Is it possible to be jealous of written words? To resent nocturnal scribblings as though they were the very flesh and blood of a sexual rival? I can think of no other reason for Padma's bizarre behaviour; and this explanation at least has the merit of being as outlandish as the rage into which she fell when, tonight, I made the error of writing (and reading aloud) a word which should not have been spoken ... ever since the episode of the quack1 doctor's visit, I have sniffed2 out a strange discontent in Padma, exuding3 its enigmatic spoor from her eccrine (or apocrine) glands4. Distressed5, perhaps, by the futility6 of her midnight attempts at resuscitating7 my 'other pencil', the useless cucumber hidden in my pants, she has been waxing grouchy8. (And then there was her ill-tempered reaction, last night, to my revelation of the secrets of my birth, and her irritation9 at my low opinion of the sum of one hundred rupees.) I blame myself: immersed in my autobiographical enterprise, I failed to consider her feelings, and began tonight on the most unfortunate of false notes.
'Condemned10 by a perforated sheet to a life of fragments,' I wrote and read aloud, 'I have nevertheless done better than my grandfather; because while Aadam Aziz remained the sheet's victim, I have become its master - and Padma is the one who is now under its spell. Sitting in my enchanted11 shadows, I vouchsafe12 daily glimpses of myself- while she, my squatting13 glimpser, is captivated, helpless as a mongoose frozen into immobility by the swaying, blinkless eyes of a hooded15 snake, paralysed - yes! - by love.'
That was the word: love. Written-and-spoken, it raised her voice to an unusually shrill16 pitch; it unleashed17 from her lips a violence which would have wounded me, were I still vulnerable to words. 'Love you?' our Padma piped scornfully, 'What for, my God? What use are you, little princeling,' - and now came her attempted coup19 de grace - 'as a lover?' Arm extended, its hairs glowing in the lamplight, she jabbed a contemptuous index finger in the direction of my admittedly nonfunctional loins; a long, thick digit20, rigid21 with jealousy22, which unfortunately served only to remind me of another, long-lost finger...
so that she, seeing her arrow miss its mark, shrieked23, 'Madman from somewhere! That doctor was right!' and rushed distractedly from the room. I heard footsteps clattering24 down the metal stairs to the factory floor; feet rushing between the dark-shrouded pickle25 vats26; and a door, first unbolted and then slammed.
Thus abandoned, I have returned, having no option, to my work.
The fisherman's pointing finger: unforgettable focal point of the picture which hung on a sky-blue wall in Buckingham Villa27, directly above the sky-blue crib in which, as Baby Saleem, midnight's child, I spent my earliest days. The young Raleigh - and who else? - sat, framed in teak, at the feet of an old, gnarled, net-mending sailor - did he have a walrus28 moustache? - whose right arm, fully18 extended, stretched out towards a watery29 horizon, while his liquid tales rippled30 around the fascinated ears of Raleigh - and who else? Because there was certainly another boy in the picture, sitting cross-legged in frilly collar and button-down tunic31 ... and now a memory comes back to me: of a birthday party in which a proud mother and an equally proud ayah dressed a child with a gargantuan32 nose in just such a collar, just such a tunic. A tailor sat in a sky-blue room, beneath the pointing finger, and copied the attire33 of the English milords ...
'Look, how chweet! Lila Sabarmati exclaimed to my eternal mortification34, 'It's like he's just stepped out of the picture?
In a picture hanging on a bedroom wall, I sat beside Walter Raleigh and followed a fisherman's pointing finger with my eyes; eyes straining at the horizon, beyond which lay - what? - my future, perhaps; my special doom35, of which I was aware from the beginning, as a shimmering36 grey presence in that sky-blue room, indistinct at first, but impossible to ignore ... because the finger pointed37 even further than that shimmering horizon, it pointed beyond teak frame, across a brief expanse of sky-blue wall, driving my eyes towards another frame, in which my inescapable destiny hung, forever fixed38 under glass: here was a jumbo-sized baby-snap with its prophetic captions39, and here, beside it, a letter on high-quality vellum, embossed with the seal of state - the lions of Sarnath stood above the dharma-chakra on the Prime Minister's missive, which arrived, via Vishwanath the post-boy, one week after my photograph appeared on the front page of the Times of India.
Newspapers celebrated40 me; politicians ratified41 my position. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote: 'Dear Baby Saleem, My belated congratulations on the happy accident of your moment of birth! You are the newest bearer of that ancient face of India which is also eternally young. We shall be watching over your life with the closest attention; it will be, in a sense, the mirror of our own.'
And Mary Pereira, awestruck, 'The Government, Madam? It will be keeping one eye on the boy? But why, Madam? What's wrong with him?' -And Amina, not understanding the note of panic in her ayah's voice: 'It's just a way of putting things, Mary; it doesn't really mean what it says.' But Mary does not relax; and always, whenever she enters the baby's room, her eyes flick43 wildly towards the letter in its frame; her eyes look around her, trying to see whether the Government is watching; wondering eyes: what do they know? Did somebody see? ...
As for me, as I grew up, I didn't quite accept my mother's explanation, either; but it lulled44 me into a sense of false security; so that, even though something of Mary's suspicions had leaked into me, I was still taken by surprise when ...
Perhaps the fisherman's finger was not pointing at the letter in the frame; because if one followed it even further, it led one out through the window, down the two-storey hillock, across Warden45 Road, beyond Breach46 Candy Pools, and out to another sea which was not the sea in the picture; a sea on which the sails of Koli dhows glowed scarlet47 in the setting sun... an accusing finger, then, which obliged us to look at the city's dispossessed.
Or maybe - and this idea makes me feel a little shivery despite the heat - it was a finger of warning, its purpose to draw attention to itself; yes, it could have been, why not, a prophecy of another finger, a finger not dissimilar from itself, whose entry into my story would release the dreadful logic48 of Alpha and Omega ... my God, what a notion! How much of my future hung above my crib, just waiting for me to understand it? How many warnings was I given - how many did I ignore? ... But no. I will not be a 'madman from somewhere', to use Padma's eloquent49 phrase. I will not succumb50 to cracked digressions; not while I have the strength to resist the cracks.
When Amina Sinai and Baby Saleem arrived home in a borrowed Studebaker, Ahmed Sinai brought a manila envelope along for the ride. Inside the envelope: a pickle-jar, emptied of lime kasaundy, washed, boiled, purified - and now, refilled. A well-sealed jar, with a rubber diaphragm stretched over its tin lid and held in place by a twisted rubber band. What was sealed beneath rubber, preserved in glass, concealed51 in manila? This: travelling home with father, mother and baby was a quantity of briny52 water in which, floating gently, hung an umbilical cord. (But was it mine or the Other's? That's something I can't tell you.) While the newly-hired ayah, Mary Pereira, made her way to Methwold's Estate by bus, an umbilical cord travelled in state in the glove compartment53 of a film magnate's Studey. While Baby Saleem grew towards manhood, umbilical tissue hung unchanging in bottled brine, at the back of a teak almirah. And when, years later, our family entered its exile in the Land of the Pure, when I was struggling towards purity, umbilical cords would briefly54 have their day.
Nothing was thrown away; baby and afterbirth were both retained; both arrived at Methwold's Estate; both awaited their time.
I was not a beautiful baby. Baby-snaps reveal that my large moon-face was too large; too perfectly55 round. Something lacking in the region of the chin. Fair skin curved across my features - but birthmarks disfigured it; dark stains spread down my western hairline, a dark patch coloured my eastern ear. And my temples: too prominent: bulbous Byzantine domes56. (Sonny Ibrahim and I were born to be friends - when we bumped our foreheads, Sonny's forcep-hollows permitted my bulby temples to nestle within them, as snugly57 as carpenter's joints58.) Amina Sinai, immeasurably relieved by my single head, gazed upon it with redoubled maternal59 fondness, seeing it through a beautifying mist, ignoring the ice-like eccentricity60 of my sky-blue eyes, the temples like stunted61 horns, even the rampant62 cucumber of the nose.
Baby Saleem's nose: it was monstrous63; and it ran.
Intriguing64 features of my early life: large and unbeautiful as I was, it appears I was not content. From my very first days I embarked65 upon an heroic programme of self-enlargement. (As though I knew that, to carry the burdens of my future life, I'd need to be pretty big.) By mid-September I had drained my mother's not inconsiderable breasts of milk. A wet-nurse was briefly employed but she retreated, dried-out as a desert after only a fortnight, accusing Baby Saleem of trying to bite off her nipples with his toothless gums. I moved on to the bottle and downed vast quantities of compound: the bottle's nipples suffered, too, vindicating66 the complaining wet-nurse. Baby-book records were meticulously67 kept; they reveal that I expanded almost visibly, enlarging day by day; but unfortunately no nasal measurements were taken so I cannot say whether my breathing apparatus68 grew in strict proportion, or faster than the rest. I must say that I had a healthy metabolism69. Waste matter was evacuated70 copiously71 from the appropriate orifices; from my nose there flowed a shining cascade72 of goo.
Armies of handkerchiefs, regiments73 of nappies found their way into the large washing-chest in my mother's bathroom ... shedding rubbish from various apertures74, I kept my eyes quite dry. 'Such a good baby, Madam,' Mary Pereira said, 'Never takes out one tear.'
Good baby Saleem was a quiet child; I laughed often, but soundlessly. (Like my own son, I began by taking stock, listening before I rushed into gurgles and, later, into speech.) For a time Amina and Mary became afraid that the boy was dumb; but, just when they were on the verge75 of telling his father (from whom they had kept their worries secret - no father wants a damaged child), he burst into sound, and became, in that respect at any rate, utterly77 normal, 'It's as if,' Amina whispered to Mary, 'he's decided78 to put our minds at rest.'
There was one more serious problem. Amina and Mary took a few days to notice it.
Busy with the mighty79, complex processes of turning themselves into a two-headed mother, their vision clouded by a fog of stenchy underwear, they failed to notice the immobility of my eyelids80. Amina, remembering how, during her pregnancy81, the weight of her unborn child had held time as still as a dead green pond, began to wonder whether the reverse might not be taking place now - whether the baby had some magical power over all the time in his immediate82 vicinity, and was speeding it up, so that mother-and-ayah never had enough time to do everything that needed doing, so that the baby could grow at an apparently83 fantastic rate; lost in such chronological84 daydreams85, she didn't notice my problem. Only when she shrugged87 the idea off, and told herself I was just a good strapping88 boy with a big appetite, an early developer, did the veils of maternal love part sufficiently89 for her and Mary to yelp90, in unison91: 'Look, baap-re-baap! Look, Madam! See, Mary! The little chap never blinks!'
The eyes were too blue: Kashmiri-blue, changeling-blue, blue with the weight of unspilled tears, too blue to blink. When I was fed, my eyes did not flutter; when virginal Mary set me across her shoulder, crying, 'Oof, so heavy, sweet Jesus!' I burped without nictating. When Ahmed Sinai limped splint-toed to my crib, I yielded to jutting92 lips with keen and batless gaze ... 'Maybe a mistake, Madam,' Mary suggested. 'Maybe the little sahib is copying us - blinking when we blink.' And Amina: 'We'll blink in turn and watch.' Their eyelids opening-and-closing alternately, they observed my icy blueness; but there was not the slightest tremor94; until Amina took matters into her own hands and reached into the cradle to stroke my eyelids downwards95. They closed: my breathing altered, instantly, to the contented96 rhythms of sleep. After that, for several months, mother and ayah took it in turns to open and close my lids.
'He'll learn, Madam,' Mary comforted Amina, 'He is a good obedient child and he will get the hang of it for sure.' I learned: the first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time.
Now, looking back through baby eyes, I can see it all perfectly - it's amazing how much you can remember when you try. What I can see: the city, basking97 like a bloodsucker lizard98 in the summer heat. Our Bombay: it looks like a hand but it's really a mouth, always open, always hungry, swallowing food and talent from everywhere else in India. A glamorous99 leech100, producing nothing except films bush-shirts fish ... in the aftermath of Partition, I see Vishwanath the postboy bicycling towards our two-storey hillock, vellum envelope in his saddlebag, riding his aged76 Arjuna Indiabike past a rotting bus -abandoned although it isn't the monsoon101 season, because its driver suddenly decided to leave for Pakistan, switched off the engine and departed, leaving a full busload of stranded102 passengers, hanging off the windows, clinging to the roof-rack, bulging103 through the doorway104... I can hear their oaths, son-of-a-pig, brother-of-a-jackass; but they will cling to their hard-won places for two hours before they leave the bus to its fate. And, and: here is India's first swimmer of the English Channel, Mr Pushpa Roy, arriving at the gates of the Breach Candy Pools. Saffron bathing-cap on his head, green trunks wrapped in flag-hued towel, this Pushpa has declared war on the whites-only policy of the baths. He holds a cake of Mysore sandalwood soap; draws himself up; marches through the gate ... whereupon hired Pathans seize him, Indians save Europeans from an Indian mutiny as usual, and out he goes, struggling valiantly105, frogmarched into Warden Road and flung into the dust. Channel swimmer dives into the street, narrowly missing camels taxis bicycles (Vishwanath swerves106 to avoid his cake of soap) ... but he is not deterred107; picks himself up; dusts himself down; and promises to be back tomorrow. Throughout my childhood years, the days were punctuated108 by the sight of Pushpa the swimmer, in saffron cap and flag-tinted towel, diving unwillingly109 into Warden Road. And in the end his indomitable campaign won a victory, because today the Pools permit certain Indians - 'the better sort' - to step into their map-shaped waters. But Pushpa does not belong to the better sort; old now and forgotten, he watches the Pools from afar ... and now more and more of the multitudes are flooding into me - such as Bano Devi, the famous lady wrestler111 of those days, who would only wrestle110 men and threatened to marry anyone who beat her, as a result of which vow112 she never lost a bout113; and (closer to home now)
the sadhu under our garden tap, whose name was Purushottam and whom we (Sonny, Eyeslice, Hairoil, Cyrus and I) would always call Puru-the-guru - believing me to be the Mubarak, the Blessed One, he devoted114 his life to keeping an eye on me, and filled his days teaching my father palmistry and witching away my mother's verrucas; and then there is the rivalry115 of the old bearer Musa and the new ayah Mary, which will grow until it explodes; in short, at the end of 1947, life in Bombay was as teeming116, as manifold, as multitudinously shapeless as ever...
except that I had arrived; I was already beginning to take my place at the centre of the universe; and by the time I had finished, I would give meaning to it all. You don't believe me? Listen: at my cradle-side, Mary Pereira is singing a little song: Anything you want to be, you can be: You can be just what-all you want.
By the time of my circumcision by a barber with a cleft117 palate from the Royal Barber House on Gowalia Tank Road (I was just over two months old), I was already much in demand at Methwold's Estate. (Incidentally, on the subject of the circumcision: I still swear that I can remember the grinning barber, who held me by the foreskin while my member waggled frantically118 like a slithering snake; and the razor descending119, and the pain; but I'm told that, at the time, I didn't even blink.)
Yes, I was a popular little fellow: my two mothers, Amina and Mary, couldn't get enough of me. In all practical matters, they were the most intimate of allies.
After my circumcision, they bathed me together; and giggled120 together as my mutilated organ waggled angrily in the bathwater. 'We better watch this boy, Madam,' Mary said naughtily, 'His thing has a life of its own!' And Amina, 'Tch, tch, Mary, you're terrible, really ...' But then amid sobs121 of helpless laughter, 'Just see, Madam, his poor little soo-soo!' Because it was wiggling again, thrashing about, like a chicken with a slitted gullet... Together, they cared for me beautifully; but in the matter of emotion, they were deadly rivals. Once, when they took me for a pram122-ride through the Hanging Gardens on Malabar Hill, Amina overheard Mary telling the other ayahs, 'Look: here's my own big son' - and felt oddly threatened. Baby Saleem became, after that, the battleground of their loves; they strove to outdo one another in demonstrations123 of affection; while he, blinking by now, gurgling aloud, fed on their emotions, using it to accelerate his growth, expanding and swallowing infinite hugs kisses chucks-under-the-chin, charging towards the moment when he would acquire the essential characteristic of human beings: every day, and only in those rare moments when I was left alone with the fisherman's pointing finger, I tried to heave myself erect125 in my cot.
(And while I made unavailing efforts to get to my feet, Amina, too, was in the grip of a useless resolve - she was trying to expel from her mind the dream of her unnameable husband, which had replaced the dream of flypaper on the night after I was born; a dream of such overwhelming reality that it stayed with her throughout her waking hours. In it, Nadir126 Khan came to her bed and impregnated her; such was the mischievous127 perversity128 of the dream that it confused Amina about the parentage of her child, and provided me, the child of midnight, with a fourth father to set beside Winkie and Methwold and Ahmed Sinai. Agitated129 but helpless in the clutches of the dream, my mother Amina began at that time to form the fog of guilt130 which would, in later years, surround her head like a dark black wreath.)
I never heard Wee Willie Winkie in his prime. After his blind-eyed bereavement131, his sight gradually returned; but something harsh and bitter crept into his voice. He told us it was asthma132, and continued to arrive at Methwold's Estate once a week to sing songs which were, like himself, relics133 of the Methwold era.
'Good Night, Ladies,' he sang; and, keeping up to date, added 'The Clouds Will Soon Roll By' to his repertoire134, and, a little later, 'How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?' Placing a sizeable infant with menacingly knocking knees on a small mat beside him in the circus-ring, he sang songs filled with nostalgia135, and nobody had the heart to turn him away. Winkie and the fisherman's finger were two of the few survivals of the days of William Methwold, because after the Englishman's disappearance136 his successors emptied his palaces of their abandoned contents. Lila Sabarmati preserved her pianola; Ahmed Sinai kept his whisky-cabinet; old man Ibrahim came to terms with ceiling-fans; but the goldfish died, some from starvation, others as a result of being so colossally137 overfed that they exploded in little clouds of scales and undigested fish-food; the dogs ran wild, and eventually ceased to roam the Estate; and the fading clothes in the old almirahs were distributed amongst the sweeper-women and other servants on the Estate, so that for years afterwards the heirs of William Methwold were cared for by men and women wearing the increasingly ragged138 shirts and cotton print dresses of their erstwhile masters. But Winkie and the picture on my wall survived; singer and fisherman became institutions of our lives, like the cocktail139 hour, which was already a habit too powerful to be broken. 'Each little tear and sorrow,' Winkie sang, 'only brings you closer to me...' And his voice grew worse and worse, until it sounded like a sitar whose resonating drum, made out of lacquered pumpkin140, had been eaten away by mice; 'It's asthma,' he insisted stubbornly. Before he died he lost his voice completely; doctors revised his diagnosis141 to throat cancer; but they were wrong, too, because Winkie died of no disease but of the bitterness of losing a wife whose infidelity he never suspected. His son, named Shiva after the god of procreation and destruction, sat at his feet in those early days, silently bearing the burden of being the cause (or so he thought) of his father's slow decline; and gradually, down the years, we watched his eyes filling with an anger which could not be spoken; we watched his fists close around pebbles142 and hurl143 them, ineffectually at first, more dangerously as he grew, into the surrounding emptiness. When Lila Sabarmati's elder son was eight, he took it upon himself to tease young Shiva about his surliness, his unstarched shorts, his knobbly knees; whereupon the boy whom Mary's crime had doomed144 to poverty and accordions145 hurled146 a sharp flat stone, with a cutting edge like a razor, and blinded his tormentor147 in the right eye. After Eyeslice's accident, Wee Willie Winkie came to Methwold's Estate alone, leaving his son to enter the dark labyrinths148 from which only a war would save him.
Why Methwold's Estate continued to tolerate Wee Willie Winkie despite the decay of his voice and the violence of his son: he had, once, given them an important clue about their lives. 'The first birth,' he had said, 'will make you real.'
As a direct result of Winkie's clue, I was, in my early days, highly in demand.
Amina and Mary vied for my attention; but in every house on the Estate, there were people who wanted to know me; and eventually Amina, allowing her pride in my popularity to overcome her reluctance149 to let me out of her sight, agreed to lend me, on a kind of rota basis, to the various families on the hill. Pushed by Mary Pereira in a sky-blue pram, I began a triumphal progress around the red-tiled palaces, gracing each in turn with my presence, and making them seem real to their owners. And so, looking back now through the eyes of Baby Saleem, I can reveal most of the secrets of my neighbourhood, because the grown-ups lived their lives in my presence without fear of being observed, not knowing that, years later, someone would look back through baby-eyes and decide to let the cats out of their bags.
So here is old man Ibrahim, dying with worry because, back in Africa, governments are nationalizing his sisal plantations150; here is his elder son Ishaq fretting151 over Ms hotel business, which is running into debt, so that he is obliged to borrow money from local gangsters152; here are Ishaq's eyes, coveting153 his brother's wife, though why Nussie-the-duck should have aroused sexual interest in anyone is a mystery to me; and here is Nussie's husband, Ismail the lawyer, who has learned an important lesson from Ms son's forcep-birth: 'Nothing comes out right in life,' he tells his duck of a wife, 'unless it's forced out.'
Applying this philosophy to his legal career, he embarks154 on a career of bribing155 judges and fixing juries; all children have the power to change their parents, and Sonny turned Ms father into a highly successful crook156. And, moving across to Versailles Villa, here is Mrs Dubash with her shrine157 to the god Ganesh, stuck in the corner of an apartment of such supernatural untidiness that, in our house, the word 'dubash' became a verb meaning 'to make a mess' ... 'Oh, Saleem, you've dubashed your room again, you black man!' Mary would cry. And now the cause of the mess, leaning over the hood14 of my pram to chuck me under the chin: Adi Dubash, the physicist158, genius of atoms and litter. His wife, who is already carrying Cyrus-the-great within her, hangs back, growing her child, with something fanatical gleaming in the inner corners of her eyes, biding159 its time; it will not emerge until Mr Dubash, whose daily life was spent working with the most dangerous substances in the world, dies by choking on an orange from which his wife forgot to remove the pips. I was never invited into the flat of Dr Narlikar, the child-hating gynaecologist; but in the homes of Lila Sabarmati and Homi Catrack I became a voyeur160, a tiny party to Lila's thousand and one infidelities, and eventually a witness to the beginnings of the liaison161 between the naval162 officer's wife and the film-magnate-and-racehorse-owner; which, all in good time, would serve me well when I planned a certain act of revenge.
Even a baby is faced with the problem of defining itself; and I'm bound to say that my early popularity had its problematic aspects, because I was bombarded with a confusing multiplicity of views on the subject, being a Blessed One to a guru under a tap, a voyeur to Lola Sabarmati; in the eyes of Nussie-the-duck I was a rival, and a more successful rival, to her own Sonny (although, to her credit, she never showed her resentment163, and asked to borrow me just like everyone else); to my two-headed mother I was all kinds of babyish things - they called me joonoo-moonoo, and putch-putch, and little-piece-of-the-moon.
But what, after all, can a baby do except swallow all of it and hope to make sense of it later? Patiently, dry-eyed, I imbibed164 Nehru-letter and Winkle's prophecy; but the deepest impression of all was made on the day when Homi Catrack's idiot daughter sent her thoughts across the circus-ring and into my infant head.
Toxy Catrack, of the outsize head and dribbling165 mouth; Toxy, who stood at a barred top-floor window, stark166 naked, masturbating with motions of consummate167 self-disgust; who spat168 hard and often through her bars, and sometimes hit us on the head ... she was twenty-one years old, a gibbering half-wit, the product of years of inbreeding; but inside my head she was beautiful, because she had not lost the gifts with which every baby is born and which life proceeds to erode169. I can't remember anything Toxy said when she sent her thoughts to whisper to me; probably nothing except gurgles and spittings; but she gave a door in my mind a little nudge, so that when an accident took place in a washing-chest it was probably Toxy who made it possible.
That's enough for the moment, about the first days of Baby Saleem -already my very presence is having an effect on history; already Baby Saleem is working changes on the people around him; and, in the case of my father, I am convinced that it was I who pushed him into the excesses which led, perhaps inevitably170, to the terrifying time of the freeze.
Ahmed Sinai never forgave his son for breaking his toe. Even after the splint was removed, a tiny limp remained. My father leaned over my crib and said, 'So, my son: you're starting as you mean to go on. Already you've started bashing your poor old father!' In my opinion, this was only half a joke. Because, with my birth, everything changed for Ahmed Sinai. His position in the household was undermined by my coming. Suddenly Amina's assiduity had acquired different goals; she never wheedled171 money out of him any more, and the napkin in his lap at the breakfast-table felt sad pangs172 of nostalgia for the old days. Now it was, 'Your son needs so-and-so,' or 'Janum, you must give money for such-and-such.'
Bad show, Ahmed Sinai thought. My father was a self-important man.
And so it was my doing that Ahmed Sinai fell, in those days after my birth, into the twin fantasies which were to be his undoing173, into the unreal worlds of the djinns and of the land beneath the sea.
A memory of my father in a cool-season evening, sitting on my bed (I was seven years old) and telling me, in a slightly thickened voice, the story of the fisherman who found the djinn in a bottle washed up on the beach... 'Never believe in a djinn's promises, my son! Let them out of the bottle and they'll eat you up!' And I, timidly - because I could smell danger on my father's breath: 'But, Abba, can a djinn really live inside a bottle?' Whereupon my father, in a mercurial174 change of mood, roared with laughter and left the room, returning with a dark green bottle with a white label. 'Look,' he said sonorously175, 'Do you want to see the djinn in here?' 'No!' I squealed176 in fright; but 'Yes!' yelled my sister the Brass177 Monkey from the neighbouring bed ... and cowering178 together in excited terror we watched him unscrew the cap and dramatically cover the bottleneck179 with the palm of his hand; and now, in the other hand, a cigarette-lighter materialized. 'So perish all evil djinns!' my father cried; and, removing his palm, applied180 the flame to the neck of the bottle. Awestruck, the Monkey and I watched an eerie181 flame, blue-green-yellow, move in a slow circle down the interior walls of the bottle; until, reaching the bottom, it flared182 briefly and died. The next day I provoked gales183 of laughter when I told Sonny, Eyeslice and Hairoil, 'My father fights with djinns; he beats them; it's true!... And it was true. Ahmed Sinai, deprived of wheedles184 and attention, began, soon after my birth, a life-long struggle with djinn-bottles.
But I was mistaken about one thing: he didn't win.
Cocktail-cabinets had whetted185 his appetite; but it was my arrival that drove him to it... In those days, Bombay had been declared a dry stare. The only way to get a drink was to get yourself certified186 as an alcoholic187; and so a new breed of doctors sprang up, djinn-doctors, one of whom, Dr Sharabi, was introduced to my father by Homi Catrack next door. After that, on the first of every month, my father and Mr Catrack and many of the city's most respectable men queued up outside Dr Sharabi's mottled-glass surgery door, went in, and emerged with the little pink chitties of alcoholism. But the permitted ration124 was too small for my father's needs; and so he began to send his servants along, too, and gardeners, bearers, drivers (we had a motor-car now, a 1946 Rover with running-boards, just like William Methwold's), even old Musa and Mary Pereira, brought my father back more and more pink chitties, which he took to Vijay Stores opposite the circumcising barbershop .in Gowalia Tank Road and exchanged for the brown paper bags of alcoholism, inside which were the chinking green bottles, full of djinn. And whisky, too: Ahmed Sinai blurred188 the edges of himself by drinking the green bottles and red labels of his servants. The poor, having little else to peddle189, sold their identities on little pieces of pink paper; and my father turned them into liquid and drank them down.
At six o'clock every evening, Ahmed Sinai entered the world of the djinns; and every morning, his eyes red, his head throbbing190 with the fatigue191 of his night-long battle, he came unshaven to the breakfast table; and with the passage of the years, the good mood of the time before he shaved was replaced by the irritable192 exhaustion193 of his war with the bottled spirits.
After breakfast, he went downstairs. He had set aside two rooms on the ground floor for his office, because his sense of direction was as bad as ever, and he didn't relish194 the notion of getting lost in Bombay on the way to work; even he could find his way down a flight of stairs. Blurred at the edges, my father did his property deals; and his growing anger at my mother's preoccupation with her child found a new outlet195 behind his office door - Ahmed Sinai began to flirt196 with his secretaries. After nights in which his quarrel with bottles would sometimes erupt in harsh language - 'What a wife I found! I should have bought myself a son and hired a nurse - what difference?" And then tears, and Amina, 'Oh, janum - don't torture me!' which, in turn, provoked, 'Torture my foot! You think it's torture for a man to ask his wife for attention? God save me from stupid women!' - my father limped downstairs to make googly eyes at Colaba girls. And after a while Amina began to notice how his secretaries never lasted long, how they left suddenly, flouncing down our drive without any notice; and you must judge whether she chose to be blind, or whether she took it as a punishment, but she did nothing about it, continuing to devote her time to me; her only act of recognition was to give the girls a collective name. 'Those Anglos,' she said to Mary, revealing a touch of snobbery197, 'with their funny names, Fernanda and Alonso and all, and surnames, my God! Sulaca and Colaco and I don't know what. What should I care about them? Cheap type females. I call them all his Coca-Cola girls - that's what they all sound like.'
While Ahmed pinched bottoms, Amina became long-suffering; but he might have been glad if she had appeared to care.
Mary Pereira said, 'They aren't so funny names, Madam; beg your pardon, but they are good Christian198 words.' And Amina remembered Ahmed's cousin Zohra making fun of dark skin - and, falling over herself to apologize, tumbled into Zohra's mistake: 'Oh, notion, Mary, how could you think I was making fun of you?'
Horn-templed, cucumber-nosed, I lay in my crib and listened; and everything that happened, happened because of me ... One day in January 1948, at five in the afternoon, my father was visited by Dr Narlikar. There were embraces as usual, and slaps on the back. 'A little chess?' my father asked, ritually, because these visits were getting to be a habit. They would play chess in the old Indian way, the game of shatranj, and, freed by the simplicities199 of the chess-board from the convolutions of his life, Ahmed would daydream86 for an hour about the re-shaping of the Quran; and then it would be six o'clock, cocktail hour, time for the djinns ... but this evening Narlikar said, 'No.' And Ahmed, 'No? What's this no? Come, sit, play, gossip ...' Narlikar, interrupting: 'Tonight, brother Sinai, there is something I must show you.' They are in a 1946 Rover now, Narlikar working the crankshaft and jumping in; they are driving north along Warden Road, past Mahalaxmi Temple on the left and Willingdon Club golf-course on the right, leaving the race-track behind them, cruising along Hornby Vellard beside the sea wall; Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium is in sight, with its giant cardboard cut-outs of wrestlers, Bano Devi the Invincible200 Woman and Dara Singh, mightiest201 of all... there are channa-vendors and dog-walkers promenading202 by the sea. 'Stop,' Narlikar commands, and they get out. They stand facing the sea; sea-breeze cools their faces; and out there, at the end of a narrow cement path in the midst of the waves, is the island on which stands the tomb of Haji Ali the mystic. Pilgrims are strolling between Vellard and tomb.
'There,' Narlikar points, 'What do you see?' And Ahmed, mystified, 'Nothing. The tomb. People. What's this about, old chap?' And Narlikar, 'None of that. There!'
And now Ahmed sees that Narlikar's pointing finger is aimed at the cement path ... 'The promenade203?' he asks, 'What's that to you? In some minutes the tide will come and cover it up; everybody knows ...' Narlikar, his skin glowing like a beacon204, becomes philosophical205. 'Just so, brother Ahmed; just so. Land and sea; sea and land; the eternal struggle, not so?' Ahmed, puzzled, remains206 silent.
'Once there were seven islands,' Narlikar reminds Mm, 'Worli, Mahim, Salsette, Matunga, Colaba, Mazagaon, Bombay. The British joined them up. Sea, brother Ahmed, became land. Land arose, and did not sink beneath the tides!' Ahmed is anxious for his whisky; his lip begins to jut93 while pilgrims scurry207 off the narrowing path. 'The point,' he demands. And Narlikar, dazzling with effulgence208: 'The point, Ahmed bhai, is this!'
It comes out of his pocket: a little plaster-of-paris model two inches high: the tetrapod! Like a three-dimensional Mercedes-Benz sign, three legs standing42 on his palm, a fourth rearing lingam-fashion into the evening air, it transfixes my father. 'What is it?' he asks; and now Narlikar tells him: 'This is the baby that will make us richer than Hyderabad, bhai! The little gimmick209 that will make you, you and me, the masters of that! He points outwards210 to where sea is rushing over deserted211 cement pathway... 'The land beneath the sea, my friend! We must manufacture these by the thousand - by tens of thousands! We must tender for reclamation212 contracts; a fortune is waiting; don't miss it, brother, this is the chance of a lifetime!'
Why did my father agree to dream a gynaecologist's entrepreneurial dream? Why, little by little, did the vision of full-sized concrete tetrapods marching over sea walk, four-legged conquerors213 triumphing over the sea, capture him as surely as it had the gleaming doctor? Why, in the following years, did Ahmed dedicate himself to the fantasy of every island-dweller - the myth of conquering the waves? Perhaps because he was afraid of missing yet another turning; perhaps for the fellowship of games of shatranj; or maybe it was Narlikar's plausibility214 - 'Your capital and my contacts, Ahmed bhai, what problem can there be? Every great man in this city has a son brought into the world by me; no doors will close. You manufacture; I will get the contract! Fifty-fifty; fair is fair!'
But, in my view, there is a simpler explanation. My father, deprived of wifely attention, supplanted215 by bis son, blurred by whisky and djinn, was trying to restore his position in the world; and the dream of tetrapods offered him the chance. Whole-heartedly, he threw himself into the great folly216; letters were written, doors knocked upon, black money changed hands; all of which served to make Ahmed Sinai a name known in the corridors of the Sachivalaya - in the passageways of the State Secretariat they got the whiff of a Muslim who was throwing his rupees around like water. And Ahmed Sinai, drinking himself to sleep, was unaware217 of the danger he was in.
Our lives, at this period, were shaped by correspondence. The Prime Minister wrote to me when I was just seven days old - before I could even wipe my own nose I was receiving fan letters from Times of India readers; and one morning in January Ahmed Sinai, too, received a letter he would never forget.
Red eyes at breakfast were followed by the shaven chin of the working day; footsteps down the stairs; alarmed giggles218 of Coca-Cola girl. The squeak219 of a chair drawn220 up to a desk topped with green leathercloth. Metallic221 noise of a metal paper-cutter being lifted, colliding momentarily with telephone. The brief rasp of metal slicing envelope; and one minute later, Ahmed was running back up the stairs, yelling for my mother, shouting: 'Amina! Come here, wife! The bastards222 have shoved my balls in an ice-bucket!'
In the days after Ahmed received the formal letter informing him of the freezing of all his assets, the whole world was talking at once ... 'For pity's sake, janum, such language!' Amina is saying - and is it my imagination, or does a baby blush in a sky-blue crib?
And Narlikar, arriving in a lather223 of perspiration224, 'I blame myself entirely225; we made ourselves too public. These are bad times, Sinai bhai - freeze a Muslim's assets, they say, and you make him run to Pakistan, leaving all his wealth behind him. Catch the lizard's tail and he'll snap it off! This so-called secular226 state gets some damn clever ideas.'
'Everything,' Ahmed Sinai is saying, 'bank account; savings227 bonds; the rents from the Kurla properties - all blocked, frozen. By order, the letter says. By order they will not let me have four annas, wife - not a chavanni to see the peepshow!'
'It's those photos in the paper,' Amina decides. 'Otherwise how could those jumped-up clever dicks know whom to prosecute228? My God, janum, it's my fault ...'
'Not ten pice for a twist of channa,' Ahmed Sinai adds, 'not one anna to give alms to a beggar. Frozen - like in the fridge!'
'It's my fault,' Ismail Ibrahim is saying, 'I should have warned you, Sinai bhai. I have heard about these freezings - only well-off Muslims are selected, naturally. You must fight ...'
'... Tooth and nail!' Homi Catrack insists, 'Like a lion! Like Aurangzeb - your ancestor, isn't it? - like the Rani of Jhansi! Then let's see what kind of country we've ended up in!'
'There are law courts in this State,' Ismail Ibrahim adds; Nussie-the-duck smiles a bovine229 smile as she suckles Sonny; her fingers move, absently stroking Ms hollows, up and around, down and about, in a steady, unchanging rhythm ...
'You must accept my legal services,' Ismail tells Ahmed, 'Absolutely free, my good friend. No, no I won't hear of it. How can it be? We are neighbours.'
'Broke,' Ahmed is saying, 'Frozen, like water.'
'Come on now,' Amina interrupts him; her dedication230 rising to new heights, she leads him towards her bedroom... 'Janum, you need to lie for some time.' And Ahmed: 'What's this, wife? A time like this -cleaned out; finished; crushed like ice - and you think about...' But she has closed the door; slippers231 have been kicked off; arms are reaching towards him; and some moments later her hands are stretching down down down; and then, 'Oh my goodness, janum, I thought you were just talking dirty but it's true! So cold, Allah, so coooold, like little round cubes of ice!'
Such things happen; after the State froze my father's assets, my mother began to feel them growing colder and colder. On the first day, the Brass Monkey was conceived - just in time, because after that, although Amina lay every night with her husband to warm him, although she snuggled up tightly when she felt him shiver as the icy fingers of rage and powerlessness spread upwards232 from his loins, she could no longer bear to stretch out her hand and touch because his little cubes of ice had become too frigid233 to hold.
They - we - should have known something bad would happen. That January, Chowpatty Beach, and Juhu and Trombay, too, were littered with the ominous234 corpses235 of dead pomfret, which floated, without the ghost of an explanation, belly-side-up, like scaly236 fingers in to shore.
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quack
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| n.庸医；江湖医生；冒充内行的人；骗子 | |
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sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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exuding
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| v.缓慢流出，渗出，分泌出( exude的现在分词 )；流露出对（某物）的神态或感情 | |
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glands
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| n.腺( gland的名词复数 ) | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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resuscitating
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| v.使（某人或某物）恢复知觉，苏醒( resuscitate的现在分词 ) | |
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grouchy
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| adj.好抱怨的；愠怒的 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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vouchsafe
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| v.惠予，准许 | |
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squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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unleashed
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| v.把（感情、力量等）释放出来，发泄( unleash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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digit
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| n.零到九的阿拉伯数字，手指，脚趾 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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pickle
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| n.腌汁，泡菜；v.腌，泡 | |
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vats
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| varieties 变化，多样性，种类 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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walrus
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| n.海象 | |
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watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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rippled
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| 使泛起涟漪（ripple的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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tunic
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| n.束腰外衣 | |
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gargantuan
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| adj.巨大的，庞大的 | |
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attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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captions
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| n.标题，说明文字，字幕( caption的名词复数 )v.给（图片、照片等）加说明文字( caption的第三人称单数 ) | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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ratified
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| v.批准，签认（合约等）( ratify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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flick
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| n.快速的轻打，轻打声，弹开；v.轻弹，轻轻拂去，忽然摇动 | |
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lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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warden
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| n.监察员，监狱长，看守人，监护人 | |
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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50
succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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51
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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52
briny
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| adj.盐水的；很咸的；n.海洋 | |
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53
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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54
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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56
domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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snugly
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| adv.紧贴地；贴身地；暖和舒适地；安适地 | |
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joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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eccentricity
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| n.古怪，反常，怪癖 | |
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stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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rampant
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| adj.(植物)蔓生的；狂暴的，无约束的 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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vindicating
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的现在分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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meticulously
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| adv.过细地，异常细致地；无微不至；精心 | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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metabolism
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| n.新陈代谢 | |
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evacuated
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| 撤退者的 | |
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copiously
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| adv.丰富地，充裕地 | |
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cascade
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| n.小瀑布，喷流；层叠；vi.成瀑布落下 | |
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regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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apertures
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| n.孔( aperture的名词复数 )；隙缝；（照相机的）光圈；孔径 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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76
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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77
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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78
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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79
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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80
eyelids
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|
| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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81
pregnancy
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| n.怀孕，怀孕期 | |
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82
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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83
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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84
chronological
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|
| adj.按年月顺序排列的，年代学的 | |
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85
daydreams
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|
| n.白日梦( daydream的名词复数 )v.想入非非，空想( daydream的第三人称单数 ) | |
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86
daydream
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| v.做白日梦，幻想 | |
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87
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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88
strapping
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|
| adj. 魁伟的, 身材高大健壮的 n. 皮绳或皮带的材料, 裹伤胶带, 皮鞭 动词strap的现在分词形式 | |
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89
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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90
yelp
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| vi.狗吠 | |
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91
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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92
jutting
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| v.（使）突出( jut的现在分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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93
jut
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| v.突出；n.突出，突出物 | |
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94
tremor
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|
| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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95
downwards
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|
| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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96
contented
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|
| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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97
basking
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|
| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的现在分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
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98
lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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99
glamorous
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|
| adj.富有魅力的；美丽动人的；令人向往的 | |
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100
leech
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|
| n.水蛭，吸血鬼，榨取他人利益的人；vt.以水蛭吸血；vi.依附于别人 | |
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101
monsoon
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|
| n.季雨，季风，大雨 | |
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102
stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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103
bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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104
doorway
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|
| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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105
valiantly
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|
| adv.勇敢地，英勇地；雄赳赳 | |
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106
swerves
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|
| n.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的名词复数 )v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的第三人称单数 ) | |
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107
deterred
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|
| v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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108
punctuated
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|
| v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物 | |
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109
unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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110
wrestle
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|
| vi.摔跤，角力；搏斗；全力对付 | |
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111
wrestler
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| n.摔角选手，扭 | |
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112
vow
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|
| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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113
bout
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| n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛 | |
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114
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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115
rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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116
teeming
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|
| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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117
cleft
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|
| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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118
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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119
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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120
giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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121
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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122
pram
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| n.婴儿车，童车 | |
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123
demonstrations
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| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
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124
ration
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| n.定量(pl.)给养，口粮；vt.定量供应 | |
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125
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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126
nadir
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| n.最低点，无底 | |
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127
mischievous
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|
| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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128
perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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129
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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130
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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131
bereavement
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| n.亲人丧亡，丧失亲人，丧亲之痛 | |
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132
asthma
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| n.气喘病，哮喘病 | |
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133
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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134
repertoire
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|
| n.(准备好演出的)节目，保留剧目；(计算机的)指令表，指令系统， <美>(某个人的)全部技能；清单，指令表 | |
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135
nostalgia
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|
| n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧 | |
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136
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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137
colossally
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138
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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139
cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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140
pumpkin
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| n.南瓜 | |
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141
diagnosis
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| n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断 | |
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142
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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143
hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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144
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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145
accordions
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| n.手风琴( accordion的名词复数 ) | |
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146
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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147
tormentor
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| n. 使苦痛之人, 使苦恼之物, 侧幕 =tormenter | |
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148
labyrinths
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| 迷宫( labyrinth的名词复数 )； （文字，建筑）错综复杂的 | |
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149
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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150
plantations
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| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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151
fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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152
gangsters
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| 匪徒，歹徒( gangster的名词复数 ) | |
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153
coveting
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| v.贪求，觊觎( covet的现在分词 ) | |
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154
embarks
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| 乘船( embark的第三人称单数 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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155
bribing
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| 贿赂 | |
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156
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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157
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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158
physicist
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| n.物理学家，研究物理学的人 | |
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159
biding
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| v.等待，停留( bide的现在分词 )；居住；（过去式用bided）等待；面临 | |
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160
voyeur
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| n.窥淫狂者，窥隐私者 | |
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161
liaison
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| n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通 | |
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162
naval
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|
| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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163
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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164
imbibed
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| v.吸收( imbibe的过去式和过去分词 )；喝；吸取；吸气 | |
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165
dribbling
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|
| n.（燃料或油从系统内）漏泄v.流口水( dribble的现在分词 )；（使液体）滴下或作细流；运球，带球 | |
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166
stark
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|
| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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167
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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168
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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169
erode
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| v.侵蚀，腐蚀，使...减少、减弱或消失 | |
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170
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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171
wheedled
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| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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172
pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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173
undoing
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| n.毁灭的原因，祸根；破坏，毁灭 | |
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174
mercurial
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| adj.善变的，活泼的 | |
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175
sonorously
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| adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；堂皇地；朗朗地 | |
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176
squealed
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| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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177
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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178
cowering
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的现在分词 ) | |
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179
bottleneck
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| n.瓶颈口，交通易阻的狭口；妨生产流程的一环 | |
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180
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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181
eerie
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| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
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182
Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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183
gales
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| 龙猫 | |
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184
wheedles
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|
| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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185
whetted
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| v.（在石头上）磨（刀、斧等）( whet的过去式和过去分词 )；引起，刺激（食欲、欲望、兴趣等） | |
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186
certified
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| a.经证明合格的；具有证明文件的 | |
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187
alcoholic
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|
| adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者 | |
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188
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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189
peddle
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| vt.(沿街)叫卖，兜售；宣传，散播 | |
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190
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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191
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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192
irritable
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|
| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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193
exhaustion
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|
| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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194
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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195
outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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196
flirt
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| v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者 | |
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197
snobbery
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| n. 充绅士气派, 俗不可耐的性格 | |
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198
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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199
simplicities
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| n.简单，朴素，率直( simplicity的名词复数 ) | |
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200
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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201
mightiest
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| adj.趾高气扬( mighty的最高级 )；巨大的；强有力的；浩瀚的 | |
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promenading
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| v.兜风( promenade的现在分词 ) | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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beacon
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| n.烽火，（警告用的）闪火灯，灯塔 | |
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philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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scurry
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| vi.急匆匆地走；使急赶；催促；n.快步急跑，疾走；仓皇奔跑声；骤雨，骤雪；短距离赛马 | |
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effulgence
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| n.光辉 | |
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gimmick
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| n.(为引人注意而搞的)小革新，小发明 | |
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outwards
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| adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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reclamation
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| n.开垦；改造；（废料等的）回收 | |
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conquerors
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| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
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plausibility
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| n. 似有道理, 能言善辩 | |
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supplanted
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| 把…排挤掉，取代( supplant的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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giggles
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| n.咯咯的笑( giggle的名词复数 )；傻笑；玩笑；the giggles 止不住的格格笑v.咯咯地笑( giggle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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squeak
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| n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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bastards
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| 私生子( bastard的名词复数 )； 坏蛋； 讨厌的事物； 麻烦事 （认为别人走运或不幸时说）家伙 | |
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lather
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| n.(肥皂水的)泡沫，激动 | |
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perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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prosecute
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| vt.告发；进行；vi.告发，起诉，作检察官 | |
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bovine
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| adj.牛的；n.牛 | |
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dedication
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| n.奉献，献身，致力，题献，献辞 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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frigid
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| adj.寒冷的，凛冽的；冷淡的；拘禁的 | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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scaly
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| adj.鱼鳞状的；干燥粗糙的 | |
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