being suggested.
“… When you are stronger,” someone who cannot be named is saying, “a day at Elephanta, why not, a nice ride in a motor-launch, and all those caves with so-beautiful carvings; or Juhu Beach, for swimming and coconut-milk and camel-races; or Aarey Milk Colony, even! …” And Padma: “Fresh air, yes, and the little one will like to be with his father.” And someone, patting my son on his head: “There, of course, we will all go. Nice picnic; nice day out. Baba, it will do you good …”
As chutney arrives, bearer-borne, in my room, I hasten to put a stop to these suggestions. “No,” I refuse. “I have work to do.” And I see a look pass between Padma and someone; and I see that I’ve been right to be suspicious. Because I’ve been tricked by offers of picnics once before! Once before, false smiles and offers of Aarey Milk Colony have fooled me into going out of doors and into a motor-car; and then before I knew it there were hands seizing me, there were hospital corridors and doctors and nurses holding me in place while over my nose a mask poured anesthetic over me and a voice said, Count now, count to ten … I know what they are planning.