by Ruskin Bond
Kishen made no effort to conceal his misery.
‘I wish you would come, Rusty,’ he said.
‘I will come and see you one day, be sure of that.’
It was very seldom that Kishen expressed any great depth of feeling; he was always so absorbed with comforts of the flesh that he never had any profound thoughts; but he did have profound feelings, though they were seldom thought or spoken.
He grimaced and prodded his nose.
‘Inside of me,’ he said, ‘I am all lonely …’
The driver cracked his whip, the horse snorted, the wheels creaked, and the tonga moved forward. The carriage bumped up in the ditch, and it looked as though everyone would be thrown out; but it bumped down again without falling apart, and Kishen and his aunt were still in their seats. The driver jingled his bell, and the tonga turned on to the main road that led to the station; the horse’s hoofs clip-clopped, and the carriage-wheels squeaked and rattled.
Rusty waved. Kishen sat stiff and upright, clenching the ends of his shirt.
Rusty felt afraid for Kishen, who seemed to be sitting on his own, apart from his aunt, as though he disowned or did not know her: it seemed as though he was being borne away to some strange, friendless world, where no one would know or care for him; and, though Rusty knew Kishen to be wild and independent, he felt afraid for him.
The driver called to the horse, and the tonga went round the bend in the road and was lost to sight.
Rusty stood at the gate, staring down the empty road. He thought,‘I’ll go back to my room and time will run on and things will happen but this will not happen again … there will still be sun and litchis, and there will be other friends, but there will be no Meena and no Kishen, for our lives have drifted apart … Kishen and I have been going down the river together, but I have been caught in the reeds and he has been swept onwards; and if I do catch up with him, it will not be the same, it might be sad … Kishen has gone, and part of my life has gone with him, and inside of me I am all lonely.’
17
It was a sticky, restless afternoon. The water-carrier passed below the room with his skin bag, spraying water on the dusty path. The toy-seller entered the compound, calling his wares in a high-pitched sing-song voice, and presently there was the chatter of children.
The toy-seller had a long bamboo pole, crossed by two or three shorter bamboos, from which hung all manner of toys—little celluloid drums, tin watches, tiny flutes and whistles, and multi-coloured rag dolls—and when these ran out, they were replaced by others from a large bag, a most mysterious and fascinating bag, one in which no one but the toy-seller was allowed to look. He was a popular person with rich and poor alike, for his toys never cost more than four annas and never lasted longer than a day.
Rusty liked the cheap toys, and was fond of decorating the room with them. He bought a two-anna flute and walked upstairs, blowing on it.
He removed his shirt and sandals and lay flat on the bed staring up at the ceiling. The lizards scuttled along the rafters, the bald maina hopped along the window-ledge. He was about to fall asleep when Somi came into the room.
Somi looked listless.
‘I feel sticky,’ he said,‘I don’t want to wear any clothes.’
He too pulled off his shirt and deposited it on the table, then stood before the mirror, studying his physique. Then he turned to Rusty.
‘You don’t look well,’ he said,‘there are cobwebs in your hair.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘You must have been very fond of Mrs Kapoor. She was very kind.’
‘I loved her, didn’t you know?’
‘No. My own love is the only thing I know. Rusty, best favourite friend, you cannot stay here in this room, you must come back to my house. Besides, this building will soon have new tenants.’
‘I’ll get out when they come, or when the landlord discovers I’m living here.’
Somi’s usually bright face was somewhat morose, and there was a faint agitation showing in his eyes.
‘I will go and get a cucumber to eat,’ he said,‘then there is something to tell you.’
‘I don’t want a cucumber,’ said Rusty,‘I want a coconut.’
‘I want a cucumber.’
Rusty felt irritable. The room was hot, the bed was hot, his blood was hot. Impatiently, he said, ‘Go and eat your cucumber, I don’t want any …’
Somi looked at him with a pained surprise; then, without a word, picked up his shirt and marched out of the room. Rusty could hear the slap of his slippers on the stairs, and then the bicycle tyres on the gravel path.
‘Hey, Somi!’ shouted Rusty, leaping off the bed and running out on to the roof.‘Come back!’
But the bicycle jumped over the ditch, and Somi’s shirt flapped, and there was nothing Rusty could do but return to bed. He was alarmed at his liverish ill-temper. He lay down again and stared at the ceiling, at the lizards chasing each other across the rafters. On the roof two crows were fighting, knocking each other’s feathers out. Everyone was in a temper.
What’s wrong? wondered Rusty. I spoke to Somi in fever, not in anger, but my words were angry. Now I am miserable, fed up. Oh, hell …
He closed his eyes and shut out everything.
He opened his eyes to laughter. Somi’s face was close, laughing into Rusty’s.
‘Of what were you dreaming, Rusty, I have never seen you smile so sweetly!’
‘Oh, I wasn’t dreaming,’ said Rusty, sitting up, and feeling better now that Somi had returned.‘I am sorry for being so grumpy, but I’m not feeling …’
‘Quiet!’ admonished Somi,putting his finger to the other’s lips.‘See I have settled the matter. Here is a coconut for you, and here is a cucumber for me!’
They sat cross-legged on the bed, facing each other; Somi with his cucumber, and Rusty with his coconut. The coconut milk trickled down Rusty’s chin and on to his chest, giving him a cool, pleasant sensation.
Rusty said,‘I am afraid for Kishen. I am sure he will give trouble to his relatives, and they are not like his parents. Mr Kapoor will have no say, without Meena.’
Somi was silent. The only sound was the munching of the cucumber and the coconut. He looked at Rusty, an uncertain smile on his lips but none in his eyes; and, in a forced conversational manner, said, ‘I’m going to Amritsar for a few months. But I will be back in the spring. Rusty, you will be all right here …’
This news was so unexpected that for some time Rusty could not take it in. The thought had never occurred to him that one day Somi might leave Dehra, just as Ranbir and Suri and Kishen had done. He could not speak. A sickening heaviness clogged his heart and brain.
‘Hey, Rusty!’ laughed Somi.‘Don’t look as though there is poison in the coconut!’
The poison lay in Somi’s words. And the poison worked, running through Rusty’s veins and beating against his heart and hammering on his brain. The poison worked, wounding him.
He said, ‘Somi …’but could go no further.
‘Finish the coconut!’
‘Somi,’ said Rusty again,‘if you are leaving Dehra, Somi, then I am leaving too.’
‘Eat the coco … what did you say?’
‘I am going too.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘Not at all.’
Serious now, and troubled, Somi put his hand on his friend’s wrist; he shook his head, he could not understand.
‘Why, Rusty? Where?’
‘England.’
‘But you haven’t money, you silly fool!’
‘I can get an assisted passage. The British government will pay.’
‘You are a British subject?’
‘I don’t know …’
‘Toba!’ Somi slapped his thighs and looked upwards in despair. ‘You are neither Indian subject nor British subject, and you think someone is going to pay for your passage! And how are you to get a passport?’
‘How?’ asked Rusty, anxious to find out.
�
��Toba! Have you a birth certificate?’
‘Oh, no.’
‘Then you are not born,’ decreed Somi, with a certain amount of satisfaction.‘You are not alive! You do not happen to be in this world!’
He paused for breath, then waved his finger in the air. ‘Rusty, you cannot go!’ he said.
Rusty lay down despondently.
‘I never really thought I would,’ he said, ‘I only said I would because I felt like it. Not because I am unhappy—I have never been happier elsewhere—but because I am restless as I have always been. I don’t suppose I’ll be anywhere for long …’
He spoke the truth. Rusty always spoke the truth. He defined truth as feeling, and when he said what he felt, he said truth. (Only he didn’t always speak his feelings.) He never lied.You don’t have to lie if you know how to withhold the truth.
‘You belong here,’ said Somi, trying to reconcile Rusty with circumstance.‘You will get lost in big cities, Rusty,you will break your heart. And when you come back—if you come back—I will be grown-up and you will be grown-up— I mean more than we are now—and we will be like strangers to each other … And besides, there are no chaat shops in England!’
‘But I don’t belong here, Somi. I don’t belong anywhere. Even if I have papers, I don’t belong. I’m a half-caste, I know it, and that is as good as not belonging anywhere.’
What am I saying, thought Rusty, why do I make my inheritance a justification for my present bitterness? No one has cast me out … of my own free will I want to run away from India … why do I blame inheritance?
‘It can also mean that you belong everywhere,’ said Somi. ‘But you never told me. You are fair like a European.’
‘I had not thought much about it.’
‘Are you ashamed?’
‘No. My guardian was. He kept it to himself, he only told me when I came home after playing Holi. I was happy then. So, when he told me, I was not ashamed, I was proud.’
‘And now?’
‘Now? Oh, I can’t really believe it. Somehow I do not really feel mixed.’
‘Then don’t blame it for nothing.’
Rusty felt a little ashamed, and they were both silent awhile,then Somi shrugged and said.‘So you are going.You are running away from India.’
‘No, not from India.’
‘Then you are running away from your friends, from me!’
Rusty felt the irony of this remark, and allowed a tone of sarcasm into his voice.
‘You, Master Somi, you are the one who is going away. I am still here. You are going to Amritsar. I only want to go. And I’m here alone; everyone has gone. So if I do eventually leave, the only person I’ll be running away from will be myself!’
‘Ah!’ said Somi, nodding his head wisely.‘And by running away from yourself, you will be running away from me and from India! Now come on, let’s go and have chaat.’
He pulled Rusty off the bed, and pushed him out of the room. Then, at the top of the steps, he leapt lightly on Rusty’s back, kicked him with his heels, and shouted:‘Down the steps, my tuttoo, my pony! Fast down the steps!’
So Rusty carried him downstairs and dropped him on the grass. They laughed: but there was no great joy in their laughter, they laughed for the sake of friendship.
‘Best favourite friend,’ said Somi, throwing a handful of mud in Rusty’s face.
18
Now everyone had gone from Dehra. Meena would never return; and it seemed unlikely that Kapoor could come back. Kishen’s departure was final. Ranbir would be in Mussoorie until the winter months, and this was still summer and it would be even longer before Somi returned. Everyone Rusty knew well had left, and there remained no one he knew well enough to love or hate.
There were, of course, the people at the water-tank—the servants, the ayahs, the babies—but they were busy all day. And when Rusty left them, he had no one but himself and memory for company.
He wanted to forget Meena. If Kishen had been with him, it would have been possible; the two boys would have found comfort in their companionship. But alone, Rusty realized he was not the master of himself.
And Kapoor. For Kapoor, Meena had died perfect. He suspected her of no infidelity. And, in a way, she had died perfect; for she had found a secret freedom. Rusty knew he had judged Kapoor correctly when scorning Suri’s threat of blackmail; he knew Kapoor wouldn’t believe a single disparaging word about Meena.
And Rusty returned to his dreams, that wonderland of his, where he walked in perfection. He spoke to himself quite often, and sometimes he spoke to the lizards.
He was afraid of the lizards, afraid and at the same time fascinated. When they changed their colours, from brown to red to green, in keeping with their immediate surroundings, they fascinated him. But when they lost their grip on the ceiling and fell to the ground with a soft, wet, boneless smack, they repelled him. One night, he reasoned, one of them would most certainly fall on his face …
An idea he conceived one afternoon nearly sparked him into sudden and feverish activity. He thought of making a garden on the roof, beside his room.
The idea took his fancy to such an extent that he spent several hours planning the set-out of the flower-beds, and visualizing the completed picture, with marigolds, zinnias and cosmos blooming everywhere. But there were no tools to be had, mud and bricks would have to be carried upstairs, seeds would have to be obtained; and, who knows, thought Rusty, after all that trouble the roof might cave in, or the rains might spoil everything … and anyway, he was going away …
His thoughts turned inwards. Gradually, he returned to the same frame of mind that had made life with his guardian so empty and meaningless; he began to fret, to dream, to lose his grip on reality. The full life of the past few months had suddenly ended, and the present was lonely and depressing; the future became a distorted image, created out of his own brooding fancies.
One evening, sitting on the steps, he found himself fingering a key. It was the key Kapoor had asked him to keep, the key to the back door. Rusty remembered the whisky bottles—‘let’s drink them ourselves’ Kishen had said—and Rusty thought, ‘why not, why not … a few bottles can’t do any harm …’ and before he could have an argument with himself, the back door was open.
In his room that night he drank the whisky neat. It was the first time he had tasted alcohol, and he didn’t find it pleasant; but he wasn’t drinking for pleasure, he was drinking with the sole purpose of shutting himself off from the world, and forgetting.
He hadn’t drunk much when he observed that the roof had a definite slant; it seemed to slide away from his door to the field below, like a chute. The banyan tree was suddenly swarming with bees. The lizards were turning all colours at once, like pieces of rainbow.
When he had drunk a little more, he began to talk; not to himself any more, but to Meena, who was pressing his head and trying to force him down on the pillows. He struggled against Meena, but she was too powerful, and he began to cry.
Then he drank a little more. And now the floor began to wobble, and Rusty had a hard time keeping the table from toppling over. The walls of the room were caving in. He swallowed another mouthful of whisky, and held the wall up with his hands. He could deal with anything now. The bed was rocking, the chair was sliding about, the table was slipping, the walls were swaying, but Rusty had everything under control, he was everywhere at once, supporting the entire building with his bare hands.
And then he slipped, and everything came down on top of him, and it was black.
In the morning when he awoke, he threw the remaining bottles out of the window, and cursed himself for a fool, and went down to the water-tank to bathe.
*
Days passed, dry and dusty, every day the same. Regularly, Rusty filled his earthen sohrai at the water-tank, and soaked the reed mat that hung from the doorway. Sometimes, in the field, the children played cricket, but he couldn’t summon up the energy to join them. From his room he could hear the sound of ball
and bat, the shouting, the lone voice raised in shrill disagreement with some unfortunate umpire … or the thud of a football, or the clash of hockey sticks … but better than these sounds was the jingle of the bells and bangles on the feet of the ayahs, as they busied themselves at the water-tank.
Time passed, but Rusty did not know it was passing. It was like living in a house near a river, and the river was always running past the house, on and away; but to Rusty, living in the house, there was no passing of the river; the water ran on, the river remained.
He longed for something to happen.
19
Dust. It blew up in great clouds, swirling down the road, clutching and clinging to everything it touched; burning, choking, stinging dust.
Then thunder.
The wind dropped suddenly, there was a hushed expectancy in the air. And then, out of the dust, came big black rumbling clouds.
Something was happening.
At first there was a lonely drop of water on the windowsill; then a patter on the roof. Rusty felt a thrill of anticipation, and a mounting of excitement. The rains had come to break the monotony of the summer months; the monsoon had arrived!
The sky shuddered, the clouds groaned, a fork of lightning struck across the sky, and then the sky itself exploded.
The rain poured down, drumming on the corrugated roof. Rusty’s vision was reduced to about twenty yards; it was as though the room had been cut off from the rest of the world by an impenetrable wall of water.
The rains had arrived, and Rusty wanted to experience the full novelty of that first shower. He threw off his clothes, and ran naked on to the roof, and the wind sprang up and whipped the water across his body so that he writhed in ecstasy. The rain was more intoxicating than the alcohol, and it was with difficulty that he restrained himself from shouting and dancing in mad abandon. The force and freshness of the rain brought tremendous relief, washed away the stagnation that had been settling on him, poisoning mind and body.