Uncles, Aunts and Elephants

by Ruskin Bond

  ‘You have to be on the street all day and in all weather,’ he told me that evening. ‘You have to be polite to everyone — no beggar succeeds by being rude! You have to be alert at all times. It’s a hard work, believe me. I wouldn’t advise anyone to take up begging as a profession.’

  Grandfather really liked to get the ‘feel’ of someone else’s occupation or lifestyle. And he enjoyed playing tricks on his friends and relatives.

  Grandmother loved bargaining with shopkeepers and vendors of all kinds. She would boast that she could get the better of most men when it came to haggling over the price of onions or cloth or baskets or buttons . . . Until one day the sabziwala, a wandering vegetable-seller who carried a basket of fruit and vegetables on his head, spent an hour on the veranda arguing with Granny over the price of various items before finally selling her what she wanted.

  Later that day, Grandfather confronted Grandmother and insisted on knowing why she had paid extra for tomatoes and green chillies. ‘Far more than you’d have paid in the bazaar,’ he said.

  ‘How do you know what I paid him?’ asked Granny.

  ‘Because here’s the ten-rupee note you gave me,’ said Grandfather, handing back her money. ‘I changed into something suitable and borrowed the sabziwala’s basket for an hour!’

  Grandfather never used makeup. He had a healthy tan, and with the help of a false moustache or beard, and a change of hairstyle, could become anyone he wanted to be.

  For my amusement, he became a tongawala; that is, the driver of a pony-drawn buggy, a common form of conveyance in the days of my boyhood.

  Grandfather borrowed a tonga from one of his cronies, and took me for a brisk and eventful ride around the town. On our way we picked up the odd customer and earned a few rupees which were dutifully handed over to the tonga-owner at the end of the day. We picked up Dr Bisht, our local physician, who failed to recognize him. But of course I was the giveaway. ‘And what are you doing here?’ asked the good doctor. ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’

  ‘I’m just helping Grandfather,’ I replied. ‘It’s part of my science project.’ Dr Bisht then took a second look at Grandfather and burst out laughing; he also insisted on a free ride.

  On one occasion Grandfather drove Grandmother to the bank without her recognizing him. And that too in a tonga with a white pony. Granny was superstitious about white ponies and avoided them as far as possible. But Grandfather, in his tonga-driver’s disguise, persuaded her that his white pony was the best-behaved little pony in the world; and so it was, under his artful guidance. As a result, Granny lost her fear of white ponies.

  One winter the Gemini Circus came to our small north Indian town, and set up its tents on the old parade ground. Grandfather, who liked circuses and circus people, soon made friends with all the show folk — the owner, the ringmaster, the lion tamer, the pony-riders, clowns, trapeze-artistes and acrobats. He told me that as a boy he’d always wanted to join a circus, preferably as an animal trainer or ringmaster, but his parents had persuaded him to become an engine driver instead.

  ‘Driving an engine must be fun,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but lions are safer,’ said Grandfather.

  And he used his friendship with the circus folk to get free passes for me, my cousin Melanie and my little friend Gautam who lived next door.

  ‘Aren’t you coming with us?’ I asked Grandfather.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ he answered. ‘I’ll be with my friends. See if you can spot me!’

  We were convinced that Grandfather was going to adopt one of his disguises and take part in the evening’s entertainment. So for Melanie, Gautam and me the evening turned out to be a guessing game.

  We were enthralled by the show’s highlights — the tigers going through their drill, the beautiful young men and women on the flying trapeze, the daring motorcyclist bursting through a hoop of fire, the jugglers and clowns — but we kept trying to see if we could recognize Grandfather among the performers. We couldn’t make too much of a noise because in the row behind us sat some of the town’s senior citizens — the mayor, a turbaned maharaja, a formally dressed Englishman with a military bearing, a couple of nuns, and Gautam’s class teacher — but we kept up our chatter for most of the show.

  ‘Is your Grandfather the lion tamer?’ asked Gautam.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t had any practice with lions. He’s better with tigers!’ But there was someone else in charge of the tigers.

  ‘He could be one of the jugglers,’ suggested Melanie.

  ‘He’s taller than the jugglers,’ I said.

  Gautam made an inspired guess: ‘Maybe he’s the bearded lady!’

  We looked hard and long at the bearded lady when she came to our side of the ring. She waved to us in a friendly manner, and Gautam called out, ‘Excuse me, are you Ruskin’s grandfather?’

  ‘No, dear,’ she replied with a deep laugh. ‘I’m his girlfriend!’ And she skipped away to another part of the ring.

  A clown came up to us and made funny faces.

  ‘Are you Grandfather?’ asked Melanie.

  But the clown just grinned, somersaulted backwards, and went about his funny business.

  ‘I give up,’ said Melanie. ‘Unless he’s the dancing bear.’

  ‘It’s a real bear,’ said Gautam. ‘Just look at those claws!’

  The bear looked real enough. So did the lion, though a trifle mangy. And the tigers looked tigerish.

  We went home convinced that Grandfather hadn’t been there at all.

  ‘So did you enjoy the circus?’ he asked, when he sat down to dinner late that evening.

  ‘Yes, but you weren’t there,’ I complained. ‘And we took a close look at everyone — including the bearded lady!’

  ‘Oh, I was there all right,’ said Grandfather. ‘I was sitting just behind you. But you were too absorbed in the circus and the performers to notice the audience. I was that smart-looking Englishman in the suit and tie, sitting between the maharaja and the nuns. I thought I’d just be myself for a change!’

  He Said It with Arsenic

  Is there such a person as a born murderer — in the sense that there are born writers and musicians, born winners and losers?

  One can’t be sure. The urge to do away with troublesome people is common to most of us, but only a few succumb to it. If ever there was a born murderer, he must surely have been William Jones. The thing came so naturally to him. No extreme violence, no messy shootings or hackings or throttling — just the right amount of poison, administered with skill and discretion.

  A gentle, civilized sort of person was Mr Jones. He collected butterflies and arranged them systematically in glass cases. His ether bottle was quick and painless. He never stuck pins into the beautiful creatures.

  Have you ever heard of the Agra Double Murder?

  It happened, of course, a great many years ago, when Agra was a far-flung outpost of the British Empire. In those days, William Jones was a male nurse in one of the city’s hospitals. The patients — specially terminal cases — spoke highly of the care and consideration he showed them. While most nurses, both male and female, preferred to attend to the more hopeful cases, Nurse William was always prepared to stand duty over a dying patient.

  He felt a certain empathy for the dying; he liked to see them on their way. It was just his good nature, of course.

  On a visit to nearby Meerut, he met and fell in love with Mrs Browning, the wife of the local stationmaster. Impassioned love letters were soon putting a strain on the Agra-Meerut postal service. The envelopes grew heavier — not so much because the letters were growing longer but because they contained little packets of a powdery, white substance, accompanied by detailed instructions as to its correct administration.

  Mr Browning, an unassuming and trustful man — one of the world’s born losers — was not the sort to read his wife’s correspondence. Even when he was seized by frequent attacks of colic, he put them down to an impure water suppl
y. He recovered from one bout of vomiting and diarrhoea only to be racked by another.

  He was hospitalized on a diagnosis of gastroenteritis, and, thus freed from his wife’s ministrations, soon got better. But on returning home and drinking a glass of nimbu pani brought to him by the solicitous Mrs Browning, he had a relapse from which he did not recover.

  Those were the days when deaths from cholera and related diseases were only too common in India, and death certificates were easier to obtain than dog licences.

  After a short interval of mourning (it was the hot weather and you couldn’t wear black for long), Mrs Browning moved to Agra, where she rented a house next door to William Jones.

  I forgot to mention that Mr Jones was also married. His wife was an insignificant creature, no match for a genius like William. Before the hot weather was over, the dreaded cholera had taken her too. The way was clear for the lovers to unite in holy matrimony.

  But Dame Gossip lived in Agra too, and it was not long before tongues were wagging and anonymous letters were being received by the superintendent of police. Inquiries were instituted. Like most infatuated lovers, Mrs Browning had hung on to her beloved’s letters and billet-doux, and these soon came to light. The silly woman had kept them in a box beneath her bed.

  Exhumations were ordered in both Agra and Meerut.

  Arsenic keeps well, even in the hottest of weather, and there was no dearth of it in the remains of both victims.

  Mr Jones and Mrs Browning were arrested and charged with murder.

  ‘Is Uncle Bill really a murderer?’ I asked from the drawing-room sofa in my grandmother’s house in Dehra. (It’s time that I told you that William Jones was my uncle, my mother’s half-brother.)

  I was eight or nine at the time. Uncle Bill had spent the previous summer with us in Dehra and had stuffed me with bazaar sweets and pastries, all of which I had consumed without suffering any ill effects.

  ‘Who told you that about Uncle Bill?’ asked Grandmother.

  ‘I heard it in school. All the boys were asking me the same question, “Is your uncle a murderer?” They say he poisoned both his wives.’

  ‘He had only one wife,’ snapped Aunt Mabel.

  ‘Did he poison her?’

  ‘No, of course not. How can you say such a thing!’

  ‘Then why is Uncle Bill in jail?’

  ‘Who says he’s in jail?’

  ‘The boys at school. They heard it from their parents. Uncle Bill is to go on trial in the Agra fort.’

  There was a pregnant silence in the drawing room, then Aunt Mabel burst out, ‘It was all that awful woman’s fault.’

  ‘Do you mean Mrs Browning?’ asked Grandmother.

  ‘Yes, of course. She must have put him up to it. Bill couldn’t have thought of anything so — so diabolical!’

  ‘But he sent her the powders, dear. And don’t forget — Mrs Browning has since . . .’

  Grandmother stopped in mid-sentence, and both she and Aunt Mabel glanced surreptitiously at me.

  ‘Committed suicide,’ I filled in. ‘There were still some powders with her.’

  Aunt Mabel’s eyes rolled heavenwards. ‘This boy is impossible. I don’t know what he will be like when he grows up.’

  ‘At least I won’t be like Uncle Bill,’ I said. ‘Fancy poisoning people! If I kill anyone, it will be in a fair fight. I suppose they’ll hang Uncle?’

  ‘Oh, I hope not!’

  Grandmother was silent. Uncle Bill was her stepson but she did have a soft spot for him. Aunt Mabel, his sister, thought he was wonderful. I had always considered him to be a bit soft but had to admit that he was generous. I tried to imagine him dangling at the end of a hangman’s rope, but somehow he didn’t fit the picture.

  As things turned out, he didn’t hang. During the Raj, white people in India seldom got the death sentence, although the hangman was pretty busy disposing of dacoits and political terrorists. Uncle Bill was given a life sentence and settled down to a sedentary job in the prison library at Naini, near Allahabad. His gifts as a male nurse went unappreciated; they did not trust him in the hospital.

  He was released after seven or eight years, shortly after the country became an independent republic. He came out of jail to find that the British were leaving, either for England or the remaining colonies. Grandmother was dead. Aunt Mabel and her husband had settled in South Africa. Uncle Bill realized that there was little future for him in India and followed his sister out to Johannesburg. I was in my last year at boarding school. After my father’s death, my mother had married an Indian, and now my future lay in India.

  I did not see Uncle Bill after his release from prison, and no one dreamt that he would ever turn up again in India.

  In fact, fifteen years were to pass before he came back, and by then I was in my early thirties, the author of a book that had become something of a bestseller. The previous fifteen years had been a struggle — the sort of struggle that every young freelance writer experiences — but at last the hard work was paying off and the royalties were beginning to come in.

  I was living in a small cottage on the outskirts of the hill station of Fosterganj, working on another book, when I received an unexpected visitor.

  He was a thin, stooped, grey-haired man in his late fifties, with a straggling moustache and discoloured teeth. He looked feeble and harmless but for his eyes which were pale cold blue. There was something slightly familiar about him.

  ‘Don’t you remember me?’ he asked. ‘Not that I really expect you to, after all these years . . .’

  ‘Wait a minute. Did you teach me at school?’

  ‘No — but you’re getting warm.’ He put his suitcase down and I glimpsed his name on the airlines label. I looked up in astonishment. ‘You’re not — you couldn’t be ...’

  ‘Your Uncle Bill,’ he said with a grin and extended his hand. ‘None other!’ And he sauntered into the house.

  I must admit that I had mixed feelings about his arrival. While I had never felt any dislike for him, I hadn’t exactly approved of what he had done. Poisoning, I felt, was a particularly reprehensible way of getting rid of inconvenient people; not that I could think of any commendable ways of getting rid of them! Still, it had happened a long time ago; he’d been punished, and presumably he was a reformed character.

  ‘And what have you been doing all these years? he asked me, easing himself into the only comfortable chair in the room.

  ‘Oh just writing,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I heard about your last book. It’s quite a success, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s doing quite well. Have you read it?’

  ‘I don’t do much reading.’

  ‘And what have you been doing all these years, Uncle Bill?’

  ‘Oh, knocking about here and there. Worked for a soft drink company for some time. And then with a drug firm. My knowledge of chemicals was useful.’

  ‘Weren’t you with Aunt Mabel in South Africa?’

  ‘I saw quite a lot of her, until she died a couple of years ago. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No. I’ve been out of touch with relatives.’ I hoped he’d take that as a hint. ‘And what about her husband?’

  ‘Died too, not long after. Not many of us left, my boy. That’s why, when I saw something about you in the papers, I thought why not go and see my only nephew again?’

  ‘You’re welcome to stay a few days,’ I said quickly. ‘Then I have to go to Bombay.’ (This was a lie, but I did not relish the prospect of looking after Uncle Bill for the rest of his days.)

  ‘Oh, I won’t be staying long,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a bit of money put by in Johannesburg. It’s just that so far as I know you’re my only living relative, and I thought it would be nice to see you again.’

  Feeling relieved, I set about trying to make Uncle Bill as comfortable as possible. I gave him my bedroom and turned the window seat into a bed for myself. I was a hopeless cook but, using all my ingenuity, I scrambled some eggs for supper. He waved
aside my apologies; he’d always been a frugal eater, he said. Eight years in jail had given him a cast-iron stomach.

  He did not get in my way but left me to my writing and my lonely walks. He seemed content to sit in the spring sunshine and smoke his pipe.

  It was during our third evening together that he said, ‘Oh, I almost forgot. There’s a bottle of sherry in my suitcase. I brought it specially for you.’

  ‘That was very thoughtful of you, Uncle Bill. How did you know I was fond of sherry?’

  ‘Just my intuition. You do like it, don’t you?’

  ‘There’s nothing like a good sherry.’

  He went to his bedroom and came back with an unopened bottle of South African sherry.

  ‘Now you just relax near the fire,’ he said agreeably. ‘I’ll open the bottle and fetch glasses.’

  He went to the kitchen while I remained near the electric fire, flipping through some journals. It seemed to me that Uncle Bill was taking rather a long time. Intuition must be a family trait, because it came to me quite suddenly — the thought that Uncle Bill might be intending to poison me.

  After all, I thought, here he is after nearly fifteen years, apparently for purely sentimental reasons. But I had just published a bestseller. And I was his nearest relative. If I were to die, Uncle Bill could lay claim to my estate and probably live comfortably on my royalties for the next five or six years!

  What had really happened to Aunt Mabel and her husband, I wondered. And where did Uncle Bill get the money for an air ticket to India?

  Before I could ask myself any more questions, he reappeared with the glasses on a tray. He set the tray on a small table that stood between us. The glasses had been filled. The sherry sparkled.

  I stared at the glass nearest me, trying to make out if the liquid in it was cloudier than that in the other glass. But there appeared to be no difference.

  I decided I would not take any chances. It was a round tray, made of smooth Kashmiri walnut wood. I turned it round with my index finger, so that the glasses changed places.