Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie [177]
If I hadn’t wanted to be a hero, Mr. Zagallo would never have pulled out my hair. If my hair had remained intact, Glandy Keith and Fat Perce wouldn’t have taunted me; Masha Miovic wouldn’t have goaded me into losing my finger. And from my finger flowed blood which was neither-Alpha-nor-Omega, and sent me into exile; and in exile I was filled with the lust for revenge which led to the murder of Homi Catrack; and if Homi hadn’t died, perhaps my uncle would not have strolled off a roof into the sea-breezes; and then my grandfather would not have gone to Kashmir and been broken by the effort of climbing the Sankara Acharya hill. And my grandfather was the founder of my family, and my fate was linked by my birthday to that of the nation, and the father of the nation was Nehru. Nehru’s death: can I avoid the conclusion that that, too, was all my fault?
But now we’re back in 1958; because of the thirty-seventh day of the mourning period, the truth, which had been creeping up on Mary Pereira—and therefore on me—for over eleven years, finally came out into the open; truth, in the shape of an old, old man, whose stench of Hell penetrated even my clogged-up nostrils, and whose body lacked fingers and toes and was littered with boils and holes, walked up our two-storey hillock and appeared through the dust-cloud to be seen by Mary Pereira, who was cleaning the chick-blinds on the verandah.
Here, then, was Mary’s nightmare come true; here, visible through the pall of dust, was the ghost of Joe D’Costa, walking towards the ground-floor office of Ahmed Sinai! As if it hadn’t been enough to show himself to Aadam Aziz … “Arré, Joseph,” Mary screamed, dropping her duster, “you go away now! Don’t come here now! Don’t be bothering the sahibs with your troubles! O God, Joseph, go, go na, you will kill me today!” But the ghost walked on down the driveway.
Mary Pereira, abandoning chick-blinds, leaving them hanging askew, rushes into the heart of the house to throw herself at the feet of my mother—small fat hands joined in supplication—“Begum Sahiba! Begum Sahiba, forgive me!” And my mother astounded: “What is this, Mary? What has got your goat?” But Mary is beyond dialogue, she is weeping uncontrollably, crying “O God my hour has come, my darling Madam, only let me go peacefully, do not put me in the jail-khana!” And also, “Eleven years, my Madam, see if I haven’t loved you all, O Madam, and that boy with his face like the moon; but now I am killed, I am no-good woman, I shall burn in hell! Funtoosh!” cried Mary, and again, “It’s finished; funtoosh!”
Still I did not guess what was coming; not even when Mary threw herself upon me (I was taller than her now; her tears wet my neck): “O baba, baba; today you must learn a thing, such a thing I have done; but come now …” and the little woman drew herself up with immense dignity, “… I will tell you all before that Joseph does. Begum, children, all you other great sirs and madams, come now to sahib’s office, and I will tell.”
Public announcements have punctuated my life; Amina in a Delhi gully, and Mary in a sunless office … with my whole family trooping amazedly behind us, I went downstairs with Mary Pereira, who would not let go of my hand.
What was in the room with Ahmed Sinai? What had given my father a face from which djinns and money had been chased away and replaced by a look of utter desolation? What sat huddled up in the corner of the room, filling the air with a sulphurous stench? What, shaped like a man, lacked fingers and toes; whose face seemed to bubble like the hot springs of New Zealand (which I’d seen in the Wonder Book of Wonders)? … No time to explain, because Mary Pereira has begun to talk, gabbling out a secret which has been hidden for over eleven years, pulling us all out of the dream-world she invented when she changed name-tags, forcing us into the horror of the truth. And all the time she held on to me; like a mother protecting her child, she shielded me from my family. (Who were learning … as I was … that they were not …)
… It was just after midnight and in the streets there were fireworks and crowds, the many-headed monster roaring, I did it for my Joseph, Sahib, but please don