Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie [202]
At the eternally unfinished Jinnah Mausoleum I picked up the women of the street. Other youths came here to seduce American girls away, taking them off to hotel rooms or swimming pools; I preferred to retain my independence and pay. And eventually I nosed out the whore of whores, whose gifts were a mirror for my own. Her name was Tai Bibi, and she claimed to be five hundred and twelve.
But her smell! The richest spoor he, Saleem, had ever sniffed; he felt bewitched by something in it, some air of historic majesty … he found himself saying to the toothless creature: “I don’t care about your age; the smell’s the thing.”
(“My God,” Padma interrupts, “Such a thing—how could you?”)
Though she never hinted at any connection with a Kashmiri boatman, her name exerted the strongest of pulls; although she may have been humoring Saleem when she said, “Boy, I am five hundred and twelve,” his sense of history was nevertheless aroused. Think of me what you like; I spent one hot, humid afternoon in a tenement-room containing a flea-ridden mattress and a naked lightbulb and the oldest whore in the world.
What finally made Tai Bibi irresistible? What gift of control did she possess which put other whores to shame? What maddened the newly-sensitized nostrils of our Saleem? Padma: my ancient prostitute possessed a mastery over her glands so total that she could alter her bodily odors to match those of anyone on earth. Eccrines and apocrines obeyed the instructions of her antiquated will; and although she said, “Don’t expect me to do it standing up; you couldn’t pay enough for that,” her gifts of perfume were more than he could bear.
(… “Chhi-chhi,” Padma covers her ears, “My God, such a dirty-filthy man, I never knew!” …)
So there he was, this peculiar and hideous youth, with an old hag who said, “I won’t stand up; my corns,” and then noticed that the mention of corns seemed to arouse him; whispering the secret of her eccrine-and-apocrine facility, she asked if he’d like her to imitate anyone’s smells, he could describe and she could try, and by trial-and-error they could … and at first he jerked away, No no no, but she coaxed him in her voice like crumpled paper, until because he was alone, out of the world and out of all time, alone with this impossible mythological old harridan, he began to describe odors with all the perspicacity of his miraculous nose, and Tai Bibi began to imitate his descriptions, leaving him aghast as by trial-and-error she succeeded in reproducing the body odors of his mother his aunts, oho you like that do you little sahibzada, go on, stick your nose as close as you like, you’re a funny fellow for sure … until suddenly, by accident, yes, I swear I didn’t make her do it, suddenly during trial-and-error the most unspeakable fragrance on earth wafts out of the cracked wrinkled leather-ancient body, and now he can’t hide what she sees, oho, little sahibzada, what have I hit on now, you don’t have to tell who she is but this one is the one for sure.
And Saleem, “Shut up shut up—” But Tai Bibi with the relentlessness of her cackling antiquity presses on, “Oho yes, certainly, your lady-love, little sahibzada—who? Your cousin, maybe? Your sister …” Saleem’s hand is tightening into a fist; the right hand, despite mutilated finger, contemplates violence … and now Tai Bibi, “My God yes! Your sister! Go on, hit me, you can’t hide what’s sitting there in the middle of your forehead! …” And Saleem gathering up his clothes struggling into trousers Shut up old hag While she Yes go, go, but if you don’t pay me I’ll, I’ll, you see what I don’t do, and now rupees flying across the room floating down around five-hundred-and-twelve-year-old courtesan, Take take only shut your hideous face, while she Careful my princeling you’re not so handsome yourself, dressed now and rushing from the tenement, Lambretta scooter waiting but urchins have urinated on the seat, he is driving away as fast as he can go, but the truth is going with him, and now Tai Bibi leaning out of a window shouts, “Hey, bhaenchud! Hey, little sister-sleeper, where you running? What