Threatened by policemen, I have remained silent for two decades; but no longer. Now, everything has to come out.

The card-school broke up early: 'The boy has to sleep,' Pia was whispering, 'Tomorrow he goes to school again.' I found no opportunity of being alone with my aunt; I was tucked up on my sofa with the note still clutched in my left fist. Mary was asleep on the floor… I decided to feign a nightmare. (Deviousness did not come unnaturally to me.) Unfortunately, however, I was so tired that I fell asleep; and, in the event, there was no need to pretend: because I dreamed the murder of my classmate Jimmy Kapadia.

… We are playing football in the main stairwell at school, on red tiles, slipping sliding. A black cross set in the blood-red tiles. Mr Crusoe at the head of the stairs: 'Mustn't slide down the banisters boys that cross is where one boy fell.'Jimmy plays football on the cross. 'The cross is lies,' Jimmy says, 'They tell you lies to spoil your fun.' His mother calls up on the telephone. 'Don't play Jimmy your bad heart.' The bell. The telephone, replaced, and now the bell… Ink-pellets stain the classroom air. Fat Perce and Glandy Keith have fun. Jimmy wants a pencil, prods me in the ribs. 'Hey man, you got a pencil, give. Two ticks, man.' I give. Zagallo enters. Zagallo's hand is up for silence: look at my hair growing on his palm! Zagallo in pointy tin-soldier hat… I must have my pencil back. Stretching out my finger giving Jimmy a poke. 'Sir, please look sir, Jimmy fell!' 'Sir I saw sir Snotnose poked!' 'Snotnose shot Kapadia, sir!' 'Don't play Jimmy your bad heart!' 'You be quiet,' Zagallo cries, 'Jongle feelth, shut up.'

Jimmy in a bundle on the floor. 'Sir sir please sir will they put up a cross?' He borrowed a pencil, I poked, he fell. His father is a taxi-driver. Now the taxi drives into class; a dhobi-bundle is put on the back seat, out goes Jimmy. Ding, a bell. Jimmy's father puts down the taxi flag. Jimmy's father looks at me: 'Snotnose, you'll have to pay the fare.' 'But please sir haven't got the money sir.' Arid Zagallo: 'We'll put it on your bill.' See my hair on Zagallo's hand. Flames are pouring from Zagallo's eyes. 'Five hundred meelion, what's one death?' Jimmy is dead; five hundred million still alive. I start counting: one two three. Numbers march over Jimmy's grave. One million two million three million four. Who cares if anyone, anyone dies. One hundred million and one two three. Numbers march through the classroom now. Crushing pounding two hundred million three four five. Five hundred million still alive. And only one of me…

… In the dark of the night, I awoke from the dream of Jimmy Kapadia's death which became the dream of annihilation-by-numbers, yelling howling screaming, but still with the paper in my fist; and a door flew open, to reveal my uncle Hanif and aunt Pia. Mary Pereira tried to comfort me, but Pia was imperious, she was a divine swirl of petticoats and dupatta, she cradled me in her arms: 'Never mind! My diamond, never mind now!' And Uncle Hanif, sleepily: 'Hey, phaelwan! It's okay now; come on, you come with us; bring the boy, Pia!' And now I'm safely in Pia's arms; 'Just for tonight, my pearl, you can sleep with us!'-and there I am, nestling between aunt and uncle, huddling against my mumani's perfumed curves.

Imagine, if you can, my sudden joy; imagine with what speed the nightmare fled from my thoughts, as I nestled against my extraordinary aunt's petticoats! As she re-arranged herself, to get comfortable, and one golden melon caressed my cheek! As Pia's hand sought out mine and grasped it firmly… now I discharged my duty. When my aunt's hand wrapped itself around mine, paper passed from palm to palm. I felt her stiffen, silently; then, although I snuggled up closer closer closer, she was lost to me; she was reading in the dark, and the stiffness of her body was increasing; and then suddenly I knew that I had been tricked, that Catrack was my enemy; and only the threat of policemen prevented me from telling my uncle.

(At school, the next day, I was told of Jimmy Kapadia's tragic death, suddenly at home, of a heart seizure. Is it possible to kill a human being by dreaming his death? My mother always said so; and, in that case, Jimmy Kapadia was my first murder victim. Homi Catrack was to be the next.)

When I returned from my first day back at school, having basked in the unusual sheepishness of Fat Perce and Glandy Keith ('Lissen, yaar, how did we know your finger was in the… hey, man, we got free tickets for a picture tomorrow, you want to come?') and my equally unexpected popularity ('No more Zagallo! Solid, man! You really lost your hair for something good!'), aunty Pia was out. I sat quietly with uncle Hanif while, in the kitchen, Mary Pereira prepared dinner. It was a peaceful little family scene; but the peace was shattered, abruptly, by the crash of a slamming door. Hanif dropped his pencil as Pia, having slammed the front door, flung open the living-room door with equal force. Then he boomed cheerfully, 'So, wife: what's the drama?' … But Pia was not to be defused. 'Scribble,' she said, her hand slicing air, 'Allah, don't stop for me! So much talent, a person cannot go to the pot in this house without finding your genius. Are you happy, husband? We are making much money? God is good to you?' Still Hanif remained cheerful. 'Come Pia, our little guest is here. Sit, have tea…' Actress Pia froze in an attitude of disbelief. 'O God! Such a family I have come to! My life is in ruins, and you offer tea; your mother offers petrol! All is madness…' And uncle Hanif, frowning now: 'Pia, the boy…'A shriek. 'Ahaaa! The boy-but the boy has suffered; he is suffering now; he knows what it is to lose, to feel forlorn! I, too, have been abandoned: I am great actress, and here I sit surrounded by tales of bicycle-postmen and donkey-cart drivers! What do you know of a woman's grief? Sit, sit, let some fat rich Parsee film-producer give you charity, never mind that your wife wears paste jewels and no new saris for two years; a woman's back is broad, but, beloved husband, you have made my days into deserts! Go, ignore me now, just leave me in peace to jump from the window! I will go into the bedroom now,' she concluded, 'and if you hear no more from me it is because my heart is broken and I am dead.' More doors slammed: it was a terrific exit.

Uncle Hanif broke a pencil, absent-mindedly, into two halves. He shook his head wonderingly: 'What's got into her?' But I knew. I, bearer of secrets, threatened by policemen, I knew and bit my lip. Because, trapped as I was in the crisis of the marriage of my uncle and aunt, I had broken my recently-made rule and entered Pia's head; I had seen her visit to Homi Catrack and knew that, for years now, she had been his fancy-woman; I had heard him telling her that he had tired of her charms, and there was somebody else now; and I, who would have hated him enough just for seducing my beloved aunt, found myself hating him twice as passionately for doing her the dishonour of discarding her.

'Go to her,' my uncle was saying, 'Maybe you can cheer her up.'

The boy Saleem moves through repeatedly-slammed doors to the sanctum of his tragic aunt; and enters, to find her loveliest of bodies splayed out in wondrous abandon across the marital bed-where, only last night, bodies nestled against bodies-where paper passed from hand .to hand… a hand flutters at her heart; her chest heaves; and the boy Saleem stammers, 'Aunt, О aunt, I'm sorry.'

A banshee-wail from the bed. Tragedienne's arms, flying outwards towards me. 'Hai! Hai, hai! Ai-hai-hai!' Needing no further invitation, I fly towards those arms; I fling myself between them, to lie atop my mourning aunt. The arms close around me, tightertighter, nails digging through my school-white shirt, but I don't care!-Because something has started twitching below my S-buckled belt. Aunty Pia thrashes about beneath me in her despair and I thrash with her, remembering to keep my right hand clear of the action. I hold it stiffly out above the fray. One-handed, I begin to caress her, not knowing what I'm doing, I'm only ten years old and still in shorts, but I'm crying because she's crying, and the room is full of the noise-and on the bed as two bodies thrash, two bodies begin to acquire a kind of rhythm, unnameable unthinkable, hips pushing up towards me, while she yells, 'О! О God, О God, O!' And maybe I am yelling too, I can't say, something is taking over from grief here, while my uncle snaps pencils on a striped sofa, something getting stronger, as she writhes and twists beneath me, and at last in the grip of a strength greater than my strength I am bringing down my right hand, I have forgotten my finger, and when it touches her breast, wound presses against skin…