I exclaimed, ‘Gosh, thank goodness you didn’t take it with you – I don’t know what I’d have done if you had.’
And then Sirhan Sears said what Apa hadn’t. ‘But you took a chance there, Eve – you could have hit the boy, instead.’
I nodded. ‘I know – but I didn’t have any choice, did I? If I didn’t shoot, he’d die anyway.’
The three men were silent, and I thought they hadn’t understood. I explained, ‘The dog would have bitten him, and Kasauli’s too far away – we’re miles and miles even from the railhead.’
Apa broke in, ‘More than a hundred and fifty – I did that sum the moment you began running towards them.’
I said, ‘There you are, then – he’d have had to walk or be carried all the way – it would have been too late. Anyway, the dog was going for his face, so—’ I repeated, ‘So I knew if I didn’t shoot he was bound to die – but if I shot there was a chance I might hit the dog, instead. And I did.’
Then Pandit Kishan Singh, Rai Bahadur, stepped forward and bowed formally to Apa, before saying, ‘I salute the man from whose loins has sprung such a brave young tigress.’
My legs finally gave way under me, and I sat down on the ground with a bump.
Chapter Four
That’s why I remember Niti so well. But shooting the rabid dog isn’t the only reason – I remember it too because of how Apa talked to me, afterwards.
We’d bade goodbye to the Pandit, and then to Sirhan Sears. He wanted to get back to Naini Tal, and although I was a fast walker my thirteen year-old legs couldn’t compete with his long, muscular thirty-five year-old ones. A couple of his servants were on their way up to meet him, but he usually travelled light in any case. I practised my tiger call for one last time, then he was on his way. Faizullah and the porters had gone on ahead with the baggage, so Apa and I took one last look at Niti, and then set off together.
I talked of the mad dog again; my fears and relief mingled with pride, now. And Apa listened, as he always did, and then, when I’d talked myself out, he said quietly, ‘You’ve grown up, Eve – you’re not a child any longer.’
And from then on, there was a shift in the balance of our relationship. Apa had always explained, given reasons – let me make my own choices, whenever that was possible – but there’d never been any doubt that he was the adult and I was the child. Of course, afterwards he still often played the adult, but – not always, not now. Not after Niti, And that evening, as we sat beside the campfire at Malari, he talked to me as though I were his equal. And he told me things he’d never spoken of before – like how my mother died.
The accident which killed her had happened as he was watching. It was down in the terai, she was riding. ‘She was a marvellous horsewoman, my Katya. But she was only moving at walking pace, because she had you with her – you were sitting in front of her, she was holding you steady, her arm curled around you. You were laughing and she was laughing, both of you laughing together.’ A snake sprang up in front of the horse. A hamadryad, the deadly king cobra – the only snake which will attack deliberately. It hit the horse on its muzzle – the horse reared up, throwing Anya. In those last moment she’d tossed me up in a clear arc, over into the cushioning safety of a clump of bushes. Then the horse landed, rolling on her. She wasn’t killed at once. ‘Your baby brother was born, too soon. He died.’ And so did Anya, soon after. ‘All that grace and beauty and joy, crushed into the dust.’
Apa’s face was drawn and sad in the flickering shadows of the flames as he said quietly, ‘She died so bravely. She was always braver than me.’ He looked up and told me, ‘I’m a superstitious coward, Eve – that’s why I’ve never let you learn to ride, despite all your pleading.’ He sighed. ‘But you’re growing up now, and one day you’ll be entitled to make your own decision about that. I’ll have no right to let my own fears hold you back any longer.’
He told me, too, of how in his grief and shock at Anya’s death he had been careless, and not looked after me as he should have done. My ayah had been ill with a fever, two of the other servants had said they’d keep an eye on me, but each thought I was with the other. So that day – we were down in the terai still – I’d wandered off – and met the tiger.
Tempted on by the excitement of colour and sound I escaped into the jungle. My legs were still quite short, and I can remember my sense of achievement as I hauled myself up and over a fallen tree-trunk. Beyond lay a new world. I looked eagerly around me, and in the greenery ahead I saw a pattern of orange and black and white – all dappled by the sunlight. And gradually the colours took shape, until I could see the whole huge bulk of a tiger, lying at his ease in the sunlit clearing. As I watched, he rose slowly to his feet, and at once I fell under his spell, entranced by his beauty and power. He gave a slight shrug, and then, every muscle of his body rippling beneath his fur, he came padding foward. I moved, too – towards him.
He paused, and stood waiting. I came very close to him, so that I could gaze straight up into his golden eyes. As we stood there looking at each other, he opened his mouth and yawned, displaying his huge pink tongue and great white teeth.
He lowered his head and sniffed me, and I breathed in the strange smell of him – hot and dark and exciting.
I’d raised my hand to stroke the broad, tawny nose of my new playmate, when another hand took hold of mine, and a soft voice behind me said, ‘No Eve, don’t touch.’ My father guided me behind the shield of his own body, and I peeped out from behind Apa’s legs at my glorious tiger as slowly, still facing him, we backed away.
Now Apa told me, ‘I can still remember the terror of that moment – seeing you with your head so close to those huge jowls!’
I sprang to the defence of my tiger. ‘But Apa, tigers hardly ever attack people – especially not down in the terai, where there’s plenty of game.’
Apa shook his head. ‘I assure you, Eve, that that is not the first thought of a man whose child is only inches from those powerful jaws – especially when she obviously intends to pat the beast on its nose!’ Then he smiled. ‘But all the same, I’m extremely grateful to that beast, and not just for his forbearance. It was that tiger which brought me to my senses. It made me realise that I’d put at risk the very being I cared for most in all the world – because I could only look backwards. I’d been so immersed in my mourning for Katya I’d failed to remember that I still had the most precious gift she had given me – you.’
He reached out and pressed my hand for a moment. ‘And I’m so grateful to you too, Eve – because in those next months it was your joy in life that brought me back from the brink. Through you, I learnt to take pleasure in simple things again – and so gradually I realised that misery and happiness are each of them self-generating – and that one does have a choice. It is possible to shun the one and encourage the other.’
I sat beside him, not knowing quite how to reply. Then he told me, ‘Eve, if you should ever suffer such a loss, make yourself remember the good times. You can’t forget the bad, but learn not to dwell on them – or the memory of them will destroy you. And try always to enjoy each day as it comes.’
Understanding now I exclaimed, ‘“Live for the day” – that’s why you always say it!’
‘Yes.’ Apa leant forward and added another branch to the crackling fire, adjusting it carefully before saying, ‘I’ve never shot another tiger after that day – unless it was a man-eater. And when I do have to do that, I always feel sorry for the creature. Tigers only kill men and women because they’re hungry, unlike we humans.’
Then, ‘Come on Eve – we’ve got “The Gondoliers” to look forward to in Naini Tal, it’s high time we practised our parts. Which of yours shall it be?’
‘“The Earl, the Marquis, and the Dook”!’ So that’s what we sang together, that night at Malari.
* * *
Thirty miles later we reached Joshimath, where the Dhauli river runs into the Alaknanda. The wood and stone houses clung to the hillside high ab
ove the two rivers – but I could hardly see them through the curtain of torrential rain. The monsoon had been very late this year but now it had finally arrived.
Our post had arrived as well. Apa had asked for it all to be sent to Joshimath, to wait for us there. And amongst it was a letter from Scotland.
I danced around with it excitedly. ‘Look Apa – it’s in Aunt Ethel’s handwriting, but it was posted in Scotland – whatever is she doing there? ‘Quick, open it and find out.’
Apa was as surprised as I was, because my Great Aunt Etheldreda Gunn had spent the last forty years travelling round China – apart from one visit to South Africa.
Aunt Ethel had always been a heroine to me, because of the reason she’d made that trip to South Africa. The British were waging a war there, and she’d gone to protest about it. And she had, loudly. And then, when the British army had started their policy of rounding up Boer women and children, and collecting them together in huge camps, so they couldn’t supply food to their menfolk, Aunt Ethel had joined forces with Miss Emily Hobhouse and together they’d fought their own campaign against those concentration camps. But once the war was over she’d gone straight back to China again, so I’d never seen her.
She normally only ever wrote to Apa at Christmas – though she had a pretty elastic view of the date of that festival, since her letters usually turned up months later. But now she told us that she’d left China for good, and gone back to the Gunn croft on the coast of Caithness. And she’d written this non-Christmas letter to Apa because half of the Gunn croft belonged to him – he’d inherited it from my grandmother, who’d been Aunt Ethel’s elder sister.
I knew that my great-grandfather Gunn had been a crofter, who’d left the land and gone to Glasgow to seek his fortune, and having found it there had never gone back to live on his croft again – but I’d never realised before that Apa owned half of it. I was fascinated by the idea, and demanded to know more.
So Apa told me about how Great-grandfather had succeeded in persuading the landlord to sell him the family croft at Helspie. Apa said the story was that he’d had to wager his best horse to get the right to do that – Scottish landlords don’t like breaking up their estates.
Most of my great-grandfather’s relatives had already emigrated to Canada by then, but he let the odd remaining one live there at the croft, including the famous Seamus Gunn, who’d climbed over the crest of the Gob of Helspie at the age of sixteen, and then sailed to America and never been heard of since. The Gob was a high cliff shaped like a nose that rose up above the bay that lay south of Helspie harbour.
‘How high, Apa?’
‘Oh, about two hundred feet, I’d say.’
‘Is that all?’
Apa laughed. ‘Helspie isn’t the Himalaya, you know – and remember, it does start at sea level.’ As Apa had done when he’d climbed up the Gob. ‘But I didn’t go back over and down it again. Your grandmother made me promise not to, until I was at least Seamus’ age.
Apa had been ten when he’d visited Helspie, and just back from India, on his way to school in England. So he didn’t remember that much about it, but he told me about the harbour, which had been broken down more than once in the terrible storms, but always rebuilt again so that the fishing boats could sail in and out to catch the herring.
Having reached the harbour Apa pointed out that he had all his letters to answer so I went off to explore Joshimath by myself. Then we were invited to spend the evening with Bharat Singh and his family – Bharat Singh’s son was one of Apa’s forest rangers – so it wasn’t until we set out again the next morning that we had the chance to discuss Great Aunt Ethel and her letter.
‘Apa, how old is Aunt Ethel?’
Apa considered. ‘Mm, she must be over eighty by now.’
So she’d been forty before she went to China. I asked the obvious next question, ‘Where did she explore before China, then?’
‘Nowhere – other than the odd trip to the continent – France, Germany – that was all. Your grandmother once told me she wouldn’t even come out to India, when we were all living there – said it was too far.’
I was intrigued. ‘Then whyever did she go all the way to China – that’s miles further!’
And at first Apa didn’t reply. Then he said, quietly, ‘I think it was because of what happened to Kitty. Aunt Ethel was with her at the time, you see, and I don’t think she ever got over it.’
And a shadow darkened the sun. Because the child who should have grown up to be my Aunt Kitty had been murdered.
In the summer of 1870 she’d been taken to Paris by her mother and Aunt Ethel. A war had broken out between France and Prussia – soon to become the mighty German Empire. Grandmother and Aunt Ethel and little Kitty had stayed too long in the city, and been trapped there, all through the hunger and cold of that dreadful siege. But the city hadn’t surrendered soon enough for the Germans, so they’d brought up their huge guns and fired shells directly into the houses and streets – and one of those shells had killed Apa’s beloved younger sister.
I still remembered the shock and horror I’d felt when Apa had first told me that story; and now, despite the oppressive heat of the Alaknanda valley, I shivered.
The postwallah came running towards us, carrying his bag of mail and holding his bell-fringed spear as a defence against wild beasts. Animals did attack each other; sometimes they attacked humans but they never, ever were so bestial as to organise themselves into armies and build huge guns for the sole purpose of destroying their own kind.
After the postwallah had passed Apa told me, ‘Aunt Ethel had taken Kitty out with her that day – they were trying to buy some food – so I think she felt responsible for her death.’
‘She wasn’t though, was she? It was those awful artillery men who killed poor Kitty.’ My voice rose in anger. ‘What cowards they were, hiding safely behind their big guns and shooting at little children!’
Still in the same quiet voice Apa said, ‘They weren’t aiming at children – they simply wanted to force the city to surrender. But it’s the nature of war, that it can’t be contained.’ He turned to me, his face taut, ‘People will try to tell you, Eve, that war only involves soldiers, but it simply isn’t true. Even if only soldiers are killed, they leave behind mothers, wives, children, all of whom suffer and grieve. In any case, the taking of human life can never be justified.’ His voice rose and firmly he quoted the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’
We walked on in silence, then Apa said, ‘I’d like to see Ethel again, and hear her traveller’s tales.’
‘What did she do in China – was she an ethnologist, like Grandmother?’
Apa shook his head. ‘No, I believe her special interest was originally languages – only in China she got side-tracked by religion.’
Interested I asked, ‘Which religion?’
Apa smiled, ‘All of them, I think.’
‘Why did she—’
And then I was the one who was sidetracked by religion, exclaiming, ‘Oh Apa – look! That porter nearly tipped the old lady out of her kundi – doesn’t she look annoyed!’
We were on the pilgrim way, now, and although it wasn’t as busy as in May and early June, people from all over India were still making the journey up to Badrinath. They would worship in the great temple there, bathe in the hot springs at the foot of the snows, and make offerings to Shiva the Destroyer, husband of my namesake, Parvati. Some of the pilgrims who were elderly or ill had to be carried up in baskets – kundis – on the backs of porters. All the rest walked, looking completely exhausted by their journey, but still they went toiling upwards – up to the Himalcha, the home of their Gods.
Although there was lots to see on the pilgrim way, neither Apa nor I were very keen on that part of the trip. The valley of the Lower Alaknanda is so deep and narrow that the heat is intense and the flies are everywhere. And we had to leave our dak or forest bungalow at dawn every morning, so we could get to shelter before the torrential dow
npour of the afternoon.
Apa was anxious, too, because despite all the efforts made by the Deputy Commissioner and his team of Sanitary Inspectors, with so many pilgrims on the move there was always the risk of an epidemic of cholera or dysentry breaking out. So we were both relieved when we reached Simli, and could turn off on to the path along the Pindar valley.
We left Garhwal at Gwaldam, and walked on through to Bajinath – where we paid off our Bhotia porters, so they could head back north to their homes – and then we were on the cart road built for the tea plantations – which led straight down to Almora.
We dumped our baggage, and while it was being re-packed I went racing off round the bazaar with the Singh boys – Jasodh and Bikram Singh were the sons of Apa’s chief orderly, and Kushal was their cousin. They were only a year or two younger than I was, so we spent most of our spare time together, getting up to one prank or another. But then it was good-byes again, because first thing next morning Apa and I were off once more, to Naini Tal – and civilisation.
Chapter Five
Naini Tal – with its sacred green lake surrounded by seven hills, from the tallest of which, Mount Cheena, you could look a hundred miles north to the furthest snow peaks, and a hundred miles south over the plain to see the sun glint on the great Ganges – if you had very good eyesight, and it wasn’t raining at the time…
Naini Tal – summer capital of the United Provinces, with its cricket pitch, polo ground, yacht club, regatta, swimming, picnics (just one or two – you do get the odd dry day during the monsoon) dances and dinner parties – where you ate unfamiliar food like roast mutton and chocolate sponge pudding. (Well, I only ever got to eat them at lunch, but Apa said they ate that sort of thing at dinner, too – along with tinned asparagus and anchovies).
Naini Tal – where apart from the servants you mixed with English people all the time. Except that there weren’t any English people of my age – they’d all been sent home to school in England once they were six, and wouldn’t reappear again until they were at least seventeen – if they were girls. Boys didn’t come back until they were men, and officers in the Army or the Indian Civil Service, or Public Works Department, or the Forest Service, or, older still, doctors in the Indian Medical Service.
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