[Shalimar the Clown] [Author: Rushdie, Salman] [October, 2006] by Rushdie Salman

Author:Rushdie, Salman [Rushdie, Salman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Contemporary, Fantasy
Amazon: B005D3AXII
Goodreads: 131632865
Publisher: Random House Trade
Published: 2005-09-06T07:00:00+00:00

Back then there were no “media sieges” in the modern sense. All-India Radio sent a radio reporter to stand uncertainly outside the sage-green apartment building at Type-1 Number-22 Southeast Hira Bagh, holding out his microphone as if it were a begging bowl. Doordarshan, in those days the only television channel, sent a cameraman and sound recordist. The text of what they were permitted to say in commentary would no doubt be handed down later from the prime minister’s office, so there was no need to send a journalist. There was a man from the PTI news agency and two or three other men from the print media. They saw Odissi dancing divas come and go, and Jayababu’s boy running errands. The anonymous occupants of other apartments in the same building had seen nothing, knew nothing, shied away from the cameras and microphones as if from danger, and fled. Just once the great Jayababu himself sallied forth to scold the press for making too much noise and disturbing his dance class, whereupon the abashed reporters at once commenced to speak in whispers. Of the principal actors in the drama there was no sign. At mealtimes the watchers dispersed to seek refreshment, and they soon lost interest in staying at their posts. Delhi in winter was cold as a ghost and in the mornings and evenings the fog came down and pushed its clammy hands through your skin and froze your bones. There was no need for anyone to stay. The news was being constructed elsewhere. The American ambassador was being withdrawn in disgrace. The U.S. embassy was the place to be. Hira Bagh was just a gossipy footnote. In the winter mist it looked like a phantom world.

One fog-white night, at about three o’clock in the morning, long after the gentlemen of the press had departed, a hooded figure arrived at Boonyi’s pink apartment. When the pregnant woman beached on her bed like a stranded sea-monster heard the key turning in her front door she assumed it was Edgar Wood making his nocturnal food run. These days he only visited her in the middle of the night, arriving out of breath, burdened by huge amounts of edibles. She had no sympathy for him. He was a necessary side effect of a sick life, like vomit. “I’m hungry,” she called out. “You’re late.” He came into the bedroom wincing as if he were a schoolboy in a bully’s armlock, a child whose ear was being twisted by a disciplinarian aunt. The hooded figure followed him into the room, unveiled herself, and looked Boonyi over with a brisk, nannyish sympathy. “Oh, dear me,” she said. “Dear me, what a dreadful . . . ha! Can you believe it, my dear, I almost envied—haha!—oh, leave it.—But there’s this. I almost forgave him. Can you believe that? —Extraordinary.—But I almost did, in spite of everything. In spite, my dear, of you.—But look at you. No discipline. We can’t have this.—Hmm.—Edgar, you vile sticky creature, have you made the arrangements?—Well, of course you have, it’s what you do.

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