Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie [63]
And his nose? What did that look like? Prominent? Yes, it must have been, the legacy of a patrician French grandmother—from Bergerac!—whose blood ran aquamarinely in his veins and darkened his courtly charm with something crueller, some sweet murderous shade of absinthe.
Methwold’s Estate was sold on two conditions: that the houses be bought complete with every last thing in them, that the entire contents be retained by the new owners; and that the actual transfer should not take place until midnight on August 15th.
“Everything?” Amina Sinai asked. “I can’t even throw away a spoon? Allah, that lampshade … I can’t get rid of one comb?”
“Lock, stock and barrel,” Methwold said, “Those are my terms. A whim, Mr. Sinai … you’ll permit a departing colonial his little game? We don’t have much left to do, we British, except to play our games.”
“Listen now, listen, Amina,” Ahmed is saying later on, “You want to stay in this hotel room for ever? It’s a fantastic price; fantastic, absolutely. And what can he do after he’s transferred the deeds? Then you can throw out any lampshade you like. It’s less than two months …”
“You’ll take a cocktail in the garden?” Methwold is saying, “Six o’clock every evening. Cocktail hour. Never varied in twenty years.”
“But my God, the paint … and the cupboards are full of old clothes, janum … we’ll have to live out of suitcases, there’s nowhere to put one suit!”
“Bad business, Mr. Sinai,” Methwold sips his Scotch amid cacti and roses, “Never seen the like. Hundreds of years of decent government, then suddenly, up and off. You’ll admit we weren’t all bad: built your roads. Schools, railway trains, parliamentary system, all worthwhile things. Taj Mahal was falling down until an Englishman bothered to see to it. And now, suddenly, independence. Seventy days to get out. I’m dead against it myself, but what’s to be done?”
“… And look at the stains on the carpets, janum; for two months we must live like those Britishers? You’ve looked in the bathrooms? No water near the pot. I never believed, but it’s true, my God, they wipe their bottoms with paper only! …”
“Tell me, Mr. Methwold,” Ahmed Sinai’s voice has changed, in the presence of an Englishman it has become a hideous mockery of an Oxford drawl, “why insist on the delay? Quick sale is best business, after all. Get the thing buttoned up.”
“… And pictures of old Englishwomen everywhere, baba! No place to hang my own father’s photo on the wall! …”
“It seems, Mr. Sinai,” Mr. Methwold is refilling the glasses as the sun dives towards the Arabian Sea behind the Breach Candy pool, “that beneath this stiff English exterior lurks a mind with a very Indian lust for allegory.”
“And drinking so much, janum … that’s not good.”
“I’m not sure—Mr. Methwold, ah—what exactly you mean by …”
“… Oh, you know: after a fashion, I’m transferring power, too. Got a sort of itch to do it at the same time the Raj does. As I said: a game. Humor me, won’t you, Sinai? After all: the price, you’ve admitted, isn’t bad.”
“Has his brain gone raw, janum? What do you think: is it safe to do bargains if he’s loony?”
“Now listen, wife,” Ahmed Sinai is saying, “this has gone on long enough. Mr. Methwold is a fine man; a person of breeding; a man of honor; I will not have his name … And besides, the other purchasers aren’t making so much noise, I’m sure … Anyway, I have told him yes, so there’s an end to it.”
“Have a cracker,” Mr. Methwold is saying, proffering a plate, “Go on, Mr. S., do. Yes, a curious affair. Never seen anything like it. My old tenants—old India hands, the lot—suddenly, up and off. Bad show. Lost their stomachs for India. Overnight. Puzzling to a simple fellow like me. Seemed like they washed their hands—didn’t want to take a scrap with them. ‘Let it go,’ they said. Fresh start back home. Not short of a shilling, none of them, you understand, but still. Rum. Leaving me holding the baby. Then I had my notion.”
“… Yes, decide, decide,” Amina is saying spiritedly, “I am sitting here like a lump with a baby,