by Ruskin Bond
The cake was splendid, full of good things like walnuts and raisins and cherries, and I have to confess that I consumed the lion’s share; but I was always like that, a glutton for the good things in life—birthday cakes, books and a comfortable bed, all in that order. Mrs M and the children were delighted by my appetite, and Mrs M vowed to bake bigger and better cakes if I would come over more often. I promised that I would.
H.H. must have heard that it was Anna’s birthday because presently one of her lackeys arrived with a large gift-wrapped parcel. When opened, it revealed an expensive doll, beautifully dressed, with what appeared to be real hair—glossy black tresses—done up in a coiffure. Anna stood it up on the table and it immediately broke into a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to you!’
We all clapped and Mrs Montalban sat down to write a thank-you note to Neena. She would have sent her some cake too, but for the fact that I had finished it.
Pablo was staring intently at the doll.
‘It looks like the Maharani,’ he said, a glint of the devil in his eyes.
‘Even the voice is a bit like hers,’ I added.
‘It’s a beautiful doll,’ said Mrs Montalban. ‘Especially the dress.’
‘And the hair,’ said Anna, stroking it gently.
The doll was put aside and Pablo produced a guitar and began strumming on it.
‘I didn’t know you could play the guitar,’ I said.
‘Only a little bit,’ he said, and played a familiar tune which sounded a bit like Jealousy, a tango from an earlier time. The tune was perhaps a fitting prelude to what happened next.
There was a jingle of bells and a rickshaw pulled by two uniformed but barefooted young men pulled up at the gate, and out stepped H.H. in all her finery, looking very regal, albeit a little unsteady on her feet.
‘A party without me,’ she scolded, genuinely upset. ‘Why didn’t you invite me?’
‘It was just the children,’ said Mrs Montalban defensively.
‘And I suppose you’re Peter Pan,’ said Neena, glaring at me.
‘I thought I was supposed to be the Pied Piper,’ I said. ‘But I came accidentally. I didn’t know it was Anna’s birthday.’
Anna held up the doll. ‘Thank you for the lovely doll, Maharaniji. It’s very beautiful.’
‘It’s just like the Maharani,’ said Pablo, straight-faced. ‘Even the voice.’
Neena ignored him. She had been conscious of his resentment ever since she had seduced his father. It did not bother her. Spreading a little unhappiness was one of her chief pleasures.
‘Well,’ she said, hands on hips, a typical pose when she wanted to get her way. ‘We’re going to celebrate properly. No tea and cakes, just cakes and ale! I’m taking you out for dinner. We’ll go to the Savoy! And you can come too, Pied Piper. A pity Ricardo isn’t here, but you’ll have to do as our escort or whatever.’
‘Your friend in need,’ I said. ‘Always at your service.’
‘Good. You can pay for the drinks.’
The rickshaw—the late Maharaja’s personal rickshaw—was dismissed as it could only seat two. Rickshaws were on their way out and only a few remained in town. But there were now three taxis and we sent for one of them, a large Chevrolet which had seen better days. I sat up front next to the driver and H.H., and Mrs Montalban and the children squeezed in at the back.
It was late July, and a monsoon mist hung over the mountain. There were hardly any tourists in town and the grand old hotel was practically empty; but the bar was functioning, or so it seemed, and Neena headed straight for it.
Like the rickshaw and the taxi and the royal house of Mastipur, the old hotel had also seen better days. A musty odour emanated from the worn carpets. Outside it was raining; but inside, the decorative plants were drooping from lack of water. If you sat on an easy chair in the lounge there was a strong possibility of a loose spring probing your rectum.
H.H. wasn’t wasting time in the lounge. She headed straight for the bar. She barged through the swing doors and we were immediately assailed by the combined odour of stale beer, mildew and disintegrating cheese-and-tomato sandwiches.
Neena herded us into this chamber of horrors and called out, ‘Barman, barman, beer for all!’
There was no response.
The room was empty and there was no one behind the bar.
‘Perhaps it’s a dry day,’ I said. ‘Or someone’s death anniversary.’
‘Shut up,’ said Neena. ‘There are no dry days in this town.’ She peered over the bar counter, then let out a shriek of laughter. ‘Maybe there’s a death after all. Our bartender is well and truly pissed!’
True enough, the bartender was stretched out on the floor, snoring away, blissfully unaware of the arrival of customers. It was obvious he’d been helping himself to various liquors and liqueurs, trying each one for taste and aroma.
‘He’s completely blotto,’ said Neena. ‘We’ll just have to help ourselves.’ And she reached for a bottle of Scotch, intoning, ‘Don’t be vague. Ask for Haig.’
‘A glass of wine for me,’ interposed Mrs Montalban. ‘The children can have soft drinks.’
‘No soft drinks here,’ said Neena. ‘But Pablo can have a beer. My boys started when they were six.’
‘And look at them now,’ I said. ‘Pickled for life.’
‘No lip from you, Peter Piper. Down your whisky and then go in search of the manager. If you can’t find the manager, find the cook. If you can’t find the cook, find the masalchi. We want something to eat. It’s Anna’s birthday, damn and blast!’
Damned and blasted, I went in search of hotel staff and, after wandering around the empty halls and corridors of this vast mausoleum, finally bumped into someone who looked like a manager.
‘We’re looking for something to eat,’ I said.
‘Well, so am I, sir.’
‘Are you the manager?’
‘No, I’m the pianist.’
‘Pianist! But I haven’t seen a piano anywhere.’
‘There isn’t one. They sold it last week to a collector from Bombay. I’m Ivan Lobo,’ he said, extending his hand.
We shook hands and I introduced myself.
‘The hotel appears to be deserted,’ I said. ‘And the bartender is fast asleep.’
‘Well, the hotel is up for sale, you know. The owner has gone missing—last seen in Bangladesh. And the cook is in hospital with food poisoning.’
‘Well, in that case, I don’t think we’ll want anything to eat. I’d better go back to the bar and tell the others.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Mr Lobo. ‘Perhaps I can be of help.’
When we got to the bar, Neena was on her second whisky.
‘Don’t be vague,’ she chirruped. ‘Ask for Haig!’
‘This is Mr Lobo,’ I said. ‘He’s the pianist.’
‘How lovely! It’s just the sort of evening for some romantic music. What do they do on a rainy night in Rio? I love that one.’
‘Well, it’s a rainy night in Mussoorie. And there’s no piano. And no cook.’
‘Well, fetch the owner. Isn’t he around?’
‘He’s gone underground,’ I said.
‘Oh, it’s old Chawla, I’m not surprised. Used to play billiards with my husband. Did nothing else. Have a drink, Mr Lobo. I’ve always had a soft spot for pianists.’
She poured Mr Lobo a Patiala peg and gave herself another. Meanwhile, the bartender had woken from his slumbers. He wiped his face on a tablecloth, burped, and asked us if we’d like something to drink.
‘We’re doing all right without you,’ said Neena. ‘But give yourself a drink, you poor man. You look as though you need one. And you’ll probably be out of a job next week.’
‘Now then, Melaram,’ said Mr Lobo, expanding a little under the gentle influence of Haig. ‘We have to do something for our guests here. Pull yourself together, run down to the bazaar, and order some food from the Hum Tum Dhaba. What would you like, madam?’
; ‘Maharani, not madam.’
‘A thousand pardons, Your Highness. I didn’t know you were you. I’ve seen your picture in the papers. The Maharani of Ranipur.’
‘Mastipur, sir. Mastipur.’
‘Coming from Goa, I am unfamiliar with the names of so many of our old states.’
‘So why aren’t you playing the piano in Goa? Everyone there is a musician, I hear.’
‘They were, until Jimi Hendrix died in his bathtub and Janis Joplin took an overdose. Singers get nervous when they reach the age of twenty-seven. That’s when they succumb to something or the other.’
‘Well, you’re a pianist, not a singer. And if you’re out of a job, you can come and play the piano for me every evening. It needs tuning anyway.’
‘Much obliged, ma’am.’
‘Maharani, Ji.’
‘Your Highness.’
‘That’s better.’
Food was brought from the Hum Tum Dhaba (at Savoy prices) and the children and I tucked in. Mrs Montalban never ate much. H.H. concentrated on the whisky. And Mr Lobo, out of politeness, kept pace with us. The taxi having been dismissed, the bartender was sent out in search of another, but failed to return.
The evening had been too much for him.
The clock on the wall hadn’t worked since the great earthquake of 1905, but my watch was showing midnight when the party broke up. Mrs Montalban and the children decided to walk home. Neena was by now incapable of walking. Mr Lobo and I got her as far as the front steps, where she subsided into a hydrangea bush.
‘There’s an old rickshaw kept in a shed near the office,’ said Mr Lobo. ‘I’ll see if I can get someone to pull it for us.’
But at that late hour there was no rickshaw-puller to be found. I was still trying to extricate Neena from the hydrangea—and being roundly abused in the process—when Mr Lobo came round the corner, pulling at the decrepit but movable rickshaw.
‘If you can get her in,’ he gasped, already out of breath, ‘we’ll take her home ourselves!’
‘He’s a real man!’ shrieked Neena. ‘Not a namby-pamby bastard like you!’
‘Any more abuse and I’ll leave you here with Mr Lobo. You can both occupy the VIP suite. Many famous people have slept in it—Emperor Haile Selassie, the Panchen Lama, Pearl S. Buck, Raj Kapoor, Helen, and Polly Umrigar.’
‘What—all together?’ giggled Neena. ‘It must have been quite an orgy!’
‘Not all together, Your Highness. Separately, and at different times.’
‘Helen of Troy, too.’
‘Not Helen of Troy. Helen the Bollywood dancer.’
‘Well then, let’s dance,’ said H.H., making a great effort to get up. ‘Mr Lobo can play the piano while we dance.’
‘First we have to get you home. The piano’s at your place, remember? The hotel doesn’t have one.’
‘When we’re all out dancing cheek to cheek,’ H.H. began singing an old Fred Astaire number.
Mr Lobo and I began singing along with her, at the same time getting her to stand up and stagger towards the rickshaw. We managed to get her on to the seat, where she sat up for a moment, observing, ‘These two don’t look like my rickshaw boys,’ before subsiding again.
‘You pull and I’ll push,’ said Mr Lobo gallantly.
‘No, you pull and I’ll push,’ I countered. ‘Pulling is better exercise for piano players. I’m just a pen-pusher.’
That settled, we set off on the long haul to Hollow Oak, and believe me, it was a struggle all the way. The rickshaw was an old one, long out of use. It squeaked and rattled, and the wheels gave every indication of wanting to come off. Nevertheless, we made progress, encouraged by cries of abuse alternating with shouts of merriment from H.H., who was obviously enjoying the ride.
For those few who were out on the Mall that night, it must have been quite a sight—Kipling’s phantom rickshaw emerging from the mist on a moonlit night, propelled along by a couple of well-dressed but dishevelled gentlemen who were spurred on by a mad Maharani waving in royal fashion to an imaginary crowd—the effect spoilt only by the obscenities that tripped off her tongue.
We got her home eventually and put her to bed. I had the guest room opened for Mr Lobo and told him he’d better stay the night.
‘About giving me a job as a pianist,’ he said. ‘Did she really mean it?’
‘You’ll know in the morning,’ I said. ‘Get a good night’s sleep. And if she throws you out in the morning, you can come and have breakfast with me.’
12
Mr Lobo wasn’t thrown out. His gift as a pianist must have been appreciated by H.H. because two or three evenings later, as I walked past Hollow Oak, I heard the tinkle of a piano and recognized the immortal strains of When Irish eyes are smiling, the only thing Irish about H.H. and Mr Lobo being the whisky they had obviously been drinking. It was Irish disguised as Scotch and bottled in Bijnor. Not from Ricardo’s cellars.
They were duetting in a grand manner, à la Nelson Eddy and Jeanette Macdonald, and while Mr Lobo had a pleasing tenor voice, Neena’s raucous strains took all the mystery out of Ah! Sweet mystery of life. Tender romance was not her forte.
I continued on my way, stopping at Mrs Montalban’s for a mid-morning coffee. Here I learnt that Mr Montalban would be back in a few days, with the intention of spending some time with his family and of course ‘our wonderful friend the Maharani’.
I found Pablo on the front veranda. He was holding Anna’s doll—Anna’s birthday doll, the one that supposedly resembled the Maharani—and he was busy sticking drawing pins into various parts of its anatomy.
‘Drawing pins won’t work,’ I said. ‘You need something with greater penetration.’
He wasn’t put out by my intrusion.
‘I’ve got a hammer and nails,’ he said, his eyes lighting up. ‘Or I could take out all the stuffing.’
‘Anna wouldn’t like that. Disembowelling her favourite doll.’
‘It’s not her favourite doll. She doesn’t come near it. Actually, she’s not into dolls. Prefers ghosts.’
‘Ghosts?’
‘She keeps seeing a little girl who wants to play with her.’
‘Yes, she drew a picture of her. I thought it was just a girl she’d imagined. Have you seen her?’
He shook his head; a lock of hair fell across his brow, giving him a tender, innocent look. Not the sort who practises voodoo on dolls.
‘Only Anna has seen her.’
‘Perhaps she’s a real girl, but very shy. And she runs away, like a frightened gazelle.’
‘The old mali says the house is haunted.’
The old mali was an eighty-year-old gardener who did odd jobs at various houses on the hillside. According to him, all the old houses were haunted.
‘And what else does he say? That someone died here in tragic circumstances. Most people die at home, you know. It would be hard to find an old house which hadn’t been witness to a death or two. Why aren’t hospitals haunted? People die in them every day.’
‘My mother says some people like to return to their old homes from time to time. They won’t go back to a hospital.’
‘Don’t blame them. Hospitals are scary places—even for ghosts.’
As the evening wore on, Pablo took out his guitar and began strumming it without actually settling into a tune.
‘Play something simple,’ I said.
And for the first time I heard him singing. It was an old lullaby—something out of Africa, I think. I put it down in words that I remember, for he sang it first in Spanish and then in English:
How can there be a cherry without a stone?
How can there be a chicken without a bone?
How can there be a baby with no crying?
How can there be a story with no ending?
And then the answer to this gentle riddle:
A cherry when it’s blooming, it has no stone,
A chicken when it’s hatching, it has no bone,
A baby when it
’s sleeping has no crying …
A story of ‘I love you’ has no ending …
‘You sing better than you play,’ I said. ‘You must sing more often.’
He began singing softly in Spanish and presently we were joined by Anna and Mrs Montalban. She poured me a glass of red wine and placed a currant cake before me. Normally I wasn’t a wine drinker, but it went well in that house and in that company.
The sun went down with a lot of fuss. First a fiery red, and then in waves of pink and orange as it slid beneath the small clouds that wandered about on the horizon. The brief twilight of northern India passed like a shadow over the hills, and dusk gave way to darkness. I had stepped outside to watch the sunset. Now a lamp came on in the sitting room, followed by the veranda light. An atmosphere of peace and harmony descended on the hillside.
Pablo was calling me. ‘Amigo, come quickly. Pronto, pronto!’ Whenever he was excited, he broke into Spanish.
I stepped back into the room to find him pointing at the far wall.
A faint glow had spread across the whitewashed wall, as though a part of that spectacular sunset had been left behind. And emerging from this suffused light, as through a rent in the clouds, was the face of a girl. Old-fashioned, sad–happy, beautiful.
‘It’s her!’ exclaimed Anna. ‘I’ve seen her at the window sometimes. And now she’s inside!’
‘She means no harm,’ said Mrs Montalban, as composed and unruffled as always. ‘She wants to be back here, she longs to be with us—a happy family!’
And it was a happy family, in Montalban’s prolonged absence.
But the face on the wall soon faded, returned to its own eternal twilight. Who was she, and why had she come back? Perhaps Mrs Montalban was right, and she longed to be of this world again.
We would never know—until and unless we joined her.
13
Next day, when the children spoke to the old mali about the apparition, he looked gloomy and said it was a warning of bad times to come.
‘At this time of the year there is much evil in the air. Fog and damp and leaf mould rotting. Even the plants don’t like it. They are longing for a little sunshine.’