by Ruskin Bond
The coral tree stood in front of the house surrounded by pools of water and broken, fallen blossoms. The branches of the tree were thick with the scarlet, pea-shaped flowers.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Just let me get ready.’
The tree was easy to climb, and I made myself comfortable on one of the lower branches, smiling down at the serious upturned face of the girl.
‘I’ll throw them down to you,’ I said.
I bent a branch but the wood was young and green, and I had to twist it several times before it snapped.
‘I’m not sure that I ought to do this,’ I said, as I dropped the flowering branch to the girl.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said.
‘Well, if you’re ready to speak up for me—’
‘Don’t worry.’
I felt a sudden nostalgic longing for childhood and an urge to remain behind in my grandfather’s house with its tangled memories and ghosts of yesteryear. But I was the only one left, and what could I do except climb coral and jackfruit trees?
‘Have you many friends?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Who is the best?’
‘The cook. He lets me stay in the kitchen, which is more interesting than the house. And I like to watch him cooking. And he gives me things to eat, and tells me stories …’
‘And who is your second best friend?’
She inclined her head to one side, and thought very hard.
‘I’ll make you the second best,’ she said.
I sprinkled coral blossoms over her head. ‘That’s very kind of you. I’m happy to be your second best.’
A tonga bell sounded at the gate, and I looked out from the tree and said, ‘It’s come for me. I have to go now.’
I climbed down.
‘Will you help me with my suitcases?’ I asked, as we walked together towards the veranda. ‘There is no one here to help me. I am the last to go. Not because I want to go, but because I have to.’
I sat down on the cot and packed a few last things in a suitcase. All the doors of the house were locked. On my way to the station I would leave the keys with the caretaker. I had already given instructions to an agent to try and sell the house. There was nothing more to be done.
We walked in silence to the waiting tonga, thinking and wondering about each other.
‘Take me to the station,’ I said to the tonga driver.
The girl stood at the side of the path, on the damp red earth, gazing at me.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I hope I shall see you again.’
‘I’ll see you in London,’ she said, ‘or America or Japan. I want to go everywhere.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ I said. ‘And perhaps I’ll come back and we’ll meet again in this garden. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’
She nodded and smiled. We knew it was an important moment.
The tonga driver spoke to his pony, and the carriage set off down the gravel path, rattling a little. The girl and I waved to each other.
In the girl’s hand was a sprig of coral blossom. As she waved, the blossoms fell apart and danced lightly in the breeze.
‘Goodbye!’ I called.
‘Goodbye!’ called the girl.
The ribbon had come loose from her pigtail and lay on the ground with the coral blossoms.
‘I’m going everywhere,’ I said to myself, ‘and no one can stop me.’
And she was fresh and clean like the rain and the red earth.
Going Home
The train came panting through the forest and into the flat brown plain. The engine whistled piercingly, and a few cows moved off the track. In a swaying third-class compartment two men played cards; a woman held a baby to an exposed breast; a Sikh labourer, wearing brief pants, lay asleep on an upper bunk, snoring fitfully; an elderly unshaven man chewed the last of his pan and spat the red juice out of the window. A small boy, mischief in his eyes, jingled a bag of coins in front of an anxious farmer.
Daya Ram, the farmer, was going home; home to his rice fields, his buffalo and his wife. A brother had died recently, and Daya Ram had taken the ashes to Hardwar to immerse them in the holy waters of the Ganga, and now he was on the train to Dehra and soon he would be home. He was looking anxious because he had just remembered his wife’s admonition about being careful with money. Ten rupees was what he had left with him, and it was all in the bag the boy held.
‘Let me have it now,’ said Daya Ram, ‘before the money falls out.’ He made a grab at the little bag that contained his coins, notes and railway ticket, but the boy shrieked with delight and leapt out of the way.
Daya Ram stroked his moustache; it was a long drooping moustache that lent a certain sadness to his somewhat kind and foolish face. He reflected that it was his own fault for having started the game. The child had been sulky and morose, and to cheer him up Daya Ram had begun jingling his money. Now the boy was jingling the money, right in front of the open window.
‘Come now, give it back,’ pleaded Daya Ram, ‘or I shall tell your mother.’
The boy’s mother had her back to them, and it was a large back, almost as forbidding as her front. But the boy was enjoying his game and would not give up the bag. He was exploiting to the full Daya Ram’s easy-going tolerant nature, and kept bobbing up and down on the seat, waving the bag in the poor man’s face.
Suddenly the boy’s mother, who had been engrossed in conversation with another woman, turned and saw what was happening. She walloped the boy over the head and the suddenness of the blow (it was more of a thump than a slap) made him fall back against the window, and the cloth bag fell from his hand on to the railway embankment outside.
Now Daya Ram’s first impulse was to leap out of the moving train. But when someone shouted, ‘Pull the alarm cord!’ he decided on this course of action. He plunged for the alarm cord, but just at the moment someone else shouted, ‘Don’t pull the cord!’ and Daya Ram who usually listened to others, stood in suspended animation, waiting for further directions.
‘Too many people are stopping trains every day all over India,’ said one of the card players, who wore large thick-rimmed spectacles over a pair of tiny humourless eyes, and was obviously a post office counter-clerk. ‘You people are becoming a menace to the railways.’
‘Exactly,’ said the other card player. ‘You stop the train on the most trifling excuses. What is your trouble?’
‘My money has fallen out,’ said Daya Ram.
‘Why didn’t you say so!’ exclaimed the clerk, jumping up. ‘Stop the train!’
‘Sit down,’ said his companion, ‘it’s too late now. The train cannot wait here until he walks half a mile back down the line. How much did you lose?’ he asked Daya Ram.
‘Ten rupees.’
‘And you have no more?’
Daya Ram shook his head.
‘Then you had better leave the train at the next station and go back for it.’
The next station, Harrawala, was about ten miles from the spot where the money had fallen. Daya Ram got down from the train and started back along the railway track. He was a well-built man, with strong legs and a dark, burnished skin. He wore a vest and dhoti, and had a red cloth tied round his head. He walked with long, easy steps, but the ground had been scorched by the burning sun, and it was not long before his feet were smarting. His eyes too were unaccustomed to the glare of the plains, and he held a hand up over them, or looked at the ground. The sun was high in the sky, beating down on his bare arms and legs. Soon his body was running with sweat, his vest was soaked through and sticking to his skin.
There were no trees anywhere near the lines, which ran straight to the hazy blue horizon. There were fields in the distance, and cows grazed on short grass, but there were no humans in sight. After an hour’s walk, Daya Ram felt thirsty; his tongue was furred, his gums dry, his lips like parchment. When he saw a buffalo wallowing in a muddy pool, he hurried to the spot and drank thirstily of the stagnant water.
Sti
ll, his pace did not slacken. He knew of only one way to walk, and that was at this steady long pace. At the end of another hour he felt sure he had passed the place where the bag had fallen. He had been inspecting the embankment very closely, and now he felt discouraged and dispirited. But still he walked on. He was worried more by the thought of his wife’s attitude than by the loss of the money or the problem of the next meal.
Rather than turn back, he continued walking until he reached the next station. He kept following the lines, and after half an hour dragged his aching feet on to Raiwala platform. To his surprise and joy, he saw a note in Hindi on the notice board: ‘Anyone having lost a bag containing some notes and coins may inquire at the stationmaster’s office.’ Some honest man or woman or child had found the bag and handed it in. Daya Ram felt, that his faith in the goodness of human nature had been justified.
He rushed into the office and, pushing aside an indignant clerk, exclaimed: ‘You have found my money!’
‘What money?’ snapped the harassed-looking official. ‘And don’t just charge in here shouting at the top of your voice, this is not a hotel!’
‘The money I lost on the train,’ said Daya Ram. ‘Ten rupees.’
‘In notes or in coins?’ asked the stationmaster, who was not slow in assessing a situation.
‘Six one-rupee notes,’ said Daya Ram. ‘The rest in coins.’
‘Hmmm … and what was the purse like?’
‘White cloth,’ said Daya Ram. ‘Dirty white cloth,’ he added for clarification.
The official put his hand in a drawer, took out the bag and flung it across the desk. Without further parley, Daya Ram scooped up the bag and burst through the swing doors, completely revived after his fatiguing march.
Now he had only one idea: to celebrate, in his small way, the recovery of his money.
So, he left the station and made his way through a sleepy little bazaar to the nearest tea shop. He sat down at a table and asked for tea and a hookah. The shopkeeper placed a record on a gramophone, and the shrill music shattered the afternoon silence of the bazaar.
A young man sitting idly at the next table smiled at Daya Ram and said, ‘You are looking happy, brother.’
Daya Ram beamed. ‘I lost my money and found it,’ he said simply.
‘Then you should celebrate with something stronger than tea,’ said the friendly stranger with a wink. ‘Come on into the next room.’ He took Daya Ram by the arm and was so comradely that the older man felt pleased and flattered. They went behind a screen, and the shopkeeper brought them two glasses and a bottle of country-made rum.
Before long, Daya Ram had told his companion the story of his life. He had also paid for the rum and was prepared to pay for more. But two of the young man’s friends came in and suggested a card game and Daya Ram, who remembered having once played a game of cards in his youth, showed enthusiasm. He lost sportingly, to the tune of five rupees; the rum had such a benevolent effect on his already genial nature that he was quite ready to go on playing until he had lost everything, but the shopkeeper came in hurriedly with the information that a policeman was hanging about outside. Daya Ram’s table companions promptly disappeared.
Daya Ram was still happy. He paid for the hookah and the cup of tea he hadn’t had, and went lurching into the street. He had some vague intention of returning to the station to catch a train, and had his ticket in his hand; by now his sense of direction was so confused that he turned down a side alley and was soon lost in a labyrinth of tiny alleyways. Just when he thought he saw trees ahead, his attention was drawn to a man leaning against a wall and groaning wretchedly. The man was in rags, his hair was tousled, and his face looked bruised.
Daya Ram heard his groans and stumbled over to him.
‘What is wrong?’ he asked with concern. ‘What is the matter with you?’
‘I have been robbed,’ said the man, speaking with difficulty. ‘Two thugs beat me and took my money. Don’t go any further this way.’
‘Can I do anything for you?’ said Daya Ram. ‘Where do you live?’
‘No, I will be all right,’ said the man, leaning heavily on Daya Ram. ‘Just help me to the corner of the road, and then I can find my way.’
‘Do you need anything?’ said Daya Ram. ‘Do you need any money?’
‘No, no just help me to those steps.’
Daya Ram put an arm around the man and helped him across the road, seating him on a step.
‘Are you sure I can do nothing for you?’ persisted Daya Ram.
The man shook his head and closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall. Daya Ram hesitated a little, and then left. But as soon as Daya Ram turned the corner, the man opened his eyes. He transferred the bag of money from the fold of his shirt to the string of his pyjamas. Then, completely recovered, he was up and away.
Daya Ram discovered his loss when he had gone about fifty yards, and then it was too late. He was puzzled, but was not upset. So many things had happened to him today, and he was confused and unaware of his real situation. He still had his ticket, and that was what mattered most.
The train was at the station, and Daya Ram got into a half-empty compartment. It was only when the train began to move that he came to his senses and realized what had befallen him. As the engine gathered speed, his thoughts came faster. He was not worried (except by the thought of his wife) and he was not unhappy, but he was puzzled. He was not angry or resentful, but he was a little hurt. He knew he had been tricked, but he couldn’t understand why. He had really liked those people he had met in the tea shop of Raiwala, and he still could not bring himself to believe that the man in rags had been putting on an act.
‘Have you got a beedi?’ asked a man beside him, who looked like another farmer.
Daya Ram had a beedi. He gave it to the other man and lit it for him. Soon they were talking about crops and rainfall and their respective families, and although a faint uneasiness still hovered at the back of his mind, Daya Ram had almost forgotten the day’s misfortunes. He had his ticket to Dehra and from there he had to walk only three miles, and then he would be home, and there would be hot milk and cooked vegetables waiting for him. He and the other farmer chattered away, as the train went panting across the wide brown plain.
The Daffodil Case
It was a foggy day in March that found me idling along Baker Street, with my hands in my raincoat pockets, a threadbare scarf wound round my neck, and two pairs of socks on my feet. The BBC had commissioned me to give a talk on village life in northern India, and, ambling along Baker Street in the fog, thinking about the talk, I realized that I didn’t really know very much about village life in India or anywhere else.
True, I could recall the smell of cowdung smoke and the scent of jasmine and the flood waters lapping at the walls of mud houses, but I didn’t know much about village electorates or crop rotation or sugarcane prices. I was on the point of turning back and making my way to India House to get a few facts and figures when I realized I wasn’t on Baker Street any more.
Wrapped in thought, I had wandered into Regent’s Park. And now I wasn’t sure of the way out.
A tall gentleman wearing a long grey cloak was stooping over a flower bed. Going up to him, I asked, ‘Excuse me, sir—can you tell me how I get out of here?’
‘How did you get in?’ he asked in an impatient tone, and when he turned and faced me, I received quite a shock. He wore a peaked hunting cap, and in one hand he held a large magnifying glass. A long curved pipe hung from his sensuous lips. He possessed a strong, steely jaw and his eyes had a fierce expression—they were bright with the intoxication of some drug.
‘Good heavens!’ I exclaimed. ‘You’re Sherlock Holmes!’
‘And you, sir,’ he replied, with a flourish of his cloak, ‘are just out of India, unemployed, and due to give a lecture on the radio.’
‘How did you know all that?’ I stammered. ‘You’ve never seen me before. I suppose you know my name, too?’
‘Element
ary, my dear Bond. The BBC notepaper in your hand, on which you have been scribbling, reveals your intentions. You are unsure of yourself, so you are not a TV personality. But you have a considered and considerate tone of voice. Definitely radio. Your name is on the envelope which you are holding upside down. It’s Bond, but you’re definitely not James—you’re not the type! You have to be unemployed, otherwise what would you be doing in the Park when the rest of mankind is hard at work in office, field, or factory?’
‘And how do you know I’m from India?’ I asked, a little resentfully.
‘Your accent betrays you,’ said Holmes with a knowing smile.
I was about to turn away and leave him when he laid a restraining hand on my shoulder.
‘Stay a moment,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you can be of assistance. I’m surprised at Watson. He promised to be here fifteen minutes ago but his wife must have kept him at home. Never marry, Bond. Women sap the intellect.’
‘In what way can I help you?’ I asked, feeling flattered now that the great man had condescended to take me into his confidence.
‘Take a look at this,’ said Holmes, going down on his knees near a flower-bed. ‘Do you notice anything unusual?’
‘Someone’s been pulling out daffodils,’ I said.
‘Excellent, Bond! Your power of observation is as good as Watson’s. Now tell me, what else do you see?’
‘The ground is a little trampled, that’s all.’
‘By what?’
‘A human foot. In high heels. And … a dog has been here too, it’s been helping to dig up the bulbs!’
‘You astonish me, Bond. You are quicker than I thought you’d be. Now shall I explain what, this is all about? You see, for the past week someone has been stealing daffodils from the park, and the authorities have now asked me to deal with the matter. I think we shall catch our culprit today.’
I was rather disappointed. ‘It isn’t dangerous work, then?’
‘Ah, my dear Bond, the days are past when Ruritanian princes lost their diamonds and maharanis their rubies. There are no longer any Ruritanian princes and maharanis cannot afford rubies—unless they’ve gone into the fast-food business. The more successful criminals now work on the stock exchange, and the East End has been cleaned up. Dr Fu Manchu has a country house in Dorset. And those cretins at Scotland Yard don’t even believe in my existence!’