by Ruskin Bond
‘Step by step,’ I repeated. ‘Step by step …’
‘You aren’t eating,’ said my father. ‘Hurry up, and you can come with me to school today.’
I always looked forward to attending my father’s classes. He did not take me to the schoolroom very often, because he wanted school to be a treat, to begin with, and then, later, the routine wouldn’t be so unwelcome.
Sitting there with older children, understanding only half of what they were learning, I felt important and part grown-up. And of course I did learn to read and write, although I first learnt to read upside-down, by means of standing in front of the others’ desks and peering across at their books. Later, when I went to school, I had some difficulty in learning to read the right way up; and even today I sometimes read upside-down, for the sake of variety. I don’t mean that I read standing on my head; simply that I held the book upside-down.
I had at my command a number of rhymes and jingles, the most interesting of these being ‘Solomon Grundy’.
Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday:
This is the end of
Solomon Grundy.
Was that all that life amounted to, in the end? And were we all Solomon Grundys? These were questions that bothered me at the time. Another puzzling rhyme was the one that went:
Hark, hark,
The dogs do bark,
The beggars are coming to town;
Some in rags,
Some in bags,
And some in velvet gowns.
This rhyme puzzled me for a long time. There were beggars aplenty in the bazaar, and sometimes they came to the house, and some of them did wear rags and bags (and some nothing at all) and the dogs did bark at them, but the beggar in the velvet gown never came our way.
‘Who’s this beggar in a velvet gown?’ I asked my father.
‘Not a beggar at all,’ he said.
‘Then why call him one?’
And I went to Ayah and asked her the same question, ‘Who is the beggar in the velvet gown?’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Ayah.
Ayah was a fervent Christian and made me say my prayers at night, even when I was very sleepy. She had, I think, Arab and Negro blood in addition to the blood of the Koli fishing community to which her mother had belonged. Her father, a sailor on an Arab dhow, had been a convert to Christianity. Ayah was a large, buxom woman, with heavy hands and feet and a slow, swaying gait that had all the grace and majesty of a royal elephant. Elephants for all their size are nimble creatures; and Ayah, too, was nimble, sensitive, and gentle with her big hands. Her face was always sweet and childlike.
Although a Christian, she clung to many of the beliefs of her parents, and loved to tell me stories about mischievous spirits and evil spirits, humans who changed into animals, and snakes who had been princes in their former lives.
There was the story of the snake who married a princess. At first the princess did not wish to marry the snake, whom she had met in a forest, but the snake insisted, saying, ‘I’ll kill you if you won’t marry me,’ and of course that settled the question. The snake led his bride away and took her to a great treasure. ‘I was a prince in my former life,’ he explained. ‘This treasure is yours.’ And then the snake very gallantly disappeared.
‘Snakes,’ declared Ayah, ‘were very lucky omens if seen early in the morning.’
‘But, what if the snake bites the lucky person?’ I asked.
‘He will be lucky all the same,’ said Ayah with a logic that was all her own.
Snakes! There were a number of them living in the big garden, and my father had advised me to avoid the long grass. But I had seen snakes crossing the road (a lucky omen, according to Ayah) and they were never aggressive.
‘A snake won’t attack you,’ said Father, ‘provided you leave it alone. Of course, if you step on one it will probably bite.’
‘Are all snakes poisonous?’
‘Yes, but only a few are poisonous enough to kill a man. Others use their poison on rats and frogs. A good thing, too, otherwise during the rains the house would be taken over by the frogs.’
One afternoon, while Father was at school, Ayah found a snake in the bathtub. It wasn’t early morning and so the snake couldn’t have been a lucky one. Ayah was frightened and ran into the garden calling for help. Dukhi came running. Ayah ordered me to stay outside while they went after the snake.
And it was while I was alone in the garden—an unusual circumstance, since Dukhi was nearly always there—that I remembered the rani’s request. On an impulse, I went to the nearest rose bush and plucked the largest rose, pricking my thumb in the process.
And then, without waiting to see what had happened to the snake (it finally escaped), I started up the steps to the top of the old palace.
When I got to the top, I knocked on the door of the rani’s room. Getting no reply, I walked along the balcony until I reached another doorway. There were wooden panels around the door, with elephants, camels and turbaned warriors carved into it. As the door was open, I walked boldly into the room then stood still in astonishment. The room was filled with a strange light.
There were windows going right round the room, and each small windowpane was made of a different coloured glass. The sun that came through one window flung red and green and purple colours on the figure of the little rani who stood there with her face pressed to the glass.
She spoke to me without turning from the window. ‘This is my favourite room. I have all the colours here. I can see a different world through each pane of glass. Come, join me!’ And she beckoned to me, her small hand fluttering like a delicate butterfly.
I went up to the rani. She was only a little taller than me, and we were able to share the same windowpane.
‘See, it’s a red world!’ she said.
The garden below, the palace and the lake, were all tinted red. I watched the rani’s world for a little while and then touched her on the arm and said, ‘I have brought you a rose!’
She started away from me, and her eyes looked frightened. She would not look at the rose.
‘Oh, why did you bring it?’ she cried, wringing her hands. ‘He’ll be arrested now!’
‘Who’ll be arrested?’
‘The prince, of course!’
‘But I took it,’ I said. ‘No one saw me. Ayah and Dukhi were inside the house, catching a snake.’
‘Did they catch it?’ she asked, forgetting about the rose.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t wait to see!’
‘They should follow the snake, instead of catching it. It may lead them to a treasure. All snakes have treasures to guard.’
This seemed to confirm what Ayah had been telling me, and I resolved that I would follow the next snake that I met.
‘Don’t you like the rose, then?’ I asked.
‘Did you steal it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Flowers should always be stolen. They’re more fragrant then.’
Because of a man called Hitler war had been declared in Europe and Britain was fighting Germany.
In my comic papers, the Germans were usually shown as blundering idiots; so I didn’t see how Britain could possibly lose the war, nor why it should concern India, nor why it should be necessary for my father to join up. But I remember his showing me a newspaper headline which said:
BOMBS FALL ON BUCKINGHAM PALACE—KING AND QUEEN SAFE
I expect that had something to do with it.
He went to Delhi for an interview with the RAF and I was left in Ayah’s charge.
It was a week I remember well, because it was the first time I had been left on my own. That first night I was afraid—afraid of the dark, afraid of the emptiness of the house, afraid of the howling of the jackals outside. The loud tick
ing of the clock was the only reassuring sound: clocks really made themselves heard in those days! I tried concentrating on the ticking, shutting out other sounds and the menace of the dark, but it wouldn’t work. I thought I heard a faint hissing near the bed, and sat up, bathed in perspiration, certain that a snake was in the room. I shouted for Ayah and she came running, switching on all the lights.
‘A snake!’ I cried. ‘There’s a snake in the room!’
‘Where, baba?’
‘I don’t know where, but I heard it.’
Ayah looked under the bed, and behind the chairs and tables, but there was no snake to be found. She persuaded me that I must have heard the breeze whispering in the mosquito curtains.
But I didn’t want to be left alone.
‘I’m coming to you,’ I said and followed her into her small room near the kitchen.
Ayah slept on a low string cot. The mattress was thin, the blanket worn and patched up; but Ayah’s warm and solid body made up for the discomfort of the bed. I snuggled up to her and was soon asleep.
I had almost forgotten the rani in the old palace and was about to pay her a visit when, to my surprise, I found her in the garden.
I had risen early that morning, and had gone running barefoot over the dew-drenched grass. No one was about, but I startled a flock of parrots and the birds rose screeching from a banyan tree and wheeled away to some other corner of the palace grounds. I was just in time to see a mongoose scurrying across the grass with an egg in its mouth. The mongoose must have been raiding the poultry farm at the palace.
I was trying to locate the mongoose’s hideout, and was on all fours in a jungle of tall cosmos plants when I heard the rustle of clothes, and turned to find the rani staring at me.
She didn’t ask me what I was doing there, but simply said: ‘I don’t think he could have gone in there.’
‘But I saw him go this way,’ I said.
‘Nonsense! He doesn’t live in this part of the garden. He lives in the roots of the banyan tree.’
‘But that’s where the snake lives,’ I said
‘You mean the snake who was a prince. Well, that’s whom I’m looking for!’
‘A snake who was a prince!’ I gaped at the rani.
She made a gesture of impatience with her butterfly hands, and said, ‘Tut, you’re only a child, you can’t understand. The prince lives in the roots of the banyan tree, but he comes out early every morning. Have you seen him?’
‘No. But I saw a mongoose.’
The rani became frightened. ‘Oh dear, is there a mongoose in the garden? He might kill the prince!’
‘How can a mongoose kill a prince?’ I asked.
‘You don’t understand, Master Bond. Princes, when they die, are born again as snakes.’
‘All princes?’
‘No, only those who die before they can marry.’
‘Did your prince die before he could marry you?’
‘Yes. And he returned to this garden in the form of a beautiful snake.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I hope it wasn’t the snake the water carrier killed last week.’
‘He killed a snake!’ The rani looked horrified. She was quivering all over. ‘It might have been the prince!’
‘It was a brown snake,’ I said.
‘Oh, then it wasn’t him.’ She looked very relieved. ‘Brown snakes are only ministers and people like that. It has to be a green snake to be a prince.’
‘I haven’t seen any green snakes here.’
‘There’s one living in the roots of the banyan tree. You won’t kill it, will you?’
‘Not if it’s really a prince.’
‘And you won’t let others kill it?’
‘I’ll tell Ayah.’
‘Good. You’re on my side. But be careful of the gardener. Keep him away from the banyan tree. He’s always killing snakes. I don’t trust him at all.’
She came nearer and, leaning forward a little, looked into my eyes.
‘Blue eyes—I trust them. But don’t trust green eyes. And yellow eyes are evil.’
‘I’ve never seen yellow eyes.’
‘That’s because you’re pure,’ she said, and turned away and hurried across the lawn as though she had just remembered a very urgent appointment.
The sun was up, slanting through the branches of the banyan tree, and Ayah’s voice could be heard calling me for breakfast.
‘Dukhi,’ I said, when I found him in the garden later that day, ‘Dukhi, don’t kill the snake in the banyan tree.’
‘A snake in the banyan tree!’ he exclaimed, seizing his hose.
‘No, no!’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen it. But the rani says there’s one. She says it was a prince in its former life, and that we shouldn’t kill it.’
‘Oh,’ said Dukhi, smiling to himself. ‘The rani says so. All right, you tell her we won’t kill it.’
‘Is it true that she was in love with a prince but that he died before she could marry him?’
‘Something like that,’ said Dukhi. ‘It was a long time ago—before I came here.’
‘My father says it wasn’t a prince, but a commoner. Are you a commoner, Dukhi?’
‘A commoner? What’s that, Chota Sahib?’
‘I’m not sure. Someone very poor, I suppose.’
‘Then I must be a commoner,’ said Dukhi.
‘Were you in love with the rani?’ I asked.
Dukhi was so startled that he dropped his hose and lost his balance; the first time I’d seen him lose his poise while squatting on his haunches.
‘Don’t say such things, Chota Sahib!’
‘Why not?’
‘You’ll get me into trouble.’
‘Then it must be true.’
Dukhi threw up his hands in mock despair and started collecting his implements.
‘It’s true, it’s true!’ I cried, dancing round him, and then I ran indoors to Ayah and said, ‘Ayah, Dukhi was in love with the rani!’
Ayah gave a shriek of laughter, then looked very serious and put her finger against my lips.
‘Don’t say such things,’ she said. ‘Dukhi is of a very low caste. People won’t like it if they hear what you say. And besides, the rani told you her prince died and turned into a snake. Well, Dukhi hasn’t become a snake as yet, has he?’
True, Dukhi didn’t look as though he could be anything but a gardener; but I wasn’t satisfied with his denials or with Ayah’s attempts to still my tongue. Hadn’t Dukhi sent the rani a nosegay?
When my father came home, he looked quite pleased with himself.
‘What have you brought for me?’ was the first question I asked.
He had brought me some new books, a dartboard, and a train set; and in my excitement over examining these gifts, I forgot to ask about the result of his trip.
It was during tiffin that he told me what had happened—and what was going to happen.
‘We’ll be going away soon,’ he said. ‘I’ve joined the Royal Air Force. I’ll have to work in Delhi.’
‘Oh! Will you be in the war, Dad? Will you fly a plane?’
‘No, I’m too old to be flying planes. I’ll be forty years old in July. The RAF will be giving me what they call intelligence work—decoding secret messages and things like that and I don’t suppose I’ll be able to tell you much about it.’
This didn’t sound as exciting as flying planes, but it sounded important and rather mysterious.
‘Well, I hope it’s interesting,’ I said. ‘Is Delhi a good place to live in?’
‘I’m not sure. It will be very hot by the middle of April. And you won’t be able to stay with me, Ruskin—not at first, anyway, not until I can get married quarters and then, only if your mother returns … Meanwhile, you’ll stay with your grandmother in Dehra.’ He must have seen the disappointment in my face, because he quickly added: ‘Of course, I’ll come to see you often. Dehra isn’t far from Delhi—only a night’s train journey.’
But I was dismayed.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stay with my grandmother, but I had grown so used to sharing my father’s life and even watching him at work, that the thought of being separated from him was unbearable.
‘Not as bad as going to boarding school,’ he said. ‘And that’s the only alternative.’
‘Not boarding school,’ I said quickly, ‘I’ll run away from boarding school.’
‘Well, you won’t want to run away from your grandmother. She’s very fond of you. And if you come with me to Delhi, you’ll be alone all day in a stuffy little hut while I’m away at work. Sometimes I may have to go on tour—then what happens?’
‘I don’t mind being on my own.’ And this was true. I had already grown accustomed to having my own room and my own trunk and my own bookshelf and I felt as though I was about to lose these things.
‘Will Ayah come too?’ I asked.
My father looked thoughtful. ‘Would you like that?’
‘Ayah must come,’ I said firmly. ‘Otherwise I’ll run away.’
‘I’ll have to ask her,’ said my father.
Ayah, it turned out, was quite ready to come with us. In fact, she was indignant that Father should have considered leaving her behind. She had brought me up since my mother went away, and she wasn’t going to hand over charge to any upstart aunt or governess. She was pleased and excited at the prospect of the move, and this helped to raise my spirits.
‘What is Dehra like?’ I asked my father.
‘It’s a green place,’ he said. ‘It lies in a valley in the foothills of the Himalayas, and it’s surrounded by forests. There are lots of trees in Dehra.’
‘Does Grandmother’s house have trees?’
‘Yes. There’s a big jackfruit tree in the garden. Your grandmother planted it when I was a boy. And there’s an old banyan tree, which is good to climb. And there are fruit trees, litchis, mangoes, papayas.’
‘Are there any books?’
‘Grandmother’s books won’t interest you. But I’ll be bringing you books from Delhi whenever I come to see you.’
I was beginning to look forward to the move. Changing houses had always been fun. Changing towns ought to be fun, too.
A few days before we left, I went to say goodbye to the rani.
