by Ruskin Bond
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.
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 sweeper 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?’
‘No,’ said Rusty, and for the first time he did not address his guardian as ‘sir’. ‘I don’t care what I look like.’
‘You don’t...well, I’ll tell you what you look like! You look like the mongrel that you are!’
‘That’s a lie!’ exclaimed Rusty.
‘It’s the truth. I’ve tried to bring you up as an Englishman, as your father would have wished. But, as you won’t have it our way, I’m telling you that he was about the only thing English about you. You’re no better than the sweeper boy!’
Rusty flared into a temper, showing some spirit for the first time in his life. ‘I’m no better than the sweeper boy, but I am as good as him! I’m as good as you! I’m as good as anyone!’ And, instead of cringing to take the cut from the cane, he flung himself at his guardian’s legs. The cane swished through the air, grazing the boy’s back. Rusty wrapped his arms round his guardian’s legs and pulled on them with all his strength.
Mr Harrison went over, falling flat on his back.
The suddenness of the fall must have knocked the breath from his body, because for a moment he did not move.
Rusty sprang to his feet. The cut across his face had stung him to madness, to an unreasoning hate, and he did what previously he would only have dreamt of doing. Lifting a vase of the missionary’s wife’s best sweet peas off the glass cupboard, he flung it at his guardian’s face. It hit him on the chest, but the water and flowers flopped out over his face. He tried to get up; but he was
speechless.
The look of alarm on Mr Harrison’s face gave Rusty greater courage. Before the man could recover his feet and his balance, Rusty gripped him by the collar and pushed him backwards, until they both fell over on to the floor. With one hand still twisting the collar; the boy slapped his guardian’s face. Mad with the pain in his own face, Rusty hit the man again and again, wildly and awkwardly, but with the giddy thrill of knowing he could do it: he was a child no longer, he was nearly seventeen, he was a man. He could inflict pain, that was a wonderful discovery; there was a power in his body—a devil or a god—and he gained confidence in his power; and he was a man!
‘Stop that, stop it!’ The shout of a hysterical woman brought Rusty to his senses. He still held his guardian by the throat, but he stopped hitting him. Mr Harrison’s face was very red. The missionary’s wife stood in the doorway, her face white with fear. She was under the impression that Mr Harrison was being attacked by a servant or some bazaar hooligan. Rusty did not wait until she found her tongue but, with a new-found speed and agility, darted out of the drawing-room.
He made his escape from the bedroom window. From the gate he could see the missionary’s wife silhouetted against the drawing-room light. He laughed out loud. The woman swivelled round and came forward a few steps. And Rusty laughed again and began running down the road to the bazaar.
It was late. The smart shops and restaurants were closed. In the bazaar, oil lamps hung outside each doorway; people were asleep on the steps and platforms of shopfronts, some huddled in blankets, others rolled tight into themselves. The road, which during the day was a busy, noisy crush of people and animals, was quiet and deserted. Only a lean dog still sniffed in the gutter. A woman sang in a room high above the street—a plaintive, tremulous song—and in the far distance a jackal cried to the moon. But the empty, lifeless street was very deceptive; if the roofs could have been removed from but a handful of buildings, it would be seen that life had not really stopped but, beautiful and ugly, persisted through the night.
It was past midnight, though the Clock Tower had no way of saying it. Rusty was in the empty street, and the chaat shop was closed, a sheet of tarpaulin draped across the front. He looked up and down the road, hoping to meet someone he knew; the chaat-walla, he felt sure, would give him a blanket for the night and a place to sleep; and the next day when Somi came to meet him, he would tell his friend of his predicament, that he had run away from his guardian’s house and did not intend returning. But he would have to wait till morning: the chaat shop was shuttered, barred and bolted.
He sat down on the steps; but the stone was cold and his thin cotton pyjamas offered no protection. He folded his arms and huddled up in a corner, but still he shivered. His feet were becoming numb, lifeless.
Rusty had not fully realized the hazards of the situation. He was still mad with anger and rebellion and, though the blood on his cheek had dried, his face was still smarting. He could not think clearly: the present was confusing and unreal and he could not see beyond it; what worried him was the cold and the discomfort and the pain.
The singing stopped in the high window. Rusty looked up and saw a beckoning hand. As no one else in the street showed any signs of life, Rusty got up and walked across the road until he was under the window. The woman pointed to a stairway, and he mounted it, glad of the hospitality he was being offered.
The stairway seemed to go to the stars, but it turned suddenly to lead into the woman’s room. The door was slightly ajar; he knocked and a voice said, ‘Come...’
The room was filled with perfume and burning incense. A musical instrument lay in one corner. The woman reclined on a bed, her hair scattered about the pillow; she had a round, pretty face, but she was losing her youth, and the fat showed in rolls at her exposed waist. She smiled at the boy, and beckoned again.
‘Thank you,’ said Rusty, closing the door. ‘Can I sleep here?’
‘Where else?’ said the woman.
‘Just for tonight.’
She smiled, and waited. Rusty stood in front of her, his hands behind his back.
Sit down,’ she said, and patted the bedclothes beside her.
Reverently, and as respectfully as he could, Rusty sat down.
The woman ran little fair fingers over his body, and drew his head to hers; their lips were very close, almost touching, and their breathing sounded terribly loud to Rusty, but he only said, ‘I am hungry.’
A poet, thought the woman, and kissed him full on the lips; but the boy drew away in embarrassment, unsure of himself, liking the woman on the bed and yet afraid of her...
‘What is wrong?’ she asked. ‘I’m tired,’ he said. The woman’s friendly smile turned to a look of scorn; but she saw that he was only a boy whose eyes were full of unhappiness, and she could not help pitying him.
‘You can sleep here,’ she said, ‘until you have lost your tiredness.’
But he shook his head. ‘I will come some other time,’ he said, not wishing to hurt the woman’s feelings. They were both pitying each other, liking each other, but not enough to make them understand each other.
Rusty left the room. Mechanically, he descended the staircase, and walked up the bazaar road, past the silent sleeping forms, until he reached the Clock Tower. To the right of the Clock Tower was a broad stretch of grassland where, during the day, cattle grazed and children played and young men like Ranbir wrestled and kicked footballs. But now, at night, it was a vast empty space.
But the grass was soft, like the grass in the forest, and Rusty walked the length of the maidan. He found a bench and sat down, warmer for the walk. A light breeze was blowing across the maidan, pleasant and refreshing, playing with his hair. Around him everything was dark and silent and lonely. He had got away from the bazaar, which held the misery of beggars and homeless children and starving dogs, and could now concentrate on his own misery; for there was nothing like loneliness for making Rusty conscious of his unhappy state. Madness and freedom and violence were new to him: loneliness was familiar, something he understood.
Rusty was alone. Until tomorrow, he was alone for the rest of his life.
If tomorrow there was no Somi at the chaat shop, no Ranbir, then what would he do? This question badgered him persistently, making him an unwilling slave to reality. He did not know where his friends lived, he had no money, he could not ask the chaat-walla for credit on the strength of two visits. Perhaps he should return to the amorous lady in the bazaar; perhaps... but no, one thing was certain, he would never return to his guardian...
The moon had been hidden by clouds, and presently there was a drizzle. Rusty did not mind the rain, it refreshed him and made the colour run from his body; but, when it began to fall harder, he started shivering again. He felt sick. He got up, rolled his ragged pyjamas up to the thighs and crawled under the bench.
There was a hollow under the bench, and at first Rusty found it quite comfortable. But there was no grass and gradually the earth began to soften: soon he was on his hands and knees in a pool of muddy water, with the slush oozing up through his fingers and toes. Crouching there, wet and cold and muddy, he was overcome by a feeling of helplessness and self-pity: everyone and everything seemed to have turned against him; not only his people but also the bazaar and the chaat shop and even the elements. He admitted to himself that he had been too impulsive in rebelling and running away from home; perhaps there was still time to return and beg Mr Harrison’s forgiveness. But could his behaviour be forgiven? Might he not be clapped into irons for attempted murder? Most certainly he would be given another beating: not six strokes this time, but nine.
His only hope was Somi. If not Somi, then Ranbir. If not Ranbir ...well, it was no use thinking further, there was no one else to think of.
The rain had ceased. Rusty crawled out from under the bench, and stretched his cramped limbs. The moon came out from a cloud and played with his wet, glistening body, and showed him the vast, naked loneliness of the maidan and his own insignifican
ce. He longed now for the presence of people, be they beggars or women, and he broke into a trot, and the trot became a run, a frightened run, and he did not stop until he reached the Clock Tower.
The Crooked Tree
You must pass your exams and go to college, but do not feel that if you fail, you will be able to do nothing.
MY ROOM IN Shahganj was very small. I had paced about in it so often that I knew its exact measurements: twelve feet by ten. The string of my cot needed tightening. The dip in the middle was so pronounced that I invariably woke up in the morning with a backache; but I was hopeless at tightening charpoy strings.
Under the cot was my tin trunk. Its contents ranged from old, rejected manuscripts to clothes and letters and photographs. I had resolved that one day, when I had made some money with a book, I would throw the trunk and everything else out of the window, and leave Shahganj forever. But until then I was a prisoner. The rent was nominal, the window had a view of the bus stop and rickshaw stand, and I had nowhere else to go.
I did not live entirely alone. Sometimes a beggar spent the night on the balcony; and, during cold or wet weather, the boys from the tea shop, who normally slept on the pavement, crowded into the room.
Usually I woke early in the mornings, as sleep was fitful, uneasy, crowded with dreams. I knew it was five o’clock when I heard the first upcountry bus leaving its shed. I would then get up and take a walk in the fields beyond the railroad tracks.
One morning, while I was walking in the fields, I noticed someone lying across the pathway, his head and shoulders hidden by the stalks of young sugar cane. When I came near, I saw he was a boy of about sixteen. His body was twitching convulsively, his face was very white, except where a little blood had trickled down his chin. His legs kept moving and his hands fluttered restlessly, helplessly.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ I asked, kneeling down beside him.
But he was still unconscious and could not answer me.
I ran down the footpath to a well and, dipping the end of my shirt in a shallow trough of water, ran back and sponged the boy’s face. The twitching ceased and, though he still breathed heavily, his hands became still and his face calm. He opened his eyes and stared at me without any immediate comprehension.
