During Ramzan, the month of fasting, we went to the movies as often as we could.
After being shaken awake at five a.m. by my mother's assiduous hand; after pre-dawn breakfasts of melon and sugared lime-water, and especially on Sunday mornings, the Brass2 Monkey and I took it in turns (or sometimes called out in unison) to remind Amina: 'The ten-thirty-in-the-morning show! It's Metro3 Cub4 Club day, Amma, pleeeese!' Then the drive in the Rover to the cinema where we would taste neither Coca-Cola nor potato crisps, neither Kwality ice-cream nor samosas5 in greasy6 paper; but at least there was air-conditioning, and Cub Club badges pinned to our clothes, and competitions, and birthday-announcements made by a compere7 with an inadequate8 moustache; and finally, the film, after the trailers with their introductory titles, 'Next Attraction' and 'Coming Soon', and the cartoon ('In A Moment, The Big Film; But First ... !'): Quentin Durward, perhaps, or Scaramouche. 'Swashbuckling!' we'd say to one another afterwards, playing movie critic; and, 'A rumbustious, bawdy9 romp10!' - although we were ignorant of swashbuckles and bawdiness11. There was not much praying in our family (except on Eid-ul-Fitr, when my father took me to the Friday mosque12 to celebrate the holiday by tying a handkerchief around my head and pressing my forehead to the ground) ... but we were always willing to fast, because we liked the cinema.
Evie Burns and I agreed: the world's greatest movie star was Robert Taylor. I also liked Jay Silverheels as Tonto; but his kemo-sabay, Clayton Moore, was too fat for the Lone13 Ranger14, in my view.
Evelyn Lilith Burns arrived on New Year's Day, 1957, to take up residence with her widower15 father in an apartment in one of the two squat16, ugly concrete blocks which had grown up, almost without pur noticing them, on the lower reaches of our hillock, and which were oddly segregated17: Americans and other foreigners lived (like Evie) in Noor Ville; arriviste Indian success-stories ended up in Laxmi Vilas. From the heights of Methwold's Estate, we looked down on them all, on white and brown alike; but nobody ever looked down on Evie Burns - except once. Only once did anyone get on top of her.
Before I climbed into my first pair of long pants, I fell in love with Evie; but love was a curious, chain-reactive thing that year. To save time, I shall place all of us in the same row at the Metro cinema; Robert Taylor is mirrored in our eyes as we sit in flickering19 trances -and also in symbolic20 sequence: Saleem Sinai is sitting-next-to-and-in-love-with Evie Burns who is sitting-next-to-and-in-love-with Sonny Ibrahim who is sitting-next-to-and-in-love-with the Brass Monkey who is sitting next to the aisle21 and feeling starving hungry ... I loved Evie for perhaps six months of my life; two years later, she was back in America, knifing an old woman and being sent to reform school.
A brief expression of my gratitude22 is in order at this point: if Evie had not come to live amongst us, my story might never have progressed beyond tourism-in-a-clocktower and cheating in class ... and then there would have been no climax23 in a widows' hostel24, no clear proof of my meaning, no coda in a fuming25 factory over which there presides the winking26, saffron-and-green dancing figure of the neon goddess Mumbadevi. But Evie Burns (was she snake or ladder? The answer's obvious: both) did come, complete with the silver bicycle which enabled me not only to discover the midnight children, but also to ensure the partition of the state of Bombay.
To begin at the beginning: her hair was made of scarecrow straw, her skin was peppered with freckles27 and her teeth lived in a metal cage. These teeth were, it seemed, the only things on earth over which she was powerless - they grew wild, in malicious28 crazy-paving overlaps29, and stung her dreadfully when she ate ice-cream. (I permit myself this one generalization31: Americans have mastered the universe, but have no dominion32 over their mouths; whereas India is impotent, but her children tend to have excellent teeth.)
Racked by toothaches, my Evie rose magnificently above the pain. Refusing to be ruled by bone and gums, she ate cake and drank Coke whenever they were going; and never complained. A tough kid, Evie Burns: her conquest of suffering confirmed her sovereignty over us all. It has been observed that all Americans need a frontier: pain was hers, and she was determined33 to push it out.
Once, I shyly gave her a necklace of flowers (queen-of-the-night for my lily-of-the-eve), bought with my own pocket-money from a hawker-woman at Scandal Point. 'I don't wear flowers,' Evelyn Lilith said, and tossed the unwanted chain into the air, spearing it before it fell with a pellet from her unerring Daisy air-pistol. Destroying flowers with a Daisy, she served notice that she was not to be manacled, not even by a necklace: she was our capricious, whirligig Lill-of-the-Hill. And also Eve. The Adam's-apple of my eye.
How she arrived: Sonny Ibrahim, Eyeslice and Hairoil Sabarmati, Cyrus Dubash, the Monkey and I were playing French cricket in the circus-ring between Methwold's four palaces. A New Year's Day game: Toxy clapping at her barred window; even Bi-Appah was in good humour and not, for once, abusing us. Cricket - even French cricket, and even when played by children - is a quiet game: peace anointed in linseed oil. The kissing of leather and willow34; sprinkled applause; the occasional cry - 'Shot! Shot, sir!' - 'Owzatt??' but Evie on her bicycle was having none of that.
'Hey, you! Alia you! Hey, whassamatter? You all deaf or what?'
I was batting (elegantly as Ranji, powerfully as Vinoo Mankad) when she charged up the hill on her two-wheeler, straw hair flying, freckles ablaze35, mouth-metal flashing semaphore messages in the sunlight, a scarecrow astride a silver bullet... 'Hey, you widda leaky nose! Stop watching the schoopid ball, ya crumb37! I'll showya something worth watching!'
Impossible to picture Evie Burns without also conjuring38 up a bicycle; and not just any two-wheeler, but one of the last of the great old-timers, an Arjuna Indiabike in mint condition, with drop-handlebars wrapped in masking tape and five gears and a seat made of reccine cheetah-skin. And a silver frame (the colour, I don't need to tell you, of the Lone Ranger's horse) ... slobby Eyeslice and neat Hairoil, Cyrus the genius and the Monkey, and Sonny Ibrahim and myself - the best of friends, the true sons of the Estate, its heirs by right of birth - Sonny with the slow innocence39 he had had ever since the forceps dented40 his brain and me with my dangerous secret knowledge - yes, all of us, future bullfighters and Navy chiefs and all, stood frozen in open-mouthed attitudes as Evie Burns began to ride her bike, fasterfasterfaster, around and around the edges of the circus-ring. 'Lookit me now: watch me go, ya dummies41!'
On and off the cheetah-seat, Evie performed. One foot on the seat, one leg stretched out behind her, she whirled around us; she built up speed and then did a headstand on the seat! She could straddle the front wheel, facing the rear, and work the pedals the wrong way round ... gravity was her slave, speed her element, and we knew that a power had come among us, a witch on wheels, and the flowers of the hedgerows threw her petals42, the dust of the circus-ring stood up in clouds of ovation43, because the circus-ring had found its mistress, too: it was the canvas beneath the brush of her whirling wheels.
Now we noticed that our heroine packed a Daisy air-pistol on her right hip44 ...
'More to come, ya zeroes!' she yelled, and drew the weapon. Her pellets gave stones the gift of flight; we threw annas into the air and she gunned them down, stone-dead. 'Targets! More targets!' - and Eyeslice surrendered his beloved pack of rummy cards without a murmur45, so that she could shoot the heads off the kings. Annie Oakley in tooth-braces - nobody dared question her sharp-shooting, except once, and that was the end of her reign18, during the great cat invasion; and there were extenuating46 circumstances.
Flushed, sweating, Evie Burns dismounted and announced: 'From now on, there's a new big chief around here. Okay, Indians? Any arguments?'
No arguments; I knew then that I had fallen in love.
At Juhu Beach with Evie: she won the camel-races, could drink more coconut47 milk than any of us, could open her eyes under the sharp salt water of the Arabian Sea.
Did six months make such a difference? (Evie was half a year older than me.) Did it entitle you to talk to grown-ups as an equal? Evie was seen gossiping with old man Ibrahim Ibrahim; she claimed Lila Sabarmati was teaching her to put on make-up; she visited Homi Catrack to gossip about guns. (It was the tragic48 irony49 of Homi Catrack's life that he, at whom a gun would one day be pointed50, was a true aficionado51 of firearms ... in Evie he found a fellow-creature, a motherless child who was, unlike his own Toxy, as sharp as a knife and as bright as a bottle. Incidentally, Evie Burns wasted no sympathy on poor Toxy Catrack. 'Wrong inna head,' she opined carelessly to us all, 'Oughta be put down like rats.' But Evie: rats are not weak! There was more that was rodent-like in your face than in the whole body of your despised Tox.)
That was Evelyn Lilith; and within weeks of her arrival, I had set off the chain reaction from whose effects I would never fully30 recover.
It began with Sonny Ibrahim, Sonny-next-door, Sonny of the forcep-hollows, who has been sitting patiently in the wings of my story, awaiting his cue. In those days, Sonny was a badly bruised52 fellow: more than forceps had dented him. To love the Brass Monkey (even in the nine-year-old sense of the word) was no easy thing to do.
As I've said, my sister, born second and unheralded, had begun to react violently to any declarations of affection. Although she was believed to speak the languages of birds and cats, the soft words of lovers roused in her an almost animal rage; but Sonny was too simple to be warned off. For months now, he had been pestering53 her with statements such as, 'Saleem's sister, you're a pretty solid type!' or, 'Listen, you want to be my girl? We could go to the pictures with your ayah, maybe ...' And for an equal number of months, she had been making him suffer for his love - telling tales to his mother; pushing him into mud-puddles accidentally-on-purpose; once even assaulting him physically54, leaving him with long raking claw-marks down his face and an expression of sad-dog injury in his eyes; but he would not learn. And so, at last, she had planned her most terrible revenge.
The Monkey attended Walsingham School for Girls on Nepean Sea Road; a school full of tall, superbly muscled Europeans, who swam like fish and dived like submarines. In their spare time, they could be seen from our bedroom window, cavorting55 in the map-shaped pool of the Breach56 Candy Club, from which we were, of course, barred ... and when I discovered that the Monkey had somehow attached herself to these segregated swimmers, as a sort of mascot57, I felt genuinely aggrieved58 with her for perhaps the first time ... but there was no arguing with her; she went her own way. Beefy fifteen-year-old white girls let her sit with them on the Walsingham school bus. Three such females would wait with her every morning at the same place where Sonny, Eyeslice, Hairoil, Cyrus-the-great and I awaited the bus from the Cathedral School.
One morning, for some forgotten reason, Sonny and I were the only boys at the stop. Maybe there was a bug59 going round or something. The Monkey waited until Mary Pereira had left us alone, in the care of the beefy swimmers; and then suddenly the truth of what she was planning flashed into my head as, for no particular reason, I tuned61 into her thoughts; and I yelled 'Hey!' - but too late. The Monkey screeched62, 'You keep out of this!' and then she and the three beefy swimmers had jumped upon Sonny Ibrahim, street-sleepers and beggars and bicycling clerks were watching with open amusement, because they were ripping every scrap63 of clothing off his body ... 'Damn it man, are you going just to stand and watch?' -Sonny yelling for help, but I was immobilized, how could I take sides between my sister and my best friend, and he, 'I'll tell my daddy on you!', tearful now, while the Monkey, 'That'll teach you to talk shit - and that'll teach you', his shoes, off; no shirt any more; his vest, dragged off by a high-board diver, 'And that'll teach you to write your sissy love letters', no socks now, and plenty of tears, and 'There!' yelled the Monkey; the Walsingham bus arrived and the assailants and my sister jumped in and sped away, 'Ta-ta-ba-ta, lover-boy!' they yelled, and Sonny was left in the street, on the pavement opposite Chimalker's and Reader's Paradise, naked as the day he was born; his forcep-hollows glistened64 like rock-pools, because Vaseline had dripped into them from his hair; and his eyes were wet as well, as he, 'Why's she do it, man? Why, when I only told her I liked ...'
'Search me,' I said, not knowing where to look, 'She does things, that's all.'
Not knowing, either, that the time would come when she did something worse to me.
But that was nine years later ... meanwhile, early in 1957, election campaigns had begun: the Jan Sangh was campaigning for rest homes for aged65 sacred cows; in Kerala, E. M. S. Namboodiripad was promising66 that Communism would give everyone food and jobs; in Madras, the Anna-D.M.K. party of C. N. Annadurai fanned the flames of regionalism; the Congress fought back with reforms such as the Hindu Succession Act, which gave Hindu women equal rights of inheritance ... in short, everybody was busy pleading his own cause; I, however, found myself tongue-tied in the face of Evie Burns, and approached Sonny Ibrahim to ask him to plead on my behalf.
In India, we've always been vulnerable to Europeans ... Evie had only been with us a matter of weeks, and already I was being sucked into a grotesque67 mimicry68 of European literature. (We had done Cyrano, in a simplified version, at school; I had also read the Classics Illustrated69 comic book.) Perhaps it would be fair to say that Europe repeats itself, in India, as farce70 ... Evie was American. Same thing.
'But hey, man, that's no-fair man, why don't you do it yourself?'
'Listen, Sonny,' I pleaded, 'you're my friend, right?'
'Yeah, but you didn't even help ...'
'That was my sister, Sonny, so how could I?'
'No, so you have to do your own dirty ...'
'Hey, Sonny, man, think. Think only. These girls need careful handling, man.
Look how the Monkey flies off the handle! You've got the experience, yaar, you've been through it. You'll know how to go gently this time. What do I know, man? Maybe she doesn't like me even. You want me to have my clothes torn off, too? That would make you feel better?'
And innocent, good-natured Sonny, '... Well, no ...'
'Okay, then. You go. Sing my praises a little. Say never mind about my nose.
Character is what counts. You can do that?'
'... Weeeelll ... I ... okay, but you talk to your sis also, yah?'
Til talk, Sonny. What can I promise? You know what she's like. But I'll talk to her for sure.'
You can lay your strategies as carefully as you like, but women will undo71 them at a stroke. For every victorious72 election campaign, there are twice as many that fail ... from the verandah of Buckingham Villa73, through the slats of the chick-blind, I spied on Sonny Ibrahim as he canvassed74 my chosen constituency ...
and heard the voice of the electorate75, the rising nasality of Evie Burns, splitting the air with scorn: 'Who? Him? Whynt'cha tell him to jus' go blow his nose? That sniffer? He can't even ride a bike!'
Which was true.
And there was worse to come; because now (although a chick-blind divided the scene into narrow slits) did I not see the expression on Evie's face begin to soften76 and change? - did Evie's hand (sliced lengthways by the chick) not reach out towards my electoral agent? -and weren't those Evie's fingers (the nails bitten down to the quick) touching77 Sonny's temple-hollows, the fingertips getting covered in dribbled78 Vaseline? - and did Evie say or did she not: 'Now you, Pr instance: you're cute'? Let me sadly affirm that I did; it did; they were; she did.
Saleem Sinai loves Evie Burns; Evie loves Sonny Ibrahim; Sonny is potty about the Brass Monkey; but what does the Monkey say?
'Don't make me sick, Allah,' my sister said when I tried - rather nobly, considering how he'd failed me - to argue Sonny's case. The voters had given the thumijs-down to us both.
I wasn't giving in just yet. The siren temptations of Evie Burns - who never cared about me, I'm bound to admit - led me inexorably towards my fall. (But I hold nothing against her; because my fall led to a rise.)
Privately79, in my clocktower, I took time off my trans-subcontinental rambles80 to consider the wooing of my freckled81 Eve. 'Forget middlemen,' I advised myself, 'You'll have to do this personally.' Finally, I formed my scheme: I would have to share her interests, to make her passions mine ... guns have never appealed to me. I resolved to learn how to ride a bike.
Evie, in those days, had given in to the many demands of the hillock-top children that she teach them her bicycle-arts; so it was a simple matter for me to join the queue for lessons. We assembled in the circus-ring; Evie, ring-mistress supreme82, stood in the centre of five wobbly, furiously concentrating cyclists ... while I stood beside her, bikeless. Until Evie's coming I'd shown no interest in wheels, so I'd never been given any ... humbly83, I suffered the lash36 of Evie's tongue.
'Where've you been living, fat nose? I suppose you wanna borrow mine?'
'No,' I lied penitently84, and she relented. 'Okay, okay,' Evieshrugged, 'Get in the saddle and lessee85 whatchou're made of.'
Let me reveal at once that, as I climbed on to the silver Arjuna Indiabike, I was filled with the purest elation86; that, as Evie walked roundandround, holding the bike by the handlebars, exclaiming, 'Gotcha balance yet? Mo? Geez, nobody's got all year!' - as Evie and I perambulated, I felt ... what's the word? ...
happy.
Roundandroundand ... Finally, to please her, I stammered87, 'Okay ... I think I'm ... let me,' and instantly I was on my own, she had given me a farewell shove, and the silver creature flew gleaming and uncontrollable across the circus-ring ... I heard her shouting: 'The brake! Use the goddamn brake, ya dummy88!' - but my hands couldn't move, I had gone rigid89 as a plank90, and there LOOK OUT in front of me was the blue two-wheeler of Sonny Ibrahim, collision course, OUTA THE WAY YA CRAZY, Sonny in the saddle, trying to swerve91 and miss, but still blue streaked92 towards silver, Sonny swung right but I went the same way EEYAH MY BIKE and silver wheel touched blue, frame kissed frame, I was flying up and over handlebars towards Sonny who had embarked93 on an identical parabola towards me CRASH bicycles fell to earth beneath us, locked in an intimate embrace CRASH suspended in mid-air Sonny and I met each other, Sonny's head greeted mine ...
Over nine years ago I had been born with bulging94 temples, and Sonny had been given hollows by forceps; everything is for a reason, it seems, because now my bulging temples found their way into Sonny's hollows. A perfect fit. Heads fitting together, we began our descent to earth, falling clear of the bikes, fortunately, WHUMMP and for a moment the world went away.
Then Evie with her freckles on fire, 'O ya little creep, ya pile of snot, ya wrecked95 my ...' But I wasn't listening, because circus-ring accident had completed what washing-chest calamity96 had begun, and they were there in my head, in the front now, no longer a muffled97 background noise I'd never noticed, all of them, sending their here-I-am signals, from north south east west... the other children born during that midnight hour, calling 'I,' 'I,' T and 'I.'
'Hey! Hey, snothead! You okay? ... Hey, where's his mother?'
Interruptions, nothing but interruptions! The different parts of my somewhat complicated life refuse, with a wholly unreasonable98 obstinacy99, to stay neatly100 in their separate compartments101. Voices spill out of their clocktower to invade the circus-ring, which is supposed to be Evie's domain103 ... and now, at the very moment when I should be describing the fabulous104 children of ticktock, I'm being whisked away by Frontier Mail - spirited off to the decaying world of my grandparents, so that Aadam Aziz is getting in the way of the natural unfolding of my tale. Ah well. What can't be cured must be endured.
That January, during my convalescence105 from the severe concussion106 I received in my bicycling accident, my parents took us off to Agra for a family reunion that turned out worse than the notorious (and arguably fictional) Black Hole of Calcutta. For two weeks we were obliged to listen to Emerald and Zulfikar (who was now a Major-General and insisted on being called a General) dropping names, and also hints of their fabulous wealth, which had by now grown into the seventh largest private fortune in Pakistan; their son Zafar tried (but only once!) to pull the Monkey's fading red pig-tails. And we were obliged to watch in silent horror while my Civil Servant uncle Mustapha and his half-Irani wife Sonia beat and bludgeoned their litter of nameless, genderless brats107 into utter anonymity108; and the bitter aroma109 of Alia's spinsterhood filled the air and ruined our food; and my father would retire early to begin his secret nightly war against the djinns; and worse, and worse, and worse.
One night I awoke on the stroke of twelve to find my grandfather's dream inside my head, and was therefore unable to avoid seeing him as he saw himself - as a crumbling110 old man in whose centre, when the light was right, it was possible to discern a gigantic shadow. As the convictions which had given strength to his youth withered111 away under the combined influence of old age, Reverend Mother and the absence of like-minded friends, an old hole was reappearing in the middle of his body, turning him into just another shrivelled, empty old man, over whom the God (and other superstitions) against which he'd fought for so long was beginning to reassert His dominion ... meanwhile, Reverend Mother spent the entire fortnight finding little ways of insulting my uncle Hanif's despised film-actress wife. And that was also the time when I was cast as a ghost in a children's play, and found, in an old leather attache-case on top of my grandfather's almirah, a sheet which had been chewed by moths112, but whose largest hole was man-made: for which discovery I was repaid (you will recall) in roars of grandparental rage.
But there was one achievement. I was befriended by Rashid the rickshaw-wallah (the same fellow who had, in his youth, screamed silently in a cornfield and helped Nadir113 Khan into Aadam Aziz's toilet): taking me under his wing - and without telling my parents, who would have forbidden it so soon after my accident - he taught me how to ride a bicycle. By the time we left, I had this secret tucked away with all my others: only I didn't intend this one to stay secret for very long.
... And on the train home, there were voices hanging on to the outside of the compartment102: 'Ohe, maharaj! Open up, great sir!' -fare-dodgers' voices fighting with the ones I wanted to listen to, the new ones inside my head - and then back to Bombay Central Station, and the drive home past racecourse and temple, and now Evelyn Lilith Burns is demanding that I finish her part first before concentrating on higher things.
'Home again!' the Monkey shouts. 'Hurray ... Back-to-Bom!' (She is in disgrace.
In Agra, she incinerated the General's boots.)
It is a matter of record that the States Reorganization Committee had submitted its report to Mr Nehru as long ago as October 1955; a year later, its recommendations had been implemented114. India had been divided anew, into fourteen states and six centrally-administered 'territories'. But the boundaries of these states were not formed by rivers, or mountains, or any natural features of the terrain115; they were, instead, walls of words. Language divided us: Kerala was for speakers of Malayalam, the only palindromically-named tongue on earth; in Karnataka you were supposed to speak Kanarese; and the amputated state of Madras - known today as Tamil Nadu - enclosed the aficionados116 of Tamil. Owing to some oversight117, however, nothing was done with the state of Bombay; and in the city of Mumbadevi, the language marches grew longer and noisier and finally metamorphosed into political parties, the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti ('United Maharashtra Party') which stood for the Marathi language and demanded the creation of the Deccan state of Maharashtra, and the Maha Gujarat Parishad ('Great Gujarat Party') which marched beneath the banner of the Gujarati language and dreamed of a state to the north of Bombay City, stretching all the way to the Kathiawar peninsula and the Rann of Kutch ... I am warming over all this cold history, these old dead struggles between the barren angularity of Marathi which was born in the arid118 heat of the Deccan and Gujarati's boggy119, Kathiawari softness, to explain why, on the day in February 1957 immediately following our return from Agra, Methwold's Estate was cut off from the city by a stream of chanting humanity which flooded Warden120 Road more completely than monsoon121 water, a parade so long that it took two days to pass, and of which it was said that the statue of Sivaji had come to life to ride stonily122 at its head.
The demonstrators carried black flags; many of them were shopkeepers on hartal; many were striking textile-workers from Mazagaon and Matunga; but on our hillock, we knew nothing about their jobs; to us children, the endless ant-trail of language in Warden Road seemed as magnetically fascinating as a light-bulb to a moth1. It was a demonstration123 so immense, so intense in its passions, that it made all previous marches vanish from the mind as if they had never occurred - and we had all been banned from going down the hill for even the tiniest of looks. So who was the boldest of us all? Who urged us to creep at least half-way down, to the point where the hillock-road swung round to face Warden Road in a steep U-bend? Who said, 'What's to be scared of? We're only going half-way for a peek'? ... Wide-eyed, disobedient Indians followed their freckled American chief. (They lulled124 Dr Narlikar - marchers did,' Hairoil warned us in a shivery voice. Evie spat125 on his shoes.)
But I, Saleem Sinai, had other fish to fry. 'Evie,' I said with quiet offhandedness126, 'how'd you like to see me bicycling?' No response. Evie was immersed in the-spectacle ... and was that her fingerprint127 in Sonny Ibrahim's left forcep-hollow, embedded128 in Vaseline for all the world to see? A second time, and with slightly more emphasis, I said, 'I can do it, Evie. I'll do it on the Monkey's cycle. You want to watch?' And now Evie, cruelly, 'I'm watching this. This is good. Why'd I wanna watch you? And me, a little snivelly now, 'But I learned, Evie, you've got to ...' Roars from Warden Road below us drown my words. Her back is to me; and Sonny's back, the backs of Eyeslice and Hairoil, the intellectual rear of Cyrus-the-great... my sister, who has seen the fingerprint too, and looks displeased129, eggs me on: 'Go on. Go on, show her.
Who's she think she is?' And up on her bike ... 'I'm doing it, Evie, look!'
Bicycling in circles, round and round the little cluster of children, 'See? You see?' A moment of exultation130; and then Evie, deflating impatient couldn't-care-less; 'Willya get outa my way, fer Petesake? I wanna see lhat!'
Finger, chewed-off nail and all, jabs down in the direction of the language march; I am dismissed in favour of the parade of the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti! And despite the Monkey, who loyally, 'That's not fair! He's doing it really good? - and in spite of the exhilaration of the thing-in-itself- something goes haywire inside me; and I'm riding round Evie, fasterfasterfaster, crying sniffing131 out of control, 'So what is it with you, anyway? What do I have to do to ...' And then something else takes over, because I realize I don't have to ask her, I can just get inside that freckled mouth-metalled head and find out, for once I can really get to know what's going on... and in I go, still bicycling, but the front of her mind is all full up with Marathi language-marchers, there are American pop songs stuck in the corners of her thoughts, but nothing I'm interested in; and now, only now, now for the very first time, now driven on by the tears of unrequited love, I begin to probe ...
I find myself pushing, diving, forcing my way behind her defences ... into the secret place where there's a picture of her mother who wears a pink smock and holds up a tiny fish by the tail, and I'm ferreting deeperdeeperdeeper, where is it, what makes her tick, when she gives a sort of jerk and swings round to stare at me as I bicycle roundandroundandround-androundand ...
'Get out!' screams Evie Burns. Hands lifted to forehead. I bicycling, wet-eyed, diving ininin: to where Evie stands in the doorway132 of a clapboard bedroom holding a, holding a something sharp and glinty with red dripping off it, in the doorway of a, my God and on the bed a woman, who, in a pink, my God, and Evie with the, and red staining the pink, and a man coming, my God, and no no no no no ...
'GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!' Bewildered children watch as Evie screams, language march forgotten, but suddenly remembered again, because Evie has grabbed the back of the Monkey's bike WHAT'RE YOU DOING EVIE as she pushes it THERE GET OUT YA BUM133 THERE GET OUT TO HELL!- She's pushed me hard-as-hard, and I losing control hurtling down the slope round the end of the U-bend downdown, MY GOD THE MARCH past Band Box laundry, past Noor Ville and Laxmi Vilas, AAAAA and down into the mouth of the march, heads feet bodies, the waves of the march parting as I arrive, yelling blue murder, crashing into history on a runaway134, young-girl's bike.
Hands grabbing handlebars as I slow down in the impassioned throng135. Smiles filled with good teeth surround me. They are not friendly smiles. 'Look look, a little laad-sahib comes down to join us from the big rich hill!' In Marathi which I hardly understand, it's my worst subject at school, and the smiles asking, 'You want to join S.M.S., little princeling?' And I, just about knowing what's being said, but dazed into telling the truth, shake my head No. And the smiles, 'Oho! The young nawab does not like our tongue! What does he like?' And another smile, 'Maybe Gujarati! You speak Gujarati, my lord?' But my Gujarati was as bad as my Marathi; I only knew one thing in the marshy136 tongue of Kathiawar; and the smiles, urging, and the fingers, prodding137, 'Speak, little master! Speak some Gujarati!' - so I told them what I knew, a rhyme I'd learned from Glandy Keith Colaco at school, which he used when he was bullying138 Gujarati boys, a rhyme designed to make fun of the speech rhythms of the language: Soo che? Saru che! Danda le ke maru che! How are you? - I am well! - 肐I take a stick and thrash you to hell! A nonsense; a nothing; nine words of emptiness... but when I'd retited them, the smiles began to laugh; and then voices near me and then further and further away began to take up my chant, HOW ARE YOU? I AM WELL!, and they lost interest in me, 'Go go with your bicycle, masterji,' they scoffed139, I'LL TAKE A STICK AND THRASH YOU 蝾 HELL, I fled away up the hillock as my chant rushed forward and back, up to the front .and down to the back of the two-day-long procession, becoming, as it went, a song of war.
That afternoon, the head of the procession of the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti collided at Kemp's Corner, with the head of a Maha Gujarat Parishad demonstration; S.M.S. voices chanted 'Soo che? Saru che!' and M.G.P. throats were opened in fury; under the posters of the Air-India rajah and of the Kolynos Kid, the two parties fell upon one another with no little zeal140, and to the tune60 of my little rhyme the first of the language riots got under way, fifteen killed, over three hundred wounded.
In this way I became directly responsible for triggering off the violence which ended with the partition of the state of Bombay, as a result of which the city became the capital of Maharashtra - so at least I was on the winning side.
What was it in Evie's head? Crime or dream? I never found out; but I had learned something else: when you go deep inside someone's head, they can feel you in there.
Evelyn Lilith Burns didn't want much to do with me after that day; but, strangely enough, I was cured of her. (Women have always been the ones to change my life: Mary Pereira, Evie Burns, Jamila Singer, Parvati-the-witch must answer for who I am; and the Widow, who I'm keeping for the end; and after the end, Padma, my goddess of dung. Women have fixed141 me all right, but perhaps they were never central - perhaps the place which they should have filled, the hole in the centre of me which was my inheritance from my grandfather Aadam Aziz, was occupied for too long by my voices. Or perhaps -one must consider all possibilities - they always made me a little afraid.)
收听单词发音 |
1
moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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metro
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| n.地铁；adj.大都市的；(METRO)麦德隆(财富500强公司之一总部所在地德国，主要经营零售) | |
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cub
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| n.幼兽，年轻无经验的人 | |
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samosas
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| n.萨莫萨三角饺( samosa的名词复数 ) | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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compere
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| v.主持（节目） | |
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8
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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bawdy
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| adj.淫猥的，下流的；n.粗话 | |
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romp
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| n.欢闹；v.嬉闹玩笑 | |
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bawdiness
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mosque
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| n.清真寺 | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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ranger
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| n.国家公园管理员，护林员；骑兵巡逻队员 | |
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widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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segregated
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| 分开的； 被隔离的 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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19
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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21
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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23
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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24
hostel
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| n.（学生）宿舍，招待所 | |
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25
fuming
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| 愤怒( fume的现在分词 )； 大怒； 发怒； 冒烟 | |
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26
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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28
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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overlaps
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| v.部分重叠( overlap的第三人称单数 )；（物体）部份重叠；交叠；（时间上）部份重叠 | |
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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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generalization
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| n.普遍性，一般性，概括 | |
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dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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ablaze
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| adj.着火的，燃烧的；闪耀的，灯火辉煌的 | |
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lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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37
crumb
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| n.饼屑，面包屑，小量 | |
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38
conjuring
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| n.魔术 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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dented
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| v.使产生凹痕( dent的过去式和过去分词 )；损害；伤害；挫伤（信心、名誉等） | |
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41
dummies
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| n.仿制品( dummy的名词复数 )；橡皮奶头；笨蛋；假传球 | |
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42
petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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ovation
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| n.欢呼，热烈欢迎，热烈鼓掌 | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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46
extenuating
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| adj.使减轻的，情有可原的v.（用偏袒的辩解或借口）减轻( extenuate的现在分词 )；低估，藐视 | |
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47
coconut
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| n.椰子 | |
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48
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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49
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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50
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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51
aficionado
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| n.…迷；运动迷 | |
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52
bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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53
pestering
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| 使烦恼，纠缠( pester的现在分词 ) | |
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54
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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55
cavorting
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| v.跳跃( cavort的现在分词 ) | |
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56
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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57
mascot
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| n.福神，吉祥的东西 | |
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58
aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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59
bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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60
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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61
tuned
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| adj.调谐的，已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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62
screeched
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| v.发出尖叫声( screech的过去式和过去分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫 | |
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63
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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64
glistened
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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66
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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67
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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68
mimicry
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| n.（生物）拟态，模仿 | |
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69
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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70
farce
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| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
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71
undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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72
victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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73
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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74
canvassed
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| v.（在政治方面）游说( canvass的过去式和过去分词 )；调查（如选举前选民的）意见；为讨论而提出（意见等）；详细检查 | |
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75
electorate
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| n.全体选民；选区 | |
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76
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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77
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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78
dribbled
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| v.流口水( dribble的过去式和过去分词 )；（使液体）滴下或作细流；运球，带球 | |
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79
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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80
rambles
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的第三人称单数 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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81
freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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82
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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83
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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84
penitently
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85
lessee
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| n.（房地产的）租户 | |
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86
elation
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| n.兴高采烈，洋洋得意 | |
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87
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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88
dummy
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| n.假的东西；(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头 | |
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89
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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90
plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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91
swerve
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| v.突然转向，背离；n．转向，弯曲，背离 | |
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92
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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93
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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94
bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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95
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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96
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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97
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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98
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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99
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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100
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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101
compartments
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| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
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102
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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103
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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104
fabulous
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| adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的 | |
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105
convalescence
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| n.病后康复期 | |
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106
concussion
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| n.脑震荡；震动 | |
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107
brats
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| n.调皮捣蛋的孩子( brat的名词复数 ) | |
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108
anonymity
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| n.the condition of being anonymous | |
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109
aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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111
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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112
moths
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| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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113
nadir
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| n.最低点，无底 | |
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114
implemented
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| v.实现( implement的过去式和过去分词 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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115
terrain
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| n.地面，地形，地图 | |
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116
aficionados
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| n.酷爱…者，…迷( aficionado的名词复数 )； 爱看斗牛的人 | |
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117
oversight
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| n.勘漏，失察，疏忽 | |
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118
arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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boggy
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| adj.沼泽多的 | |
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120
warden
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| n.监察员，监狱长，看守人，监护人 | |
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monsoon
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| n.季雨，季风，大雨 | |
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122
stonily
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| 石头地，冷酷地 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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124
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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spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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126
offhandedness
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| Offhandedness's. | |
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127
fingerprint
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| n.指纹；vt.取...的指纹 | |
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embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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131
sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；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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132
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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133
bum
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| n.臀部；流浪汉，乞丐；vt.乞求，乞讨 | |
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runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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marshy
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| adj.沼泽的 | |
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137
prodding
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| v.刺，戳( prod的现在分词 )；刺激；促使；（用手指或尖物）戳 | |
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138
bullying
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| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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139
scoffed
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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140
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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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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