Sahib comes himself to feed … and there are half-empty pots of Bovril he says I can’t throw … it’s mad, Amina sister, what are we doing like this?” … And old man Ibrahim is refusing to switch on the ceiling-fan in his bedroom, muttering. “That machine will fall—it will slice my head off in the night—how long can something so heavy stick on a ceiling?” … and Homi Catrack who is something of an ascetic is obliged to lie on a large soft mattress, he is suffering from backache and sleeplessness and the dark rings of inbreeding around his eyes are being circled by the whorls of insomnia, and his bearer tells him, “No wonder the foreign sahibs have all gone away, sahib, they must be dying to get some sleep.” But they are all sticking it out; and there are advantages as well as problems. Listen to Lila Sabarmati (“That one—too beautiful to be good,” my mother said) … “A pianola, Amina sister! And it works! All day I’m sitting sitting, playing God knows what-all! ‘Pale Hands I Loved Beside The Shalimar’ … such fun, too much, you just push the pedals!” … And Ahmed Sinai finds a cocktail cabinet in Buckingham Villa (which was Methwold’s own house before it was ours); he is discovering the delights of fine Scotch whiskey and cries, “So what? Mr. Methwold is a little eccentric, that’s all—can we not humor him? With our ancient civilization, can we not be as civilized as he?” … and he drains his glass at one go. Advantages and disadvantages: ‘All these dogs to look after, Nussie sister,” Lila Sabarmati complains. “I hate dogs, completely. And my little choochie cat, cho chweet she is I swear, terrified absolutely!” … And Doctor Narlikar, glowing with pique, “Above my bed! Pictures of children, Sinai brother! I am telling you: fat! Pink! Three! Is that fair?” … But now there are twenty days to go, things are settling down, the sharp edges of things are getting blurred, so they have all failed to notice what is happening: the Estate, Methwold’s Estate, is changing them. Every evening at six they are out in their gardens, celebrating the cocktail hour, and when William Methwold comes to call they slip effortlessly into their imitation Oxford drawls; and they are learning, about ceiling-fans and gas cookers and the correct diet for budgerigars, and Methwold, supervising their transformation, is mumbling under his breath. Listen carefully: what’s he saying? Yes, that’s it. “Sabkuch ticktock hai,” mumbles William Methwold. All is well.
When the Bombay edition of the Times of India, searching for a catchy human-interest angle to the forthcoming Independence celebrations, announced that it would award a prize to any Bombay mother who could arrange to give birth to a child at the precise instant of the birth of the new nation, Amina Sinai, who had just awoken from a mysterious dream of flypaper, became glued to newsprint. Newsprint was thrust beneath Ahmed Sinai’s nose; and Amina’s finger, jabbing triumphandy at the page, punctuated the utter certainty of her voice.
“See, janum?” Amina announced. “That’s going to be me.”
There rose, before their eyes, a vision of bold headlines declaring “A Charming Pose of Baby Sinai—the Child of this Glorious Hour!”—a vision of A-1 top-quality front-page jumbo-sized baby-snaps; but Ahmed began to argue, “Think of the odds against it, Begum,” until she set her mouth into a clamp of obstinacy and reiterated, “But me no buts; it’s me all right; I just know it for sure. Don’t ask me how.”
And although Ahmed repeated his wife’s prophecy to William Methwold, as a cocktail-hour joke, Amina remained unshaken, even when Methwold laughed. “Woman’s intuition—splendid thing, Mrs. S.! But really, you can scarcely expect us to …” Even under the pressure of the peeved gaze of her neighbor Nussie-the-duck, who was also pregnant, and had also read the Times of India, Amina stuck to her guns, because Ramram’s prediction had sunk deep into her heart.
To tell the truth, as Amina’s pregnancy progressed, she had found the words of the fortune-teller pressing more and more heavily down upon her shoulders, her head, her swelling