Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie [240]
… While old friends sang “Auld Lang Syne” in officers’ messes, I made my escape from Bangladesh, from my Pakistani years. “I’ll get you out,” Parvati said, after I explained. “You want it secret secret?”
I nodded. “Secret secret.”
Elsewhere in the city, ninety-three thousand soldiers were preparing to be carted off to P.O.W. camps; but Parvati-the-witch made me climb into a wicker basket with a close-fitting lid. Sam Manekshaw was obliged to place his old friend the Tiger under protective custody; but Parvati-the-witch assured me, “This way they’ll never catch.”
Behind an army barracks where the magicians were awaiting their transport back to Delhi, Picture Singh, the Most Charming Man In The World, stood guard when, that evening, I climbed into the basket of invisibility. We loitered casually, smoking biris, waiting until there were no soldiers in sight, while Picture Singh told me about his name. Twenty years ago, an Eastman-Kodak photographer had taken his portrait—which, wreathed in smiles and snakes, afterwards appeared on half the Kodak advertisements and in-store displays in India; ever since when the snake-charmer had adopted his present cognomen. “What do you think, captain?” he bellowed amiably. “A fine name, isn’t it so? Captain, what to do, I can’t even remember what name I used to have, from before, the name my mother-father gave me! Pretty stupid, hey, captain?” But Picture Singh was not stupid; and there was much more to him than charm. Suddenly his voice lost its casual, sleepy good-nature; he whispered, “Now! Now, captain, ek dum, double-quick time!” Parvati whipped lid away from wicker; I dived head first into her cryptic basket. The lid, returning, blocked out the day’s last light.
Picture Singh whispered, “Okay, captain—damn good!” And Parvati bent down close to me; her lips must have been against the outside of the basket. What Parvati-the-witch whispered through wickerwork:
“Hey, you Saleem: just to think! You and me, mister—midnight’s children, yaar! That’s something, no?”
That’s something … Saleem, shrouded in wickerwork darkness, was reminded of years-ago midnights, of childhood wrestling bouts with purpose and meaning; overwhelmed by nostalgia, I still did not understand what that something was. Then Parvati whispered some other words, and, inside the basket of invisibility, I, Saleem Sinai, complete with my loose anonymous garment, vanished instantly into thin air.
“Vanished? How vanished, what vanished?” Padma’s head jerks up; Padma’s eyes stare at me in bewilderment. I, shrugging, merely reiterate: Vanished, just like that. Disappeared. Dematerialized. Like a djinn: poof, like so.
“So,” Padma presses me, “she really-truly was a witch?”
Really-truly. I was in the basket, but also not in the basket; Picture Singh lifted it one-handed and tossed it into the back of the Army truck taking him and Parvati and ninety-nine others to the aircraft waiting at the military airfield; I was tossed with the basket, but also not tossed. Afterwards, Picture Singh said, “No, captain, I couldn’t feel your weight”; nor could I feel any bump thump bang. One hundred and one artistes had arrived, by I.A.F. troop transport, from the capital of India; one hundred and two persons returned, although one of them was both there and not there. Yes, magic spells can occasionally succeed. But also fail: my father, Ahmed Sinai, never succeeded in cursing Sherri, the mongrel bitch.
Without passport or permit, I returned, cloaked in invisibility, to the land of my birth; believe, don’t believe, but even a sceptic will have to provide another explanation for my presence here. Did not the Caliph Haroun al-Rashid (in an earlier set of fabulous tales) also wander, unseen invisible anonymous, cloaked through the streets of Baghdad? What Haroun achieved in Baghdad streets, Parvati-the-witch made possible for me, as we flew through the air-lanes of the subcontinent. She did it; I was invisible; has. Enough.