by Ruskin Bond
Somi laughed. ‘That’s what I told him yesterday, and only then did he join me in the chaat shop. I think we should call him a snob whenever he makes excuses.’
Rusty was enjoying the chaat. He ate gol-guppa after golguppa, until his throat was almost aflame and his stomach burning itself out. He was not very concerned about Holi. He was content with the present, content to enjoy the newfound pleasures of the chaat shop, and said, ‘Well, I’ll see . . . If my guardian doesn’t come back tomorrow, I’ll play Holi with you, all right?’
Ranbir was pleased. He said, ‘I will be waiting in the jungle behind your house. When you hear the drum-beat in the jungle, then it is me. Then come.’
‘Will you be there too, Somi?’ asked Rusty. Somehow, he felt safe in Somi’s presence.
‘I do not play Holi,’ said Somi. ‘You see, I am different to Ranbir. I wear a turban and he does not, also there is a bangle on my wrist, which means that I am a Sikh. We don’t play it. But I will see you the day after, here in the chaat shop.’
Somi left the shop, and was swallowed up by smoke and steam, but the chup-chup of his loose slippers could be heard for some time, until their sound was lost in the greater sound of the bazaar outside.
In the bazaar, people haggled over counters, children played in the spring sunshine, dogs courted one another, and Ranbir and Rusty continued eating gol-guppas.
*
The afternoon was warm and lazy, unusually so for spring; very quiet, as though resting in the interval between the spring and the coming summer. There was no sign of the missionary’s wife or the sweeper boy when Rusty returned, but Mr Harrison’s car stood in the driveway of the house.
At sight of the car, Rusty felt a little weak and frightened; he had not expected his guardian to return so soon and had, in fact, almost forgotten his existence. But now he forgot all about the chaat shop and Somi and Ranbir, and ran up the veranda steps in a panic.
Mr Harrison was at the top of the veranda steps, standing behind the potted palms.
The boy said, ‘Oh, hullo, sir, you’re back!’ He knew of nothing else to say, but tried to make his little piece sound enthusiastic.
‘Where have you been all day?’ asked Mr Harrison, without looking once at the startled boy. ‘Our neighbours haven’t seen much of you lately.’
‘I’ve been for a walk, sir.’
‘You have been to the bazaar.’
The boy hesitated before making a denial; the man’s eyes were on him now, and to lie Rusty would have had to lower his eyes—and this he could not do . . .
‘Yes, sir, I went to the bazaar.’
‘May I ask why?’
‘Because I had nothing to do.’
‘If you had nothing to do, you could have visited our neighbours. The bazaar is not the place for you. You know that.’
‘But nothing happened to me . . .’
‘That is not the point,’ said Mr Harrison, and now his normally dry voice took on a faint shrill note of excitement, and he spoke rapidly. ‘The point is, I have told you never to visit the bazaar. You belong here, to this house, this road, these people. Don’t go where you don’t belong.’
Rusty wanted to argue, longed to rebel, but fear of Mr Harrison held him back. He wanted to resist the man’s authority, but he was conscious of the supple malacca cane in the glass cupboard.
‘I’m sorry, sir . . .’
But his cowardice did him no good. The guardian went over to the glass cupboard, brought out the cane, flexed it in his hands. He said, ‘It is not enough to say you are sorry, you must be made to feel sorry. Bend over the sofa.’
The boy bent over the sofa, clenched his teeth and dug his fingers into the cushions. The cane swished through the air, landing on his bottom with a slap, knocking the dust from his pants. Rusty felt no pain. But his guardian waited, allowing the cut to sink in, then he administered the second stroke, and this time it hurt, it stung into the boy’s buttocks, burning up the flesh, conditioning it for the remaining cuts.
At the sixth stroke of the supple malacca cane, which was usually the last, Rusty let out a wild whoop, leapt over the sofa and charged from the room.
He lay groaning on his bed until the pain had eased.
But the flesh was so sore that he could not touch the place where the cane had fallen. Wriggling out of his pants, he examined his backside in the mirror. Mr Harrison had been most accurate: a thick purple welt stretched across both cheeks, and a little blood trickled down the boy’s thigh. The blood had a cool, almost soothing effect, but the sight of it made Rusty feel faint.
He lay down and moaned for pleasure. He pitied himself enough to want to cry, but he knew the futility of tears. But the pain and the sense of injustice he felt were both real.
A shadow fell across the bed. Someone was at the window, and Rusty looked up.
The sweeper boy showed his teeth.
‘What do you want?’ asked Rusty gruffly.
‘You hurt, chotta sahib?’
The sweeper boy’s sympathies provoked only suspicion in Rusty.
‘You told Mr Harrison where I went!’ said Rusty.
But the sweeper boy cocked his head to one side, and asked innocently, ‘Where you went, chotta sahib?’
‘Oh, never mind. Go away.’
‘But you hurt?’
‘Get out!’ shouted Rusty.
The smile vanished, leaving only a sad frightened look in the sweeper boy’s eyes.
Rusty hated hurting people’s feelings, but he was not accustomed to familiarity with servants; and yet, only a few minutes ago, he had been beaten for visiting the bazaar where there were so many like the sweeper boy.
The sweeper boy turned from the window, leaving wet fingermarks on the sill; then lifted his buckets from the ground and, with his knees bent to take the weight, walked away. His feet splashed a little in the water he had spilt, and the soft red mud flew up and flecked his legs.
Angry with his guardian and with the servant and most of all with himself, Rusty buried his head in his pillow and tried to shut out reality; he forced a dream, in which he was thrashing Mr Harrison until the guardian begged for mercy.
Chapter Five
IN THE EARLY MORNING, when it was still dark, Ranbir stopped in the jungle behind Mr Harrison’s house, and slapped his drum. His thick mass of hair was covered with red dust and his body, naked but for a cloth round his waist, was smeared green; he looked like a painted god, a green god. After a minute he slapped the drum again, then sat down on his heels and waited.
Rusty woke to the sound of the second drum-beat, and lay in bed and listened; it was repeated, travelling over the still air and in through the bedroom window. Dhum! . . . A double-beat now, one deep, one high, insistent, questioning . . .
Rusty remembered his promise, that he would play Holi with Ranbir, meet him in the jungle when he beat the drum. But he had made the promise on the condition that his guardian did not return; he could not possibly keep it now, not after the thrashing he had received.
Dhum-dhum, spoke the drum in the forest; dhum-dhum, impatient and getting annoyed . . .
‘Why can’t he shut up,’ muttered Rusty, ‘does he want to wake Mr Harrison . . .‘
Holi, the Festival of Colours, the arrival of spring, the rebirth of the new year, the awakening of love, what were these things to him, they did not concern his life, he could not start a new life, not for one day . . . and besides, it all sounded very primitive, this throwing of colour and beating of drums . . .
Dhum-dhum!
The boy sat up in bed.
The sky had grown lighter.
From the distant bazaar came a new music, many drums and voices, faint but steady, growing in rhythm and excitement. The sound conveyed something to Rusty, something wild and emotional, something that belonged to his dream-world, and on a sudden impulse he sprang out of bed.
He went to the door and listened; the house was quiet, he bolted the door. The colours of Holi, he knew, would stain his
clothes, so he did not remove his pyjamas. In an old pair of flattened rubber-soled tennis shoes, he climbed out of the window and ran over the dew-wet grass, down the path behind the house, over the hill and into the jungle.
When Ranbir saw the boy approach, he rose from the ground. The long hand-drum, the dholak, hung at his waist. As he rose, the sun rose. But the sun did not look as fiery as Ranbir who, in Rusty’s eyes, appeared as a painted demon, rather than as a god.
‘You are late, mister,’ said Ranbir, ‘I thought you were not coming.’
He had both his fists closed, but when he walked towards Rusty he opened them, smiling widely, a white smile in a green face. In his right hand was the red dust and in his left hand the green dust. And with his right hand he rubbed the red dust on Rusty’s left cheek, and then with the other hand he put the green dust on the boy’s right cheek; then he stood back and looked at Rusty and laughed. Then, according to the custom, he embraced the bewildered boy. It was a wrestler’s hug, and Rusty winced breathlessly.
‘Come,’ said Ranbir, ‘let us go and make the town a rainbow.’
*
And truly, that day there was an outbreak of spring.
The sun came up, and the bazaar woke up. The walls of the houses were suddenly patched with splashes of colour, and just as suddenly the trees seemed to have burst into flower; for in the forest there were armies of rhododendrons, and by the river the poinsettias danced; the cherry and the plum were in blossom; the snow in the mountains had melted, and the streams were rushing torrents; the new leaves on the trees were full of sweetness, the young grass held both dew and sun, and made an emerald of every dewdrop.
The infection of spring spread simultaneously through the world of man and the world of nature, and made them one.
Ranbir and Rusty moved round the hill, keeping in the fringe of the jungle until they had skirted not only the European community but also the smart shopping centre. They came down dirty little side-streets where the walls of houses, stained with the wear and tear of many years of meagre habitation, were now stained again with the vivid colours of Holi. They came to the Clock Tower.
At the Clock Tower, spring had really been declared open. Clouds of coloured dust rose in the air and spread, and jets of water—green and orange and purple, all rich emotional colours—burst out everywhere.
Children formed groups. They were armed mainly with bicycle pumps, or pumps fashioned from bamboo stems, from which was squirted liquid colour. The children paraded the main road, chanting shrilly and clapping their hands. The men and women preferred the dust to the water. They too sang, but their chanting held a significance, their hands and fingers drummed the rhythms of spring, the same rhythms, the same songs that belonged to this day every year of their lives.
Ranbir was met by some friends and greeted with great hilarity. A bicycle pump was directed at Rusty and a jet of sooty black water squirted into his face.
Blinded for a moment, Rusty blundered about in great confusion. A horde of children bore down on him, and he was subjected to a pumping from all sides. His shirt and pyjamas, drenched through, stuck to his skin; then someone gripped the end of his shirt and tugged at it until it tore and came away. Dust was thrown on the boy, on his face and body, roughly and with full force, and his tender, underexposed skin smarted beneath the onslaught.
Then his eyes cleared. He blinked and looked wildly round at the group of boys and girls who cheered and danced in front of him. His body was running mostly with sooty black, streaked with red, and his mouth seemed full of it too, and he began to spit.
Then, one by one, Ranbir’s friends approached Rusty.
Gently, they rubbed dust on the boy’s cheeks, and embraced him; they were like so many flaming demons that Rusty could not distinguish one from the other. But this gentle greeting, coming so soon after the stormy bicycle pump attack, bewildered Rusty even more.
Ranbir said, ‘Now you are one of us, come,’ and Rusty went with him and the others.
‘Suri is hiding,’ cried someone. ‘He has locked himself in his house and won’t play Holi!’
‘Well, he will have to play,’ said Ranbir, ‘even if we break the house down.’
Suri, who dreaded Holi, had decided to spend the day in a state of siege; and had set up camp in his mother’s kitchen, where there were provisions enough for the whole day. He listened to his playmates calling to him from the courtyard, and ignored their invitations, jeers, and threats; the door was strong and well-barricaded. He settled himself beneath a table, and turned the pages of the English nudists’ journal, which he bought every month chiefly for its photographic value.
But the youths outside, intoxicated by the drumming and shouting and high spirits, were not going to be done out of the pleasure of discomfiting Suri. So they acquired a ladder and made their entry into the kitchen by the skylight.
Suri squealed with fright. The door was opened and he was bundled out, and his spectacles were trampled.
‘My glasses!’ he screamed. ‘You’ve broken them!’
‘You can afford a dozen pairs!’ jeered one of his antagonists.
‘But I can’t see, you fools, I can’t see!’
‘He can’t see!’ cried someone in scorn. ‘For once in his life, Suri can’t see what’s going on! Now, whenever he spies, we’ll smash his glasses!’
Not knowing Suri very well, Rusty could not help pitying the frantic boy.
‘Why don’t you let him go,’ he asked Ranbir. ‘Don’t force him if he doesn’t want to play.’
‘But this is the only chance we have of repaying him for all his dirty tricks. It is the only day on which no one is afraid of him!’
Rusty could not imagine how anyone could possibly be afraid of the pale, struggling, spindly-legged boy who was almost being torn apart, and was glad when the others had finished their sport with him.
All day Rusty roamed the town and countryside with Ranbir and his friends, and Suri was soon forgotten. For one day, Ranbir and his friends forgot their homes and their work and the problem of the next meal, and danced down the roads, out of the town and into the forest. And, for one day, Rusty forgot his guardian and the missionary’s wife and the supple malacca cane, and ran with the others through the town and into the forest.
The crisp, sunny morning ripened into afternoon.
In the forest, in the cool dark silence of the jungle, they stopped singing and shouting, suddenly exhausted. They lay down in the shade of many trees, and the grass was soft and comfortable, and very soon everyone except Rusty was fast asleep.
Rusty was tired. He was hungry. He had lost his shirt and shoes, his feet were bruised, his body sore. It was only now, resting, that he noticed these things, for he had been caught up in the excitement of the colour game, overcome by an exhilaration he had never known. His fair hair was tousled and streaked with colour, and his eyes were wide with wonder.
He was exhausted now, but he was happy.
He wanted this to go on for ever, this day of feverish emotion, this life in another world. He did not want to leave the forest; it was safe, its earth soothed him, gathered him in so that the pain of his body became a pleasure . . .
He did not want to go home.
Chapter Six
MR HARRISON STOOD AT the top of the veranda steps. The house was in darkness, but his cigarette glowed more brightly for it. A road lamp trapped the returning boy as he opened the gate, and Rusty knew he had been seen, but he didn’t care much; if he had known that Mr Harrison had not recognized him, he would have turned back instead of walking resignedly up the garden path.
Mr Harrison did not move, nor did he appear to notice the boy’s approach. It was only when Rusty climbed the veranda steps that his guardian moved and said, ‘Who’s that?’
Still he had not recognized the boy; and in that instant Rusty became aware of his own condition, for his body was a patchwork of paint. Wearing only torn pyjamas he could, in the half-light, have easily been mistaken for the sw
eeper boy or someone else’s servant. It must have been a newly-acquired bazaar instinct that made the boy think of escape. He turned about.
But Mr Harrison shouted, ‘Come here, you!’ and the tone of his voice—the tone reserved for the sweeper boy—made Rusty stop.
‘Come up here!’ repeated Mr Harrison.
Rusty returned to the veranda, and his guardian switched on a light; but even now there was no recognition.
‘Good evening, sir,’ said Rusty.
Mr Harrison received a shock. He felt a wave of anger, and then a wave of pain: was this the boy he had trained and educated—this wild, ragged, ungrateful wretch, who did not know the difference between what was proper and what was improper, what was civilized and what was barbaric, what was decent and what was shameful—and had the years of training come to nothing? Mr Harrison came out of the shadows and cursed. He brought his hand down on the back of Rusty’s neck, propelled him into the drawing-room, and pushed him across the room so violently that the boy lost his balance, collided with a table and rolled over on to the ground.
Rusty looked up from the floor to find his guardian standing over him, and in the man’s right hand was the supple malacca cane and the cane was twitching.
Mr Harrison’s face was twitching too, it was full of fire. His lips were stitched together, sealed up with the ginger moustache, and he looked at the boy with narrowed, unblinking eyes.
‘Filth!’ he said, almost spitting the words in the boy’s face. ‘My God, what filth!’
Rusty stared fascinated at the deep yellow nicotine stains on the fingers of his guardian’s raised hand. Then the wrist moved suddenly and the cane cut across the boy’s face like a knife, stabbing and burning into his cheek.
Rusty cried out and cowered back against the wall; he could feel the blood trickling across his mouth. He looked round desperately for a means of escape, but the man was in front of him, over him, and the wall was behind.
Mr Harrison broke into a torrent of words. ‘How can you call yourself an Englishman, how can you come back to this house in such a condition? In what gutter, in what brothel have you been! Have you seen yourself? Do you know what you look like?’