Sometimes, mountains must move before old comrades can be reunited. On December 15th, 1971, in the capital of the newly liberated1 state of Bangladesh, Tiger Niazi surrendered to his old chum Sam Manekshaw; while I, in my turn, surrendered to the embraces of a girl with eyes like saucers, a pony-tail like a long shiny black rope, and lips which had not at that time acquired what was to become their characteristic pout2. These reunions were not achieved easily; and as a gesture of respect for all who made them possible, I shall pause briefly3 in my narrative4 to set out the whys and the wherefores.
Let me, then, be perfectly5 explicit6: if Yahya Khan and Z. A. Bhutto had not colluded in the matter of the coup7 of March 25th, I would not have been flown to Dacca in civilian8 dress; nor, in all likelihood, would General Tiger Niazi have been in the city that December. To continue: the Indian intervention9 in the Bangladesh dispute was also the result of the interaction of great forces.
Perhaps, if ten million had not walked across the frontiers into India, obliging the Delhi Government to spend $200,000,000 a month on refugee camps - the entire war of 1965, whose secret purpose had been the annihilation of my family, had cost them only $70,000,000! - Indian soldiers, led by General Sam, would never have crossed the frontiers in the opposite direction. But India came for other reasons, too: as I was to learn from the Communist magicians who lived in the shadow of the Delhi Friday Mosque10, the Delhi sarkar had been highly concerned by the declining influence of Mujib's Awami League, and the growing popularity of the revolutionary Mukti Bahini; Sam and the Tiger met in Dacca to prevent the Bahini from gaining power. So if it were not for the Mukti Bahini, Parvati-the-witch might never have accompanied the Indian troops on their campaign of 'liberation' ... But even that is not a full explanation. A third reason for Indian intervention was the fear that the disturbances11 in Bangladesh would, if they were not quickly curtailed12, spread across the frontiers into West Bengal; so Sam and the Tiger, and also Parvati and I, owe our meeting at least in part to the more turbulent elements in West Bengali politics: the Tiger's defeat was only the beginning of a campaign against the Left in Calcutta and its environs.
At any rate, India came; and for the speed of her coming - because in a mere13 three weeks Pakistan had lost half her navy, a third of her army, a quarter of her air force, and finally, after the Tiger surrendered, more than half her population - thanks must be given to the Mukti Bahini once more; because, perhaps naively14, failing to understand that the Indian advance was as much a tactical manoeuvre15 against them as a battle against the occupying West Wing forces, the Bahini advised General Manekshaw on Pakistani troop movements, on the Tiger's strengths and weaknesses; thanks, too, to Mr Chou En-Lai, who refused (despite Bhutto's entreaties) to give Pakistan any material aid in the war. Denied Chinese arms, Pakistan fought with American guns, American tanks and aircraft; the President of the United States, alone in the entire world, was resolved to 'tilt16' towards Pakistan. While Henry A. Kissinger argued the cause of Yahya Khan, the same Yahya was secretly arranging the President's famous state visit to China ... there were, therefore, great forces working against my reunion with Parvati and Sam's with the Tiger; but despite the tilting18 President, it was all over in three short weeks.
On the night of December 14th, Shaheed Dar and the buddha19 circled the fringes of the invested city of Dacca; but the buddha's nose (you will not have forgotten)
was capable of sniffing21 out more than most. Following his nose, which could smell safety and danger, they found a way through the Indian lines, and entered the city under cover of night. While they moved stealthily through streets in which nobody except a few starving beggars could be seen, the Tiger was swearing to fight to the last man; but the next day, he surrendered instead. What is not known: whether the last man was grateful to be spared or peeved22 at missing his chance of entering the camphor garden.
And so I returned to that city in which, in those last hours before reunions, Shaheed and I saw many things which were not true, which were not possible, because our boys would not could not have behaved so badly; we saw men in spectacles with heads like eggs being shot in side-streets, we saw the intelligentsia of the city being massacred by the hundred, but it was not true because it could not have been true, the Tiger was a decent chap, after all, and our jawans were worth ten babus, we moved through the impossible hallucination of the night, hiding in doorways24 while fires blossomed like flowers, reminding me of the way the Brass25 Monkey used to set fire to shoes to attract a little attention, there were slit26 throats being buried in unmarked graves, and Shaheed began his, 'No, buddha - what a thing, Allah, you can't believe your eyes - no, not true, how can it - buddha, tell, what's got into my eyes?' And at last the buddha spoke27, knowing Shaheed could not hear: 'O, Shaheeda,' he said, revealing the depths of his fastidiousness, 'a person must sometimes choose what he will see and what he will not; look away, look away from there now.' But Shaheed was staring at a maidan in which lady doctors were being bayoneted before they were raped28, and raped again before they were shot. Above them and behind them, the cool white minaret29 of a mosque stared blindly down upon the scene.
As though talking to himself, the buddha said, 'It is time to think about saving our skins; God knows why we came back.' The buddha entered the doorway23 of a deserted30 house, a broken, peeling shell of an edifice31 which had once housed a tea-shop, a bicycle-repair shop, a whorehouse and a tiny landing on which a notary32 public must once have sat, because there was the low desk on which he had left behind a pair of half-rimmed spectacles, there were the abandoned seals and stamps which had once enabled him to be more than an old nobody - stamps and seals which had made him an arbiter33 of what was true and what was not. The notary public was absent, so I could not ask him to verify what was happening, I could not give a deposition34 under oath; but lying on the mat behind his desk was a loose flowing garment like a djellabah, and without waiting any longer I removed my uniform, including the she-dog badge of the CUTIA units, and became anonymous35, a deserter, in a city whose language I could not speak.
Shaheed Dar, however, remained in the street; in the first light of morning he watched soldiers scurrying36 away from what-had-not-been-done; and then the grenade came. I, the buddha, was still inside the empty house; but Shaheed was unprotected by walls.
Who can say why how who; but the grenade was certainly thrown. In that last instant of his un-bisected life, Shaheed was suddenly seized by an irresistible37 urge to look up ... afterwards, in the muezzin's roost, he told the buddha, 'So strange, Allah - the pomegranate - in my head, just like that, bigger an'
brighter than ever before - you know, buddha, like a light-bulb - Allah, what could I do, I looked!' - And yes, it was there, hanging above his head, the grenade of his dreams, hanging just above his head, falling falling, exploding at waist-level, blowing his legs away to some other part of the city.
When I reached him, Shaheed was conscious, despite bisection, and pointed38 up, 'Take me up there, buddha, I want to I want,' so I carried what was now only half a boy (and therefore reasonably light) up narrow spiral stairs to the heights of that cool white minaret, where Shaheed babbled39 of light-bulbs while red ants and black ants fought over a dead cockroach40, battling away along the trowel-furrows in the crudely-laid concrete floor. Down below, amid charred41 houses, broken glass and smoke-haze, antlike people were emerging, preparing for peace; the ants, however, ignored the antlike, and fought on. And the buddha: he stood still, gazing milkily down and around, . having placed himself between the top half of Shaheed and eyrie's one piece of furniture, a low table on which stood a gramophone connected to a loudspeaker. The buddha, protecting his halved42 companion from the disillusioning43 sight of this mechanized muezzin, whose call to prayer would always be scratched in the same places, extracted from the folds of his shapeless robe a glinting object: and turned his milky44 gaze upon the silver spittoon. Lost in contemplation, he was taken by surprise when the screams began; and looked up to see an abandoned cockroach. (Blood had been seeping45 along trowel-furrows; ants, following this dark viscous46 trail, had arrived at the source of the leakage47, and Shaheed expressed his fury at becoming the victim of not one, but two wars.)
Coming to the rescue, feet dancing on ants, the buddha bumped his elbow against a switch; the loudspeaker system was activated48, and afterwards people would never forget how a mosque had screamed out the terrible agony of war.
After a few moments, silence. Shaheed's head slumped49 forward. And the buddha, fearing discovery, put away his spittoon and descended50 into the city as the Indian Army arrived; leaving Shaheed, who no longer minded, to assist at the peacemaking banquet of the ants, I went into the early morning streets to welcome General Sam.
In the minaret, I had gazed milkily at my spittoon; but the buddha's mind had not been empty. It contained three words, which Shaheed's top half had also kept repeating, until the ants: the same three which once, reeking51 of onions, had made me weep on the shoulder of Ayooba Baloch - until the bee, buzzing ... 'It's not fair,' the buddha thought, and then, like a child, over and over, 'It's not fair,' and again, and again.
Shaheed, fulfilling his father's dearest wish, had finally earned his name; but the buddha could still not remember his own.
How the buddha regained52 his name: Once, long ago, on another independence day, the world had been saffron and green. This morning, the colours were green, red and gold. And in the cities, cries of 'Jai Bangla!' And voices of women singing 'Our Golden Bengal', maddening their hearts with delight... in the centre of the city, on the podium of his defeat, General Tiger Niazi awaited General Manekshaw. (Biographical details: Sam was a Parsee. He came from Bombay.
Bombayites were in for happy times that day.) And amid green and red and gold, the buddha in his shapeless anonymous garment was jostled by crowds; and then India came. India, with Sam at her head.
Was it General Sam's idea? Or even Indira's? - Eschewing53 these fruitless questions, I record only that the Indian advance into Dacca was much more than a mere military parade; as befits a triumph, it was garlanded with side-shows. A special I.A.F. troop transport had flown to Dacca, carrying a hundred and one of the finest entertainers and conjurers India could provide. From the famous magicians' ghetto54 in Delhi they came, many of them dressed for the occasion in the evocative uniforms of the Indian fauj, so that many Daccans got the idea that the Indians' victory had been inevitable55 from the start because even their uniformed jawans were sorcerers of the highest order. The conjurers and other artistes marched beside the troops, entertaining the crowds; there were acrobats56 forming human pyramids on moving carts drawn57 by white bullocks; there were extraordinary female contortionists who could swallow their legs up to their knees; there were jugglers who operated outside the laws of gravity, so that they could draw oohs and aahs from the delighted crowd as they juggled58 with toy grenades, keeping four hundred and twenty in the air at a time; there were card-tricksters who could pull the queen of chiriyas (the monarch59 of birds, the empress of clubs) out of women's ears; there was the great dancer Anarkali, whose name meant 'pomegranate-bud', doing leaps twists pirouettes on a donkey-cart while a giant piece of silver nose-jewellery jingled60 on her right nostril61; there was Master Vikram the sitarist, whose sitar was capable of responding to, and exaggerating, the faintest emotions in the hearts of his audience, so that once (it was said) he had played before an audience so bad-tempered62, and had so greatly enhanced their foul63 humour, that if his tabla-player hadn't made him stop his raga in mid-stream the power of his music would have had them all knifing each other and smashing up the auditorium64 ...
today, Master Vikram's music raised the celebratory goodwill65 of the people to fever-pitch; it maddened, let us say, their hearts with delight.
And there was Picture Singh himself, a seven-foot giant who weighed two hundred and forty pounds and was known as the Most Charming Man In The World because of his unsurpassable skills as a snake-charmer. Not even the legendary66 Tubriwallahs of Bengal could exceed his talents; he strode through the happily shrieking67 crowds, twined from head to foot with deadly cobras, mambas and kraits, all with their poison-sacs intact... Picture Singh, who would be the last in the line of men who have been willing to become my fathers ... and immediately behind him came Parvati-the-witch.
Parvati-the-witch entertained the crowds with the help of a large wicker basket with a lid; happy volunteers entered the basket, and Parvati made them disappear so completely that they could not return until she wished them to; Parvati, to whom midnight had given the true gifts of sorcery, had placed them at the service of her humble68 illusionist's trade; so that she was asked, 'But how do you pull it off?'
And, 'Come on, pretty missy, tell the trick, why not?' - Parvati, smiling beaming rolling her magic basket, came towards me with the liberating69 troops.
The Indian Army marched into town, its heroes following the magicians; among them, I learned afterwards, was that colossus of the war, the rat-faced Major with the lethal70 knees ... but now there were still more illusionists, because the surviving prestidigitators of the city came out of hiding and began a wonderful contest, seeking to outdo anything and everything the visiting magicians had to offer, and the pain of the city was washed and soothed71 in the great glad outpouring of their magic. Then Parvati-the-witch saw me, and gave me back my name.
'Saleem! O my god Saleem, you Saleem Sinai, is it you Saleem?'
The buddha jerks, puppet-fashion. Crowd-eyes staring. Parvati pushing towards him. 'Listen, it must be you!' She is gripping his elbow. Saucer eyes searching milky blue. 'My God, that nose, I'm not being rude, but of course! Look, it's me, Parvati! O Saleem, don't be stupid now, come on come on ...!'
'That's it,' the buddha says. 'Saleem: that was it.'
'O God, too much excitement!' she cries. 'Arre baap, Saleem, you remember - the Children, yaar, O this is too good! So why are you looking so serious when I feel like to hug you to pieces? So many years I only saw you inside here,' she taps her forehead, 'and now you're here with a face like a fish. Hey, Saleem! Come on, say one hullo at least.'
On December 15th, 1971, Tiger Niazi surrendered to Sam Manek-shaw; the Tiger and ninety-three thousand Pakistani troops became prisoners of war. I, meanwhile, became the willing captive of the Indian magicians, because Parvati dragged me into the procession with, 'Now that I've found you I'm not letting you go.'
That night, Sam and the Tiger drank chota pegs72 and reminisced about the old days in the British Army. 'I say, Tiger,' Sam Manekshaw said, 'You behaved jolly decently by surrendering.' And the Tiger, 'Sam, you fought one hell of a war.' A tiny cloud passes across the face of General Sam, 'Listen, old sport: one hears such damn awful lies. Slaughters73, old boy, mass graves, special units called CUTIA or some damn thing, developed for purposes of rooting out opposition74 ...
no truth in it, I suppose?' And the Tiger, 'Canine75 Unit for Tracking and Intelligence Activities? Never heard of it. Must've been misled, old man. Some damn bad intelligence-wallahs on both sides. No, ridiculous, damn ridiculous, if you don't mind me saying.' 'Thought as much,' says General Sam, 'I say, bloody76 fine to see you, Tiger, you old devil!' And the Tiger, 'Been years, eh, Sam? Too damn long.'
... While old friends sang 'Auld77 Lang Syne78' in officers' messes, I made my escape from Bangladesh, from my Pakistani years. 'I'll get you out,' Parvati said, after I explained. 'You want it secret secret?'
I nodded. 'Secret secret.'
Elsewhere in the city, ninety-three thousand soldiers were preparing to be carted off to P.O.W. camps; but Parvati-the-witch made me climb into a wicker basket with a close-fitting lid. Sam Manekshaw was obliged to place his old friend the Tiger under protective custody79; but Parvati-the-witch assured me, 'This way they'll never catch.'
Behind an army barracks where the magicians were awaiting their transport back to Delhi, Picture Singh, the Most Charming Man In The World, stood guard when, that evening, I climbed into the basket of invisibility. We loitered casually80, smoking bins81, waiting until there were no soldiers in sight, while Picture Singh told me about his name. Twenty years ago, an Eastman-Kodak photographer had taken his portrait - which, wreathed in smiles and snakes, afterwards appeared on half the Kodak advertisements and in-store displays in India; ever since when the snake-charmer had adopted his present cognomen82. 'What do you think, captain?' he bellowed83 amiably84. 'A fine name, isn't it so? Captain, what to do, I can't even remember what name I used to have, from before, the name my mother-father gave me! Pretty stupid, hey, captain?' But Picture Singh was not stupid; and there was much more to him than charm. Suddenly his voice lost its casual, sleepy good-nature; he whispered, 'Now! Now, captain, ek dum, double-quick time!' Parvati whipped lid away from wicker; I dived head first into her cryptic85 basket. The lid, returning, blocked out the day's last light.
Picture Singh whispered, 'Okay, captain - damn good!' And Parvati bent86 down close to me; her lips must have been against the outside of the basket. What Parvati-the-witch whispered through wickerwork: 'Hey, you Saleem: just to think! You and me, mister - midnight's children, yaar! That's something, no?'
That's something ... Saleem, shrouded87 in wickerwork darkness, was reminded of years-ago midnights, of childhood wrestling bouts88 with purpose and meaning; overwhelmed by nostalgia89, I still did not understand what that something was.
Then Parvati whispered some other words, and, inside the basket of invisibility, I, Saleem Sinai, complete with my loose anonymous garment, vanished instantly into thin air.
'Vanished? How vanished, what vanished?' Padma's head jerks up; Padma's eyes stare at me in bewilderment. I, shrugging, merely reiterate90; Vanished, just like that. Disappeared. Dematerialized. Like a djinn: poof, like so.
'So,' Padma presses me, 'she really-truly was a witch?' Really-truly. I was in the basket, but also not in the basket; Picture Singh lifted it one-handed and tossed it into the back of the Army truck taking him and Parvati and ninety-nine others to the aircraft waiting at the military airfield91; I was tossed with the basket, but also not tossed. Afterwards, Picture Singh said, 'No, captain, I couldn't feel your weight'; nor could I feel any bump thump92 bang. One hundred and one artistes had arrived, by I.A.F. troop transport, from the capital of India; one hundred and two persons returned, although one of them was both there and not there. Yes, magic spells can occasionally succeed. But also fail: my father, Ahmed Sinai, never succeeded in cursing Sherri, the mongrel bitch.
Without passport or permit, I returned, cloaked in invisibility, to the land of my birth; believe, don't believe, but even a sceptic will have to provide another explanation for my presence here. Did not the Caliph Haroun al-Rashid (in an earlier set of fabulous93 tales) also wander, unseen invisible anonymous, cloaked through the streets of Baghdad? What Haroun achieved in Baghdad streets, Parvati-the-witch made possible for me, as we flew through the air-lanes of the subcontinent. She did it; I was invisible; bas. Enough.
Memories of invisibility: in the basket, I learned what it was like, will be like, to be dead. I had acquired the characteristics of ghosts! Present, but insubstantial; actual, but without being or weight ... I discovered, in the basket, how ghosts see the world. Dimly hazily94 faintly ... it was around me, but only just; I hung in a sphere of absence at whose fringes, like faint reflections, could be seen the spectres of wickerwork. The dead die, and are gradually forgotten; time does its healing, and they fade - but in Parvati's basket I learned that the reverse is also true; that ghosts, too, begin to forget; that the dead lose their memories of the living, and at last, when they are detached from their lives, fade away - that dying, in short, continues for a long time after death. Afterwards, Parvati said, 'I didn't want to tell you - but nobody should be kept invisible that long - it was dangerous, but what else was there to do?'
In the grip of Parvati's sorcery, I felt my hold on the world slip away - and how easy, how peaceful not to never to return! - to float in this cloudy nowhere, wafting95 further further further, like a seed-spore blown on the breeze - in short, I was in mortal danger.
What I held on to in that ghostly time-and-space: a silver spittoon. Which, transformed like myself by Parvati-whispered words, was nevertheless a reminder96 of the outside ... clutching finely-wrought silver, which glittered even in that nameless dark, I survived. Despite head-to-toe numbness97, I was saved, perhaps, by the glints of my precious souvenir.
No - there was more to it than spittoons: for, as we all know by now, our hero is greatly affected98 by being shut up in confined spaces. Transformations99 spring upon him in the enclosed dark. As a mere embryo101 in the secrecy102 of a womb (not his mother's), did he not grow into the incarnation of the new myth of August 15th, the child of ticktock - did he not emerge as the Mubarak, the Blessed Child? In a cramped103 wash-room, were name-tags not switched around? Alone in a washing-chest with a drawstring up one nostril, did he not glimpse a Black Mango and sniff20 too hard, turning himself and his upper cucumber into a kind of supernatural ham radio? Hemmed104 in by doctors, nurses and anaesthetic masks, did he not succumb105 to numbers and, having suffered drainage-above, move into a second phase, that of nasal philosopher and (later) tracker supreme106? Squashed, in a small abandoned hut, beneath the body of Ayooba Baloch, did he not learn the meaning of fair-and-unfair? Well, then - trapped in the occult peril107 of the basket of invisibility, I was saved, not only by the glints of a spittoon, but also by another transformation100: in the grip of that awful disembodied loneliness, whose smell was the smell of graveyards108, I discovered anger.
Something was fading in Saleem and something was being born. Fading: an old pride in baby-snaps and framed Nehru-letter; an old determination to espouse109, willingly, a prophesied110 historical role; and also a willingness to make allowances, to understand how parents and strangers might legitimately111 despise or exile him for his ugliness; mutilated fingers and monks112' tonsures113 no longer seemed like good enough excuses for the way in which he, I, had been treated.
The object of my wrath114 was, in fact, everything which I had, until then, blindly accepted: my parents' desire that I should repay their investment in me by becoming great; genius-Iike-a-shawl; the modes of connection themselves inspired in me a blind, lunging fury. Why me? Why, owing to accidents of birth prophecy etcetera, must I be responsible for language riots and after-Nehru-who, for pepperpot-revolutions and bombs which annihilated115 my family? Why should I, Saleem Snotnose, Sniffer, Mapface, Piece-of-the-Moon, accept the blame for what-was-not-done by Pakistani troops in Dacca? ... Why, alone of all the more-than-five-hundred-million, should I have to bear the burden of history?
What my discovery of unfairness (smelling of onions) had begun, my invisible rage completed. Wrath enabled me to survive the soft siren temptations of invisibility; anger made me determined116, after I was released from vanishment in the shadow of a Friday Mosque, to 'begin, from that moment forth117, to choose my own, undestined future. And there, in the silence of graveyard-reeking isolation118, I heard the long-ago voice of the virginal Mary Pereira, singing: Anything you want to be, you kin17 be, You kin be just what-all you want.
Tonight, as I recall my rage, I remain perfectly calm; the Widow drained anger out of me along with everything else. Remembering my basket-born rebellion against inevitability119, I even permit myself a wry120, understanding smile. 'Boys,'
I mutter tolerantly across the years to Saleem-at-twenty-four, 'will be boys.'
In the Widows' Hostel121, I was taught, harshly, once-and-for-all, the lesson of No Escape; now, seated hunched122 over paper in a pool of Anglepoised light, I no longer want to be anything except what who I am. Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particulary exceptional in this matter; each 'I', every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you'll have to swallow a world.
Although now, as the pouring-out of what-was-inside-me nears an end; as cracks widen within - I can hear and feel the rip tear crunch123 - I begin to grow thinner, translucent124 almost; there isn't much of me left, and soon there will be nothing at all. Six hundred million specks125 of dust, and all transparent126, invisible as glass ...
But then I was angry. Glandular127 hyper-activity in a wicker amphora: eccrine and apocrine glands128 poured forth sweat and stink129, as if I were trying to shed my fate through my pores; and, in fairness to my wrath, I must record that it claimed one instant achievement - that when I tumbled out of the basket of invisibility into the shadow of the mosque, I had been rescued by rebellion from the abstraction of numbness; as I bumped out on to the dirt of the magicians'
ghetto, silver spittoon in hand, I realized that I had begun, once again, to feel.
Some afflictions, at least, are capable of being conquered.
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liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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pout
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| v.撅嘴；绷脸；n.撅嘴；生气，不高兴 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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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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explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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coup
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civilian
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intervention
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mosque
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disturbances
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curtailed
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mere
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naively
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manoeuvre
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| n.策略，调动；v.用策略，调动 | |
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tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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kin
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tilting
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Buddha
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| n.佛；佛像；佛陀 | |
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sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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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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peeved
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| adj.恼怒的，不高兴的v.（使）气恼，（使）焦躁，（使）愤怒( peeve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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25
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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raped
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| v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸 | |
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minaret
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| n.（回教寺院的）尖塔 | |
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30
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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32
notary
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| n.公证人，公证员 | |
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arbiter
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| n.仲裁人，公断人 | |
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deposition
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| n.免职，罢官；作证；沉淀；沉淀物 | |
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35
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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36
scurrying
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 ) | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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38
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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39
babbled
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| v.喋喋不休( babble的过去式和过去分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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40
cockroach
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| n.蟑螂 | |
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41
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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42
halved
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| v.把…分成两半( halve的过去式和过去分词 )；把…减半；对分；平摊 | |
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43
disillusioning
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| 使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭( disillusion的现在分词 ) | |
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44
milky
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| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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45
seeping
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| v.（液体）渗( seep的现在分词 )；渗透；渗出；漏出 | |
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46
viscous
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| adj.粘滞的，粘性的 | |
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47
leakage
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| n.漏，泄漏；泄漏物；漏出量 | |
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48
activated
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| adj. 激活的 动词activate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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50
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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51
reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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52
regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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eschewing
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| v.（尤指为道德或实际理由而）习惯性避开，回避( eschew的现在分词 ) | |
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54
ghetto
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| n.少数民族聚居区，贫民区 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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acrobats
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| n.杂技演员( acrobat的名词复数 )；立场观点善变的人，主张、政见等变化无常的人 | |
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57
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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juggled
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| v.歪曲( juggle的过去式和过去分词 )；耍弄；有效地组织；尽力同时应付（两个或两个以上的重要工作或活动） | |
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monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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60
jingled
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| 喝醉的 | |
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61
nostril
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| n.鼻孔 | |
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62
bad-tempered
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| adj.脾气坏的 | |
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63
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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auditorium
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| n.观众席，听众席；会堂，礼堂 | |
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goodwill
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| n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉 | |
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legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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67
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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68
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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liberating
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| 解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 ) | |
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70
lethal
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| adj.致死的；毁灭性的 | |
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71
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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72
pegs
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| n.衣夹( peg的名词复数 )；挂钉；系帐篷的桩；弦钮v.用夹子或钉子固定( peg的第三人称单数 )；使固定在某水平 | |
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73
slaughters
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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74
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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75
canine
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| adj.犬的，犬科的 | |
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76
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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auld
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| adj.老的，旧的 | |
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78
syne
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| adv.自彼时至此时，曾经 | |
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79
custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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80
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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81
bins
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| n.大储藏箱( bin的名词复数 )；宽口箱（如面包箱，垃圾箱等）v.扔掉，丢弃( bin的第三人称单数 ) | |
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82
cognomen
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| n.姓；绰号 | |
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83
bellowed
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的过去式和过去分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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84
amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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85
cryptic
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| adj.秘密的，神秘的，含义模糊的 | |
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86
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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87
shrouded
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| v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密 | |
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88
bouts
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| n.拳击（或摔跤）比赛( bout的名词复数 )；一段（工作）；（尤指坏事的）一通；（疾病的）发作 | |
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89
nostalgia
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| n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧 | |
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90
reiterate
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| v.重申，反复地说 | |
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91
airfield
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| n.飞机场 | |
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92
thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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93
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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94
hazily
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| ad. vaguely, not clear | |
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95
wafting
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的现在分词 ) | |
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96
reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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97
numbness
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| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
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98
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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99
transformations
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| n.变化( transformation的名词复数 )；转换；转换；变换 | |
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100
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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101
embryo
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| n.胚胎，萌芽的事物 | |
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102
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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103
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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104
hemmed
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| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
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105
succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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106
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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107
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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108
graveyards
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| 墓地( graveyard的名词复数 )； 垃圾场； 废物堆积处； 收容所 | |
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109
espouse
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| v.支持，赞成，嫁娶 | |
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110
prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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111
legitimately
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| ad.合法地；正当地，合理地 | |
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112
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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113
tonsures
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| vt.剃（tonsure的第三人称单数形式） | |
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114
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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115
annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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116
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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117
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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118
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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119
inevitability
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| n.必然性 | |
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120
wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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121
hostel
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| n.（学生）宿舍，招待所 | |
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122
hunched
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| （常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的 | |
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123
crunch
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| n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声 | |
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124
translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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125
specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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126
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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127
glandular
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| adj.腺体的 | |
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128
glands
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| n.腺( gland的名词复数 ) | |
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129
stink
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| vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭 | |
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