Friends In Small Places Read online

  ‘It’s time you learnt something about the business,’ he had said, to Ranji’s dismay.

  The Night Mail rushed through the forest with its hundreds of passengers. The carriage wheels beat out a steady rhythm on the rails. Tiny flickering lights came and went, as they passed small villages on the fringe of the jungle.

  Ranji heard the rumble as the train passed over a small bridge. It was too dark to see the hut near the cutting, but he knew they must be approaching the tunnel. He strained his eyes, looking out into the night; and then, just as the engine let out a shrill whistle, Ranji saw the lamp.

  He couldn’t see Kishan Singh, but he saw the lamp, and he knew that his friend was out there.

  The train went into the tunnel and out again, it left the jungle behind and thundered across the endless plains. And Ranji stared out at the darkness, thinking of the lonely cutting in the forest, and the watchman with the lamp who would always remain a firefly for those travelling thousands, as he lit up the darkness for steam engines and leopards.

  Dukhi and the Maharani*

  We lived in an old palace beside a lake. The palace looked like a ruin from the outside, but the rooms were cool and comfortable. We lived in one wing, and my father organized a small school in another wing. His pupils were the children of the Raja and the Raja’s relatives. My father had started life in India as a tea planter, but he had been trained as a teacher and the idea of starting a school in a small state facing the Arabian Sea had appealed to him. The pay wasn’t much, but we had a palace to live in, the latest 1938-model Hillman to drive about in, and a number of servants. In those days, of course, everyone had servants (although the servants did not have any! ). Ayah was our own; but the cook, the bearer, the gardener, and the bhisti were all provided by the state.

  Sometimes I sat in the schoolroom with the other children (who were all much bigger than me), sometimes I remained in the house with Ayah, sometimes I followed the gardener, Dukhi, about the spacious garden.

  Dukhi means ‘sad’, and though I never could discover if the gardener had anything to feel sad about, the name certainly suited him. He had grown to resemble the drooping weeds that he was always digging up with a tiny spade. I seldom saw him standing up. He always sat on the ground with his knees well up to his chin, and attacked the weeds from this position. He could spend all day on his haunches, moving about the garden simply by shuffling his feet along the grass.

  I tried to imitate his posture, sitting down on my heels and putting my knees into my armpits, but could never hold the position for more than five minutes.

  Time had no meaning in a large garden, and Dukhi never hurried. Life, for him, was not a matter of one year succeeding another, but of five seasons—winter, spring, hot weather, monsoon and autumn—arriving and departing. His seedbeds had always to be in readiness for the coming season, and he did not look any further than the next monsoon. It was impossible to tell his age. He may have been thirty-six or eighty-six. He was either very young for his years or very old for them.

  Dukhi loved bright colours, specially reds and yellows. He liked strongly scented flowers, like jasmine and honeysuckle. He couldn’t understand my father’s preference for the more delicately perfumed petunias and sweet peas. But I shared Dukhi’s fondness for the common bright orange marigold, which is offered in temples and is used to make garlands and nosegays. When the garden was bare of all colour, the marigold would still be there, gay and flashy, challenging the sun.

  Dukhi was very fond of making nosegays, and I liked to watch him at work. A sunflower formed the centrepiece. It was surrounded by roses, marigolds and oleander, fringed with green leaves, and bound together with silver thread. The perfume was overpowering. The nosegays were presented to me or my father on special occasions, that is, on a birthday or to guests of my father’s who were considered important.

  One day I found Dukhi making a nosegay, and said, ‘No one is coming today, Dukhi. It isn’t even a birthday.’

  ‘It is a birthday, chhota sahib,’ he said. ‘Little sahib’ was the title he had given me. It wasn’t much of a title compared to Raja sahib, Diwan sahib or Burra sahib, but it was nice to have a title at the age of seven.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘And is there a party, too?’

  ‘No party.’

  ‘What’s the use of a birthday without a party? What’s the use of a birthday without presents?’

  ‘This person doesn’t like presents—just flowers.’

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked, full of curiosity.

  ‘If you want to find out, you can take these flowers to her. She lives right at the top of that far side of the palace. There are twenty-two steps to climb. Remember that, chhota sahib, you take twenty-three steps and you will go over the edge and into the lake!’

  I started climbing the stairs.

  It was a spiral staircase of wrought iron, and it went round and round and up and up, and it made me quite dizzy and tired.

  At the top, I found myself on a small balcony, which looked out over the lake and another palace; at the crowded city and the distant harbour. I heard a voice, a rather high, musical voice, saying (in English), ‘Are you a ghost?’ I turned to see who had spoken but found the balcony empty. The voice had come from a dark room.

  I turned to the stairway, ready to flee, but the voice said, ‘Oh, don’t go, there’s nothing to be frightened of!’

  And so I stood still, peering cautiously into the darkness of the room.

  ‘First, tell me—are you a ghost?’

  ‘I’m a boy,’ I said.

  ‘And I’m a girl. We can be friends. I can’t come out there, so you had better come in. Come along, I’m not a ghost either—not yet, anyway!’

  As there was nothing very frightening about the voice, I stepped into the room. It was dark inside, and, coming in from the glare, it took me some time to make out the tiny, elderly lady seated on a cushioned gilt chair. She wore a red sari, lots of coloured bangles on her wrists, and golden earrings. Her hair was streaked with white, but her skin was still quite smooth and unlined, and she had large and very beautiful eyes.

  ‘You must be Master Bond!’ she said. ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘You’re a lady with a birthday,’ I said, ‘but that’s all I know. Dukhi didn’t tell me any more.’

  ‘If you promise to keep it a secret, I’ll tell you who I am. You see, everyone thinks I’m mad. Do you think so too?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, you must tell me if you think so,’ she said with a chuckle. Her laugh was the sort of sound made by the gecko, a little wall-lizard, coming from deep down in the throat. ‘I have a feeling you are a truthful boy. Do you find it very difficult to tell the truth?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Sometimes. Of course, there are times when I tell lies—lots of little lies—because they’re such fun! But would you call me a liar? I wouldn’t, if I were you, but would you?’

  ‘Are you a liar?’

  ‘I’m asking you! If I were to tell you that I was a queen—that I am a queen—would you believe me?’

  I thought deeply about this, and then said, ‘I’ll try to believe you.’

  ‘Oh, but you must believe me. I’m a real queen, I’m a Rani! Look, I’ve got diamonds to prove it!’ And she held out her hands, and there was a ring on each finger, the stones glowing and glittering in the dim light. ‘Diamonds, rubies, pearls and emeralds! Only a queen can have these!’ She was most anxious that I should believe her.

  ‘You must be a queen,’ I said.

  ‘Right!’ she snapped. ‘In that case, would you mind calling me “Your Highness”?’

  ‘Your Highness,’ I said.

  She smiled. It was a slow, beautiful smile. Her whole face lit up.

  ‘I could love you,’ she said. ‘But better still, I’ll give you something to eat. Do you like chocolates?’

  ‘Yes, Your Highness.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, taking a box from the table bes
ide her, ‘these have come all the way from England. Take two. Only two, mind, otherwise the box will finish before Thursday, and I don’t want that to happen because I won’t get any more till Saturday. That’s when Captain MacWhirr’s ship gets in, the S.S. Lucy, loaded with boxes and boxes of chocolates!’

  ‘All for you?’ I asked in considerable awe.

  ‘Yes, of course. They have to last at least three months. I get them from England. I get only the best chocolates. I like them with pink, crunchy fillings, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ I exclaimed, full of envy.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I may give you one, now and then—if you’re very nice to me! Here you are, help yourself . . .’ She pushed the chocolate box towards me.

  I took a silver-wrapped chocolate, and then just as I was thinking of taking a second, she quickly took the box away. ‘No more!’ she said. ‘They have to last till Saturday.’

  ‘But I took only one,’ I said with some indignation.

  ‘Did you?’ She gave me a sharp look, decided I was telling the truth, and said graciously, ‘Well, in that case, you can have another.’

  Watching the Rani carefully, in case she snatched the box away again, I selected a second chocolate, this one with a green wrapper. I don’t remember what kind of day it was outside, but I remember the bright green of the chocolate wrapper.

  I thought it would be rude to eat the chocolates in front of a queen, so I put them in my pocket and said, ‘I’d better go now. Ayah will be looking for me.’

  ‘And when will you be coming to see me again?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘Your Highness.’

  ‘Your Highness.’

  ‘There’s something I want you to do for me,’ she said, placing one finger on my shoulder and giving me a conspiratorial look. ‘Will you do it?’

  ‘What is it, Your Highness?’

  ‘What is it? Why do you ask? A real prince never asks where or why or whatever, he simply does what the princess asks of him. When I was a princess—before I became a queen, that is—I asked a prince to swim across the lake and fetch me a lily growing on the other bank.’

  ‘And did he get it for you?’

  ‘He drowned halfway across. Let that be a lesson to you. Never agree to do something without knowing what it is.’

  ‘But I thought you said . . .’

  ‘Never mind what I said. It’s what I say that matters!’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ I said, fidgeting to be gone. ‘What is it you want me to do?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Her tiny rosebud lips pouted and she stared sullenly at a picture on the wall. Now that my eyes had grown used to the dim light in the room, I noticed that the walls were hung with portraits of stout Rajas and Ranis, turbaned and bedecked in fine clothes. There were also portraits of Queen Victoria and King George V of England. And, in the centre of all this distinguished company, a large picture of Mickey Mouse.

  ‘I’ll do it if it isn’t too dangerous,’ I said.

  ‘Then listen.’ She took my hand and drew me towards her—what a tiny hand she had!—and whispered, ‘I want a red rose. From the palace garden. But be careful! Don’t let Dukhi, the gardener, catch you. He’ll know it’s for me. He knows I love roses. And he hates me! I’ll tell you why, one day. But if he catches you, he’ll do something terrible.’

  ‘To me?’

  ‘No, to himself. That’s much worse, isn’t it? He’ll tie himself into knots, or lie naked on a bed of thorns, or go on a long fast with nothing to eat but fruit, sweets and chicken! So you will be careful, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh, but he doesn’t hate you,’ I cried in protest, remembering the flowers he’d sent for her, and looking around I found that I’d been sitting on them. ‘Look, he sent these flowers for your birthday!’

  ‘Well, if he sent them for my birthday, you can take them back,’ she snapped. ‘But if he sent them for me . . .’ and she suddenly softened and looked coy, ‘then I might keep them. Thank you, my dear, it was a very sweet thought.’ And she leant forward as though to kiss me.

  ‘It’s late, I must go!’ I said in alarm, and turning on my heels, ran out of the room and down the spiral staircase.

  Father hadn’t started lunch, or rather tiffin, as we called it then. He usually waited for me if I was late. I don’t suppose he enjoyed eating alone.

  ‘And where have you been?’ he asked, helping himself to the rice as soon as he saw me come in.

  ‘To the top of the old palace,’ I said.

  ‘Did you meet anyone there?’

  ‘Yes, I met a tiny lady who told me she was a Rani. She gave me chocolates.’

  ‘As a rule, she doesn’t like visitors.’

  ‘Oh, she didn’t mind me. But is she really a queen?’

  ‘Well, she’s the daughter of a Maharaja. That makes her a princess. She never married. There’s a story that she fell in love with a commoner, one of the palace servants, and wanted to marry him, but of course they wouldn’t allow that. She became very melancholic, and started living all by herself in the old palace. They give her everything she needs, but she doesn’t go out or have visitors. Everyone says she’s mad.’

  ‘How do they know?’ I asked.

  ‘Because she’s different from other people, I suppose.’

  ‘Is that being mad?’

  ‘No. Not really. I suppose madness is not seeing things as others see them.’

  ‘Is that very bad?’

  ‘No,’ said Father, who for once was finding it very difficult to explain something to me. ‘But people who are like that—people whose minds are so different that they don’t think, step by step, as we do, whose thoughts jump all over the place—such people are very difficult to live with . . .’

  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 we
re 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 him 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 . . .

  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.’