The Room on the Roof

by Ruskin Bond

  He stiffened with apprehension. Something was moving beneath him, the mattress rose gently and fell. Could it be a jackal or a wolf that had stolen in through the open door during the night? Rusty trembled, but did not move … It might be something even more dangerous, the house was close to the jungle … or it might be a thief … but what was there to steal?

  Unable to bear the suspense, Rusty brought his fists down on the uneven lump in the quilt, and Kishen sprang out with a cry of pain and astonishment.

  He sat on his bottom and cursed Rusty.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Rusty,‘but you frightened me.’

  ‘I’m glad, because you hurt me, mister.’

  ‘Your fault. What’s the time?’

  ‘Time to get up. I’ve brought you some milk, and you can have mine too. I hate it, it spoils the flavour of my chewing-gum.’

  Kishen accompanied Rusty to the water-tank, where they met Somi. After they had bathed and filled their sohrais with drinking water, they went back to the room for the first lesson.

  Kishen and Rusty sat cross-legged on the bed, facing each other. Rusty fingered his chin, and Kishen played with his toes.

  ‘What do you want to learn today?’ asked Rusty.

  ‘How should I know? That’s your problem, pardner.’

  ‘As it’s the first day, you can make a choice.’

  ‘Let’s play noughts and crosses.’

  ‘Be serious. Tell me, bhaiya, what books have you read?’

  Kishen turned his eyes up to the ceiling.‘I’ve read so many I can’t remember the names.’

  ‘Well, you can tell me what they were about.’

  Kishen looked disconcerted.‘Oh,sure … sure … let me see now … what about the one in which everyone went down a rabbit hole?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Called Treasure Island.’

  ‘Hell!’ said Rusty.

  ‘Which ones have you read?’ asked Kishen, warming to the discussion.

  ‘Treasure Island and the one about the rabbit hole, and you haven’t read either. What do you want to be when you grow up, Kishen? A businessman, an officer, an engineer?’

  ‘Don’t want to be anything. What about you?’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be asking me. But if you want to know, I’m going to be a writer. I’ll write books. You’ll read them.’

  ‘You’ll be a great writer, Rusty, you’ll be great …’

  ‘Maybe, who knows.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kishen, quite sincerely, ‘you’ll be a terrific writer.You’ll be famous.You’ll be a king.’

  ‘Shut up …’

  *

  The Kapoors liked Rusty. They didn’t admire him, but they liked him. Kishen liked him for his company, Kapoor liked him for his flattering conversation, and Meena liked him because—well, because he liked her …

  The Kapoors were glad to have him in their house.

  Meena had been betrothed to Kapoor since childhood, before they knew each other, and despite the fact that there was a difference of nearly twenty years between their ages. Kapoor was a promising young man, intelligent and beginning to make money; and Meena, at thirteen, possessed the freshness and promise of spring. After they were married, they fell in love.

  They toured Europe, and Kapoor returned a connoisseur of wine. Kishen was born, looking just like his father. Kapoor never stopped loving his wife, but his passion for her was never so great as when the warmth of old wine filled him with poetry. Meena had a noble nose and forehead (‘Aristocratic,’ said Kapoor, ‘she has blue blood’) and long raven-black hair (‘Like seaweed,’ said Kapoor, dizzy with possessive glory). She was tall, strong, perfectly formed, and she had grace and charm and a quick wit.

  Kapoor lived in his beard and green dressing-gown, something of an outcast. The self-made man likes to boast of humble origins and initial poverty, and his rise from rags can be turned to effective publicity; the man who has lost much recalls past exploits and the good name of his family, and the failure at least publicizes these things. But Kapoor had gone full cycle: he could no longer harp on the rise from rags, because he was fast becoming ragged; and he had no background except the one which he himself created and destroyed; he had nothing but a dwindling bank balance, a wife and a son. And the wife was his best asset.

  But on the evening of Rusty’s second day in the room, no one would have guessed at the family’s plight. Rusty sat with them in the front room, and Kapoor extolled the virtues of chewing-gum,much to Kishen’s delight and Meena’s disgust.

  ‘Chewing-gum,’ declared Kapoor, waving a finger in the air,‘is the secret of youth.Have you observed the Americans, how young they look, and the English, how haggard? It has nothing to do with responsibilities, it is chewing-gum. By chewing, you exercise your jaws and the muscles of your face. This improves your complexion and strengthens the tissues of your skin.’

  ‘You’re very clever, Daddy,’ said Kishen.

  ‘I’m a genius,’ said Kapoor,‘I’m a genius.’

  ‘The fool!’ whispered Meena, so that only Rusty could hear.

  Rusty said,‘I have an idea, let’s form a club.’

  ‘Good idea!’ exclaimed Kishen.‘What do we call it?’

  ‘Before we call it anything, we must decide what sort of club it should be. We must have rules, we must have a president, a secretary …’

  ‘All right, all right,’ interrupted Kishen, who was sprawling on the floor, ‘you can be all those things if you like. But what I say is, the most important thing in a club is name. Without a good name what’s the use of a club?’

  ‘The Fools’ Club,’ suggested Meena.

  ‘Inappropriate,’ said Kapoor, ‘inappropriate …’

  ‘Everyone shut up,’ ordered Kishen, prodding at his nose, ‘I’m trying to think.’

  They all shut up and tried to think.

  This thinking was a very complicated process, and it soon became obvious that no one had been thinking of the club; for Rusty was looking at Meena thinking, and Meena was wondering if Kishen knew how to think, and Kishen was really thinking about the benefits of chewing-gum, and Kapoor was smelling the whisky bottles behind the screen and thinking of them.

  At last Kapoor observed, ‘My wife is a devil, a beautiful, beautiful devil!’

  This seemed an interesting line of conversation, and Rusty was about to follow it up with a compliment of his own, when Kishen burst out brilliantly,‘I know! The Devil’s Club? How’s that?’

  ‘Ah, ha!’exclaimed Kapoor,‘The Devil’s Club,we’ve got it! I’m a genius.’

  They got down to the business of planning the club’s activities. Kishen proposed carom and Meena seconded, and Rusty looked dismayed. Kapoor proposed literary and political discussions and Rusty, just to spite the others, seconded the proposal. Then they elected officers of the club. Meena was given the title of Our Lady and Patroness, Kapoor was elected President, Rusty the Secretary, and Kishen the Chief Whip. Somi, Ranbir and Suri, though absent, were accepted as Honorary Members.

  ‘Carom and discussions are not enough,’ complained Kishen, ‘we must have adventures.’

  ‘What kind?’ asked Rusty.

  ‘Climb mountains or something.’

  ‘A picnic,’ proposed Meena.

  ‘A picnic!’ seconded Kishen,‘and Somi and the others can come too.’

  ‘Let’s drink to it,’ said Kapoor, rising from his chair,‘let’s celebrate.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Kishen, foiling his father’s plan of action, ‘we’ll go to the chaat shop!’

  As far as Meena was concerned, the chaat shop was the lesser of the two evils, so Kapoor was bundled into the old car and taken to the bazaar.

  ‘To the chaat shop!’ he cried, falling across the steeringwheel.‘We will bring it home!’

  The chaat shop was so tightly crowded that people were breathing each other’s breath.

  The chaat-walla was very pleased with Rusty for bringing in so many new customers—a whole famil
y—and beamed on the party, rubbing his hands and greasing the frying-pan with enthusiasm.

  ‘Everything!’ ordered Kapoor. ‘We will have something of everything.’

  So the chaat-walla patted his cakes into shape and flipped them into the sizzling grease; and fashioned his gol-guppas over the fire, filling them with the juice of the devil.

  Meena sat curled up on a chair, facing Rusty. The boy stared at her: she looked quaint, sitting in this unfamiliar posture. Her eyes encountered Rusty’s stare, mocking it. In hot confusion, Rusty moved his eyes upward, up the wall, on to the ceiling, until they could go no further.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ asked Kishen.

  Rusty brought his eyes to the ground, and pretended not to have heard. He turned to Kapoor and said, ‘What about politics?’

  The chaat-walla handed out four big banana leaves.

  But Kapoor wouldn’t eat. Instead, he cried, ‘Take the chaat shop to the house. Put it in the car, we must have it! We must have it, we must have it!’

  The chaat-walla, who was used to displays of drunkenness in one form or another, humoured Kapoor. ‘It is all yours, lallaji, but take me with you too, or who will run the shop?’

  ‘We will!’ shouted Kishen, infected by his father’s enthusiasm. ‘Buy it, Daddy. Mummy can make the tikkees and I’ll sell them and Rusty can do the accounts!’

  Kapoor threw his banana leaf to the floor and wrapped his arms round Kishen.‘Yes,we will run it! Take it to the house!’ And, making a lunge at a bowl of chaat, fell to his knees.

  Rusty helped Kapoor get up, then looked to Meena for guidance. She said nothing, but gave him a nod, and the boy found he understood the nod.

  He said,‘It’s a wonderful idea, Mr Kapoor, just put me in charge of everything. You and Meena go home and get a spare room ready for the supplies, and Kishen and I will make all the arrangements with the chaat-walla.’

  Kapoor clung to Rusty, the spittle dribbling down his cheeks.‘Goodboy, good boy … We will make lots of money together, you and I …’ He turned to his wife and waved his arm grandiloquently, ‘We will be rich again, Meena, what do you say?’

  Meena, as usual, said nothing, but took Kapoor by the arm and bundled him out of the shop and into the car.

  ‘Be quick with the chaat shop!’ cried Kapoor.

  ‘I will have it in the house in five minutes,’ called Rusty. ‘Get everything ready!’

  He returned to Kishen, who was stuffing himself with chaat; his father’s behaviour did not appear to have affected him, he was unconscious of its ridiculous aspect and felt no shame; he was unconscious too of the considerate manner of the chaat-walla, who felt sorry for the neglected child. The chaat-walla did not know that Kishen enjoyed being neglected.

  Rusty said, ‘Come, let’s go …’

  ‘What’s the hurry, Rusty? Sit down and eat, there’s plenty of dough tonight. At least give Mummy time to put the sleeping tablets in the whisky.’

  So they sat and ate their fill, and listened to other people’s gossip; then Kishen suggested that they explore the bazaar.

  The oil lamps were lit, and the main road bright and crowded; but Kishen and Rusty went down an alleyway, where the smells were more complicated and the noise intermittent—two women spoke to each other from their windows on either side of the road, a baby cried monotonously, a cheap gramophone blared. Kishen and Rusty walked aimlessly through the maze of alleyways.

  ‘Why are you white like Suri?’ asked Kishen.

  ‘Why is Suri white?’

  ‘He is Kashmiri; they are fair.’

  ‘Well, I am English …’

  ‘English?’ said Kishen disbelievingly. ‘You? But you do not look like one.’

  Rusty hesitated: he did not feel there was any point in raking up a past that was as much a mystery to him as it was to Kishen.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I never saw my parents. And I don’t care what they were and I don’t care what I am, and I’m not very interested …’

  But he couldn’t help wondering, and Kishen couldn’t help wondering, so they walked on in silence, wondering … They reached the railway station, which was at the end of the bazaar; the gates were closed, but they peered through the railings at the goods wagons. A pleasure house did business near the station.

  ‘If you want to have fun,’ said Kishen, ‘let’s climb that roof. From the skylight you can see everything.’

  ‘No fun in just watching,’ said Rusty.

  ‘Have you ever watched?’

  ‘Of course,’ lied Rusty, turning homewards; he walked with a distracted air.

  ‘What are you thinking of?’ asked Kishen.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You must be in love.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Who is it, eh?’

  ‘If I told you,’ said Rusty,‘you’d be jealous.’

  ‘But I’m not in love with anybody. Come on, tell me, I’m your friend.’

  ‘Would you be angry if I said I loved your mother?’

  ‘Mummy!’exclaimed Kishen.‘But she’s old! She’s married. Hell, who would think of falling in love with Mummy? Don’t joke, mister.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Rusty.

  They walked on in silence and crossed the maidan, leaving the bazaar behind. It was dark on the maidan, they could hardly see each other’s faces; Kishen put his hand on Rusty’s shoulder.

  ‘If you love her,’ he said, ‘I’m not jealous. But it sounds funny …’

  12

  In his room, Rusty was a king. His domain was the sky and everything he could see. His subjects were the people who passed below, but they were his subjects only while they were below and he was on the roof; and he spied on them through the branches of the banyan tree. His close confidants were the inhabitants of the banyan tree; which, of course, included Kishen.

  It was the day of the picnic, and Rusty had just finished bathing at the water-tank. He had become used to the people at the tank and had made friends with the ayahs and their charges. He had come to like their bangles and bracelets and ankle-bells. He liked to watch one of them at the tap, squatting on her haunches, scrubbing her feet, and making much music with the bells and bangles; she would roll her sari up to the knees to give her legs greater freedom, and crouch forward so that her jacket revealed a modest expanse of waist.

  It was the day of the picnic, and Rusty had bathed, and now he sat on a disused chimney, drying himself in the sun.

  Summer was coming. The litchis were almost ready to eat, the mangoes ripened under Kishen’s greedy eye. In the afternoons the sleepy sunlight stole through the branches of the banyan tree, and made a patchwork of arched shadows on the walls of the house. The inhabitants of the trees knew that summer was coming; Somi’s slippers knew it, and slapped lazily against his heels; and Kishen grumbled and became more untidy, and even Suri seemed to be taking a rest from his private investigations. Yes, summer was coming.

  And it was the day of the picnic.

  The car had been inspected, and the two bottles that Kapoor had hidden in the dickey had been found and removed; Kapoor was put into khaki drill trousers and a bush-shirt and pronounced fit to drive; a basket of food and a gramophone were in the dickey. Suri had a camera slung over his shoulders; Kishen was sporting a Gurkha hat; and Rusty had on a thick leather belt reinforced with steel knobs. Meena had dressed in a hurry, and looked the better for it. And for once, Somi had tied his turban to perfection.

  ‘Everyone present?’ said Meena.‘If so,get into the car.’

  ‘I’m waiting for my dog,’ said Suri, and he had hardly made the announcement when from around the corner came a yapping mongrel.

  ‘He’s called Prickly Heat,’ said Suri.‘We’ll put him in the back seat.’

  ‘He’ll go in the dickey,’ said Kishen.‘I can see the lice from here.’

  Prickly Heat wasn’t any particular kind of dog, just a kind of dog; he hadn’t even the stump of a tail. But he had sharp, pointed
ears that wagged as well as any tail, and they were working furiously this morning.

  Suri and the dog were both deposited in the dickey; Somi, Kishen and Rusty made themselves comfortable in the back seat, and Meena sat next to her husband in the front. The car belched and lurched forward, and stirred up great clouds of dust; then, accelerating, sped out of the compound and across the narrow wooden bridge that spanned the canal.

  The sun rose over the forest, and a spiral of smoke from a panting train was caught by a slanting ray and spangled with gold. The air was fresh and exciting. It was ten miles to the river and the sulphur springs, ten miles of intermittent grumbling and gaiety, with Prickly Heat yapping in the dickey and Kapoor whistling at the wheel and Kishen letting fly from the window with a catapult.

  Somi said,‘Rusty, your pimples will leave you if you bathe in the sulphur springs.’

  ‘I would rather have pimples than pneumonia,’ replied Rusty.

  ‘But it’s not cold,’ and Kishen.‘I would bathe myself, but I don’t feel very well.’

  ‘Then you shouldn’t have come,’ said Meena from the front.

  ‘I didn’t want to disappoint you all,’ said Kishen.

  Before reaching the springs, the car had to cross one or two river-beds, usually dry at this time of the year. But the mountains had tricked the party, for there was a good deal of water to be seen, and the current was strong.

  ‘It’s not very deep,’ said Kapoor, at the first river-bed, ‘I think we can drive through easily.’

  The car dipped forward, rolled down the bank, and entered the current with a great splash. In the dickey, Suri got a soaking.

  ‘Got to go fast,’ said Mr Kapoor, ‘or we’ll stick.’

  He accelerated, and a great spray of water rose on both sides of the car. Kishen cried out for sheer joy, but at the back Suri was having a fit of hysterics.

  ‘I think the dog’s fallen out,’ said Meena.

  ‘Good,’ said Somi.

  ‘I think Suri’s fallen out,’ said Rusty.

  ‘Good,’ said Somi.