by Ruskin Bond
"Where do you live?" I asked. She pointed across the valley to where a small village straddled the slopes of a terraced hill.
"It's quite far," I said. "Do you always come so far from home?"
"I go further than this," she said. "The cows must find fresh grass. And there is wood to gather and grass to cut." She showed me the sickle held by the cloth tied firmly about her waist. "Sometimes I go to the top of Pari Tibba, sometimes to the valley beyond. Have you been there?"
"No. But I will go some day."
"It is always windy on Pari Tibba."
"Is it true that there are fairies there?"
She laughed. "That is what people say. But those are people who have never been there. I do not see fairies on Pari Tibba. It is said that there are ghosts in the ruins on the hill. But I do not see any ghosts."
"I have heard of the ghosts," I said. "Two lovers who ran away and took shelter in a ruined cottage. At night there was a storm, and they were killed by lightning. Is it true, this story?"
"It happened many years ago, before I was born. I have heard the story. But there are no ghosts on Pari Tibba."
"How old are you?" I asked.
"Fifteen, sixteen, I do not know for sure."
"Doesn't your mother know?"
"She is dead. And my grandmother has forgotten. And my brother, he is younger than me and he's forgotten his own age. Is it important to remember?"
"No, it is not important. Not here, anyway. Not in the hills. To a mountain, a hundred years are but as a day."
"Are you very old?" she asked.
"I hope not. Do I look very old?"
"Only a hundred," she said, and laughed, and the silver bangles on her wrists tinkled as she put her hand up to her laughing face.
"Why do you laugh?" I asked.
"Because you looked as though you believed me. How old are you?"
"Thirty-five, thirty-six, I do not remember."
"Ah, it is better to forget!"
"That's true," I said, "but sometimes one has to fill in forms and things like that, and then one has to state one's age."
"I have never filled a form. I have never seen one."
"And I hope you never will. It is a piece of paper covered with useless information. It is all a part of human progress."
"Progress?"
"Yes. Are you unhappy?"
"No."
"Do you go hungry?"
"No."
"Then you don't need progress. Wild bilberries are better."
She went away without saying goodbye. The cows had strayed and she ran after them, calling them by name: "Neelu, Neelu!" (Blue) and "Bhuri!" (Old One). Her bare feet moved swiftly over the rocks and dry grass.
Early May. The cicadas were singing in the forests; or rather, orchestrating, since they make the sound with their legs. The whistling thrushes pursued each other over the tree-tops, in acrobatic love-flights. Sometimes the langurs visited the oak trees, to feed on the leaves. As I moved down the path to the stream, I heard the same singing, and coming suddenly upon the clearing near the water's edge. I saw the girl sitting on a rock, her feet in the rushing water—the same girl who had given me bilberries. Strangely enough, I had not guessed that she was the singer. Unseen voices conjure up fanciful images. I had imagined a woodland nymph, a graceful, delicate, beautiful, goddess-like creature; not a mischievous-eyed, round-faced, juice-stained, slightly ragged pixie. Her dhoti—a rough, homespun sari—faded and torn; an impractical garment, I thought, for running about on the hillside, but the village folk put their girls into dhotis before they are twelve. She'd compromised by hitching it up, and by strengthening the waist with a length of cloth bound tightly about her, but she'd have been more at ease in the long, flounced skirt worn in the further hills.
But I was not disillusioned. I had clearly taken a fancy to her cherubic, open countenance; and the sweetness of her voice added to her charms.
I watched her from the banks of the stream, and presently she looked up, grinned, and stuck her tongue out at me.
"That's a nice way to greet me," I said. "Have I offended you?"
"You surprised me. Why did you not call out?"
"Because I was listening to your singing. I did not wish to speak until you had finished."
"It was only a song."
"But you sang it sweetly."
She smiled. "Have you brought anything to eat?"
"No. Are you hungry?"
"At this time I get hungry. When you come to meet me you must always bring something to eat."
"But I didn't come to meet you. I didn't know you would be here."
"You do not wish to meet me?"
"I didn't mean that. It is nice to meet you."
"You will meet me if you keep coming into the forest. So always bring something to eat."
"I will do so next time. Shall I pick you some berries?"
"You will have to go to the top of the hill again to find the kingora bushes."
"I don't mind. If you are hungry, I will bring some."
"All right," she said, and looked down at her feet, which were still in the water.
Like some knight-errant of old, I toiled up the hill again until I found the bilberry bushes; and stuffing my pockets with berries, I returned to the stream. But when I got there I found she'd slipped away. The cowbells tinkled on the far hill.
Glow-worms shone fitfully in the dark. The night was full of sounds—the tonk-tonk of a nightjar, the cry of a barking deer, the shuffling of porcupines, the soft flip-flop of moths beating against the windowpanes. On the hill across the valley, lights flickered in the small village—the dim lights of kerosene lamps swinging in the dark.
"What is your name?" I asked, when we met again on the path through the pine forest.
"Binya," she said. "What is yours?"
"I've no name."
"All right, Mr. No-name."
"I mean, I haven't made a name for myself. We must make our own names, don't you think?"
"Binya is my name. I do not wish to have any other. Where are you going?"
"Nowhere."
"No-name goes nowhere! Then you cannot come with me, because I am going home and my grandmother will set the village dogs on you if you follow me." And laughing, she ran down the path to the stream; she knew I could not catch up with her.
Her face streamed summer rain as she climbed the steep hill, calling the white cow home. She seemed very tiny on the windswept mountainside; a twist of hair lay flat against her forehead, and her torn blue dhoti clung to her firm round thighs. I went to her with an umbrella to give her shelter. She stood with me beneath the umbrella and let me put my arm around her. Then she turned her face up to mine, wonderingly, and I kissed her quickly, softly on the lips. Her lips tasted of raindrops and mint. And then she left me there, so gallant in the blistering rain. She ran home laughing. But it was worth the drenching.
Another day I heard her calling to me—"No-name, Mister No-name!"—but I couldn't see her, and it was some time before I found her, halfway up a cherry tree, her feet pressed firmly against the bark, her dhoti tucked up between her thighs—fair, rounded thighs, and legs that were strong and vigorous.
"The cherries are not ripe," I said.
"They are never ripe. But I like them green and sour. Will you come into the tree?"
"If I can still climb a tree," I said.
"My grandmother is over sixty, and she can climb trees."
"Well, I wouldn't mind being more adventurous at sixty. There's not so much to lose then." I climbed into the tree without much difficulty, but I did not think the higher branches would take my weight, so I remained standing in the fork of the tree, my face on a level with Binya's breasts. I put my hand against her waist, and kissed her on the soft inside of her arm. She did not say anything. But she took me by the hand and helped me to climb a little higher, and I put my arm around her, as much to support myself as to be close to her.
The full moon rides high, shining through
the tall oak trees near the window. The night is full of sounds, crickets, the tonk-tonk of a nightjar, and floating across the valley from your village, the sound of drums beating, and people singing. It is a festival day, and there will be feasting in your home. Are you singing too, tonight? And are you thinking of me, as you sing, as you laugh, as you dance with your friends? I am sitting here alone, and so I have no one to think of but you.
Binya…I take your name again and again—as though by taking it, I can make you hear me, come to me, walking over the moonlit mountain
There are spirits abroad tonight. They move silently in the trees; they hover about the window at which I sit; they take up with the wind and rush about the house. Spirits of the trees, spirits of the old house. An old lady died here last year. She'd lived in the house for over thirty years; something of her personality surely dwells here still. When I look into the tall, old mirror which was hers, I sometimes catch a glimpse of her pale face and long, golden hair. She likes me, I think, and the house is kind to me. Would she be jealous of you, Binya?
The music and singing grows louder. I can imagine your face glowing in the firelight. Your eyes shine with laughter. You have all those people near you and I have only the stars, and the nightjar, and the ghost in the mirror.
I woke early, while the dew was still fresh on the grass, and walked down the hill to the stream, and then up to a little knoll where a pine tree grew in solitary splendour, the wind going hoo-hoo in its slender branches. This was my favourite place, my place of power, where I came to renew myself from time to time. I lay on the grass, dreaming. The sky in its blueness swung round above me. An eagle soared in the distance. I heard her voice down among the trees; or I thought I heard it. But when I went to look, I could not find her.
I'd always prided myself on my rationality; had taught myself to be wary of emotional states, like 'falling in love', which turned out to be ephemeral and illusory. And although I told myself again and again that the attraction was purely physical, on my part as well as hers, I had to admit to myself that my feelings towards Binya differed from the feelings I'd had for others; and that while sex had often been for me a celebration, it had, like any other feast, resulted in satiety, a need for change, a desire to forget….
Binya represented something else—something wild, dream-like, fairy-like. She moved close to the spirit-haunted rocks, the old trees, the young grass; she had absorbed something from them—a primeval innocence, an unconcern with the passing of time and events, an affinity with the forest and the mountains; this made her special and magical.
And so, when three, four, five days went by, and I did not find her on the hillside, I went through all the pangs of frustrated love: had she forgotten me and gone elsewhere? Had we been seen together, and was she being kept at home? Was she ill? Or, had she been spirited away?
I could hardly go and ask for her. I would probably be driven from the village. It straddled the opposite hill, a cluster of slate-roof houses, a pattern of little terraced fields. I could see figures in the fields, but they were too far away, too tiny, for me to be able to recognise anyone. She had gone to her mother's village a hundred miles away, or so a small boy told me.
And so I brooded; walked disconsolately through the oak forest hardly listening to the birds—the sweet-throated whistling thrush; the shrill barbet; the mellow-voiced doves. Happiness had always made me more responsive to nature. Feeling miserable, my thoughts turned inward. I brooded upon the trickery of time and circumstance; I felt the years were passing by, had passed by, like waves on a receding tide, leaving me washed up like a bit of flotsam on a lonely beach. But at the same time, the whistling thrush seemed to mock at me, calling tantalisingly from the shadows of the ravine; "It isn't time that's passing by, it is you and I, it is you and I…."
Then I forced myself to snap out of my melancholy. I kept away from the hillside and the forest. I did not look towards the village. I buried myself in my work, tried to think objectively, and wrote an article on 'The inscriptions on the iron pillar at Kalsi'; very learned, very dry, very sensible.
But at night I was assailed by thoughts of Binya. I could not sleep. I switched on the light, and there she was, smiling at me from the looking glass, replacing the image of the old lady who had watched over me for so long.
Love and Cricket
BY RUSKIN BOND
It was a quiet day in New Delhi. Everyone was indoors, watching an India-Pakistan cricket match on TV Even the hotel seemed under staffed. I'd given up on cricket years ago, after a long and uninteresting career as twelfth man for the Chutmalpur Club team. Carrying out the drinks or fielding in the hot sun on behalf of others had finally soured my attitude towards the game. Now my greatest pleasure was sitting in a shady spot, sipping a cool drink brought to me by an agile young waiter who would no doubt have preferred to be out on a cricket field.
It was an elderly waiter who brought me the nimbu-pani. The younger ones were probably crowded around a TV set in the kitchen. I relaxed in the easy chair of the hotel's garden restaurant, here I was an occasional customer. Sweet-peas filled the air with their heady perfume. Snapdragons snapped in the mid-March sunshine. A carpet of soft pink phlox was soothing to the eyes. New Delhi in the spring is kind to flower gardens.
I had the place to myself. I felt at peace with the world. The garden was quiet and restful—until two noisy children, a boy who must have been about twelve, and a girl a little younger, came charging out of the shadows, kicking a rubber ball around. Having played football myself once, I looked at their game with amused tolerance; that is, until the boy, bending it like Beckham, sent the ball crashing on to my table, upsetting my nimbu-pani.
The elderly waiter came running to my rescue. The children fled, concealing themselves behind some potted palms. Their mother appeared on the steps, threatening them with dire consequences. She walked over to me, apologising.
"I'm so sorry. They are very naughty."
"That's all right," I said, "Just high spirits. And it seems to be the season for ball games."
The sun was in my eyes and I couldn't see her very well. She was about forty, on the plump side, dark and quite attractive.
"It's perfectly all right," I said again, as the waiter brought me another nimbu-pani.
She just stood there, staring at me
"Weren't you—aren't you—Rusty?"
I looked at her more closely then. It was a long time since anyone had called me Rusty. I stood up so that the sun wouldn't be in my eyes. There was something about her eyes, soft and gentle, and her hair, still lustrous, and her lips of course, that reminded me of——
"Sushila?" I said hesitantly. Could it really be her—grown chubby and middle-aged and maternal? Sushila, my lost love of twenty plus years ago….
"Yes, I am Sushila. And you are Rusty. A little older now."
'And grown quite rusty over the years." I took her hand and asked her to join me. 'And call the children over." But the children had made themselves scarce.
"They must have gone to play video games." She sat down without any hesitation. "It will be nice to talk to you. It's so boring staying in these big hotels."
I called the waiter over and she ordered an orange drink. I raised my glass and looked at her through the translucent liquid. She had worn well with the years—much better than I had! Although youth had flown, vestiges of youthfulness remained in her dimpled smile, full lips and lively glance. Her once slim hand was now a chubby hand; but all the same, it would be nice to touch it, and I did so, allowing my fingers to rest lightly against her palm. She drew her hand away, but not too quickly.
"So, now you're a mother of two," I remarked, by way of making conversation.
"Three," she said. "My eldest boy is at boarding. He's fifteen. You never married?"
"Not after you turned me down."
"I did not turn you down. It was my parents' wish."
"I know. It wasn't your fault—and it wasn't theirs. I had no money, and no pr
ospects. It wouldn't have been fair to you. And I would have had to give up my writing and take some miserable job."
"Would you have done that for me?"
"Of course, I loved you."
"But now you are successful. Had you married me, you would not be so well-known."
"Who knows? I might have done better. Your husband must be very successful to be staying here."
"Ah, but he's in business. In Bombay, a stockbroker. I know nothing about it. I'm just a housewife."
"Well, three children must keep you pretty busy."
We were silent for some time. Traffic hummed along nearby Janpath, but it was quiet in the garden. You could even hear the cooing of doves from the verandah roof. A hoopoe hopped across the grass, looking for insects.
Twenty years ago we had held hands and walked barefoot across the grass on the little hillock overlooking the stream that tumbled down to Mossy Falls. I still have photographs taken that day. Her cousin had gone paddling downstream, looking for coloured pebbles, and I had taken advantage of his absence by kissing her, first on the cheeks, and then, quite suddenly, on the lips.
Now she seemed to be recalling the same incident because she said, "You were very romantic, Rusty."
"I'm still romantic. But the modern world has no time for romance. It's all done on computers now. Make love by e-mail. It's much safer."
"And you preferred the moonlight."
"Ah, those full moon nights, do you remember them? The moon coming up over the top of Landour, and then pouring through the windows of Maplewood…. And you put your head against my shoulder and I held you there until a cloud came across the moon. And then you let me kiss you everywhere."
"I don't remember that."
"Of course you do."
"What happened to your bicycle? The one you used to sing about."
"The bicycle went the way of all machines. There were others. But the song still lingers on. My grandfather used to sing it to my grandmother, before they were married. There it is—" And I sang it again, sofly, with the old waiter listening intently in the background:
