Collected Short Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  ‘But where will you sleep?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t feel like sleeping. Usually I go to the night show at the Picture Palace, but I suppose I’ll have to stay here because of you.’

  He looked rather sulky. Obviously I’d ruined his plans for the night.

  ‘You don’t have to stay because of me,’ I said. ‘I won’t tell the SHO. You go to the Picture Palace, I’ll look after the thana.’

  He brightened up considerably, but still looked a bit doubtful. ‘You can trust me,’ I said encouragingly. ‘My grandfather was a private soldier who became a Buddhist.’

  ‘Then I can trust you as far as your grandfather.’ He was quite cheerful now, and sent for two cups of tea from the shop across the road. It came gratis, of course. A little later he left me, and I settled down on the cot and slept fitfully. The constable came back during the early hours and went to sleep on the bench. Next morning I was allowed to go home. The Muzzaffarnagar businessman had got into another fight and was lodged in the main thana. I did not hear about the matter again.

  Ghanshyam, the constable, having struck up a friendship with me, was to visit me from time to time.

  And here he is today, boots shining, teeth gleaming, cheeks almost glowing, far too charming a person to be a policeman.

  ‘Hello, Ghanshyam bhai,’ I welcome him. ‘Sit down and have some tea.’

  ‘No, I can’t stop for long,’ he says, but sits down beside me on the veranda steps. ‘Can you do me a favour?’

  ‘Sure. What is it?’

  ‘I’m fed up with Barlowganj. I want to get a transfer.’

  ‘And how can I help you? I don’t know any netas or bigwigs.’

  ‘No, but our SP will be here next week and he can have me transferred. Will you speak to him?’

  ‘But why should he listen to me?’

  ‘Well, you see, he has a weakness . . .’

  ‘We all have our weaknesses. Does your SP have a weakness similar to mine? Do we proceed to blackmail him?’

  ‘Yes. You see, he writes poetry. And you are a kavi, a poet, aren’t you?’

  ‘At times,’ I concede. ‘And I have to admit it’s a weakness, especially as no one cares to read my poetry.’

  ‘No one reads the SP’s poetry, either. Although we have to listen to it sometimes. When he has finished reading out one of his poems, we salute and say “Shabash!”’

  ‘A captive audience. I wish I had one.’

  Ignoring my sarcasm, Ghanshyam continues: ‘The trouble is, he can’t get anyone to publish his poems. This makes him bad-tempered and unsympathetic to applications for transfer. Can you help?’

  ‘I am not a publisher. I can only salute like the rest of you.’

  ‘But you know publishers, don’t you? If you can get some of his poems published, he’d be very grateful. To you. To me. To both of us!’

  ‘You really are an optimist.’

  ‘Just one or two poems. You see, I’ve already told him about you. How you spent all night in the lock-up writing verses. He thinks you are a famous writer. He’s depending on me now. If his poems get published he will give me a transfer. I’m sick of Barlowganj!’ He gives me a hug and pinches me on the cheek.

  Before he can go any further, I say: ‘Well, I’ll do my best’—I am thinking of a little magazine published in Bhopal where most of my rejects find a home. ‘For your sake, I’ll try. But first I must see the poems.’

  ‘You shall even see the SP,’ he promises. ‘I’ll bring him here next week. You can give him a cup of tea.’

  He gets up, gives me a smart salute and goes up the path with a spring in his step. The sort of man who knows how to get his transfers and promotions in a perfectly honest manner.

  March 7

  It gets warmer day by day.

  This morning I decided to sunbathe—quite modestly, of course. Retaining my old khaki shorts but removing all other clothing, I stretched out on a mattress in the garden. Almost immediately I was disturbed by the baker (Miss Bun’s father for a change), who presented me with two loaves of bread and half a dozen chocolate pastries, ordered the previous day. Then Prem’s small son, Raki, turned up, demanding a pastry, and I gave him two. He insisted on joining me on the mattress, where he proceeded to drop crumbs in my hair and on my chest. ‘Good morning, Mr Bond!’ came the dulcet tones of Mrs Biggs, leaning over the gate. Forgetting that she was short-sighted, I jumped to my feet, and at the same time my shorts slipped down over my knees. As I grabbed for them, Mrs Biggs’s effusiveness reached greater heights. ‘Why, what a lovely agapanthus you’ve got!’ she exclaimed, referring no doubt to the solitary lily in the garden. I must confess I blushed. Then, recovering myself, I returned her greeting, remarking on the freshness of the morning.

  Mrs Biggs, at eighty, was a little deaf as well, and replied, ‘I’m very well, thank you, Mr Bond. Is that a child you’re carrying?’

  ‘Yes, Prem’s small son.’

  ‘Prem is your son? I didn’t know you had a family.’

  At this point Raki decided to pluck the spectacles off Mrs Biggs’s nose, and after I had recovered them for her, she beat a hasty retreat. Later, the Rev. Mr Biggs came over to borrow a book.

  ‘Just light reading,’ he said. ‘I can’t concentrate for long periods.’ He has become extremely absent-minded and forgetful; one of the drawbacks of living to an advanced age. During a funeral last year at which he took the funeral service, he read out the service for Burial at Sea. It was raining heavily at the time, and no one seemed to notice.

  Now he has borrowed two of my Ross Macdonalds—the same two he read last month. I refrained from pointing this out. If he has forgotten the books already, it won’t matter if he reads them again.

  Having spent the better part of his seventy-odd years in India, the Rev. Biggs has a lot of stories to tell, his favourite being the one about the crocodile he shot in Orissa when he was a young man. He’d pitched his tent on the banks of a river and gone to sleep on a camp cot. During the night he felt his cot moving, and before he could gather his wits, the cot had moved swiftly through the opening of the tent and was rapidly making its way down to the river. Mr Biggs leapt for dry land while the cot, firmly wedged on the back of the crocodile, disappeared into the darkness.

  Crocodiles, it seems, often bury themselves in the mud when they go to sleep, and Mr Biggs had pitched his tent and made his bed on top of a sleeping crocodile. Waking in the night, it had made for the nearest water.

  Mr Biggs shot it the following morning—or so he would have us believe—the crocodile having reappeared on the river bank with the cot still attached to its back.

  Now having told me this story for the umpteenth time, Biggs said he really must be going, and returning to the bookshelf, extracted Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, having forgotten the Ross Macdonalds on a side table.

  ‘I must do some serious reading,’ he said. ‘These modern novels are so violent.’

  ‘Lots of violence in Decline and Fall,’ I remarked.

  ‘Ah, but it’s history, isn’t it? Well, I must go now, Mr Macdonald. Mustn’t waste your time.’

  As he stepped outside, he collided with Miss Bun, who dropped samosas all over the veranda steps.

  ‘Oh, dear, I’m so sorry,’ he apologized, and started picking up the samosas despite my attempts to prevent him from doing so. He then took the paper bag from Miss Bun and replaced the samosas.

  ‘And who is this little girl?’ he said benignly, patting Miss Bun on the head. ‘One of your nieces?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. My favourite niece.’

  ‘Well, I must not keep you. Service as usual, on Sunday.’

  ‘Right, Mr Biggs.’

  I have never been to a local church service, but why disillusion Rev. Biggs? I shall defend everyone’s right to go to a place of worship provided they allow me the freedom to stay away.

  Miss Bun was staring after Rev. Biggs as he crossed the road. Her mouth was slightly agap
e. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s taken all the samosas!’

  When I kiss Miss Bun, she bites my lip and draws blood. ‘What was that for?’ I complain.

  ‘Just to make you angry.’

  ‘But I don’t like getting angry.’

  ‘That’s why.’

  I get angry just to please her, and we take a tumble on the carpet.

  March 11

  Does anyone here make money? Apart from the traders, of course, who tuck it all away . . .

  A young man turned up yesterday, selling geraniums. He had a bag full of geraniums—cuttings and whole plants.

  ‘All colours,’ he told me confidently. ‘Only one rupee a cutting.’

  ‘I can buy them much cheaper at the government nursery.’

  ‘But you would have to walk there, sir—six miles! I have brought these to your very doorstep. I will plant them for you in your empty ghee tins at no extra cost!’

  ‘That’s all right, you can give me a few. But what makes you sell geraniums?’

  ‘I have nothing to eat, sir. I haven’t eaten for two days.’

  He must have sold all his plants that day, because in the evening I saw him at the country liquor shop, tippling away—and all on an empty stomach, I presume!

  March 12

  Mrs Biggs tells me that someone slipped into her garden yesterday morning while she was out, and removed all her geraniums!

  ‘The most honest of people won’t hesitate to steal flowers—or books,’ I remark carelessly. ‘Never mind, Mrs Biggs, you can have some of my geraniums. I bought them yesterday.’

  ‘That’s extremely kind of you, Mr Bond. And you’ve only just put them down, I can tell,’ she says, spotting the cuttings in the Dalda tins. ‘No, I couldn’t deprive you—’

  ‘I’ll get you some,’ I offer, and generously surrender half the geraniums, vowing that if ever I come across that young man again, I’ll get him to recover all the plants he sold elsewhere.

  March 19

  Vinod, now selling newspapers, arrives as I am pouring myself a beer under the cherry tree. It’s a warm day and I can see he is thirsty.

  ‘Can I have a drink of water?’ he asks.

  ‘Would you like some beer’?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  As I have an extra bottle, I pour him a glass and he squats on the grass near the old wall and brings me up to date on the local gossip. There are about fifty papers in his shoulder bag, yet to be delivered.

  ‘You may feel drowsy after some time,’ I warn. ‘Don’t leave your papers in the wrong houses.’

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ he says, emptying the glass and gazing fondly at the bottle sparkling in the spring sunshine.

  ‘Have some more,’ I tell him, ‘and go indoors to see what Prem is making for lunch. (Stuffed gourds, fried brinjal slices and pilaf. Prem is in a good mood, preparing my favourite dishes. When I upset him, he gives me string beans.) Returning to the garden, I find Vinod well into his second glass of beer. Half of Barlowganj and all of Jharipani (the next village) are snarling and cursing, waiting for their newspapers.

  ‘Your customers must be getting impatient,’ I remark. ‘Surely they want to know the result of the cricket test.’

  ‘Oh, they heard it on the radio. This is the morning edition. I can deliver it in the evening.’

  I go indoors and have my lunch with little Raki, and ask Prem to give Vinod something to eat. When I come outside again, he is stretched out under the cherry tree, burping contentedly.

  ‘Thank you for the lunch,’ he says, and closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

  He’s gone by evening but his bag of papers rests against my front door.

  ‘He’s left his papers behind,’ I remark to Prem.

  ‘Oh, he’ll deliver them tomorrow, along with tomorrow’s paper. He’ll say the mail bus was late due to a landslide.’

  In the evening I walk through the old bazaar and linger in front of a Tibetan shop, gazing at the brassware, coloured stones, amulets, masks. I am about to pass on, when I catch a glimpse of the girl who looks after the shop. Two soft brown eyes in a round jade-smooth face. A hesitant smile.

  I step inside. I have never cared much for Tibetan handicrafts, but beautiful brown eyes are different.

  ‘Can I look around? I want to buy a present for a friend.’

  I look around. She helps me by displaying bangles, necklaces, rings—all on the assumption that my friend is a young lady.

  I choose the more frightening of two devil masks, and promise to come again for the pair to it.

  On the way home I meet Miss Bun.

  ‘When shall I come?’ she asks, pirouetting on the road. ‘Next year.’

  ‘Next year!’ Her pretty mouth falls open.

  ‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘You’ve just lost the election.’

  March 31

  Miss Bun hasn’t been for several days. This morning I find her washing clothes at the public tap. She gives me a quick smile as I pass.

  ‘It’s nice to see you hard at work,’ I remark.

  She looks quickly to left and right, then says, ‘It’s punishment, because I bought new bangles with the money you gave me.’

  I hurry on down the road.

  During the afternoon siesta I am roused by someone knocking on the door. A slim boy with thick hair and bushy eyebrows is standing there. I don’t know him, but his eyes remind me of someone.

  He tells me he is Miss Bun’s older brother. At a guess, he would be only a year or two older than her.

  ‘Come in,’ I say. It’s best to be friendly! What could he possibly want?

  He produces a bag of samosas and puts them down on my bedside table.

  ‘My sister cannot come this week. I will bring you samosas instead. Is that all right?’

  ‘Oh, sure. Sit down, sit down. So you’re Master Bun. It’s nice to know you.’

  He sits down on the edge of the bed and studies the picture on the wall—a print of Kurosawa’s Wave.

  ‘Shall I pay you now for the samosas?’ I ask.

  ‘No, no, whenever you like.’

  ‘And do you go to school or college?’

  ‘No, I help my father in the bakery. Are you ill, sir?’

  ‘No. What makes you think so?’

  ‘Because you were lying down.’

  ‘Well, I like lying down. It’s better than standing up. And I do get a headache if I read or write for too long.’

  He offers to give me a head massage, and I submit to his ministrations for about five minutes. The headache is now much worse, but I pay for both massage and samosas and tell him he can come again—preferably next year.

  My next visitor is Constable Ghanshyam Singh, who tells me that the SP has extracted confessions from a couple of thieves simply by making them stand for hours and listen to him reciting his poetry. I know our police have a reputation for torturing suspects, but I think this is carrying things a bit too far.

  ‘And what about your transfer?’ I ask.

  ‘As soon as those poems are published in the Weekly.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ I promise.

  (They appeared in the Bhopal Weekly. And a year later, when I was editing Imprint, I was able to publish one of the SP’s poems. He has always maintained that if I’d published more of them, the magazine would never have folded.)

  A note on Miss Bun

  Little Miss Bun is fond of bed,

  But she keeps a cash box in her head.

  April 8

  Rev. Biggs at the door, book in hand.

  ‘I won’t take up your time, Mr Bond. But I thought it was time I returned your butterfly book.’

  ‘My butterfly book?’

  ‘Yes, thank you very much. I enjoyed it a great deal.’

  Mr Biggs hands me the book on butterflies, a handsomely illustrated volume. It isn’t my book, but if Mr Biggs insists on giving me someone else’s book, who am I to quibble? He’d never find the right owner,
anyway.

  ‘By the way, have you seen Mrs Biggs?’ he asks.

  ‘No, not this morning, sir.’

  ‘She went off without telling me. She’s always doing things like that. Very irritating.’

  After he has gone, I glance at the fly leaf of the book. It says W. Biggs. So it’s one of his own . . .

  A little later Mrs Biggs comes by.

  ‘Have you seen Will?’ she asks.

  ‘He was here about fifteen minutes ago. He was looking for you.’

  ‘Oh, he knew I’d gone to the garden shed. How tiresome! I suppose he’s wandered off somewhere.’

  ‘Never mind, Mrs Biggs, he’ll make his way home when he gets hungry. A good lunch will always bring a wanderer home. By the way, I’ve got his book on butterflies. Perhaps you’d return it to him for me? And he shouldn’t lend it to just anyone, you know. It’s a valuable book, you don’t want to lose it.’

  ‘I’m sure it was quite safe with you, Mr Bond.’

  Books always are, of course. On principle, I never steal another man’s books. I might take his geraniums or his old school tie, but I wouldn’t deprive him of his books. Or the song or melody or dream he lives by. And here’s a little lullaby for Raki:

  Little one, don’t be afraid of this big river.

  Be safe in these warm arms for ever.

  Grow tall, my child, be wise and strong.

  But do not take from any man his song.

  Little one, don’t be afraid of this dark night.

  Walk boldly as you see the truth and light.

  Love well, my child, laugh all day long,

  But do not take from any man his song.

  April 16

  Is there something about the air at this height that makes people light-headed, absent-minded? Ten years from now I will probably be as forgetful as Mr Biggs. I must climb the next mountain before I forget where it is.