Rusty and the Leopard Read online

  ‘But why? You have just left her. You came to the hills for money, didn’t you? And she didn’t have any money.’

  ‘I wanted to see her, too. I wanted to know what she was like. It wasn’t just a matter of money.’

  ‘Well, you saw her. And there is no future for you with her, or in Dehra. What’s the use of returning?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sudheer. What’s the use of anything for that matter? What would be the use of staying with you? I want to give some direction to my life. I want to work, I want to be free, I want to be able to write. I can’t wander about the hills and plains with you for ever.’

  ‘Why not? There is nothing to stop you, if you like to wander. India has always been the home of wanderers.’

  ‘I might join you again if I fail at everything else.’

  Sudheer looked sullen and downcast.

  ‘You do not realize . . .’ he began, but stopped, groping for the right words; he had seldom been at a loss for words. ‘I have got used to you, that is all,’ he said.

  ‘And I have got used to you, Sudheer. I don’t think anyone else has ever done that.’

  ‘That’s why I don’t want to lose you. But I cannot stop you from going.’

  ‘I shall come to see you, I will, really . . .’

  Sudheer brightened up a little. ‘Do you promise? Or do you say that just to please me?’

  ‘Both.’

  Then Sudheer was his old self again, smiling and digging his fingers into my arms. ‘I’ll be waiting for you,’ he said. ‘Whenever you want to look for treasure, come to me! Whenever you are looking for fun, come to me!’

  Then he was silent again, and a shadow passed across his face. Was he afraid of being lonely? ‘Let us part now,’ he said. ‘Let us not prolong it. You go down the street to the bus-stand, and I’ll go the other way.’

  He held out his hand to me. And then saying, ‘Your hand is not enough,’ he put his arms around me, and embraced me.

  People stopped to stare; not because two youths were demonstrating their affection for each other— that was common enough—but because a sadhu in a saffron robe was behaving out of character.

  When Sudheer realized this, he grinned at the passers-by; and they, embarrassed by his grin, and made nervous by his height, hurried on down the street.

  Sudheer turned and walked away.

  I watched him for some time. He stood out distinctly from the crowd of people in the bazaar, tall and handsome in his flowing robe.

  First and Last Impressions

  Because I had told no one of my return, there was no one to meet me at Dehra station when I stepped down from a third-class compartment. But on my way through the bazaar I met one of the tea shop boys who told me that Devinder might be found near the Clock Tower. And so I went to the Clock Tower, but I could not find my friend. Another familiar, a shoeshine boy, said he had last seen Devinder near the Court, where business was brisk that day.

  I was feeling tired and dirty after my journey, so I decided to look for Devinder later, and made my way to the church compound and left my bag there. Then I went through the jungle to the pool.

  Goonga was already there, bathing in the shallows, gesticulating and shouting incomprehensibles at a band of langurs who were watching him from the sal trees. When Goonga saw me, he chortled with delight and rushed out of the water to give me a hug.

  ‘And how are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Goo,’ said Goonga.

  He was evidently very well. Devinder had been feeding him, and he no longer needed to prowl around tea shops and receive kicks and insults in exchange for a glass of tea or a stale bun.

  I took off my clothes and leapt into the cold, sweet, delicious water of the pool. I floated languidly on the water, gazing up through the branches of an overhanging sal, through a pattern of broad leaves, into a blind-blue sky. Goonga sat on a rock and grinned at the monkeys, making encouraging sounds. Looking from Goonga to the monkeys and back to the hairy, long-armed youth, I wondered how anyone could doubt Darwin’s theories.

  And quite obviously, I belong to the same species, I thought to myself, joining Goonga on the rock and making noises of my own. ‘Oh, to be a langur, without a care in the world. Acorns and green leaves to feed on, lots of friends, and no romantic complications. But no books either. I suppose being human has its advantages. Not that books would make any difference to Goonga.’

  I was soon dry. I lay on my tummy, flat against the warm, smooth rock surface. I wanted to sink deep into that beautiful rock.

  ‘Goo,’ said Goonga, as though he approved.

  Then the sun was in the pool and the pool was in the sky and the rock had swallowed me up, and when I woke I thought Goonga was still beside me. But when I raised my head and looked, I saw Devinder sitting there—Devinder looking cool and clean in a white shirt and pyjamas, his tray lying on the ground a little way off.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.

  ‘I just came. It is good to see you. I was afraid you had left for good.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ I said.

  ‘I’m glad you haven’t lost your appetite. I have brought you something to eat.’ He produced a paper bag filled with bazaar food, and a couple of oranges.

  While I ate, I told Devinder of my journey. He was disappointed.

  ‘So there was nothing for you, except a few books. I know money isn’t everything, but it’s time you had some of it, Rusty. How long can you carry on like this? You can’t sell combs and buttons like me—you wouldn’t know how to. You’re a dreamer, a kind of poet, but you can’t live on dreams. You don’t have rich friends and relatives, like Kishen, to provide intervals of luxury. You’re not like Sudheer, able to live on your wits. There’s only this aunt of yours in the hills—and you can’t spend the rest of your life lost in the mountains like a hermit. It will take you years to become a successful writer. Look at Goldsmith— borrowing money all the time! And you haven’t even started yet.’

  ‘I know, Devinder. You don’t have to tell me. Tomorrow I’ll go and see Mr Pettigrew. Perhaps he can help me in some way—perhaps he can find me a job.’

  We fell silent, gazing disconsolately into the pool.

  ‘Have you seen Kishen?’ I asked.

  ‘Once, in the bazaar. He was with that girl, his cousin, I think. They were on bicycles. I think they were going to the cinema. Kishen seemed happy enough. He stopped and spoke to me and asked me when you would be back. They will soon be sending him back to school. That’s good, isn’t it? He’ll never be able to manage without a proper education. Degrees and things.’

  ‘Well, Sudheer has managed well enough without one. You might call him self-educated. And Kishen is worldly enough. And sufficiently shrewd as well. No one is likely to get the better of him. All the same, you’re right. A couple of degrees behind your name could make all the difference, even if you can’t put them down in the right order!’

  Already the dream was fading. Life is like that. You can’t run away from it and survive. You can’t be a vagrant for ever. You’re getting nowhere, so you’ve got to stop somewhere. Kishen had stopped. He’d thrown in his lot with the settled incomes—he had to. Even Mowgli left the wolf pack to return to his own people. And India was changing. This great formless mass was taking some sort of shape at last. I, too, had to stop at that point, and find a place for myself, or go forward to disaster.

  ‘I’ll see him tomorrow,’ I said to Devinder, stirring from my thoughts. ‘I’ll see Kishen and say goodbye.’

  I decided to leave my books with Mr Pettigrew instead of in the church vestry, a transient abode. So I put them in my bag, and after tea with Devinder near the Clock Tower, set out for the tea gardens.

  I crossed the dry river bed and yellow mustard fields which stretched away to the foothills, and found Mr Pettigrew sitting on his veranda as though he had not moved from his cane chair since I had last visited him. He gazed out across the flat tea bushes and seemed to look through me. So I thought I
had not been recognized. Perhaps the old man had forgotten me!

  ‘Good morning,’ I greeted him. ‘I’m back.’

  ‘The poinsettia leaves have turned red,’ said Pettigrew. ‘Another winter is passing.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Full sixty hot summers have besieged my brow. I’m growing old so slowly. I wish there could be some action to make the process more interesting. Not that I feel very active, but I’d like to have something happening around me. A jolly old riot would be just the thing. You know what I mean, of course?’

  ‘I think so,’ I replied.

  It was loneliness again. In a week I had found two lonely people—my aunt and this elderly gentleman, moving slowly through the autumn of their lives. It was beginning to affect me. I looked at Mr Pettigrew and wondered if I would be like that one day—alone, not very strong, living in the past, with a bottle of whisky to sustain me through the still, lonely evenings. I had friends—but so did Pettigrew, in his youth. I had books to read, and books to write—but Pettigrew had books, too. Did they make much difference? Weren’t there any permanent flesh and blood companions to be found outside the conventions of marriage and business?

  Pettigrew seemed suddenly to realize that I was still standing beside him. A spark of interest showed in his eyes. It flickered and grew into comprehension.

  ‘Drinking in the mornings, that’s my trouble. You returned very soon. Sit down, my boy, sit down. Tell me—did you find the lady? Did she know you? Was it any good?’

  I sat down on a step, for there was no chair on the veranda apart from Mr Pettigrew’s.

  ‘Yes, she knew me. She was very kind and wanted to help me. But she had nothing of mine, except some old books which my father had left with her.’

  ‘Books! Is that all? You’ve brought them with you, I see.’

  ‘I thought perhaps you’d keep them for me until I’m properly settled somewhere.’

  Mr Pettigrew took the books from me and thumbed through them.

  ‘Stevenson, Ballantyne, Marryat, and some early P.G. Wodehouse. I expect you’ve read them. And here’s Alice in Wonderland. “How doth the little crocodile . . .” Tenniel’s drawings. It’s a first edition, methinks! It couldn’t be—or could it?’

  Mr Pettigrew then became silent for a while. He studied the title page and the back of the title-leaf with growing interest and solicitude and then with something approaching reverence.

  ‘It could be, at that,’ said Pettigrew, almost to himself, and I was bewildered by the transformation on the old man’s face. Ennui had given place to enthusiasm.

  ‘Could be what, sir?’

  ‘A first edition.’

  ‘It was once my grandfather’s book. His name is on the flyleaf.’

  ‘It must be a first. No wonder your father treasured it.’

  ‘Is being a first edition very important?’

  ‘Yes, from the book collector’s point of view. In England, on the Continent, and in America, there are people who collect rare works of literature— manuscripts, and the first editions of books that have since become famous. The value of a book depends on its literary worth, its scarcity, and its condition.’

  ‘Well, Alice is a famous book. And this is a good copy. Is a first edition of it rare?’

  ‘It certainly is. There are only two or three known copies.’

  ‘And do you think this is one?’

  ‘Well, I’m not an expert, but I do know something about books. This is the first printing. And it’s in good condition, except for a few stains on the flyleaf.’

  ‘Let’s rub them off.’

  ‘No, don’t touch a thing—don’t tamper with its condition. I’ll write to a bookseller friend of mine in London for his advice. I think this should be worth a good sum of money to you—several hundred pounds.’

  ‘Pounds!’ I exclaimed disbelievingly.

  ‘Five or six hundred, maybe more. Your father must have known the book was valuable and meant you to have it one day. Perhaps this was his legacy.’

  I kept quiet, taking in the import of what Mr Pettigrew had told me. I had never had much money in my life. A few hundred pounds would take me anywhere I wanted to go. But it was also, I knew, quite easy to go through any sum of money, no matter how large the amount.

  Pettigrew was glancing through the other books. ‘None of these are firsts, except the Wodehouse novels, and you’ll have to wait some time with those. But Alice is the real thing. My friend will arrange its sale.’

  ‘It would be nice to keep it,’ I said, thinking of how the book had passed through two generations of my family.

  Mr Pettigrew looked up in surprise. ‘In other circumstances, my boy, I’d say keep it. Become a book collector yourself. But when you’re down on your beam-ends, you can’t afford to be sentimental. Now leave this business in my hands, and let me advance you some money. Furthermore, this calls for a celebration!’

  He poured himself a stiff whisky and offered me a drink.

  ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ I said, bestowing a smile on the old man.

  Later, after lunching with Mr Pettigrew, I sat out on the veranda with the old man and discussed my future.

  ‘I think you should go to England,’ said Mr Pettigrew.

  ‘I’ve thought of that before,’ I said, ‘but I’ve always felt that India is my home.’

  ‘But can you make a living here? After all, even Indians go abroad at the first opportunity. And you want to be a writer. You can’t become one overnight, certainly not in India. It will take years of hard work, and even then—even if you’re good—you may not make the reputation that means all the difference between failure and success. In the meantime, you’ve got to make a living at something. And what can you do in India? Let’s face it, my boy, you’ve only just finished school. There are graduates who can’t get jobs. Only last week a young man with a degree in the Arts came to me and asked my help in getting him a job as a petty clerk in the tea-estate manager’s office. A clerk! Is that why he went to college—to become a clerk?’

  I did not argue the point. I knew that it was only people with certain skills who stood a chance. It was an age of specialization. And I did not have any skills, apart from some skill with words.

  ‘You can always come back,’ said Mr Pettigrew. ‘If you are successful, you’ll be free to go wherever you please. And if you aren’t successful, well then, you can make a go of something else—if not in England, then in some other English-speaking country, America or Australia or Canada or the Cook Islands!’

  ‘Why didn’t you leave India, Mr Pettigrew?’

  ‘For reasons similar to yours. Because I had lived many years here in India and had grown to love the country. But unlike you, I’m at the fag end of my life. And it’s easier to fade away in the hot sun than in the cold winds of Blighty.’

  He looked out rather wistfully at his garden, at the tall marigolds and bright clumps of petunia and the splurge of bougainvillaea against the wall.

  ‘My journeyings are over,’ he mused. ‘And yours have just begun.’

  It was dark when I slipped over a wall and moved silently round the porch of Mrs Bhushan’s house. There was a light showing in the front room, and I crept up to the window and looked in, pressing my face against the glass. I felt the music in the room even before I heard it. It came vibrating through the glass with a pulsating rhythm. Kishen and Aruna, both barefoot, were gyrating on the floor in a frenzy of hip-shivering movement. Their faces were blank. They did not sing. All expression was confined to their plunging torsos.

  I felt that it was not a propitious moment for calling on my old friend. This was confirmed a few minutes later by the throaty blare of a horn and the glare of a car’s headlights. Mrs Bhushan’s Hillman was turning in at the gate. The music came to a sudden stop. I dodged behind a rose bush, stung my hands on nettle, and remained hidden until Mrs Bhushan alighted from her car. I was moving cautiously through the shrubbery when one of the dogs started barking. Others to
ok up the chorus.

  I was soon clambering over the wall, with two or three cockers snapping at my feet and trousers. I ran down the road until I found the entrance to a dark lane, down which I disappeared.

  I slowed to a walk as I approached the crowded bazaar area. I felt annoyed and a little depressed at not having been able to see Kishen, but I had to admit that Kishen appeared to be quite happy in Mrs Bhushan’s house. Aruna had made all the difference; for Kishen was beginning to grow up.

  Perhaps, I thought, I’d better not see him at all.

  Start of a Journey

  Events moved swiftly—as they usually do, once a specific plan is set in motion—and within a few weeks I was in possession of a passport, a rail ticket to Bombay, my boat ticket, an income tax clearance certificate (this had been the most difficult to obtain, in spite of the fact that I had no income), a smallpox vaccination certificate, various other bits and pieces of paper, and about fifty rupees in cash advanced by Mr Pettigrew. The money for Alice would not be realized for several months, and could be drawn upon in London.

  I was late for my train. The tonga I had hired turned out to be the most ancient of Dehra’s dwindling fleet of pony-drawn carriages. The pony was old, slow and dyspeptic. It stopped every now and then to pass quantities of wind. The tonga driver turned out to be a bhang addict who had not woken up from his last excursion into dreamland. The carriage itself was a thing of shreds and patches. It lay at an angle, and rolled from side to side. This motion seemed designed to suit the condition of the driver who dozed off every now and then.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for your luggage,’ said Devinder, ‘we would have done better to walk.’

  At our feet was a new suitcase and a spacious holdall given to me by Mr Pettigrew. Devinder, the tonga driver and I were the only occupants of the carriage.

  I couldn’t help thinking of a similar situation many years back when my grandmother and I were travelling by a pony cart to the Dehra railway station. We had to take the train to Lucknow, stay with Aunt Emily for a few days, and then go on to Bombay. From there we were to take the ship to London. Even though that carriage had been slow, we had managed to catch the train as it always left after its scheduled time. Despite this, we couldn’t make it to England for Grandmother passed away suddenly in Lucknow, and I was sent back to Dehra.