Time Stops At Shamli & Other Stories Page 3

  One afternoon, while Father was at school, Ayah found a snake in the bath-tub. 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 window-pane was made of 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 window-pane.

  ‘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 ticking 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 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 mangoose 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 who 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 w
as 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 hoe.

  ‘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 hoe 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 dart-board, 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 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, lichis, 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. ‘I’m going away,’ I said.

  ‘How lovely!’ said the Rani. ‘I wish I could go away!’

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  ‘They won’t let me. They’re afraid to let me out of the palace.’ ‘What are they afraid of, Your Highness?’

  ‘That I might run away. Run away, far far away, to the land where the leopards are learning to pray.’

  Gosh, I thought, she’s really quite crazy. . . . But then she was silent, and started smoking a small hookah.

  She drew on the hookah, looked at me, and asked: ‘Where is your mother?’

  ‘I haven’t one.’

  ‘Everyone has a mother. Did yours die?’

  ‘No. She went away.’

  She drew her hookah again and then said, very sweetly, ‘Don’t go away. . . . ’

  ‘I must,’ I said. ‘It’s because of the war.’

  ‘What war? Is there a war on? You see, no one tells me anything.’

  ‘It’s between us and Hitler,’ I said.

  ‘And who is Hitler?’

  ‘He’s a German.’

  ‘I knew a German once, Dr Schreinherr, he had beautiful hands.’

  ‘Was he an artist?’

  ‘He was a dentist.’

  The Rani got up from her couch and accompanied me out on to the balcony. When we looked down at the garden, we could see Dukhi weeding a flower-bed. Both of us gazed down at him in silence, and I wondered what the Rani would say if I asked her if she had ever been in love with the palace gardener. Ayah had told me it would be an insulting question; so I held my peace. But as I walked slowly down the spiral staircase, the Rani’s voice came after me.

  ‘Thank him,’ she said. ‘Thank him for the beautiful rose.’

  Time Stops at Shamli

  The Dehra Express usually drew into Shamli at about five o’clock in the morning, at which time the station would be dimly lit and the jungle across the tracks would just be visible in the faint light of dawn. Shamli is a small station at the foot of the Siwalik hills, and the Siwaliks lie at the foot o
f the Himalayas, which in turn lie at the feet of God.

  The station, I remember, had only one platform, an office for the station-master, and a waiting-room. The platform boasted a tea-stall, a fruit vendor, and a few stray dogs; not much else was required, because the train stopped at Shamli for only five minutes before rushing on into the forests.

  Why it stopped at Shamli, I never could tell. Nobody got off the train and nobody got in. There were never any coolies on the platform. But the train would stand there a full five minutes, and the guard would blow his whistle, and presently Shamli would be left behind and forgotten . . . .until I passed that way again. . . .

  I was paying my relations in Saharanpur an annual visit, when the night train stopped at Shamli. I was thirty-six at the time, and still single.

  On this particular journey, the train came into Shamli just as I awoke from a restless sleep. The third class compartment was crowded beyond capacity, and I had been sleeping in an upright position, with my back to the lavatory door. Now someone was trying to get into the lavatory. He was obviously hardpressed for time.

  ‘I’m sorry, brother,’ I said, moving as much as I could do to one side.

  He stumbled into the closet without bothering to close the door.

  ‘Where are we now?’ I asked the man sitting beside me. He

  was smoking a strong aromatic bidi.

  ‘Shamli station,’ he said, rubbing the palm of a large calloused hand over the frosted glass of the window.

  I let the window down and stuck my head out. There was a cool breeze blowing down the platform, a breeze that whispered of autumn in the hills. As usual there was no activity, except for the fruit-vendor walking up and down the length of the train with his basket of mangoes balanced on his head. At the tea-stall, a kettle was steaming, but there was no one to mind it. I rested my forehead on the window-ledge, and let the breeze play on my temples. I had been feeling sick and giddy but there was a wild sweetness in the wind that I found soothing.

  ‘Yes,’ I said to myself, ‘I wonder what happens in Shamli, behind the station walls.’

  My fellow passenger offered me a bidi. He was a farmer, I think, on his way to Dehra. He had a long, untidy, sad moustache.