Tales of Fosterganj Read online

  ‘We are not going anywhere,’ said the boy, glowering. The brightness had gone from his face. No one likes the thought of being thrown out of a house which has been a home for most of one’s life. When I was a boy, my mother and stepfather were constantly being evicted from one house after another. Their fault, no doubt, but I grew up feeling that the world was a hostile place full of rapacious landlords.

  ‘I’ll try to find out more,’ I said, getting up to leave. ‘Vishaal, the bank manager, will know.’

  Morning at the Bank

  When I called on Vishaal at the bank a day or two later, he was busy with a couple of customers. This was unusual. Busy days in the bank, let alone in Fosterganj, were rare indeed.

  The cashier brought in another chair, and I joined the tea party in Vishaal’s office. No secrets in Fosterganj. Everyone knew what everyone else had in their accounts, savings or otherwise.

  One of the clients was Mr Foster.

  He had first presented Vishaal with a basket of eggs, with the proviso that they be distributed among the staff.

  ‘I should have brought sweets,’ said Foster, ‘but for sweets I’d have to trudge up to Mussoorie, while the eggs are courtesy my hens. Courtesy your bank, of course.’

  ‘We appreciate them,’ said Vishaal. ‘We’ll have omelettes in the lunch break. So how are the hens doing?’

  ‘Well, a fox got two of them, and a jackal got three, and your guard got my rooster.’

  Vishaal looked up at the guard who was standing just outside the door, looking rather stupid.

  ‘Gun went off by mistake,’ said the guard.

  ‘It’s not supposed to go off at all,’ said Vishaal. ‘You could kill somebody. It’s only for show. If someone holds up the bank, we give them the money. It’s all insured.’

  The second customer looked interested. A lean, swarthy man in his sixties, he played with the knob of his walnut-wood walking stick and said, ‘Talking of insurance, do you know if the Fairy Glen was insured?’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ said Vishaal. ‘It’s just a ruin. What is there to insure?’

  ‘It’s full of interesting artifacts, I’m told. Old pictures, furniture, antiques… I’m going there today. The owners have asked me to list anything that may be valuable, worth removing, before they hand over the place to the hotel people.

  ‘So it’s really going?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘The deal is all but sealed.’

  ‘And the present occupants?’

  ‘Just caretakers. Poor relatives. I believe the woman was the old raja’s keep—or one of them, anyway. They’ll have to go.’

  ‘Perhaps the hotel can find some work for them.’

  ‘They want vacant possession.’ He got up, twirling his walking stick. ‘Well, I must go. Calls to make.’

  ‘You can use our phone,’ said Vishaal. ‘The only other public phone is at the police outpost, and it’s usually out of order. And if you like, I can send for the local taxi.’

  ‘No, I’ll call from Mussoorie. I shall enjoy walking back to town. But I might want that taxi later.’

  He strode out of the bank, walking purposefully through the late monsoon mist. He was one of the world’s middlemen, a successful commission agent, fixing things for busy people. After some time they make themselves indispensable.

  Mr Foster was quite the opposite. No one really needed him. But he needed another loan.

  ‘No more chickens,’ said Vishaal. ‘And you haven’t built your poultry shed.’

  ‘Someone stole the wire netting. But never mind the chickens, I’ve another proposition. Mr Vishaal, sir, what about aromatherapy?’

  ‘What about it? Never heard of such a thing.’

  ‘It’s all the rage in France, I hear. You treat different ailments or diseases with different aromas. Calendula for headaches, roses for nervous disorders, gladioli for piles—‘

  ‘Gladioli don’t have an aroma,’ I said.

  ‘Mine do!’ exclaimed Foster, full of enthusiasm. ‘I can cover the hillside with gladioli. And dahlias too!’

  ‘Dahlias don’t have an aroma, either.’ I was being Irish again.

  ‘Well then, nasturtiums,’ said Foster, not in the least put out. ‘Nasturtiums are good for the heart.’

  ‘All right, go ahead,’ said Vishaal. ‘What’s stopping you? You don’t need a loan to grow flowers.’

  ‘Ah, but I have to distil the aroma from them.’

  ‘You need a distillery?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You already have one. That rhododendron wine you made last year wasn’t bad. Forget about aromas. Stick to wine and spirits, Mr Foster, and you’ll make a fortune. Now I’m off for lunch.’

  The bank shut its doors for lunch, and we went our different ways: Vishaal to his rented cottage, Foster to his dilapidated house and poultry farm, and I to Fairy Glen to warn my friends of trouble that lay in store for them.

  Morning at the Pool

  Over the next two days the assessor, let’s call him Mr Middleman, was busy at Fairy Glen, notebook in hand, listing everything that looked as though it might have some value: paintings, furnishings, glassware, chinaware, rugs, carpets, desks, cupboards, antique inkwells, an old grandfather clock (home to a colony of mice, now evicted), and a nude statue of Venus minus an arm. Two or three rooms had been locked for years. These were opened up by Mr Middleman who proceeded to explore them with enthusiasm. Small objects, like silver hand-bowls and cutglass salt cellars, went into his capacious pockets.

  The boy and his mother watched all this activity in silence. They had been told to pack and go, but in reality they had very little to pack. The boy had handed over a bunch of keys; he wasn’t obliged to do any more.

  On the second day, when he had finished his inventory, Mr Middleman said he would be back the next day with a truck and some workmen to help remove all that he had listed—box-beds included. The boy simply shrugged and walked away; his mother set about preparing dinner, the kitchen still her domain. They were in no hurry.

  It was almost dark when Mr Middleman set out on his walk back to town. The clouds had parted, and a full moon was coming up over Pari Tibba, Fairy Hill. In the moonlight a big black bird swooped low over the ravished building.

  Pockets bulging with mementoes, Mr Middleman strode confidently through the pine forest, his walking stick swinging at his side. A village postman, on his way home, passed him in the gathering darkness. That was the last time Mr Middleman was seen alive.

  His body was discovered early next morning by some girls on their way to school. It lay at the edge of the pond, where the boys sometimes came for a swim. But Mr Middleman hadn’t been swimming. He was still in his clothes and his pockets were still bulging with the previous day’s spoils. He had been struck over the head several times with the clubbed head of his walking stick. Apparently it had been wrenched from his hands by a stronger person, who had then laid into him with a fury of blows to the head. The walking stick lay a few feet away, covered with blood.

  An Inspector Calls

  From then on, events moved quickly.

  A jeepful of policemen roamed up and down Fosterganj’s only motorable road, looking for potential killers. The bank, the bakery and the post office were centres of information and speculation.

  Fosterganj might have had its mad dogs and professor-eating leopards; old skeletons might pop up here and there; but it was a long time since there’d been a proper murder. It was reported in the Dehradun papers (both Hindi and English) and even got mentioned in the news bulletin from All India Radio, Najibabad.

  When I walked into Vishaal’s small office in the bank, I found him chatting to a police inspector who had come down from Mussoorie to investigate the crime. One of his suspects was Sunil, but Sunil was far away in Lansdowne, making an earnest attempt to enlist in the Garhwal Rifles. And Sunil would have cleaned out the victim’s pockets, the only possible motivation being robbery.

  The
same for Mr Foster, who was also one of the inspector’s suspects. He wouldn’t have left behind those valuable little antiques. And in any case, he was a feeble old man; he would not have been able to overcome someone as robust as Mr Middleman.

  The talk turned to the occupants of Fairy Glen. But the inspector dismissed them as possible suspects: the woman could never have overpowered the assessor; and her son was just a boy.

  I could have told him that the boy was much stronger than he looked, but I did not wish to point the finger of suspicion in his direction; or in any direction, for that matter. Mr Middleman was an outsider; his enemies were probably outsiders too.

  After the inspector had gone, Vishaal asked: ‘So—who do you think did it?’

  ‘I, said the sparrow, with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin!’

  ‘Seriously, though.’

  ‘I, said the fly, with my little eye, I saw him die.’ Vishaal raised his hands in exasperation. I decided to be serious. ‘We’ll know only if there was a witness,’ I said. ‘Someone who saw him being attacked. But that’s unlikely, if it happened after dark. Not many people use that path at night.’

  ‘True. More than one person has fallen into that pond.’

  Indeed, before the day was over, the inspector had fallen into the pond. He had been looking for clues at the water’s edge, peering down at a tangle of reeds, when he heard an unusually loud flapping of wings. Looking up, he saw a big black bird hovering above him. He had never seen such a bird before. Startled, he had lost his footing and fallen into the water.

  A constable dragged him out, spluttering and cursing. Along with the reeds and water weeds that clung to him was a mask made of cloth. It was a small mask, made for a boy.

  The inspector threw it away in disgust, along with a drowned rat and a broken cricket bat that had come to the surface with him. Empty a village pond, and you will come up with a lot of local history; but the inspector did not have time for history.

  The only person who seemed unperturbed by the murder was Hassan; he had seen people being killed out of feelings of hate or revenge. But here the reasons seemed more obscure.

  ‘Such men make enemies,’ he said. ‘The go-betweens, the fixers. Someone must have been waiting for him.’ He shrugged and went back to his work.

  Hassan, a man who loved his work. He loved baking, just as some of us love writing or painting or making things. Most of the children were off to school in the morning, and his wife would be busy washing clothes or cleaning up the mess that children make. The older boys would take turns making deliveries, although sometimes Hassan did the rounds himself. But he was happiest in the bakery, fashioning loaves of bread, buns, biscuits and other savouries.

  The first condition of happiness is that a man must find joy in his work. Unless the work brings joy, the tedium of an aimless life can be soul-destroying.

  Something that I had to remember.

  A Fire in the Night

  It was late evening the same day when I encountered the boy from the palace.

  I was strolling through the forest, admiring the mushrooms that had sprung up in damp, shady places. Poisoned, no doubt, but very colourful. Beware of nature’s show-offs: the banded krait, the scarlet scorpion, the beautiful belladonna, the ink-squirting octopus. Even so, history shows human beings to be the most dangerous of nature’s show-offs. Inimical to each other, given over to greed and insatiable appetites. Nature strikes when roused; man, out of habit and a perverse nature.

  The boy still had some of the animal in him, which was what made him appealing.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you, sir,’ he said, as he stepped out of the shadows.

  ‘I did not see you,’ I said, startled.

  ‘They’ve been looking for me. The police. Ever since that fellow was killed.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  I could see him smile even though it was dark. ‘Such a big man? And why bother? They will take the palace anyway.’

  He fell into step with me, holding my hand, leading the way; he knew the path and the forest better than I did. They would not find him easily in these hills.

  ‘My mother has a favour to ask of you, sir.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Will you keep something for her?’

  ‘If it’s not too big. I can’t carry trunks and furniture around. I’m a one-suitcase person.’

  ‘It’s not heavy. I have it with me.’ He was carrying a small wooden case wrapped in cloth. ‘I can’t open it here. It contains her jewellery. A number of things. They are all hers, but they will take them from us if they get a chance.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The owners. The old king’s family. Or their friends.’

  ‘So you are going away?’

  ‘We have to. But not before—.’ He did not finish what he was going to say. ‘You will keep them for us?’

  ‘For how long? I may leave Fosterganj before the end of the year. I will run out of money by then. I’ll have to return to Delhi and take up a job.’

  ‘We will get in touch with you. We won’t be far.’

  ‘All right, then. Give me the case. I’ll have to look inside later.’

  ‘Of course. But don’t let anyone else see it. I’ll go now. I don’t want to be seen.’

  He put the wrapped-up box in my hands, embraced me—it was more of a bear hug, surprising me with its intensity—and made off into the darkness.

  ~

  I returned to my room with the box, but I did not open it immediately. The door of my room did not fasten properly, and anyone could have walked in. It was only eight o’clock. So I placed the box on a shelf and covered it with my books. No one was going to touch them. Books gather dust in Fosterganj.

  Vishaal had asked me over for a drink, and it was past ten when I started walking back to my room again.

  Hassan and family were out on the road, along with some other locals. They were speculating on the cause of a bright rosy glow over the next ridge.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked.

  ‘Looks like a fire,’ said Hassan. ‘Down the Rajpur road.’

  ‘It may be the Fairy Glen palace,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, it’s in that direction. Let’s go and take a look. They might need help.’

  Fosterganj did not have a fire engine, and in those days Mussoorie did not have one either, so there was little that anyone could do to put out a major fire.

  And this was a major fire.

  One section of the palace was already ablaze, and a strong wind was helping the fire to spread rapidly. There was no sign of the boy and his mother. I could only hope that they were safe somewhere, probably on the other side of the building, away from the wind-driven flames.

  A small crowd had gathered on the road, and before long half the residents of Fosterganj were watching the blaze.

  ‘How could it have started?’ asked someone.

  ‘Probably an electrical fault. It’s such an old building.’

  ‘It didn’t have electricity. Bills haven’t been paid for years.’

  ‘Then maybe an oil lamp fell over. In this wind anything is possible.’

  ‘Could have been deliberate. For the insurance.’

  ‘It wasn’t insured. Nothing to insure.’

  ‘Plenty to insure, the place was full of valuables and antiques. Furniture, mostly. All gone now.’

  ‘What about the occupants—that woman and her boy?’

  ‘Might be gone too, if they were sleeping.’

  ‘Perhaps they did it.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘They were being forced out, I heard.’

  And so the speculation continued, everyone expressing an opinion, and in the meantime the fire had engulfed the entire building, consuming everything within—furniture, paintings, box-beds, skeletons, carpets, curtains, grandfather clock, a century’s accumulated finery, all reduced to ashes. Most of the stuff had already outlived its original owner, who had himself been long since reduced to
ashes. His heirs had wished to add to their own possessions, but possession is always a fleeting, temporary thing, and now there was nothing.

  Towards dawn the fire burnt itself out and the crowd melted away. Only a shell of the palace remained, with here and there some woodwork still smouldering among the blackened walls. I wandered around the property and the hillside, looking for the boy and his mother, but I did not really expect to find them.

  As I set out for home, something screeched in the tallest tree, and the big black bird flew across the road and over the burnt-out palace before disappearing into the forest below.

  A Handful of Gems

  After an early breakfast with Hassan, I returned to my room and threw myself down on my bed. Then I remembered the case that the boy had left with me. I got up to see if it was still where I had hidden it. My books were undisturbed.

  So I took the case down from the shelf, placed it on the bed, and prepared to open it. Then I realized I had no key. There was a keyhole just below the lid, and I tried inserting the pointed end of a pair of small scissors, but to no avail; then a piece of wire from the wire netting of the window, but did no better with that. Finally I tried the open end of a safety pin which I had been using on my pyjama jacket; no use. Obviously I was not meant to be a locksmith, or a thief.

  Eventually, in sheet frustration, I flung the box across the room. It bounced off the opposite wall, hit the floor, and burst open.

  Gemstones and jewellery cascaded across the floor of the room.

  When I had recovered from my astonishment and confusion, I made sure the door was shut, then set about collecting the scattered gems.

  There were a number of beautiful translucent red rubies, all aglow in the sun that streamed through the open window. I spread them out on my counterpane. I did not know much about gemstones, but they looked genuine enough to me. Presumably they had come from the ruby mines of Burma.

  There was a gold bracelet studded with several very pretty bright green emeralds. Where did emeralds come from? South America, mostly. Supposedly my birthstone; but I’d never been able to afford one.