Khushwant Singh Best Indian Short Stories Volume 1

by Khushwant Singh

  Late that night, at about the same time that Hecate started to rev up her broom, Louie checked his gear outside the open gate of Miss Victoria’s house. First he checked the flat bottle in his hip pocket, then the peppermints in his breast pocket. As an afterthought he checked the tools, neatly distributed about his person. He sucked the gap in his lower front teeth while he appreciatively noted that it was a dark cloudy night with the threat of a storm later. The tense atmosphere suited his sense of propriety. He took a sip from his bottle for luck and stepped through the gate.

  Suddenly he heard a rustle at the far end of the garden. He peered in that direction and discerned two luminous green orbs a few inches above the top of the wall. They floated smoothly nearer, growing clearer and larger. He clutched at the wall for support and the gate snapped shut. Seeing the devil’s hand in it, he knelt down to beg forgiveness for his past life. Something soft touched his head lightly and landed on the ground.

  Louie turned fearfully to find Midnight’s green gaze fixed on him. He took another sip from his bottle and, repentance forgotten, set about making an exit for himself in case he should have to leave in a hurry. He found the gate at the back and cut an opening in the wire netting big enough for a man to pass through.

  Midnight, who had watched these proceedings with interest, now found that attention was turned to the house. He led the way around the building to an open window and Louie followed him into the hall.

  The tomcat pawed at a suitcase on the floor. Louie was delighted. He needed a case for his ‘loot’. He picked it up. The lid fell open and Midnight’s treasures cascaded out noisily.

  Louie yelped in horror and leapt back, colliding with the chair that had been clawed and scratched to shreds. His groping hand collected a few splinters before he recovered his balance and the chair fell with a crash. A moment later a high-pitched wail floated down from above: ‘Midnight baby, Mama’s coming!’ Not wishing to meet ‘Mama’, the honest burglar fled. He dived through a door into the kitchen. He saw the dim outline of a window. He fumbled at the bolt. The window gave suddenly and he tumbled through. Midnight, desirous of company, leapt out after him.

  Fifi meanwhile had found her suspicions correct. There had been no one else at dinner. Tomorrow her reputation would be mud. Oscar was pained. He was trying to explain to her that she reminded him of his daughter, when she found the gap Louie had cut in the wire netting. Seeking political or any asylum, she jumped through at the same moment that Louie and Midnight hurtled out of their window. Like any soldier worth his salt, Oscar placed Duty before Love. Happily both lay in the same direction and he plunged through the gap.

  There comes a time in the affairs of cats which, taken in their stride, leads on to safety. Midnight leapt on to Louie’s chest and thence he clawed his way to Louie’s head via Louie’s face. He crouched there for a moment, digging in his claws for balance, and then he leapt on to the wall.

  The dogs set up a barking crescendo while Midnight emitted sounds like a police siren attempting the Moonlight Sonata. Louie dived for the hole in the wire netting. He stumbled over Fifi. Yelping piteously, she bit his calf.

  Fortunately, at this moment, Miss Victoria galloped into the arena, armed for battle. She saw at once what had happened. The two dogs had attacked her darling. The man who was wrestling with them was protecting him. She swung her broom with precision and the dogs bounded away.

  The commotion had aroused Oscar’s master. He left Fifi out and settled the old warrior down for the night. Midnight descended from the wall with all the nonchalance of a fellow who had just gone up for a breath of air.

  ‘You poor man,’ said Miss Victoria to the prostrate Louie. ‘How brave of you to tackle those horrible dogs.’

  It penetrated Louie’s consciousness that he was the object of sympathy and not suspicion. Midnight was sitting on his stomach, gazing reflectively at him. He sat up. He exchanged names with Miss Victoria.

  ‘What happened to the gate?’ the old lady gasped.

  ‘Someone cut the wire,’ said Louie truthfully.

  ‘I feel quite faint!’ She tottered dramatically. He sprang up and helped her back into the kitchen.

  ‘I’d better fix your gate,’ said Louie. When Miss Victoria went to fetch some wire netting and tools, he pocketed the available silverware.

  He mended the gate. When it was done, he was invited in for a glass of sherry. Miss Victoria led the way into the hall.

  The silver candlesticks on the mantelpiece were too large to be accommodated in his pockets. While Miss Victoria was busy over the sherry, he located Midnight’s case and eased it towards the mantelpiece with his foot.

  Before she handed him his drink the candlesticks were in the case and its lid was down. When she disappeared into the kitchen to fetch some fruitcake for him, a small table clock and a silver ashtray found their way into the case. When she set about replenishing the sherry glasses, he added a few china figurines to his collection and decided that he had enough.

  Miss Victoria now realized that he was in need of first aid. With motherly solicitude she removed the splinters from his hand and painted his scratched face with iodine. When she was done, his piebald face took on a troubled look. A lump rose in his throat. She was a brick. He was a heel. In an expansive mood he added something from his bottle to Midnight’s saucer of milk. When Miss Victoria departed to put away her first-aid kit, he went to a window and carefully set the case down outside.

  After that things rapidly became riotous. Midnight, having downed his milk and Scotch, became sportive. He ploughed frenziedly through his toys, clawed his way up the curtains and executed double somersaults in the air, all the while cheered on by Miss Victoria, who had abandoned sherry for whisky.

  ‘Miss Victoria, he’ll ruin your hall,’ said Louie, awestruck by the spectacle of a drunk tomcat.

  Miss Victoria smiled. She had lost a slipper. From the elegant coil around her head, one pigtail had escaped and the other threatened to follow suit. Her nightcap hung precariously from her left ear. Her plump face was flushed with girlish pleasure and her gaze was suspiciously unfocused. ‘Call me Vicky,’ she said coquettishly. Then: ‘Funny our meeting like this, isn’t it?’

  Louie thought of his System. ‘It was Destiny, Vicky,’ he said.

  At 3 a.m. Louie reluctantly bid Miss Victoria goodnight. He was instructed in somewhat slurred accents how to open and close the front gate. As soon as Miss Victoria closed the front door, he stepped around the house to where he had left the case. He found Midnight sitting on it. The latter had passed through the high-spirited stage of his drunkenness and had now become peevish.

  Louie stretched out a tentative hand for the case. Midnight scratched the hand and spat explosively. The honest burglar was hurt. The tomcat had practically given him the case and he had not expected this volte-face. The next few minutes convinced him that the black-hearted feline wanted an eye in exchange for the case. He gave it up and left dispirited.

  On his way home, Louie tried to find a silver lining. Vicky was really a friend, not a ‘client’. She had not even questioned his presence in her garden but had trusted him. It was just as well. In the morning she would find the case with its contents. At least he had the cutlery he had pocketed in her kitchen. He felt for it to console himself and was surprised to find not even a teaspoon on his person. What was more his tools and bottle were also missing. In the pocket that should have held his peppermints he found a note. He read it by the light of a street lamp.

  I’m sure you’ll agree I deserve a little something for my trouble. Besides the cutlery was a “gift” from a very dear friend. I know Midnight will look after his case. Your technique needs improvement. If you visit us again, I’ll be glad to teach you a few tricks – for a small fee of course.

  - V.V.V.

  Louie was shaken – a nice old lady like that. You couldn’t trust your own grandmother these days. He remembered ruefully her solicitous ministrations. And he hadn’t felt a thing! V.V
.V.? Then with a thrill of awe he recalled a name coined by the press for the underworld queen of forty years ago: ‘Vicky the Voluptuous Vamp’. She had invited him to visit her and had permitted him to call her ‘Vicky’! Although there was no one to see, he swaggered the rest of the way home.

  E I G H T E E N

  A Flavour of Myrrh

  COLLEEN GANTZER

  Legend came to the hills that winter. It followed an ancient people trudging down from the roof of the world, through the high passes, into our oak and pine hamlet, and suddenly we were touched with a magic. But we did not know it then.

  I had gone to the library that cold winter morning and had spent the whole day there. They have an oak fire burning in the grate and it is warm and pleasant with the scent of old books and the comfort of worn leather chairs creaking softly. At five I collected my notes and was about to leave when the librarian came in and said that Sharma was waiting for me. Sharma was one of the officials in charge of the refugees and I had a nodding acquaintance with him, but I felt a bit irked; there are times when one welcomes the perky briskness of an ex-army officer, but this was not one of them. However, there was no way I could avoid him, so I decided to get it over with. I told the librarian to show him in and did not look up till he was standing beside me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, you wish to see me?’

  He seemed hesitant. ‘I...er...es please.’

  He is a short man, abrasively dapper, but all his Staff College briskness had left him now. His tweed suit was baggy and looked slept in, his eyes were dull with tiredness and he hadn’t shaved. He seemed nervous. After an awkward moment he cleared his throat and repeated, ‘Yes, please. Can you...perhaps...can you help me?’

  I nodded and asked him to sit down.

  He hunched his shoulders and looked into the fire for a while and then he turned to me and asked, ‘What is an incarnate lama? Is it something very special?’

  He must have seen the surprise on my face, because he added, hurriedly, ‘I’ve tried to find out, but no one seems to know. You’ve done some research in it, haven’t you? It’s very important....’

  He didn’t add anything more and I didn’t ask him. I told him all I knew about the Tibetan belief in reincarnation, their method of choosing their spiritual leaders. ‘When an incarnate lama dies, Sharma, they seek his successor among children born after his death. They consult oracles, look for portents and signs, birthmarks, but the final test is that the child must be able to pick out, from an array of similar articles, those which belonged to the dead lama. It’s their way of establishing that the soul of the lama has been reborn in the child.’

  He seemed a little relieved. ‘I see. It’s something like the avatar. No?’

  ‘In a way,’ I said. ‘Most religions have them. The Christians believe, for instance, that Christ was God incarnate. What’s your problem?’

  He shot a glance at the librarian who had been listening to our conversation intently. ‘Are you going home?’ he asked me. ‘Can I walk with you?’

  We got up and left. At the landing he put his hand on my arm holding me back. The wind blew up from the Mall and I was cold and impatient, but something in his look stopped me. ‘I’m in trouble,’ he said softly. ‘Three weeks ago a woman...a girl, hardly sixteen, Kashmiri perhaps... came here. She hid among the Tibetans in the camp and yesterday I learnt that she had been living with one of them. I went after her, but she and he – he’s an old man – they escaped. We tracked them down to the ruined brewery in the valley, but when the police reached there, they had left. And now the whole camp’s seething. It’s all my men can do to hold them in check, but this morning a delegation of the Tibetans came to me and they said if we go after her they’ll tear the camp down and they’ll take to hills; every one of them, the men, the women, the children, everyone. Can you imagine my position. By God!’

  He was obviously shaken, but this was absurd. I knew the Tibetans. ‘That’s impossible,’ I said. ‘They’ll never do that.’

  He recoiled as if I had struck him. ‘They will, by God, they will,’ he snapped. ‘They believe this woman’s conceived an incarnation and she’s got to have her child where she chooses, or else. And do you realize this female’s nine months pregnant? If this gets to the papers, if this gets to the bloody papers...’

  He had the civil servants’ phobia for the press, and there seemed little I could do. I wished him an abrupt goodbye and stepped out on to the Mall.

  A wind-whipped drizzle flicked ice needles at me and the sky was grey with snow clouds. A rickshawman tried to sell me a bunch of holly but I hurried past, keeping to the lee of the hill, away from the slicing wind. I thought of the girl out in the freezing forests, and the old man and Sharma, but my thoughts were confused till I shuffled down the slope and let myself into Ockbrook. My Apso terrier leapt all over me and made me welcome and then I had no time to think till I had the fire going. The wind had risen and was keening restlessly outside.

  I sat for a long while beside the oak fire after dinner and tried to sort out Sharma’s story. I could not believe that the Tibetans had threatened him: they were a very benign people, but faith is a strange thing. I had known rational people to go berserk over an imagined slight to some obscure prophet or some meaningless ritual. And as for reincarnation, all through history mankind had a blind belief in a redeemer being spawned to save them in times of tribulation. It’s a comforting belief, probably in a cold, impersonal universe. And it’s true in a way. Millions of humans spawning in billions of genetic combinations would be bound to produce one who bore a resemblance to a long dead folk hero. The time, and the laws of probability, produced the man. If we could wait for Kalki Avatar and the Second Coming, who were we to question a simple people’s faith in an incarnation? I hoped the old man and the girl had found shelter. I didn’t envy them their plight out in the cold and the howling dark night.

  I didn’t want to think of their problem any more. I was tired and they were playing carols over the radio: the old stories of King Wenceslas, and Silent Night and of the Three Wise Men who came bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and then I must have dozed off.

  The terrier’s barking woke me. She was scrabbling at the door, her stump of a tail blurred with happiness. She looked up at me and loosed a frenzy of yelps. My watch had stopped but the radio was silent so it must have been after midnight. I opened the door and the light came streaming in through the glazed verandah: the moon shone on a world of silver snow. The terrier raced for the back door and started clawing at it. I was still very sleepy or I would never have opened the door, but I did, and the little dog yelped and went racing out into the white night. I called out and ran after her, my feet sinking into the heavy snow. I saw her tear across the yard, skitter around the huge oak tree and vanish down the steps leading to the woodshed. I swore, stumbling and slithering in my slippers, till I reached the oak. And then I stopped.

  I looked down and the light glistened on the snow-covered steps. I walked down, very slowly, suddenly a little afraid. The door of the woodshed was open and someone had lit a fire against the bare stone wall. I saw him as I entered and he looked up at me.

  He was old, in his sixties or more, and he wore the dirty ochre robe of the Tibetan mendicant. He smiled at me, very gently, still sitting with his back against the resinous oak logs. ‘Namaste, Sahib.’ His voice was like the rustle of dried leaves.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and, when I could trust myself, I asked, ‘Where is she?’

  He smiled again. ‘She’s gone, Sahib.’ He nodded slightly. ‘Gone back to where she came from. There... there...there...’

  I turned round and looked over the soft, covered slopes of virgin snow. I had to look a long time to find them, but they were there: a single set of footprints treading lightly over the hill till they vanished into the dark oak trees, far away. I heard a sigh, and then a soft thud and I swung around.

  He had slumped against the woodpile, his eyes closed, still smiling. I
stepped across and bent over him and after a while I rose because there was nothing more I could do.

  The terrier was nuzzling at something. I reached down for her and then I saw what she had been smelling at, and I picked them up. They were things one finds, sometimes, amongst a Tibetan trader’s wares: trifles of little value. Perhaps. I began to shiver.

  I picked up the dog and left the old man alone, dreaming his endless dreams, and closed the door of the woodshed. I thought of the fire, still glowing inside, but I knew it would die down slowly, gently. I started to climb back up the steps. I would have to phone Sharma, of course. I felt sorry for Sharma because he would have to search and search for a long time before he found anyone like her. Or her child.

  I decided not to tell him about the things I had found on the door of that strangely warm woodshed: the tiny nugget of gold, the crystal of frankincense and the sticky, bitter pellet of myrrh.

  N I N E T E E N

  The Blue Hills Where the Sun

  Never Sets

  HUGH GANTZER

  The range starts far to the north and comes sweeping down India’s western edge, leaving a narrow fertile coastal belt where legendary princes welcomed traders, fought invaders who, in turn, became princes themselves. To this rich belt came the Arabs and the Chinese, the Dutch and the Portuguese. And, finally, the John Company of Britain: history’s only body of commercial men who carved out an empire and ruled it for a century as their personal property. They traded in jute and spices, timber, ivory and, here, in tea. The Scotsmen – some from the Highlands with a swagger and a skirl of pipes, others from the low lands with Presbyterian determination, black cloth and account books – came and settled in the High Ranges of the Blue Hills...the Nilgiris...and they put the place in order. And when a Scotsman puts a place in order – that is the way it stays.