Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories Read online

  Chachi reached the scene of the accident before Sunil could slip away. Removing her slipper, she dealt him three or four furious blows across the head and shoulders. This done, she sat down on the floor and burst into tears.

  Had the beating come from someone else, Sunil might have cried; but his pride was hurt, and instead of weeping, he muttered something under his breath and stormed out of the room.

  Climbing the steps to the roof, he went to his secret hiding-place, a small hole in the wall of the unused barsati, where he kept his marbles, kite-string, tops, and a clasp-knife. Opening the knife, he plunged it thrice into the soft wood of the window-frame.

  ‘I’ll kill her!’ he whispered fiercely, ‘I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her!’ ‘Who are you going to kill, Sunil?’

  It was his cousin Madhu, a dark slim girl of twelve, who aided and abetted him in most of his exploits. Sunil’s Chachi was her ‘Mammi.’It was a very big family.

  ‘Chachi,’ said Sunil. ‘She hates me, I know. Well, I hate her too. This time I’ll kill her.’

  ‘How are you going to do it?’

  ‘I’ll stab with this,’ He showed her the knife.

  ‘Three times, in the heart.’

  ‘But you’ll be caught. The C.I.D. are very clever. Do you want to go to jail?’

  ‘Won’t they hang me?’

  ‘They don’t hang small boys. They send them to boarding-schools.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to a boarding-school.’

  ‘Then better not kill your Chachi. At least not this way. I’ll show you how.’

  Madhu produced pencil and paper, went down on her hands and knees, and screwing up her face in sharp concentration, made a rough drawing of Chachi. Then, with a red crayon, she sketched in a big heart in the region of Chachi’s stomach.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘stab her to death!’

  Sunil’s eyes shone with excitement. Here was a great new game. You could always depend on Madhu for something original. He held the drawing against the woodwork, and plunged his knife three times into Chachi’s pastel breast.

  ‘You have killed her,’ said Madhu.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Well, if you like, we can cremate her.’

  ‘All right.’

  She took the torn paper, crumpled it up, produced a box of matches from Sunil’s hiding-place, lit a match, and set fire to the paper. In a few minutes all that remained of Chachi were a few ashes.

  ‘Poor Chachi,’ said Madhu.

  ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t have done it,’ said Sunil beginning to feel sorry.

  ‘I know, we’ll put her ashes in the river!’

  ‘What river?’

  ‘Oh, the drain will do.’

  Madhu gathered the ashes together, and leant over the balcony of the roof. She threw out her arms, and the ashes drifted downwards. Some of them settled on the pomegranate tree, a few reached the drain and were carried away by a sudden rush of kitchen-water. She turned to face Sunil.

  Big tears were rolling down Sunil’s cheeks.

  ‘What are you crying for?’ asked Madhu.

  ‘Chachi. I didn’t hate her so much.’

  ‘Then why did you want to kill her?’

  ‘Oh, that was different.’

  ‘Come on, then, let’s go down. I have to do my homework.’

  As they came down the steps from the roof, Chachi emerged from the kitchen.

  ‘Oh Chachi!’ shouted Sunil. He rushed to her and tried to get his arms around her ample waist.

  ‘Now what’s up?’ grumbled Chachi. ‘What is it this time?’ ‘Nothing, Chachi. I love you so much. Please don’t leave us.’

  A look of suspicion crossed Chachi’s face. She frowned down the boy. But she was reassured by the look of genuine affection that she saw in his eyes.

  ‘Perhaps he does care for me, after all,’ she thought: and patting him gently on the head, she took him by the hand and led him back to the kitchen.

  The Man Who Was Kipling

  I was sitting on a bench in the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, when a tall, stooping, elderly gentleman sat down beside me. I gave him a quick glance, noting his swarthy features, heavy moustache, and horn-rimmed spectacles. There was something familiar and disturbing about his face, and I couldn’t resist looking at him again.

  I noticed that he was smiling at me.

  ‘Do you recognise me?’ he asked, in a soft pleasant voice. ‘Well, you do seem familiar,’ I said. ‘Haven’t we met somewhere?’ ‘Perhaps. But if I seem familiar to you, that is at least something. The trouble these days is that people don’t know me anymore — I’m a familiar, that’s all. Just a name standing for a lot of outmoded ideas.’

  A little perplexed, I asked, ‘What is it you do?’

  ‘I wrote books once. Poems and tales . . . Tell me, whose books do you read?’

  ‘Oh, Maugham, Priestley, Thurber. And among the older lot, Ben- nett and Wells —.’ I hesitated, groping for an important name, and I noticed a shadow, a sad shadow, pass across my companion’s face.

  ‘Oh, yes, and Kipling,’ I said ‘I read a lot of Kipling.’

  His face brightened up at once, and the eyes behind the thick- lensed spectacles suddenly came to life.

  ‘I’m Kipling,’ he said.

  I stared at him in astonishment, and then, realising that he might perhaps be dangerous, I smiled feebly and said, ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘You probably don’t believe me. I’m dead, of course.’

  ‘So I thought.’

  ‘And you don’t believe in ghosts?’

  ‘Not as a rule.’

  ‘But you’d have no objection to talking to one, if he came along?’ ‘I’d have no objection. But how do I know you’re Kipling? How do I know you’re not an imposter?’

  ‘Listen, then:

  When my heavens were turned to blood,

  When the dark had filled my day,

  Furthest, but most faithful, stood

  That lone star I cast away.

  I had loved myself, and I

  Have not lived and dare not die.’

  ‘Once,’ he said, gripping me by the arm and looking me straight in the eye. ‘Once in life I watched a star; but I whistled, her to go.’

  ‘Your star hasn’t fallen yet,’ I said, suddenly moved, suddenly quite certain that I sat beside Kipling. ‘One day, when there is a new spirit of adventure abroad, we will discover you again.’

  ‘Why have they heaped scorn on me for so long?’

  ‘You were too militant, I suppose — too much of an Empire man. You were too patriotic for your own good.’

  He looked a little hurt. ‘I was never very political,’ he said. ‘I wrote over six hundred poems, and you could only call a dozen of them political, I have been abused for harping on the theme of the White Man’s Burden but my only aim was to show off the Empire to my audience — and I believed the Empire was a fine and noble thing. Is it wrong to believe in something? I never went deeply into political issues, that’s true. You must remember, my seven years in India were very youthful years. I was in my twenties, a little imma- ture if you like, and my interest in India was a boy’s interest. Action appealed to me more than anything else. You must understand that.’

  ‘No one has described action more vividly, or India so well. I feel at one with Kim wherever he goes along the Grand Trunk Road, in the temples at Banaras, amongst the Saharanpur fruit gardens, on the snow-covered Himalayas. Kim has colour and movement and poetry.’

  He sighed, and a wistful look came into his eyes.

  ‘I’m prejudiced, of course,’ I continued. ‘I’ve spent most of my life in India — not your India, but an India that does still have much of the colour and atmosphere that you captured. You know, Mr. Kipling, you can still sit in a third-class railway carriage and meet the most wonderful assortment of people. In any village you will still find the same courtesy, dignity and courage that the Lama and Kim found on their travels.’

/>   ‘And the Grand Trunk Road? Is it still a long winding procession of humanity?’

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ I said, a little ruefully. ‘It’s just a procession of motor vehicles now. The poor Lama would be run down by a truck if he became too dreamy on the Grand Trunk Road. Times have changed. There are no more Mrs. Hawksbees in Simla, for instance.’

  There was a far-away look in Kipling’s eyes. Perhaps he was imagining himself a boy again; perhaps he could see the hills or the red dust of Rajputana; perhaps he was having a private conversation with Privates Mulvaney and Ortheris, or perhaps he was out hunting with the Seonce wolf-pack. The sound of London’s traffic came to us through the glass doors, but we heard only the creaking of bullock- cart wheels and the distant music of a flute.

  He was talking to himself, repeating a passage from one of his stories. ‘And the last puff of the daywind brought from the unseen villages the scent of damp wood-smoke, hot cakes, dripping under- growth, and rotting pine-cones. That is the true smell of the Hima- layas, and if once it creeps into the blood of a man, that man will at the last, forgetting all else, return to the hills to die.’

  A mist seemed to have risen between us — or had it come in from the streets? — and when it cleared, Kipling had gone away.

  I asked the gatekeeper if he had seen a tall man with a slight stoop, wearing spectacles.

  ‘Nope,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘Nobody been by for the last ten minutes.’

  ‘Did someone like that come into the gallery a little while ago?’ ‘No one that I recall. What did you say the bloke’s name was?’ ‘Kipling,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t know him.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever read The Jungle Books? ’

  ‘Sounds familiar. Tarzan stuff, wasn’t it?’

  I left the museum, and wandered about the streets for a long time, but I couldn’t find Kipling anywhere. Was it the boom of London’s traffic that I heard, or the boom of the Sutlej river racing through the valleys?

  The Eyes Have It

  I had the train compartment to myself up to Rohana, then a girl got in. The couple who saw her off were probably her parents; they seemed very anxious about her comfort, and the woman gave the girl detailed instructions as to where to keep her things, when not to lean out of windows, and how to avoid speaking to strangers.

  They called their goodbyes and the train pulled out of the station. As I was totally blind at the time, my eyes sensitive only to light and darkness, I was unable to tell what the girl looked like; but I knew she wore slippers from the way they slapped against her heels.

  It would take me some time to discover something about her looks, and perhaps I never would. But I liked the sound of her voice, and even the sound of her slippers.

  ‘Are you going all the way to Dehra?’ I asked.

  I must have been sitting in a dark corner, because my voice startled her. She gave a little exclamation and said, ‘I didn’t know anyone else was here.’

  Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right in front of them. They have too much to take in, I suppose. Whereas people who cannot see (or see very little) have to take in only the essentials, whatever registers most tellingly on their remaining senses.

  ‘I didn’t see you either,’ I said. ‘But I heard you come in.’

  I wondered if I would be able to prevent her from discovering that I was blind. Provided I keep to my seat, I thought, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

  The girl said, ‘I’m getting off at Saharanpur. My aunt is meeting me there.’

  ‘Then I had better not get too familiar,’ I replied. ‘Aunts are usu- ally formidable creatures.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  ‘To Dehra, and then to Mussoorie.’

  ‘Oh, how lucky you are. I wish I were going to Mussoorie. I love the hills. Especially in October.’

  ‘Yes, this is the best time,’ I said, calling on my memories. ‘The hills are covered with wild dahlias, the sun is delicious, and at night you can sit in front of a logfire and drink a little brandy. Most of the tourists have gone, and the roads are quiet and almost deserted. Yes, October is the best time.’

  She was silent. I wondered if my words had touched her, or whether she thought me a romantic fool. Then I made a mistake.

  ‘What is it like outside?’ I asked.

  She seemed to find nothing strange in the question. Had she noticed already that I could not see? But her next question removed my doubts.

  ‘Why don’t you look out of the window?’ she asked.

  I moved easily along the berth and felt for the window ledge. The window was open, and I faced it, making a pretence of studying the landscape. I heard the panting of the engine, the rumble of the wheels, and, in my mind’s eye, I could see telegraph posts flashing by.

  ‘Have you noticed,’ I ventured, ‘that the trees seem to be moving while we seem to be standing still?’

  ‘That always happens,’ she said. ‘Do you see any animals?’

  ‘No,’ I answered quite confidently. I knew that there were hardly any animals left in the forests near Dehra.

  I turned from the window and faced the girl, and for a while we sat in silence.

  ‘You have an interesting face,’ I remarked. I was becoming quite daring, but it was a safe remark. Few girls can resist flattery. She laughed pleasantly — a clear, ringing laugh.

  ‘It’s nice to be told I have an interesting face. I’m tired of people telling me I have a pretty face.’

  Oh, so you do have a pretty face, thought I: and aloud I said: ‘Well, an interesting face can also be pretty.’

  ‘You are a very gallant young man,’ she said ‘but why are you so serious?’

  I thought, then, I would try to laugh for her, but the thought of laughter only made me feel troubled and lonely.

  ‘We’ll soon be at your station,’ I said.

  ‘Thank goodness it’s a short journey. I can’t bear to sit in a train for more than two-or-three hours.’

  Yet I was prepared to sit there for almost any length of time, just to listen to her talking. Her voice had the sparkle of a mountain stream. As soon as she left the train, she would forget our brief encounter; but it would stay with me for the rest of the journey, and for some time after.

  The engine’s whistle shrieked, the carriage wheels changed their sound and rhythm, the girl got up and began to collect her things. I wondered if she wore her hair in a bun, or if it was plaited; perhaps it was hanging loose over her shoulders, or was it cut very short?

  The train drew slowly into the station. Outside, there was the shouting of porters and vendors and a high-pitched female voice near the carriage door; that voice must have belonged to the girls’ aunt.

  ‘Goodbye,’ the girl said.

  She was standing very close to me, so close that the perfume from her hair was tantalizing. I wanted to raise my hand and touch her hair, but she moved away. Only the scent of perfume still lingered where she had stood.

  There was some confusion in the doorway. A man, getting into the compartment, stammered an apology. Then the door banged, and the world was shut out again. I returned to my berth. The guard blew his whistle and we moved off. Once again, I had a game to play and a new fellow-traveller.

  The train gathered speed, the wheels took up their song, the carriage groaned and shook. I found the window and sat in front of it, staring into the daylight that was darkness for me.

  So many things were happening outside the window: it could be a fascinating game, guessing what went on out there.

  The man who had entered the compartment broke into my reverie.

  ‘You must be disappointed,’ he said. ‘I’m not nearly as attractive a travelling companion as the one who just left.’

  ‘She was an interesting girl,’ I said. ‘Can you tell me — did she keep her hair long or short?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ he said, sounding puzzled. ‘It was her eyes I noticed, not her hair. She ha
d beautiful eyes — but they were of no use to her. She was completely blind. Didn’t you notice?’

  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 realise 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 himslf to com- ments 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.

  ‘Hallo,’ 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 some-one 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.’