Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie [51]
Picture her that morning, a dark shadow between the mob and its prey, her womb bursting with its invisible untold secret: “Wah, wah,” she applauded the crowd. “What heroes! Heroes, I swear, absolutely! Only fifty of you against this terrible monster of a fellow! Allah, you make my eyes shine with pride.”
… And Zohra, “Come back, sisterji!” And the oily quiff, “Why speak for this goonda, Begum Sahiba? This is not right acting.” And Amina, “I know this man. He is a decent type. Go, get out, none of you have anything to do? In a Muslim muhalla you would tear a man to pieces? Go, remove yourselves.” But the mob has stopped being surprised, and is moving forward again … and now. Now it comes.
“Listen,” my mother shouted, “Listen well. I am with child. I am a mother who will have a child, and I am giving this man my shelter. Come on now, if you want to kill, kill a mother also and show the world what men you are!”
That was how it came about that my arrival—the coming of Saleem Sinai—was announced to the assembled masses of the people before my father had heard about it. From the moment of my conception, it seems, I have been public property.
But although my mother was right when she made her public announcement, she was also wrong. This is why: the baby she was carrying did not turn out to be her son.
My mother came to Delhi; worked assiduously at loving her husband; was prevented by Zohra and khichri and clattering feet from telling her husband her news; heard screams; made a public announcement. And it worked. My annunciation saved a life.
After the crowd dispersed, old Musa the bearer went into the street and rescued Lifafa Das’s peepshow, while Amina gave the young man with the beautiful smile glass after glass of fresh lime water. It seemed that his experience had drained him not only of liquid but also sweetness, because he put four spoonfuls of raw sugar into every glass, while Zohra cowered in pretty terror on a sofa. And, at length, Lifafa Das (rehydrated by lime water, sweetened by sugar) said: “Begum Sahiba, you are a great lady. If you allow, I bless your house; also your unborn child. But also—please permit—I will do one thing more for you.”
“Thank you,” my mother said, “but you must do nothing at all.”
But he continued (the sweetness of sugar coating his tongue). “My cousin, Shri Ramram Seth, is a great seer, Begum Sahiba. Palmist, astrologer, fortune-teller. You will please come to him, and he will reveal to you the future of your son.”
Soothsayers prophesied me … in January 1947, my mother Amina Sinai was offered the gift of a prophecy in return for her gift of a life. And despite Zohra’s “It is madness to go with this one, Amina sister, do not even think of it for one sec, these are times to be careful”; despite her memories of her father’s scepticism and of his thumbandfore-finger closing around a maulvi’s ear, the offer touched my mother in a place which answered Yes. Caught up in the illogical wonderment of her brand-new motherhood of which she had only just become certain, “Yes,” she said, “Lifafa Das, you will please meet me after some days at the gate to the Red Fort. Then you will take me to your cousin.”
“I shall be waiting every day,” he joined his palms; and left.
Zohra was so stunned that, when Ahmed Sinai came home, she could only shake her head and say, “You newlyweds; crazy as owls; I must leave you to each other!”
Musa, the old bearer, kept his mouth shut, too. He kept himself in the background of our lives, always, except twice … once when he left us; once when he returned to destroy the world by accident.
Many-headed Monsters
UNLESS, OF COURSE, there’s no such thing as chance; in which case Musa—for all his age and servility—was nothing less than a time-bomb, ticking softly away until his appointed time; in which case, we should either—optimistically—get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning, and are spared the terror of knowing