by Ruskin Bond
When Daya Ram knocked on the door and told me the others had finished dinner, I left my room and made for the lounge. It was quite lively in the lounge.
Satish Dayal was at the bar, Lin at the piano, and Miss Deeds in the centre of the room, executing a tango on her own. It was obvious she had been drinking heavily.
‘All on credit,’ complained Mr Dayal to me. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be paid, but I don’t dare refuse her anything for fear she might start breaking up the hotel.’
‘She could do that, too,’ I said. ‘It would come down without much encouragement.’
Lin began to play a waltz (I think it was a waltz), and then I found Miss Deeds in front of me, saying, ‘Wouldn’t you like to dance, old boy?’
‘Thank you,’ I said, somewhat alarmed. ‘I hardly know how to.’
‘Oh, come on, be a sport,’ she said, pulling me away from the bar. I was glad Koki wasn’t present. She wouldn’t have minded, but she’d have laughed as she always laughed when I made a fool of myself.
We went around the floor in what I suppose was waltz-time, though all I did was mark time to Miss Deeds’s motions. We were not very steady—this because I was trying to keep her at arm’s length, while she was determined to have me crushed to her bosom. At length Lin finished the waltz. Giving him a grateful look, I pulled myself free. Miss Deeds went over to the piano, leaned right across it and said, ‘Play something lively, dear Mr Lin, play some hot stuff.’
To my surprise Mr Lin without so much as an expression of distaste or amusement, began to execute what I suppose was the frug or the jitterbug. I was glad she hadn’t asked me to dance that one with her.
It all appeared very incongruous to me: Miss Deeds letting herself go in crazy abandonment, Lin playing the piano with great seriousness, and Mr Dayal watching from the bar with an anxious frown. I wondered what Koki would have thought of them now.
Eventually Miss Deeds collapsed on the couch breathing heavily. ‘Give me a drink,’ she cried.
With the noblest of intentions I took her a glass of water. Miss Deeds took a sip and made a face. ‘What’s this stuff?’ she asked. ‘It is different.’
‘Water,’ I said.
‘No,’ she said, ‘now don’t joke, tell me what it is.’
‘It’s water, I assure you,’ I said.
When she saw that I was serious, her face coloured up and I thought she would throw the water at me. But she was too tired to do this and contented herself with throwing the glass over her shoulder. Mr Dayal made a dive for the flying glass, but he wasn’t in time to rescue it and it hit the wall and fell to pieces on the floor.
Mr Dayal wrung his hands. ‘You’d better take her to her room,’ he said, as though I were personally responsible for her behaviour just because I’d danced with her.
‘I can’t carry her alone,’ I said, making an unsuccessful attempt at helping Miss Deeds up from the couch.
Mr Dayal called for Daya Ram, and the big amiable youth came lumbering into the lounge. We took an arm each and helped Miss Deeds, feet dragging, across the room. We got her to her room and on to her bed. When we were about to withdraw she said, ‘Don’t go, my dear, stay with me a little while.’
Daya Ram had discreetly slipped outside. With my hand on the doorknob I said, ‘Which of us?’
‘Oh, are there two of you?’ said Miss Deeds, without a trace of disappointment.
‘Yes, Daya Ram helped me carry you here.’
‘Oh, and who are you?’
‘I’m the writer. You danced with me, remember?’
‘Of course. You dance divinely, Mr Writer. Do stay with me. Daya Ram can stay too if he likes.’
I hesitated, my hand on the doorknob. She hadn’t opened her eyes all the time I’d been in the room, her arms hung loose, and one bare leg hung over the side of the bed. She was fascinating somehow, and desirable, but I was afraid of her. I went out of the room and quietly closed the door.
As I lay awake in bed I heard the jackal’s ‘pheau’, the cry of fear which it communicates to all the jungle when there is danger about, a leopard or a tiger. It was a weird howl, and between each note there was a kind of low gurgling. I switched off the light and peered through the closed window. I saw the jackal at the edge of the lawn. It sat almost vertically on its haunches, holding its head straight up to the sky, making the neighbourhood vibrate with the eerie violence of its cries. Then suddenly it started up and ran off into the trees.
Before getting back into bed I made sure the window was shut. The bull-frog was singing again, ‘ing-ong, ing-ong’, in some foreign language. I wondered if Koki was awake too, thinking about me. It must have been almost eleven o’clock. I thought of Miss Deeds with her leg hanging over the edge of the bed. I tossed restlessly and then sat up. I hadn’t slept for two nights but I was not sleepy. I got out of bed without turning on the light and slowly opening my door, crept down the passageway. I stopped at the door of Miss Deeds’s room. I stood there listening, but I heard only the ticking of the big clock that might have been in the room or somewhere in the passage. I put my hand on the doorknob but the door was bolted.
I would definitely leave Shamli the next morning. Another day in the company of these people and I would be behaving like them. Perhaps I was already doing so! I remembered the tonga-driver’s words: ‘Don’t stay too long in Shamli or you will never leave!’
When the rain came, it was not with a preliminary patter or shower, but all at once, sweeping across the forest like a massive wall, and I could hear it in the trees long before it reached the house. Then it came crashing down on the corrugated roof, and the hailstones hit the window panes with a hard metallic sound so that I thought the glass would break. The sound of thunder was like the booming of big guns and the lightning kept playing over the garden. At every flash of lightning I sighted the swing under the tree, rocking and leaping in the air as though some invisible, agitated being was sitting on it. I wondered about Kiran. Was she sleeping through all this, blissfully unconcerned, or was she lying awake in bed, starting at every clash of thunder as I was? Or was she up and about, exulting in the storm? I half expected to see her come running through the trees, through the rain, to stand on the swing with her hair blowing wild in the wind, laughing at the thunder and the angry skies. Perhaps I did see her, perhaps she was there. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she were some forest nymph living in the hole of a tree, coming out sometimes to play in the garden.
A crash, nearer and louder than any thunder so far, made me sit up in bed with a start. Perhaps lightning had struck the house. I turned on the switch but the light didn’t come on. A tree must have fallen across the line.
I heard voices in the passage—the voices of several people. I stepped outside to find out what had happened, and started at the appearance of a ghostly apparition right in front of me. It was Mr Dayal standing on the threshold in an oversized pyjama suit, a candle in his hand.
‘I came to wake you,’ he said. ‘This storm …
’ He had the irritating habit of stating the obvious.
‘Yes, the storm,’ I said. ‘Why is everybody up?’
‘The back wall has collapsed and part of the roof has fallen in. We’d better spend the night in the lounge— it is the safest room. This is a very old building,’ he added apologetically.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I am coming.’
The lounge was lit by two candles. One stood over the piano, the other on a small table near the couch. Miss Deeds was on the couch, Lin was at the piano stool, looking as though he would start playing Stravinsky any moment, and Dayal was fussing about the room. Koki was standing at a window, looking out at the stormy night. I went to the window and touched her but she didn’t look around or say anything. The lightning flashed and her dark eyes were lit up for an instant.
‘What time will you be leaving?’ she asked.
‘The tonga will come for me at seven.’
‘If I come,’ she said, ‘if I come to the
station, I will be there before the train leaves.’
‘How will you get there?’ I asked, excitement rushing over me suddenly.
‘I will get there,’ she said. ‘I will get there before you. But if I am not there, then do not wait, do not come back for me. Go on your way.’
She squeezed my fingers, then drew her hand away. I sauntered over to the next window, then back into the centre of the room. A gust of wind blew through a cracked windowpane and put out the candle near the couch.
‘Damn the wind,’ said Miss Deeds.
The window in my room had burst open during the night and there were leaves and branches strewn about the floor. I sat down on the damp bed and smelt eucalyptus. The earth was red, as though the storm had bled it all night.
After a little while I went into the veranda with my suitcase to wait for the tonga. It was then that I saw Kiran under the trees. Kiran’s long black pigtails were tied up in a red ribbon, and she looked fresh and clean like the rain and the red earth. She stood looking seriously at me.
‘Did you like the storm?’ she asked.
‘Some of the time,’ I said. ‘I’m going soon. Can I do anything for you?’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to the end of the world. I’m looking for Major Roberts, have you seen him anywhere?’
‘There is no Major Roberts,’ she said perceptively. ‘Can I come with you to the end of the world?’
‘What about your parents?’
‘Oh, we won’t take them.’
‘They might be annoyed if you go off on your own.’
‘I can stay on my own. I can go anywhere.’
‘Well, one day I’ll come back here and I’ll take you everywhere and no one will stop us. Now is there anything else I can do for you?’
‘I want some flowers, but I can’t reach them.’ She pointed to a hibiscus tree that grew against the wall. It meant climbing the wall to reach the flowers. Some of the red flowers had fallen during the night and were floating in a pool of water.
‘All right,’ I said and pulled myself up on the wall. I smiled down into Kiran’s serious, upturned face. ‘I’ll throw them to you and you can catch them.’
I bent a branch, but the wood was young and green and I had to twist it several times before it snapped.
‘I hope nobody minds,’ I said, as I dropped the flowering branch to Kiran.
‘It’s nobody’s tree,’ she said.
‘Sure?’
She nodded vigorously. ‘Sure, don’t worry.’
I was working for her and she felt immensely capable of protecting me. Talking and being with Kiran, I felt a nostalgic longing for childhood—emotions that had been beautiful because they were never completely understood.
‘Who is your best friend?’ I said.
‘Daya Ram,’ she replied. ‘I told you so before.’
She was certainly faithful to her friends.
‘And who is the second best?’
She put her finger in her mouth to consider the question, and her head dropped sideways.
‘I’ll make you the second best,’ she said.
I dropped the flowers over her head. ‘That so kind of you. I’m proud to be your second best.’
I heard the tonga bell, and from my perch on the wall saw the carriage coming down the driveway. ‘That’s for me,’ I said. ‘I must go now.’
I jumped down the wall. And the sole of my shoe came off at last.
‘I knew that would happen,’ I said.
‘Who cares for shoes,’ said Kiran.
‘Who cares,’ I said.
I walked back to the veranda and Kiran walked beside me, and stood in front of the hotel while I put my suitcase in the tonga.
‘You nearly stayed one day too late,’ said the tonga-driver. ‘Half the hotel has come down and tonight the other half will come down.’
I climbed into the back seat. Kiran stood on the path, gazing intently at me.
‘I’ll see you again,’ I said.
‘I’ll see you in Iceland or Japan,’ she said. ‘I’m going everywhere.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘maybe you will.’
We smiled, knowing and understanding each other’s importance. In her bright eyes I saw something old and wise. The tonga-driver cracked his whip, the wheels creaked, the carriage rattled down the path. We kept waving to each other. In Kiran’s hand was a spring of hibiscus. As she waved, the blossoms fell apart and danced a little in the breeze.
Shamli station looked the same as it had the day before. The same train stood at the same platform and the same dogs prowled beside the fence. I waited on the platform till the bell clanged for the train to leave, but Koki did not come.
Somehow, I was not disappointed. I had never really expected her to come.
Shamli would always be there. And I could always come back, looking for Major Roberts.
My Most Important Day
ONE SUMMER MORNING I was up a little earlier than usual, well before sunrise, well before my buxom landlady, Bibiji, called up to me to come down for my tea and parantha. It was going to be a special day and I wanted to tell the world about it. But when you’re just twenty-four the world isn’t really listening to you.
I bathed at the tap, put on a clean (but unironed) shirt, trousers that needed cleaning, shoes that needed polishing. I never cared much about appearances. But I did have a nice leather belt with studs! I tightened it to the last rung. I was slim, just a little undernourished.
On the streets, the milkmen on their bicycles were making their rounds, reminding me of William Saroyan, who sold newspapers as a boy, and recounted his experiences in The Bicycle Rider in Beverley Hills. Stray dogs and cows were nosing at dustbins. A truck loaded with bananas was slowly making its way towards the mandi.
In the distance there was the whistle of an approaching train.
One or two small tea shops had just opened, and I stopped at one of them for a cup of tea. As it was a special day, I decided to treat myself to an omelette. The shopkeeper placed a record on his new electric record player, and the strains of a popular film tune served to wake up all the neighbours—a song about a girl’s red dupatta being blown away by a gust of wind and then being retrieved by a handsome but unemployed youth. I finished my omelette and set off down the road to the bazaar.
It was a little too early for most of the shops to be open, but the news agency would be the first and that was where I was heading.
And there it was: the National News Agency, with piles of fresh newspapers piled up at the entrance. The Leader of Allahabad, the Pioneer of Lucknow, the Tribune of Ambala, and the bigger national dailies. But where was the latest Illustrated Weekly of India? Was it late this week? I did not always get up at six in the morning to pick up the Weekly, but this week’s issue was a special one. It was my issue, my special bow to the readers of India and the whole wide beautiful wonderful world. My novel was to be published in England, but first it would be serialized in India!
Mr Gupta popped his head out of the half-open shop door and smiled at me.
‘What brings you here so early this morning?’
‘Has the Weekly arrived?’
‘Come in. It’s here. I can’t leave it on the pavement.’
I produced a rupee. ‘Give me two copies.’
‘Something special in it? Did you win first prize in the crossword competition?’
My hands were not exactly trembling as I opened the magazine, but my heart was in my mouth as I flipped through the pages of that revered journal— the one and only family magazine of the 1950s, the gateway to literary success—edited by a quirky Irishman, Shaun Mandy.
And there it was: the first instalment of my novel, that naïve, youthful novel on which I had toiled for so long. It had lively, evocative illustrations by Mario, who wasn’t much older than me. And a picture of the young author, looking gauche and gaunt and far from intellectual.
I waved the magazine in front of Mr Gupta. �
�My novel!’ I told him. ‘In this and the next five issues!’
He wasn’t too impressed. ‘Well, I hope circulation won’t drop,’ he said. ‘And you should have sent them a better photograph.’
Expansively, I bought a third copy.
‘Circulation is going up!’ said Mr Gupta with a smile.
The bazaar was slowly coming to life. Spring was in the air, and there was a spring in my step as I sauntered down the road. I wanted to tell the world about my triumph, but was the world interested? I had no mentors in our sleepy little town. There was no one to whom I could go and confide: ‘Look what I’ve done. And it was all due to your encouragement, thanks!’ Because there really hadn’t been anyone to encourage or help, not then nor in the receding past. Devinder had left Dehra shortly after my return, for he had gone to Delhi to get some kind of employment. My other friends—Somi, Ranbir and Kishen—too weren’t here in Dehra. Had they been with me, they would have gone around announcing my achievement to everyone in town. The members of the local cricket team, to which I belonged, would certainly be interested, and one or two would exclaim: ‘Shabash! Now you can get us some new pads and a set of balls!’ And there were other friends who would demand a party at the chaat shop, which was fine, but would any of them read my book? Readers were not exactly thick on the ground, even in those pre-television, pre-computer days. But perhaps one or two would read it, out of loyalty.
A cow stood in the middle of the road, blocking my way.
‘See here, friend cow,’ I said, displaying the magazine to the ruminating animal. ‘Here’s the first instalment of my novel. What do you think of it?’
The cow looked at the magazine with definite interest. Those crisp new pages looked good to eat. She craned forward as if to accept my offer of breakfast, but I snatched the magazine away.
‘I’ll lend it to you another day,’ I said, and moved on.
I got on quite well with cows, especially stray ones. There was one that blocked the steps up to my room, sheltering there at night or when it rained. The cow had become used to me scrambling over her to get to the steps; my comings and goings did not bother her. But she was resentful of people who tried to prod or push her out of the way. To the delight of the other tenants, she had taken a dislike to the munshi, the property owner’s rent collector, and often chased him away.