Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie [152]
Hanif Aziz boomed like the horns of ships in the harbor and smelled like an old tobacco factory. I loved him dearly, for his laughter, his unshaven chin, his air of having been put together rather loosely, his lack of co-ordination which made his every movement fraught with risk. (When he visited Buckingham Villa my mother hid the cut-glass vases.) Adults never trusted him to behave with proper decorum (“Watch out for the Communists!” he bellowed, and they blushed), which was a bond between himself and all children—other people’s children, since he and Pia were childless. Uncle Hanif who would one day, without warning, take a walk off the roof of his home.
… He wallops me in the back, toppling me forwards into Mary’s arms. “Hey, little wrestler! You look fine!” But Mary, hastily, “But so thin, Jesus! They haven’t been feeding you properly? You want cornflour pudding? Banana mashed with milk? Did they give you chips?” … while Saleem is looking round at this new world in which everything seems to be going too fast; his voice, when it comes, sounds high-pitched, as though somebody had speeded it up: “Amma-Abba?” he asks. “The Monkey?” And Hanif booms, “Yes, tickety-boo! The boy is really ship-shape! Come on phaelwan: a ride in my Packard, okay?” And talking at the same time is Mary Pereira, “Chocolate cake,” she is promising, “laddoos, pista-ki-lauz, meat samosas, kulfi. So thin you got, baba, the wind will blow you away.” The Packard is driving away; it is failing to turn off Warden Road, up the two-storey hillock; and Saleem, “Hanif mamu, where are we …” No time to get it out; Hanif roars, “Your Pia aunty is waiting! My God, you see if we don’t have a number one good time!” His voice drops conspiratorially: “Lots,” he says darkly, “of fun.” And Mary: “Arré baba yes! Such steak! And green chutney!” …
“Not the dark one,” I say, captured at last; relief appears on the cheeks of my captors. “No no no,” Mary babbles, “light green, baba. Just like you like.” And, “Pale green!” Hanif is bellowing, “My God, green like grasshoppers!”
All too fast … we are at Kemp’s Corner now, cars rushing around like bullets … but one thing is unchanged. On his billboard, the Kolynos Kid is grinning, the eternal pixie grin of the boy in the green chlorophyll cap, the lunatic grin of the timeless Kid, who endlessly squeezes an inexhaustible tube of toothpaste on to a bright green brush: Keep Teeth Kleen And Keep Teeth Brite, Keep Teeth Kolynos Super White! … and you may wish to think of me, too, as an involuntary Kolynos Kid, squeezing crises and transformations out of a bottomless tube, extruding time on to my metaphorical toothbrush; clean, white time with green chlorophyll in the stripes.
This, then, was the beginning of my first exile. (There will be a second, and a third.) I bore it uncomplainingly. I had guessed, of course, that there was one question I must never ask; that I had been loaned out, like a comic-book from the Scandal Point Second Hand Library, for some indefinite period; and that when my parents wanted me back, they would send for me. When, or even if: because I blamed myself not a little for my banishment. Had I not inflicted upon myself one more deformity to add to bandylegs cucumbernose horn-temples staincheeks? Was it not possible that my mutilated finger had been (as my announcement of my voices had nearly been), for my long-suffering parents, the last straw? That I was no longer a good business risk, no longer worth the investment of their love and protection? … I decided to reward my uncle and aunt for their kindness in taking in so wretched a creature as myself, to play the model nephew and await events. There were times when I wished that the Monkey would come and see me, or even call me on the phone; but dwelling on such matters only punctured the balloon of my equanimity, so I did my best to put them out of my mind. Besides, living with Hanif and Pia Aziz turned out to be exactly what my uncle had promised: lots of fun.