Khushwant Singh Best Indian Short Stories Volume 1

by Khushwant Singh

  ‘What does it say?’ cried Judy, pulling at Jacinta’s hand.

  ‘Tell us what it’s saying. Jacinta.’

  ‘We go now,’ Jacinta said with sudden decision, avoiding D’Goa’s eyes.

  ‘So soon?’ David shrilled.

  ‘But what did it say?’ demanded Judy, intrigued by Jacinta’s embarrassment.

  ‘Shoo! Not to ask!’ she said severely, her mouth set in a disapproving line. ‘It was shame-shame!’

  ‘Oh!’ they said together.

  There was a shocked silence as the two children gazed up at the birdman in disbelief. Shame-shame was no laughing matter. Jacinta said it was a sin for which you could go to Hell.

  ‘C’mon, children, we leave now,’ she snapped, frowning as she held Judy by the shoulder. But as they turned to go a dozen or more budgerigars suddenly descended in a flock on D’Goa to settle on his shoulders and outstretched arms. They made soft sounds inside their throats and some gently nibbled at the lobes of his ears. Judy and David stared, fascinated.

  ‘Cu-curoo-curoo – ’ the birdman went, vibrating his thick neck.

  ‘Can we buy a bird, Jacinta,’ cried David excitedly. ‘Can we buy one of those?’

  She shook her head and turned her mouth down further. ‘What you do with such birds, m’n?’ she demanded. ‘Bad birds, they are. They talk bad! They shame-shame birds!’

  She addressed these remarks at D’Goa over her shoulder as she walked away. He merely laughed. Taking a piece of pawpaw from a feed tray, he held it between his lips. The birds fluttered against his face and pecked it all away.

  ‘Cu-curoo-curoo – ’ he went, vibrating his throat. David and Judy stopped and gaped. Jacinta turned them to the path.

  ‘Don’t go yet!’ he called, startling the birds into flying round and round his head. ‘I show you more tricks! Good ones!’

  ‘Shame-shame ones!’ hissed Jacinta under her breath, stomping her heels as they went round the house towards the gate. By the time D’Goa emerged from his aviary, they were out on the road.

  ‘Don’t run off like that,’ he cried. ‘Maybe your dad buys you a bird, hey? How about that, hey?’ He stood with his thick arms on the sagging frame of the gate. From behind the house the macaw kept repeating its obscene proposition and Jacinta turned redder.

  ‘Don’t go to Mapusa tomorrow, Jacinta,’ he wheedled. ‘There’s a floor show at the Republic Hotel and the Yellow Streaks from Bombay are playing. I kin get tickets.’

  Taking the children’s hands, Jacinta went down the road without looking back. ‘Jacinta? Hey, Jacinta, m’n!’

  For some time the three walked in silence until they reached the cobbled street. There was a turn there and they lost sight of D’Goa’s house.

  ‘Is your uncle a shame-shame man?’ asked David. ‘And will he go to Hell?’

  ‘He’s not really my uncal,’ said Jacinta, anxious to clear herself. ‘I just call him that when I’m small. Not any more now.’

  ‘But what birds he has!’ cried Judy. ‘What birds! D’you think Dad’ll buy us one?’

  ‘They shame-shame birds,’ said Jacinta, her heels ringing her disapproval in the cobbled street.

  The children met the birdman again the very next morning, returning from Calangute beach with their mother. The road back to Panjim became a narrow lane in places, running between high compound walls and through streets where houses crowded close. At one point a group of Catholic Goans celebrating Carnival blocked the way and Janet Goodman stopped the car with an exclamation of impatience.

  Men and boys wore paper hats with streamers, their faces daubed with colour. They ignored the car with its foreigners and crowded in front of a small taverna, demanding free liquor. But the proprietor shook his head and waved them off. He’d given away enough free drinks for the day. One of the revellers, dressed as a woman in a bright yellow skirt, swung the diminutive publican onto his broad shoulders and bore him off, protesting, into the middle of the road. There he began to stomp and cavort to the beat of their drums. A thick plaited rope of black hair dangled from under his headscarf.

  ‘It’s the birdman!’ cried Judy, recognizing D’Goa behind his gaudy make-up.

  ‘It’s Jacinta’s uncle!’ David screeched. ‘Uncal Francees! Uncal Francees! Coo – ee!’

  Catching sight of them, D’Goa put the man down with a thump and pushed his way through the throng to the car.

  ‘Hullo! Hullo!’ he bellowed, blasting them with his feni-rich breath. Then he swept off his paper hat and bowed low to Mrs Goodman, dropping his voice to a wheedle as he said, ‘Pleased to meet you, Madam. I’m Francis Xavier D’Goa. And Jacinta, she my niece.’

  Janet Goodman, a thin high-strung woman with straw hair, found his servility disgusting. She had seen so much of it during her two years in India. People could never react normally to a white skin. D’Goa smiled fatuously at her, swaying tipsily in his absurd clothes. If he bowed any lower he’d fall flat on his foolish face, cap and bells and all, she thought sourly.

  ‘Would you please help us get through – ’ she said, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

  ‘Certainly! Certainly, Madam!’ he cried and immediately waded into the crowd, roughly shoving people aside to clear the road. As the car went slowly through, he put his gross face in at a window. ‘I got a surprise for you two,’ he bawled at Judy and David. ‘I bring it in the evening, okay?’

  They didn’t think he would remember. But he presented himself at their hotel, soberly dressed in a laundered shirt and tight blue trousers. His hair was well oiled and plastered down. And he carried a large green cage with a newspaper wrapped loosely round it.

  ‘Good evening, Madam,’ he said to Mrs Goodman. But he avoided her eyes as he placed the cage on a small table and whisked the covering off with a flourish. Inside was a handsome blue-and-yellow macaw.

  ‘Is it for us?’ asked Judy, pleased and surprised. D’Goa grinned as he nodded his large head.

  ‘Oh, but really – ’ Janet Goodman protested with asperity.

  ‘It is nothing, Madam, nothing at all! I have lots and lots more. But you are too good to Jacinta, so I bring this for the children. Her name is Susie Wong. I got her in Singapore. She’s a good bird but she don’t talk.’

  ‘She’s not a shame-shame bird, Mummy,’ explained David happily.

  ‘Mr D’Goa,’ Mrs Goodman said in a long-suffering voice, ‘we’re on our way south for a holiday. We can’t possibly carry a birdcage. Besides, this looks like a very valuable macaw. Thank you very much, but – ’

  ‘Valuable? What is valuable?’ he countered. ‘I say it is because of Jacinta. For Jacinta’s sake, see?’ He looked over their heads into their suite and asked, ‘Mr Goodman not back from the mines yet? I got some work with him.’

  ‘It’s still early,’ she said, glancing at her watch.

  ‘Look,’ he said, turning to Judy and David as he took out a packet from his trouser pocket, ‘I’ve brought seed and stuff for Susie to eat, so you don’t need to worry. She likes fruit and nuts too.’ The bird watched his hands with bright eyes.

  ‘Pretty Polly! Pretty Polly!’ said Judy, putting her face close to the cage.

  Cu-curoo-curoo – went David, trying to vibrate his throat.

  Janet Goodman shook her head and said firmly, ‘I’m sorry!’

  ‘Oh, Mummy – but why?’ they cried, disappointed.

  ‘Okay, then I tell you what,’ said D’Goa quickly. ‘I leave her here – for fun. See? And I take her back when you go away. I come every day and see she’s okay. How about that?’

  He patted the children’s heads as they laughed and he was gone before their mother could stop him.

  He did not come the next day. He did not show up for three days. The macaw sat forlorn on its perch, refusing even the seed and meal he had left for it.

  ‘That’s a valuable bird,’ said Mr Goodman. ‘We ought to return it before it falls ill.’

  ‘We know where the birdman lives,’ said Judy.
‘Jacinta took us there to see his birds.’

  ‘All right, then you and Jan go across this afternoon and tell him to take his macaw back. We don’t want it dying on our hands.’

  But Mrs Goodman had one of her attacks of migraine after lunch and lay down instead. Susie Wong was left sitting in her cage, still fretting for the birdman.

  ‘You’ll die if you don’t eat,’ Judy said to her, pushing the banana she had saved from lunch into the bird’s cage.

  ‘You’ll die! You’ll die!’ David warned, gleeful. Somehow the bird didn’t interest them any more. Even its colours seemed duller.

  They wandered downstairs to the foyer and gazed into the street through the glass-fronted door. The Mandovi river flowed swift and wide, carrying country boats with triangular sails. A ferry with passengers was in mid-stream, chugging its way towards Panjim, burping puffs of smoke. The street was deserted. Shops had downed shutters and all front doors were closed for the afternoon siesta. Even the doorman of the hotel had disappeared.

  The children came out into the torpid afternoon and stood, undecided, on the front steps. Then taking David’s hand, Judy began to walk quickly until they turned off the cobbled street and came to D’Goa’s gate.

  Creeping up to the front verandah, Judy peered through the lattice. The door into the house was firmly shut. They went round to the back and found the birds drowsing on their perches.

  Returning to the front, they looked round the tangled compound for D’Goa.

  ‘He’s not in,’ said David, startling himself with the sound of his own voice in the silent afternoon.

  Judy went soundlessly round the left of the bungalow and David followed. There the trellis was covered with thick bougainvillea, and an immense jackfruit tree threw a heavy shadow over the verandah. Gently parting the creeper, they peered in, blinking the sun’s dazzle out of their eyes as they gazed into the dark interior.

  To D’Goa the sound of their scrabbling in the leaves might have sounded like a gecko. Or nesting sparrows. The room beyond the verandah was dim, but spangles of sun broke through the trellis and splashed the walls and floor. Discs of light floated and shifted over the stone flags. They flickered along the fell naked body of the birdman lying on his back on a grass mat. A thick jet fleece covered his chest and stomach. His thighs, like his heavy arms, were darkly tattooed with graffiti.

  Over him hovered a woman, thin-shouldered, her face a blur in the dimness, but her skin smooth and brown where the sun flecks fell on her. It seemed to the two young watchers, from the expression on his face as she moved over him with her mouth, nibbling as the birds had done, that his throat would begin to vibrate – cu-curoo-curoo....

  Raising herself on her knees, she shifted downwards. The sun spangles moved too, revealing an unbelievable stem. Bending over him, her mouth formed a round O as she gobbled him entirely. As she did so, her dark hair spilled over into his lap and they couldn’t see his terrible end.

  The children were unaware that they had made any sound. But the performers on the mat stiffened suddenly, alarmed. D’Goa turned his broad face towards the trellis where they stood hidden behind the thick creeper.

  Judy was overcome with sudden panic. Spinning round, she grabbed David’s hand and began to run, bending low among the shrubs and tall grass. Through the gate they sped, not slackening their pace until they turned the corner and were out of sight of the house. Panting hard, they stood for a moment in the silent shuttered street.

  ‘Was it shame-shame?’ asked David, intrigued. It was the sound of his sudden splutter of laughter coming through the leaves that had startled the birdman and his partner.

  Judy set her mouth like Jacinta’s. She didn’t answer his question. Instead she said, ‘I wish Jacinta was here. Why did she have to go away?’

  Back in their hotel suite, they flung themselves onto the hideous stuffed sofa. Nothing had changed during their brief absence. The bedroom door was shut. The macaw moped in its cage. But they didn’t look at the bird. Somehow they couldn’t bring themselves to look at the bird.

  Later, when their father came in early from the ore mines in the hills above Panjim, he found them absorbed in picture books.

  ‘Hello!’ he said cheerfully. ‘Where’s Jan?’

  ‘She has migraine,’ David replied.

  Goodman went briefly into the bedroom and returned to the children. ‘How about tea?’ he asked, looking at his watch.

  Judy and David found they were very hungry, and even ate the gaudy pastries on the tray brought by the steward. But they promptly lost their appetites when D’Goa was shown in by the room attendant. They did not look at him directly for fear he would read recognition in their eyes. But the macaw raised its head and uttered a piercing screech of joy.

  ‘It seems to know you,’ laughed their father. ‘Then you must be Jacinta’s uncle, Mr D’Goa. I’m glad you came. We intended going over to your house to return your valuable macaw. It hasn’t eaten anything since you left it here. You must take it home.’

  ‘But I bring it for the children,’ replied D’Goa.

  ‘It is very kind of you, but we simply can’t accept – ’

  ‘For you I charge very little,’ the birdman put in quickly. ‘For pounds or dollars, I sell it to you for half its rupee price. How’s that, huh?’

  Goodman was surprised. His wife had been right after all. For all his protestations, the Goan had not meant them to have the bird as a gift. Laughing, he pretended to turn out his pockets. ‘No dollars! No pounds! Not even many rupees!’ he said.

  ‘You joking sir!’ D’Goa exclaimed in disbelief.

  The macaw squawked, beating its wings against the bars.

  ‘Okay, okay, Susie!’ said the birdman as he opened the cage and let it clamber onto his shoulder. From there it dropped to the tea table and began munching cheese straws.

  ‘That bird hasn’t eaten a thing for three days now,’ said Goodman. ‘How about a cup of tea, Mr D’Goa?’

  The birdman picked up the macaw and put it on the back of the sofa as he sat down, beaming. ‘Lent hasn’t started yet, sir. If you don’t mind I’ll have Scotch.’ After a pause he leaned forward and asked, ‘Mrs Goodman?’

  ‘She has a headache,’ Goodman replied.

  ‘Ah!’ D’Goa breathed, relieved.

  David and Judy slid off their chairs and went to the window where they gazed down on the river. A ferry from Bombay was steaming up the Mandovi towards them. A small crowd waited on the pier below.

  ‘We’re leaving for Mysore tomorrow morning,’ they heard their father say. ‘We’ll drive across to Mapusa this evening and bring Jacinta back.’

  ‘There’s a ferry over the Zoari river – it will take your car.’ said D’Goa. ‘But I can drive you, sir – you don’t know the way.’

  ‘It’s good of you to offer, but the company has given us a driver,’ Goodman replied.

  The bird had hopped down and taken a piece of cake. Its beak was smeared with bright pink and green icing. When D’Goa’s drink was brought in by the room boy, it clambered off the sofa back and immediately dipped into the glass.

  ‘Is that good for it?’ asked Goodman, surprised.

  D’Goa giggled, nodding his large head. ‘This Susie Wong, she loves liquor!’ he wheezed. ‘Look, why not you pick her up on your way back to Bombay? For Jacinta’s sake I give her so cheap. C’mon, Mr Goodman, be a sport. For pounds or dollars, you’ll never get such good offer.’

  Goodman shook his head and smiled. ‘Not even if you give it free, Mr D’Goa.’

  It seemed to Judy and David that the birdman would never leave. He now launched into a long account of his voyages round the world. ‘I’ve been to your country many times, sir,’ they heard him say.

  Meanwhile his bird was stuffing itself on a banana he had brought with him. In between bites it dipped into his glass.

  The ferry was close to the pier and the children could see the deck lined with people carrying bags and bundles. A large crane was be
ing moved into position on the bank.

  ‘Yes, sir, the smell is bad for some,’ they heard D’Goa say. ‘But all over the world I don’t find anything to beat our Goan cashew feni liquor. No, sir! Nothing like it!’

  There was a flurry of activity in the street below. An American tourist had emerged from the hotel to take pictures of a group of Carnival revellers as they sang and danced.

  ‘Mr D’Goa is leaving,’ the children heard their father say. But they pretended to be totally absorbed. D’Goa took up the bird and put it back into its cage. It squawked feebly.

  ‘I believe it’s actually happy to be back with you,’ Goodman remarked.

  ‘Is the same with all my birds,’ D’Goa grinned. ‘They think they married to me. They bring grass and things to build nests in my pockets. Susie here, she’s the same. She thinks she’s married to me! Hey, Susie?’

  ‘Judy, David – say goodbye to Mr D’Goa.’

  They turned slowly from the window.

  ‘We married, aren’t we, Susie girl?’ D’Goa was saying, his face close to the cage. From his expression the children knew he was about to say cu-curoo-curoo...

  ‘Cu-curoo-curoo – ’ he crooned.

  Laughing, he lowered the cage and held out a large hand for them to shake. Judy stepped forward first, ‘Bye, Mr D’Goa,’ she murmured, not raising her eyes to avoid seeing his outstretched hand.

  But she didn’t have to touch him after all. There was a sudden sound from the cage. Susie Wong had fallen off her perch with a thud. She lay on her back with her claws curled, and was borne away in a drunken stupor by the birdman.

  After the door closed on D’Goa, David was the first to speak.

  ‘He’s a shame-shame man!’ he burst out.

  ‘And he’s not Jacinta’s uncle, Daddy,’ Judy declared with relief. ‘Not her real uncle anyway.’

  S I X

  The Leopard