The Best of Ruskin Bond

by Bond, Ruskin

  The Thief

  I was still a thief when I met Arun, and though I was only fifteen, I was an experienced and fairly successful hand.

  Arun was watching the wrestlers when I approached him. He was about twenty, a tall, lean fellow, and he looked kind and simple enough for my purpose. I hadn’t had much luck of late, and thought I might be able to get into this young person’s confidence. He seemed quite fascinated by the wrestling. Two well-oiled men slid about in the soft mud, grunting and slapping their thighs. When I got Arun into conversation he didn’t seem to realize I was a stranger.

  ‘You look like a wrestler yourself,’ I said.

  ‘So do you,’ he replied, which put me out of my stride for a moment, because at the time I was rather thin and bony and not very impressive physically.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I wrestle sometimes.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Deepak,’ I lied.

  Deepak was about my fifth name. I had earlier called myself Ranbir, Sudhir, Trilok and Surinder.

  After this preliminary exchange, Arun confined himself to comments on the match, and I didn’t have much to say. After a while he walked away from the crowd of spectators. I followed him.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Enjoying yourself?’

  I gave him my most appealing smile. ‘I want to work for you,’ I said.

  He didn’t stop walking. ‘And what makes you think I want someone to work for me?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve been wandering about all day, looking for the best person to work for. When I saw you, I knew that no one else had a chance.’

  ‘You flatter me,’ he said.

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘But you can’t work for me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I can’t pay you.’

  I thought that over for a minute. Perhaps I had misjudged my man.

  ‘Can you feed me?’ I asked.

  ‘Can you cook?’ he countered.

  ‘I can cook,’ I lied.

  ‘If you can cook,’ he said, ‘I’ll feed you.’

  He took me to his room and told me I could sleep in the veranda. But I was nearly back on the street that night. The meal I cooked must have been pretty awful, because Arun gave it to the neighbour’s cat and told me to be off. But I just hung around smiling in my most appealing way; and then he couldn’t help laughing. He sat down on the bed and laughed for a full five minutes, and later patted me on the head and said, never mind, he’d teach me to cook in the morning.

  Not only did he teach me to cook, but he taught me to write my name and his, and said he would soon teach me to write whole sentences, and add money on paper when you didn’t have any in your pocket!

  It was quite pleasant working for Arun. I made the tea in the morning and later went out shopping. I would take my time buying the day’s supplies and made a profit of about twenty-five paise a day. I would tell Arun that rice was fifty-six paise a pound (it generally was), but I would get it at fifty paise a pound. I think he knew I made a little this way, but he didn’t mind, he wasn’t giving me a regular wage.

  I was really grateful to Arun for teaching me to write. I knew that once I could write like an educated man there would be no limit to what I could achieve. It might even be an incentive to be honest.

  Arun made money by fits and starts. He would be borrowing one week, lending the next. He would keep worrying about his next cheque but, as soon as it arrived, he would go out and celebrate lavishly.

  One evening he came home with a wad of notes, and at night I saw him tuck the bundles under his mattress, at the head of the bed.

  I had been working for Arun for nearly a fortnight and, apart from the shopping, hadn’t done much to exploit him. I had every opportunity for doing so. I had a key to the front door, which meant I had access to the room whenever Arun was out. He was the most trusting person I had ever met. And that was why I couldn’t make up my mind to rob him.

  It’s easy to rob a greedy man, because he deserves to be robbed; it’s easy to rob a rich man, because he can afford to be robbed; but it’s difficult to rob a poor man, even one who really doesn’t care if he’s robbed. A rich man or a greedy man or a careful man wouldn’t keep his money under a pillow or mattress, he’d lock it up in a safe place. Arun had put his money where it would be child’s play for me to remove it without his knowledge.

  It’s time I did some real work, I told myself; I’m getting out of practice. . . . If I don’t take the money, he’ll only waste it on his friends. . . . He doesn’t even pay me. . . .

  Arun was asleep. Moonlight came in from the veranda and fell across the bed. I sat up on the floor, my blanket wrapped round me, considering the situation. There was quite a lot of money in that wad, and if I took it I would have to leave town—I might make the 10.30 express to Amritsar. . . .

  Slipping out of the blanket, I crept on all fours through the door and up to the bed, and peeped at Arun. He was sleeping peacefully with a soft and easy breathing. His face was clear and unlined; even I had more markings on my face, though mine were mostly scars.

  My hand took on an identity of its own as it slid around under the mattress, the fingers searching for the notes. They found them, and I drew them out without a crackle.

  Arun sighed in his sleep and turned on his side, towards me. My free hand was resting on the bed, and his hair touched my fingers.

  I was frightened when his hair touched my fingers, and crawled quickly and quietly out of the room.

  When I was in the street, I began to run. I ran down the bazaar road to the station. The shops were all closed, but a few lights came from upper windows. I had the notes at my waist, held there by the string of my pyjamas. I felt I had to stop and count the notes though I knew it might make me late for the train. It was already 10.20 by the clock tower. I slowed down to a walk, and my fingers flicked through the notes. There were about a hundred rupees in fives. A good haul. I could live like a prince for a month or two.

  When I reached the station I did not stop at the ticket-office (I had never bought a ticket in my life) but dashed straight onto the platform. The Amritsar Express was just moving out. It was moving slowly enough for me to be able to jump on the footboard of one of the carriages, but I hesitated for some urgent, unexplainable reason.

  I hesitated long enough for the train to leave without me.

  When it had gone, and the noise and busy confusion of the platform had subsided, I found myself standing alone on the deserted platform. The knowledge that I had a hundred stolen rupees in my pyjamas only increased my feeling of isolation and loneliness. I had no idea where to spend the night; I had never kept any friends, because sometimes friends can be one’s undoing; I didn’t want to make myself conspicuous by staying at a hotel. And the only person I knew really well in town was the person I had robbed!

  Leaving the station, I walked slowly through the bazaar keeping to dark, deserted alleys. I kept thinking of Arun. He would still be asleep, blissfully unaware of his loss.

  I have made a study of men’s faces when they have lost something of material value. The greedy man shows panic, the rich man shows anger, the poor man shows fear; but I knew that neither panic nor anger nor fear would show on Arun’s face when he discovered the theft; only a terrible sadness not for the loss of the money but for my having betrayed his trust.

  I found myself on the maidan and sat down on a bench with my feet tucked up under my haunches. The night was a little cold, and I regretted not having brought Arun’s blanket along. A light drizzle added to my discomfort. Soon it was raining heavily. My shirt and pyjamas stuck to my skin and a cold wind brought the rain whipping across my face. I told myself that sleeping on a bench was something I should have been used to by now, but the veranda had softened me.

  I walked back to the bazaar and sat down on the step of a closed shop. A few vagrants lay beside me, rolled up tight in thin blankets. The clock showed midnight, I felt for the notes; they
were still with me, but had lost their crispness and were damp with rainwater.

  Arun’s money. In the morning he would probably have given me a rupee to go to the pictures but now I had it all. No more cooking his meals, running to the bazaar, or learning to write whole sentences. Whole sentences. . . .

  They were something I had forgotten in the excitement of a hundred rupees. Whole sentences, I knew, could one day bring me more than a hundred rupees. It was a simple matter to steal (and sometimes just as simple to be caught) but to be a really big man, a wise and successful man, that was something. I should go back to Arun, I told myself, if only to learn how to write.

  Perhaps it was also concern for Arun that drew me back; a sense of sympathy is one of my weaknesses, and through hesitation over a theft I had often been caught. A successful thief must be pitiless. I was fond of Arun. My affection for him, my sense of sympathy, but most of all my desire to write whole sentences, drew me back to the room.

  I hurried back to the room extremely nervous, for it is easier to steal something than to return it undetected. If I was caught beside the bed now, with the money in my hand, or with my hand under the mattress there could be only one explanation: that I was actually stealing. If Arun woke up, I would be lost.

  I opened the door clumsily, then stood in the doorway in clouded moonlight. Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the darkness of the room. Arun was still asleep. I went on all fours again and crept noiselessly to the head of the bed. My hand came up with the notes. I felt his breath on my fingers. I was fascinated by his tranquil features and easy breathing and remained motionless for a minute. Then my hand explored the mattress, found the edge, slipped under it with the notes.

  I awoke late next morning to find that Arun had already made the tea. I found it difficult to face him in the harsh light of day. His hand was stretched out towards me. There was a five-rupee note between his fingers. My heart sank.

  ‘I made some money yesterday,’ he said. ‘Now you’ll get paid regularly.’ My spirit rose as rapidly as it had fallen. I congratulated myself on having returned the money.

  But when I took the note, I realized that he knew everything. The note was still wet from last night’s rain.

  ‘Today I’ll teach you to write a little more than your name,’ he said.

  He knew; but neither his lips nor his eyes said anything about their knowing.

  I smiled at Arun in my most appealing way; and the smile came by itself, without my knowing it.

  The Night Train At Deoli

  When I was at college I used to spend my summer vacations in Dehra, at my grandmother’s place. I would leave the plains early in May and return late in July. Deoli was a small station about thirty miles from Dehra; it marked the beginning of the heavy jungles of the Indian Terai.

  The train would reach Deoli at about five in the morning, when the station would be dimly lit with electric bulbs and oil lamps, and the jungle across the railway tracks would just be visible in the faint light of dawn. Deoli had only one platform, an office for the Stationmaster and a waiting room. The platform boasted a tea-stall, a fruit vendor, and a few stray dogs; not much else, because the train stopped there for only ten minutes before rushing on into the forests.

  Why it stopped at Deoli, I don’t know. Nothing ever happened there. Nobody got off the train and nobody got in. There were never any coolies on the platform. But the train would halt there a full ten minutes, and then a bell would sound, the guard would blow his whistle, and presently Deoli would be left behind and forgotten.

  I used to wonder what happened in Deoli, behind the station walls. I always felt sorry for that lonely little platform, and for the place that nobody wanted to visit. I decided that one day I would get off the train at Deoli, and spend the day there, just to please the town.

  I was eighteen, visiting my grandmother, and the night train stopped at Deoli. A girl came down the platform, selling baskets.

  It was a cold morning and the girl had a shawl thrown across her shoulders. Her feet were bare and her clothes were old, but she was a young girl, walking gracefully and with dignity.

  When she came to my window, she stopped. She saw that I was looking at her intently, but at first she pretended not to notice. She had a pale skin, set off by shiny black hair, and dark, troubled eyes. And then those eyes, searching and eloquent, met mine.

  She stood by my window for some time and neither of us said anything. But when she moved on, I found myself leaving my seat and going to the carriage door, and stood waiting on the platform, looking the other way. I walked across to the tea-stall. A kettle was boiling over on a small fire, but the owner of the stall was busy serving tea somewhere on the train. The girl followed me behind the stall.

  ‘Do you want to buy a basket?’ she asked. ‘They are very strong, made of the finest cane. . . .’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t want a basket.’

  We stood looking at each other for what seemed a very long time, and she said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want a basket?’

  ‘All right, give me one,’ I said, and I took the one on top and gave her a rupee, hardly daring to touch her fingers.

  As she was about to speak, the guard blew his whistle; she said something, but it was lost in the clanging of the bell and the hissing of the engine. I had to run back to my compartment. The carriage shuddered and jolted forward.

  I watched her as the platform slipped away. She was alone on the platform and she did not move, but she was looking at me and smiling. I watched her until the signal-box came in the way, and then the jungle hid the station, but I could still see her standing there alone. . . .

  I sat up awake for the rest of the journey. I could not rid my mind of the picture of the girl’s face and her dark, smouldering eyes.

  But when I reached Dehra the incident became blurred and distant, for there were other things to occupy my mind. It was only when I was making the return journey, two months later, that I remembered the girl.

  I was looking out for her as the train drew into the station, and I felt an unexpected thrill when I saw her walking up the platform. I sprang off the footboard and waved to her.

  When she saw me, she smiled. She was pleased that I remembered her. I was pleased that she remembered me. We were both pleased, and it was almost like a meeting of old friends.

  She did not go down the length of the train selling baskets, but came straight to the tea-stall; her dark eyes were suddenly filled with light. We said nothing for some time but we couldn’t have been more eloquent.

  I felt the impulse to put her on the train there and then, and take her away with me; I could not bear the thought of having to watch her recede into the distance of Deoli station. I took the baskets from her hand and put them down on the ground. She put out her hand for one of them, but I caught her hand and held it.

  ‘I have to go to Delhi,’ I said.

  She nodded, ‘I do not have to go anywhere.

  The guard blew his whistle for the train to leave and how I hated the guard for doing that.

  ‘I will come again,’ I said. ‘Will you be here?’

  She nodded again, and, as she nodded, the bell clanged and the train slid forward. I had to wrench my hand away from the girl and run for the moving train.

  This time I did not forget her. She was with me for the remainder of the journey, and for long after. All that year she was a bright, living thing. And when the college term finished I packed in haste and left for Dehra earlier than usual. My grandmother would be pleased at my eagerness to see her.

  I was nervous and anxious as the train drew into Deoli, because I was wondering what I should say to the girl and what I should do. I was determined that I wouldn’t stand helplessly before her, hardly able to speak or do anything about my feelings.

  The train came to Deoli, and I looked up and down the platform, but I could not see the girl anywhere.

  I opened the door and stepped off the footboard. I was deeply disappointed, and o
vercome by a sense of foreboding. I felt I had to do something, and so I ran up to the Stationmaster and said, ‘Do you know the girl who used to sell baskets here?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said the Stationmaster. ‘And you’d better get on the train if you don’t want to be left behind.’

  But I paced up and down the platform, and stared over the railings at the station yard; all I saw was a mango tree and a dusty road leading into the jungle. Where did the road go? The train was moving out of the station, and I had to run up the platform and jump for the door of my compartment. Then, as the train gathered speed and rushed through the forests, I sat brooding in front of the window.

  What could I do about finding a girl I had seen only twice, who had hardly spoken to me, and about whom I knew nothing—absolutely nothing—but for whom I felt a tenderness and responsibility that I had never felt before?

  My grandmother was not pleased with my visit after all, because I didn’t stay at her place more than a couple of weeks. I felt restless and ill at ease. So I took the train back to the plains, meaning to ask further questions of the Stationmaster at Deoli.

  But at Deoli there was a new Stationmaster. The previous man had been transferred to another post within the past week. The new man didn’t know anything about the girl who sold baskets. I found the owner of the tea-stall, a small, shrivelled-up man, wearing greasy clothes, and asked him if he knew anything about the girl with the baskets.

  ‘Yes, there was such a girl here, I remember quite well,’ he said. ‘But she has stopped coming now.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘How should I know?’ said the man. ‘She was nothing to me.’

  And once again I had to run for the train.

  As Deoli platform receded, I decided that one day I would have to break journey there, spend a day in the town, make enquiries, and find the girl who had stolen my heart with nothing but a look from her dark, impatient eyes.

  With this thought I consoled myself throughout my last term in college. I went to Dehra again in the summer and when, in the early hours of the morning, the night train drew into Deoli station, I looked up and down the platform for signs of the girl, knowing I wouldn’t find her but hoping just the same.