Rusty and the Leopard Read online

  The driver called to the horse, and the tonga went round the bend in the road and was lost to sight.

  I stood at the gate, staring down the empty road. I knew that I’d go back to my room and that time would run on and that things would happen but that this would not happen again . . . the sun and the litchees would still be there, so would there be other friends, but there would be no Meena and no Kishen, for our lives had drifted apart . . . It was as if Kishen and I had been going down the river together, but I had been caught in the reeds and he had been swept onwards; and if I did catch up with him, it would not be the same, it might be sad . . . Kishen had gone, and part of my life had gone with him, and inside of me I was all lonely.

  X

  It was a sticky, restless afternoon. The water carrier passed below the room with his sling bag, spraying water on the dusty path. The toy-seller entered the compound, calling his wares in a high-pitched sing-song voice, and presently there was the chatter of children.

  The toy-seller had a long bamboo pole, crossed by two or three shorter bamboos, from which hung all manner of toys—little celluloid drums, tin watches, tiny flutes and whistles, and multi-coloured rag dolls—and when these ran out, they were replaced by others from a large bag, a most mysterious and fascinating bag, one in which no one but the toy-seller was allowed to look. He was a popular person with rich and poor alike, for his toys never cost more than four annas and never lasted longer than a day.

  I liked the cheap toys, and was fond of decorating the room with them. I bought a two-anna flute and walked upstairs, blowing on it.

  Then I removed my shirt and sandals and lay flat on the bed staring up at the ceiling. The lizards scuttled along the rafters, the bald maina hopped along the window ledge. I was about to fall asleep when Somi came into the room.

  Somi looked listless.

  ‘I feel sticky,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to wear any clothes.’

  He too pulled off his shirt and deposited it on the table, then stood before the mirror, studying his physique. Then he turned to me.

  ‘You don’t look well,’ he declared, ‘there are cobwebs in your hair.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘You must have been very fond of Mrs Kapoor. She was very kind.’

  ‘I loved her, didn’t you know?’

  ‘No. My own love is the only thing I know. Rusty, best favourite friend, you cannot stay here in this room, you must come back to my house. Besides, this building will soon have new tenants.’

  ‘I’ll get out when they come, or when the landlord discovers I’m living here.’

  Somi’s usually bright face was somewhat morose, and there was a faint agitation showing in his eyes.

  ‘I will go and get a cucumber to eat,’ he said, ‘then there is something I have to tell you.’

  ‘I don’t want a cucumber,’ I said, ‘I want a coconut.’

  ‘I want a cucumber.’

  I felt irritable. The room was hot, the bed was hot, my blood was hot. Impatiently, I said: ‘Go and eat your cucumber, I don’t want any . . .’

  Somi looked at me in pained surprise; then, without a word, picked up his shirt and marched out of the room. I could hear the slap of his slippers on the stairs, and then heard the bicycle tyres on the gravel path.

  ‘Hey, Somi!’ I leapt off the bed and ran out on to the roof. ‘Come back!’

  But the bicycle jumped over the ditch, and Somi’s shirt flapped, and there was nothing I could do but return to bed. I was alarmed at my feverish ill temper. I lay down again and stared at the ceiling, at the lizards chasing each other across the rafters. On the roof two crows were fighting, knocking each other’s feathers out. Everyone was in a temper.

  What’s wrong with me, I wondered. I spoke to Somi in fever, not in anger, but my words definitely sounded angry. I was miserable, fed up.

  I closed my eyes and shut out everything.

  Somi’s face was close, laughing into mine.

  ‘Of what were you dreaming, Rusty, I have never seen you smile so sweetly!’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t dreaming,’ I said, sitting up, and feeling better now that Somi had returned. ‘I am sorry for being so grumpy, but I’m not feeling . . .’

  ‘Quiet!’ admonished Somi, putting his finger to my lips. ‘See, I have settled the matter. Here is a coconut for you, and here is a cucumber for me!’

  We sat cross-legged on the bed, facing each other; Somi with his cucumber, and me with my coconut. The coconut water trickled down my chin and on to my chest, giving me a cool, pleasant sensation.

  ‘I am afraid for Kishen,’ I said. ‘I am sure he will give trouble to his relatives, and they are not like his parents. Mr Kapoor will have no say, without Meena.’

  Somi was silent. The only sound was the munching of the cucumber and the coconut. He looked at me, an uncertain smile on his lips but none in his eyes and, in a forced conversational manner, said: ‘I’m going to Amritsar for a few months. But I will be back in spring, Rusty, you will be all right here . . .’

  This news was so unexpected that it took me a while to take it in. The thought had never occurred to me that one day Somi might leave Dehra, just as Ranbir and Suri and Kishen had done. I felt tongue-tied with despair. A sickening heaviness clogged my heart and brain.

  ‘Hey, Rusty!’ laughed Somi. ‘Don’t look as though there is poison in the coconut!’

  The poison lay in Somi’s words. And the poison was working speedily, running through my veins and beating against my heart and hammering on my brain. The poison worked for sure, because I felt wounded and helpless.

  ‘Somi . . .’ I said, but could go no further.

  ‘Finish the coconut!’

  ‘Somi,’ I said again, ‘if you are leaving Dehra, Somi, then I am leaving too.’

  ‘Eat the coco . . . what did you say?’

  ‘I am going too.’

  ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  Serious now, and troubled, Somi put his hand on my wrist; he shook his head as he failed to understand my loneliness, my utter misery.

  ‘Why, Rusty? Where?’

  ‘England.’

  ‘Toba!’ Somi slapped his thighs and looked upwards in despair. ‘Rusty, you cannot go! You haven’t any money, you silly fool!’ he said.

  I lay down despondently.

  ‘I never really thought I would,’ said I. ‘I only said I would because I felt like it. Not because I am unhappy—I have never been happier elsewhere—but because I am restless as I have always been. I don’t suppose I’ll be anywhere for long . . .’

  ‘You belong here,’ said Somi, trying to reconcile me with my circumstance. ‘You will get lost in big cities, Rusty, you will break your heart. And when you come back—if you come back—I will be grown-up and you will be grown-up—I mean more than we are now—and we will be like strangers to each other . . . And besides, there are no chaat shops in England!’

  ‘But I don’t belong here, Somi. I don’t belong anywhere. I just don’t have roots anywhere, and that is as good as not belonging anywhere.’

  Both of us were silent awhile, then Somi shrugged and said: ‘So you are going. You are running away from India.’

  ‘No, not from India.’

  ‘Then you are running away from your friends, from me!’

  The irony of this remark hit me, and allowed a tone of sarcasm into my voice.

  ‘You, Master Somi, you are the one who is going away. I am still here. You are going to Amritsar. I only want to go. And I’m here alone; everyone has gone. So if I do eventually leave, the only person I’ll be running away from will be myself!’

  ‘Ah!’ said Somi, nodding his head wisely. ‘And by running away from yourself, you will be running away from me and from India! Now come on, let’s go and have chaat.’

  He pulled me off the bed, and pushed me out of the room. Then, at the top of the steps, he leapt lightly on my back, kicked me with his heels, and shouted: ‘Down the steps, my tuttoo, m
y pony! Fast down the steps!’

  So I carried him downstairs and dropped him on the grass. We laughed: but there was no great joy in our laughter, we laughed for the sake of friendship. ‘Best favourite friend,’ said Somi, throwing a handful of mud in my face.

  XI

  Now everyone had gone from Dehra. Meena would never return; and it seemed unlikely that Kapoor would come back. Kishen’s departure was final. Ranbir would be in Mussoorie until the winter months, and this was still summer and it would be even longer before Somi returned. Everyone I knew well had left, and there remained no one I knew well enough to love or hate.

  There were, of course, the people at the water tank—the servants, the ayahs, the babies—but they were busy all day. And when I left them, I had no one but myself and my memories for company.

  I wanted to forget Meena. If Kishen had been with me, it would have been possible; the two of us would have found comfort in our companionship. But alone, I realized I was unable to master myself.

  And Kapoor. For Kapoor, Meena had died perfect. He suspected her of no infidelity. And, in a way, she had died perfect; for she had found a secret freedom. I knew I had judged Kapoor correctly when scorning Suri’s threat of blackmail; I knew Kapoor couldn’t believe a single disparaging word about Meena.

  And so I returned to my dreams, that wonderland of mine, where I walked in perfection. I spoke to myself quite often, and sometimes I spoke to the lizards.

  The lizards fascinated me; yet I was scared of them. When they changed their colours, from brown to red to green, in keeping with their immediate surroundings, they fascinated me. But when they lost their grip on the ceiling and fell to the ground with a soft, wet, boneless smack, they repelled me. One night, I reasoned, one of them would most certainly fall on my face . . .

  I thought of making a garden on the roof, beside my room—this idea immediately sparked me into sudden and feverish activity.

  The idea took my fancy to such an extent that I spent several hours planning the set-out of the flower beds, and visualizing the completed picture, with marigolds, zinnias and cosmos blooming everywhere. But there were no tools to be had, mud and bricks had to be carried upstairs, seeds had to be obtained; and, I wondered if after all that trouble the roof might cave in, or the rains might spoil everything; many years back I had made a similar garden with my friend Koki, and after a night of rain everything had been washed away, except the bricks . . . anyway, I was going away . . .

  My thoughts turned inwards. Gradually, I returned to the same frame of mind that had made life with my guardian so empty and meaningless; I began to fret, to dream, to lose my grip on reality. The full, exciting, racy life of the past few months had suddenly ended, and the present was lonely and depressing; the future became a distorted image, created out of my own brooding fancies.

  One evening, sitting on the steps, I found myself fingering a key. It was the key Kapoor had asked me to keep, the key to the back door. The whisky bottles were there—‘let’s drink them ourselves’ Kishen had said—and I now thought, ‘why not, why not . . . a few bottles can’t do any harm . . .’ and before I could have an argument with myself, the back door was quickly opened.

  That night I drank the whisky neat; there was no one to keep me company, so I didn’t feel guilty about my actions. It was the first time I had tasted alcohol, and I didn’t find it pleasant; but I wasn’t drinking for pleasure, I was drinking with the sole purpose of shutting myself off from the world, and forgetting.

  I hadn’t drunk much when I observed that the roof had a definite slant; it seemed to slide away from my door to the field below, like a chute. The banyan tree was suddenly swarming with bees. The lizards were turning all colours at once, like pieces of rainbow.

  When I had drunk a little more, I began to talk; not to myself any more, but to Meena, who was pressing my head and trying to force me down on the pillows. I struggled against Meena, but she was too powerful, and I began to cry.

  Then I drank a little more. And now the floor began to wobble, and I had a hard time keeping the table from toppling over. The walls of the room were caving in. I swallowed another mouthful of whisky, and held the wall up with my hands. I could deal with anything now. The bed was rocking, the chair was sliding about, the table was slipping, the walls were swaying, but I felt as if I had everything under control—I was everywhere at once, supporting the entire building with my bare hands.

  And then I slipped, and everything came down on top of me, and it was black.

  In the morning when I awoke, I threw the remaining bottles out of the window, and cursed myself for being a fool, and went down to the water tank to bathe.

  Days passed, dry and dusty, every day the same. The heat was so unbearable that I had to regularly fill my earthen sohrai at the water tank, and soak the reed mat that hung from the doorway. Sometimes, in the field, the children played cricket, but I just couldn’t summon up the energy to join them. From my room I could hear the sound of ball and bat, the shouting, the lone voice raised in shrill disagreement with some unfortunate umpire . . . or the thud of a football, or the clash of hockey sticks . . . but better than these sounds was the jingle of the bells and bangles of the ayahs, as they busied themselves at the water tank.

  Time passed, but I felt as if I had been trapped in time and space. I felt as if every day was just like the previous one, and I was always in my room, whiling away the time by myself. It was like living in a house near a river, and the river was always running past the house, on and away; but to me, living in the house, there was no passing of the river; the water ran on, the river remained.

  I truly and desperately longed for something to happen.

  XII

  Dust. It blew up in great clouds, swirling down the road, clutching and clinging to everything it touched; burning, choking, stinging dust.

  Then thunder.

  The wind dropped suddenly, there was a hushed expectancy in the air. And then, out of the dust, came big black rumbling clouds.

  Something was happening. Finally.

  At first there was a lonely drop of water on the window sill; then a patter on the roof. A thrill of anticipation, and a mountain of excitement. That’s what I felt. The rains had come to break the monotony of the summer months; the monsoon had arrived!

  The sky shuddered, the clouds groaned, a fork of lightning struck across the sky, and then the sky itself exploded.

  The rain poured down, drumming on the corrugated roof. My vision was reduced to about twenty yards; it was as though the room had been cut off from the rest of the world by an impenetrable wall of water.

  The rains had arrived, and I wanted to experience to the full the novelty of that first shower. I threw off my clothes, and ran naked on to the roof, and the wind sprang up and whipped the water across my body so that I writhed in ecstasy. The rain was more intoxicating than the alcohol, and it was with difficulty that I restrained myself from shouting and dancing in mad abandon. The force and freshness of the rain brought tremendous relief, washed away the stagnation that had been settling on me and poisoning my mind and body.

  The rain swept over the town, cleansing the sky and earth. The trees bent beneath the force of wind and water. The field was a bog, flowers were flattened to the ground.

  Exhilarated, I returned to the room, my body weeping. I was confronted by a flood. The water had come in through the door and the window and the skylight, and the floor was flooded ankle-deep. I took to my bed.

  The bed took on the glamour of a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. I dried myself on the sheets, conscious of a warm, sensuous glow. Then I sat on my haunches and gazed out through the window.

  The rain thickened, the tempo quickened. There was the banging of a door, the swelling of a gutter, the staccato splutter of the rain rhythmically persistent on the roof. The drain pipe coughed and choked, the curtain flew to its limit; the lean trees swayed and swayed, bowed with the burden of wind and weather. The road was a rushing torr
ent, the gravel path inundated with little rivers. The monsoon had arrived!

  But the rain stopped as unexpectedly as it had begun. Suddenly it slackened, dwindled to a shower, petered out. Stillness. The dripping of water from the drain-pipe drilled into the drain. Frogs croaked, hopping around in the slush.

  The sun came out with a vengeance. On leaves and petals, drops of water sparkled like silver and gold. A cat emerged from a dry corner of the building, blinking sleepily, unperturbed and unenthusiastic.

  The children came running out of their houses.

  ‘Barsaat, barsaat!’ they shouted. ‘The rains have come!’

  The rains had come. And the roof became a general bathing place. The children, the nightwatchmen, the dogs, all trouped up the steps to sample the novelty of a freshwater shower on the roof.

  The maidan came alive with footballs. This monsoon football was played in slush, in mud that was ankle-deep; and the football was heavy and slippery and difficult to kick with bare feet. The bazaar youths played barefooted because, in the first place, boots were too cumbersome for monsoon football, and in the second place they couldn’t be afforded.

  But the rains brought me only a momentary elation, just as the first shower had seemed fiercer and fresher than those which followed; for now it rained every day . . .

  Nothing could be more depressing than the dampness, the mildew, and the sunless heat that wrapped itself round the steaming land. Had Somi or Kishen been with me, I might have derived some pleasure from the elements; had Ranbir been with me, I might have found adventure; but alone, I found only boredom.

  I spent an idle hour watching the slow dripping from the pipe outside the door: where do I belong, I wondered, what am I doing, what is going to happen to me . . .

  Suddenly I was determined to break away from the atmosphere of timelessness and resignation that surrounded me, and decided to leave Dehra.