by Jeff Tikari
Harry Bilinsky
A tale from a hill station in the Himalayas, India.
I sipped tea and gazed through the plate glass window of ‘Cakepoint’ and saw glimpses of the Upper Hill Road through the swirling mist outside. I was anxious and awaited the Inspector of Police to join me and give me the latest up-date.
Harry’s Curious Shop, further up the incline, was sited to the left of the upper Mal. To get there, one maneuvered a steepish climb; past a delicatessen and drycleaners that displayed neatly hung coats in glass fronted windows; and proceeded further, panting and exhaling clouds of misty air, until one reached a large level area, the Mal…across which Harry’s shop stood surrounded by mountain pine and deodar.
Wooden benches fixed permanently along the edge of the esplanade provided seats to take in the breathtaking scenery; Harry’s store enticed and beckoned from across the boulevard with twinkling lights and the promise of a cozy atmosphere.
When I entered Harry’s shop one late afternoon, a little tinkle from a bell, nudged by the opening door, alerted him to a customer coming in. A lingering smell of pipe tobacco and coffee, a warm atmosphere, and little lights over the displays created an ambience that invited one to linger, to browse ,and to take ones time. It was a comfortable place and I hoped it would always remain a hide-out for me.
Harry strode forth with a smile; he wore a brocade waist coat over white long sleeved shirt, dark worsted trousers, and black shiny shoes completed his elegant outfit. An unlit rosewood pipe dangled from the side of his welcoming smiling mouth. Amply built and of average height he supported short wavy hair parted on the side.
“Hi, Roxana – what have you been up to?” he asked with a smile.
“Busy doing my usual stuff….”
“You are looking good. Like some coffee?”
“Yeah, would love some…it’s cold outside.”
I held the hot cup in the palm of both hands, relishing its warmth, and looked around.
Harry usually sat behind the counter at the far end of the shop. If you enquired about an item he would glide to your side exuding a faint and pleasing aroma of pipe tobacco and eau-de- cologne. If you got chatting with him and happened to ask him the way to Edmond’s Mountain Climbing School, or the Zoological gardens or the many tourist places, he would escort you to the end of the counter and give you hot coffee in a styrene cup whilst he told you, in complete detail, how to get there. Harry loved helping people. He loved people asking him how-to-get-there questions. And should you ask him about his beloved hill station…you could well be rewarded with coffee and a slice of fruit cake that he kept ensconced somewhere behind the counter.
He met Svetlana when she came in one blustery afternoon. Sweet, waif-like, delicate, blue-grey eyes, pink lips and cheeks; she was a happy person and smiled a lot showing lovely teeth. I saw Harry looking at her – he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He saw her delicate fingers as she bent over and handled the trinkets on the shelf; he noticed her almost translucent skin and light brown hair beaded with droplets from the mist outside. He glided up to her, “May I help you?” She turned, hair falling half across her face, and smiled at him. Harry stood stunned …that smile hit him plumb between the eyes. Harry was a goner!
No one had seen Harry pay much attention to girls. He dressed smartly and neatly and was quite a ‘looker;’ he was friendly with girls, but that was all. Perhaps, they conceded, he had been waiting all his life for Svetlana…fate did strange things.
It was a few months later that Harry started closing his shop at three in the afternoon – ‘siesta time’ he told people. Who had heard of siesta time in India? He would reopen again to catch the evening shoppers - and there were many during the season.
After 3 p.m. every afternoon, Harry met Svetlana on the ridge - a quiet road fringed with straight trunked, tall pine trees. The road was slightly higher than town though partially visible from it. There were not many people around at that time. They held hands and walked arm in arm, laughing with a joy lovers feel in each others’ company. They slowly proceed along the tree lined path where invading mist or blind spots on the road allowed them to steal kisses. They walked all the way to ‘Lovers Point’, a steep climb over a stony road for the last kilometer left them panting at the top. There they would sit on a grassy knoll and take in the beauty of the distant green-blue mountains that rose above the mist to form towering snow peaks. The smell of pine was fresh in the mountain air. Squirrels clambered up fern encrusted trunks of nearby pine trees and watchful hawks circled the sky above waiting for a chance to pounce.
“Whew, I’m puffed! It’s so beautiful and peaceful here.”
“Hmmm,” he said, gazing at the distant peaks and sucking at his unlit pipe.
“Do you ever light that thing?”
“Yup, sure I do, sometimes…mostly after dinner.”
She made him feel special and exclusive and laughed prettily at his comments. He treated her like a princess and tried to fulfill her every wish. She didn’t have many wishes, except the wish to stay by him always.
There was a sound behind them of a twig breaking – like someone or some animal had stepped on it. They looked around, but saw nothing. The vegetation was quite dense in that area. Perhaps it was a wild deer. A waft of air brought a stale unpleasant smell.
Svetlana had come on a tourist bus that ground its way up the steep mountain road belching blue/black diesel smoke. The bus left the next day on its round of other Tourist Spots leaving Svetlana behind…she wished to stay longer. She didn’t know what was pulling her back and keeping her from leaving – she hadn’t met Harry then. She met him a week after the bus left and wondered if a premonition of meeting him had kept her from leaving.
She found accommodation with an elderly Anglo-Indian widow, Mrs. Pinto, as a paying guest in her red roofed little cottage on the hillside across from town. Mrs. Pinto had posters at the bus stand informing tourists that she took in paying-guests – females only – at very reasonable rates. ‘Hot water on tap!’ the poster boasted in attention getting lettering.
Harry lived above his shop in two large sparsely furnished rooms. From these upper rooms, through the pine trees, he could see the red corrugated roof of the little cottage.
Sometimes when the weather was wet and windy, Svetlana visited Harry at his rooms. They sat on a large mattress pushed against the wooden wall. An electrical heater warmed the young lovers as they sat laughing and kissing during the period they had before Harry went down to open the shop again.
They made love once. It was a tender, passionate meeting of two aching hearts. She said ‘no’ to any further such encounters, “It’s a sin and I am still married to a person who is somewhere in Eastern Europe.”
I asked Harry about Svetlana one day (and was rewarded with a cup of coffee), he shook his head, “Damned if I know. I’ve asked her to marry me, but she says she is not divorced. I mean, how bloody long is she going to wait. She says it’s been two years…that’s a long enough Separation to file for divorce.”
She never moved in with Harry and Harry never moved in with her.
I was in Harry’s shop one day when the bell over the door announced the entrance of two strongly built youths. Harry eyed them with some distaste and watched them closely. The lads wore scuffed leather jackets, unwashed jeans, and supported shoulder length straggly hair. They hovered around the displays exuding a stale unwashed smell. They picked up some pens, examined them closely and put them down again. They loitered around for a bit and left giving Harry a long hard look on the way out.
Harry looked down at the coffee he held in his lap, shook his head and mumbled, “Louts,” under his breath. “They hang around eyeing us when we go for walks.”
The afternoon mist lifted at 2 p.m. after months of bone chilling cold windy afternoons, but the rain came down, heavy and drenching. The north-east monsoons had arrived with deep rumbling thunder and cleaving lightning. Harry bundled into an ex-army raincoat and pu
shed his worsted trousered legs into black Wellingtons. He would take his usual route to the ridge, but if the rain didn’t let up, he would visit Svetlana briefly at the cottage.
The rain was a light drizzle when Harry arrived. Two pairs of hidden eyes surreptitiously watched as Harry walked up the mossy incline to the cottage. Pots of wet, white Geraniums lined the sides of the steps and red Begonias overflowed the wooden window boxes. A grape vine entwined around a rain drain pipe let a bunch of grapes hang enticingly above the entrance. White painted windows supported misted-over glass panes. Pine cones lay scattered on the lawn around the cottage and the mist was making an appearance, lazily drifting up through the pine. He climbed the steps and removed his raincoat, hanging it dripping on a hook by the door.
Svetlana sat in front of a log fire with a light blanket over her knees. She smiled when he came in and reached up as he bent down and kissed her.
“You’re wet, my sweet.”
“It’s a small price to pay to visit you.”
Mrs. Pinto came in; grey-haired, matronly, smiling…an apron over her dress, and feet pushed into fur lined rope soled boots. She bore a tray with a steaming pot of the local tea brew and a plate of salty biscuits.
“I saw you down the road and got some tea ready. You must be frozen. Here, let