Collected Short Stories Page 8

  ‘Jalebis for a rupee,’ he said.

  The sweet seller picked up the coin, studied it carefully, then gave Ranji a toothy smile and said, ‘Always at your service, sir.’ He filled a paper bag with hot jalebis and handed them over.

  When Ranji reached the clock tower, he found Koki waiting. ‘Oh, I’m so hungry,’ she said, giving him a shy smile.

  So they sat side by side on the low wall, and Koki helped Ranji finish the jalebis.

  Faraway Places

  Anil and his parents lived in a small coastal town on the Kathlawar peninsula, where Anil’s father was an engineer in the Public Works Department. The boy attended the local school but as his home was some way out of town, he hadn’t the opportunity of making many friends.

  Sometimes he went for a walk with his father or mother, but most of the time they were busy, his mother in the house, his father in the office, and as a result he was usually left to his own resources. However, one day Anil’s father took him down to the docks, about two miles from the house. They drove down in a car, and took the car right up to the pier.

  It was a small port, with a cargo steamer in dock, and a few fishing vessels in the harbour. But the sight of the sea and the ships put a strange longing in Anil’s heart.

  The fishing vessels plied only up and down the Gulf. But the little steamer, with its black hull and red and white funnel held romance, the romance of great distances and faraway ports of call, with magical names like Yokohama, Valparaiso, San Diego, London . . .

  Anil’s father knew the captain of the steamer, and took his son aboard. The captain was a Scotsman named Mr MacWhirr, a very jolly person with a thunderous laugh that showed up a set of dirty yellow teeth. Mr MacWhirr liked to chew tobacco and spit it all over the deck, but he offered Anil’s father the best of cigarettes and produced a bar of chocolate for Anil.

  ‘Well, young man,’ he said to the boy with a wink, ‘how would you like to join the crew of my ship, and see the world?’

  ‘I’d like to, very much, captain sir,’ said Anil, looking up uncertainly at his father.

  The captain roared with laughter, patted Anil on the shoulder, and spat tobacco on the floor.

  ‘You’d like to, eh? I wonder what your father has to say to that!’

  But Anil’s father had nothing to say.

  Anil visited the ship once again with his father, and got to know the captain a little better; and the captain said, ‘Well, boy, whenever you’ve nothing to do, you’re welcome aboard my ship. You can have a look at the engines, if you like, or at anything else that takes your fancy.’

  The next day Anil walked down to the docks alone, and the captain lowered the gangplank especially for him. Anil spent the entire day on board, asking questions of the captain and the crew. He made friends quickly, and the following day, when he came aboard, they greeted him as though he was already one of them.

  ‘Can I come with you on your next voyage?’ he asked the captain. ‘I can scrub the deck and clean the cabins, and you don’t have to pay me anything.’

  Captain MacWhirr was taken aback, but a twinkle came into his eye, and he put his head back and laughed indulgently. ‘You’re just the person we want! We sail any day now, my boy, so you’d better get yourself ready. A little more cargo, and we’ll be steaming into the Arabian Sea. First call Aden, then Suez, and up the Canal!’

  ‘Will you tell me one or two days before we sail, so that I can get my things ready?’ asked Anil.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ said the captain. ‘But don’t you think you should discuss this with your father? Your parents might not like being left alone so suddenly.’

  ‘Oh, no, sir, I can’t tell them; they wouldn’t like it at all. You won’t tell them, will you, captain sir?’

  ‘No, of course not, my boy,’ said Captain MacWhirr, with a huge wink.

  During the next two days Anil remained at home, feverishly excited, busily making preparations for the voyage. He filled a pillowcase with some clothes, a penknife and a bar of chocolate, and hid the bundle in an old cupboard.

  At dinner, one evening, the conversation came around to the subject of ships, and Anil’s mother spoke to her husband, ‘I understand your friend, the captain of the cargo ship, sails tonight.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the boy’s father. ‘We won’t see him again for sometime.’

  Anil wanted to interrupt and inform them that Captain MacWhirr wouldn’t be sailing yet, but he did not want to arouse his parents’ suspicions. And yet, the more he pondered over his mother’s remark, the less certain he felt. Perhaps the ship was sailing that night; perhaps the captain had mentioned the fact to Anil’s parents so that the information could be passed on. After all, Anil hadn’t been down to the docks for two days, and the captain couldn’t have had the opportunity of notifying Anil of the ship’s imminent departure.

  Anyway, Anil decided there was no time to lose. He went to his room and, collecting the bundle of clothes, slipped out of the house. His parents were sitting out on the veranda and for a while Anil stood outside in the gathering dusk, watching them. He felt a pang of regret at having to leave them alone for so long, perhaps several months; he would have liked to take them along, too, but he knew that wouldn’t be practical. Perhaps, when he had a ship of his own . . .

  He hurried down the garden path, and as soon as he was on the road to the docks, he broke into a run. He felt sure he had heard the hoot of a steamer.

  Anil ran down the pier, breathing heavily, his bundle of clothes beginning to come undone. He saw the steamer, but it was moving. It was moving slowly out of the harbour, sending the waves rippling back to the pier.

  ‘Captain!’ shouted Anil. ‘Wait for me!’

  A sailor, standing in the bow, waved to Anil; but that was all. Anil stood at the end of the pier, waving his hands and shouting desperately.

  ‘Captain, oh, captain sir, wait for me!’

  Nobody answered him. The sea gulls, wheeling in the wake of the ship, seemed to take up his cry. ‘Captain, captain . . .’

  The ship drew further away, gathering speed. Still Anil shouted, in a hoarse, pleading voice. Yokohama, Valparaiso, San Diego, London, all were slipping away forever . . .

  He stood alone on the pier, his bundle at his feet, the harbour lights beginning to twinkle, the gulls wheeling around him. ‘First call Aden, then Suez, and up the Canal.’ But for Anil there was only the empty house and the boredom of the schoolroom.

  Next year, sometime, he told himself, Captain MacWhirr would return. He would be back, and then Anil wouldn’t make a mistake. He’d be on the ship long before it sailed. Captain MacWhirr had promised to take him along, and wasn’t an adult’s word to be trusted? And so he remained for a long time on the pier, staring out to sea until the steamer went over the horizon. Then he picked up his bundle and made for home. This year, next year, sometime . . . Yokohama, Valparaiso, San Diego, London!

  How Far Is the River?

  Between the boy and the river was a mountain. I was a small boy, and it was a small river, but the mountain was big. The thickly forested mountain hid the river, but I knew it was there and what it looked like; I had never seen the river with my own eyes, but from the villagers I had heard of it, of the fish in its waters, of its rocks and currents and waterfalls, and it only remained for me to touch the water and know it personally.

  I stood in front of our house on the hill opposite the mountain, and gazed across the valley, dreaming of the river. I was barefooted; not because I couldn’t afford shoes, but because I felt free with my feet bare, because I liked the feel of warm stones and cool grass, because not wearing shoes saved me the trouble of taking them off.

  It was eleven o’clock and I knew my parents wouldn’t be home till evening. There was a loaf of bread I could take with me, and on the way I might find some fruit. Here was the chance I had been waiting for; it would not come again for a long time, because it was seldom that my father and mother visited friends for the entire day. If
I came back before dark, they wouldn’t know where I had been.

  I went into the house and wrapped the loaf of bread in a newspaper. Then I closed all the doors and windows.

  The path to the river dropped steeply into the valley, then rose and went round the big mountain. It was frequently used by the villagers, woodcutters, milkmen, shepherds, mule drivers—but there were no villages beyond the mountain or near the river.

  I passed a woodcutter and asked him how far it was to the river. He was a short, powerful man, with a creased and weathered face, and muscles that stood out in hard lumps.

  ‘Seven miles,’ he said. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I am going there,’ I said.

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It will take you three hours to reach it, and then you have to come back. It will be getting dark, and it is not an easy road.’

  ‘But I’m a good walker,’ I said, though I had never walked further than the two miles between our house and my school. I left the woodcutter on the path, and continued down the hill.

  It was a dizzy, winding path, and I slipped once or twice and slid into a bush or down a slope of slippery pine needles. The hill was covered with lush green ferns, the trees were entangled in creepers, and a great wild dahlia would suddenly rear its golden head from the leaves and ferns.

  Soon I was in the valley, and the path straightened out and then began to rise. I met a girl who was coming from the opposite direction. She held a long curved knife with which she had been cutting grass, and there were rings in her nose and ears and her arms were covered with heavy bangles. The bangles made music when she moved her wrists. It was as though her hands spoke a language of their own.

  ‘How far is it to the river?’ I asked.

  The girl had probably never been to the river, or she may have been thinking of another one, because she said, ‘Twenty miles,’ without any hesitation.

  I laughed and ran down the path. A parrot screeched suddenly, flew low over my head, a flash of blue and green. It took the course of the path, and I followed its dipping flight, running until the path rose and the bird disappeared amongst the trees.

  A trickle of water came down the hillside, and I stopped to drink. The water was cold and sharp but very refreshing. But I was soon thirsty again. The sun was striking the side of the hill, and the dusty path became hotter, the stones scorching my feet. I was sure I had covered half the distance: I had been walking for over an hour.

  Presently, I saw another boy ahead of me driving a few goats down the path.

  ‘How far is the river?’ I asked.

  The village boy smiled and said, ‘Oh, not far, just round the next hill and straight down.’

  Feeling hungry, I unwrapped my loaf of bread and broke it in two, offering one half to the boy. We sat on the hillside and ate in silence.

  When we had finished, we walked on together and began talking; and talking I did not notice the smarting of my feet and the heat of the sun, the distance I had covered and the distance I had yet to cover. But after some time my companion had to take another path, and once more I was on my own.

  I missed the village boy; I looked up and down the mountain path but no one else was in sight. My own home was hidden from view by the side of the mountain, and there was no sign of the river. I began to feel discouraged. If someone had been with me, I would not have faltered; but alone, I was conscious of my fatigue and isolation.

  But I had come more than half way, and I couldn’t turn back; I had to see the river. If I failed, I would always be a little ashamed of the experience. So I walked on, along the hot, dusty, stony path, past stone huts and terraced fields, until there were no more fields or huts, only forest and sun and loneliness. There were no men, and no sign of man’s influence—only trees and rocks and grass and small flowers—and silence . . .

  The silence was impressive and a little frightening. There was no movement, except for the bending of grass beneath my feet, and the circling of a hawk against the blind blue of the sky.

  Then, as I rounded a sharp bend, I heard the sound of water. I gasped with surprise and happiness, and began to run. I slipped and stumbled, but I kept on running, until I was able to plunge into the snow-cold mountain water.

  And the water was blue and white and wonderful.

  Tribute to a Dead Friend

  Now that Thanh is dead, I suppose it is not too treacherous of me to write about him. He was only a year older than I. He died in Paris, in his twenty-second year, and Pravin wrote to me from London and told me about it. I will get more details from Pravin when he returns to India next month. Just now I only know that Thanh is dead.

  It is supposed to be in very bad taste to discuss a person behind his back and to discuss a dead person is most unfair, for he cannot even retaliate. But Thanh had this very weakness of criticizing absent people and it cannot hurt him now if I do a little to expose his colossal ego.

  Thanh was a fraud all right but no one knew it. He had beautiful round eyes, a flashing smile and a sweet voice and everyone said he was a charming person. He was certainly charming but I have found that charming people are seldom sincere. I think I was the only person who came anywhere near to being his friend for he had cultivated a special loneliness of his own and it was difficult to intrude on it.

  I met him in London in the summer of 1954. I was trying to become a writer while I worked part-time at a number of different jobs. I had been two years in London and was longing for the hills and rivers of India. Thanh was Vietnamese. His family was well-to-do and though the communists had taken their hometown of Hanoi, most of the family was in France, well-established in the restaurant business. Thanh did not suffer from the same financial distress as other students whose homes were in northern Vietnam. He wasn’t studying anything in particular but practised assiduously on the piano, though the only thing he could play fairly well was Chopin’s Funeral March.

  My friend Pravin, a happy-go-lucky, very friendly Gujarati boy, introduced me to Thanh. Pravin, like a good Indian, thought all Asians were superior people, but he didn’t know Thanh well enough to know that Thanh didn’t like being an Asian.

  At first, Thanh was glad to meet me. He said he had for a long time been wanting to make friends with an Englishman, a real Englishman, not one who was a Pole, a Cockney or a Jew; he was most anxious to improve his English and talk like Mr Glendenning of the BBC. Pravin, knowing that I had been born and bred in India, that my parents had been born and bred in India, suppressed his laughter with some difficulty. But Thanh was soon disillusioned. My accent was anything but English. It was a pronounced chhichhi accent.

  ‘You speak like an Indian!’ exclaimed Thanh, horrified. ‘Are you an Indian?’

  ‘He’s Welsh,’ said Pravin with a wink.

  Thanh was slightly mollified. Being Welsh was the next best thing to being English. Only he disapproved of the Welsh for speaking with an Indian accent.

  Later, when Pravin had gone, and I was sitting in Thanh’s room drinking Chinese tea, he confided in me that he disliked Indians.

  ‘Isn’t Pravin your friend?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t trust him,’ he said. ‘I have to be friendly but I don’t trust him at all. I don’t trust any Indians.’

  ‘What’s wrong with them?’

  ‘They are too inquisitive,’ complained Thanh. ‘No sooner have you met one of them than he is asking you who your father is, and what your job is, and how much money you have in the bank.’

  I laughed and tried to explain that in India inquisitiveness is a sign of a desire for friendship, and that he should feel flattered when asked such personal questions. I protested that I was an Indian myself and he said if that was so he wouldn’t trust me either.

  But he seemed to like me and often invited me to his room. He could make some wonderful Chinese and French dishes. When we had eaten, he would sit down at his secondhand piano and play Chopin.

  He always complained that I
didn’t listen properly. He complained of my untidiness and my unwarranted self-confidence. It was true that I appeared most confident when I was not very sure of myself. I boasted of an intimate knowledge of London’s geography but I was an expert at losing my way and then blaming it on someone else.

  ‘You are a useless person,’ said Thanh, while with chopsticks I stuffed my mouth with delicious pork and fried rice. ‘You cannot find your way anywhere. You cannot speak English properly. You do not know any people except Indians. How are you going to be a writer?’

  ‘If I am as bad as all that,’ I said, ‘why do you remain my friend?’

  ‘I want to study your stupidity,’ he said.

  That was why he never made any real friends. He loved to work out your faults and examine your imperfections. There was no such thing as a real friend, he said. He had looked everywhere but he could not find the perfect friend.

  ‘What is your idea of a perfect friend?’ I asked him. ‘Does he have to speak perfect English?’

  But sarcasm was only wasted on Thanh—he admitted that perfect English was one of the requisites of a perfect friend!

  Sometimes, in moments of deep gloom, he would tell me that he did not have long to live.

  ‘There is a pain in my chest,’ he complained. ‘There is something ticking there all the time. Can you hear it?’

  He would bare his bony chest for me and I would put my ear to the offending spot. But I could never hear any ticking.

  ‘Visit the hospital,’ I advised. ‘They’ll give you an X-ray and a proper check-up.’

  ‘I have had X-rays,’ he lied. ‘They never show anything.’ Then he would talk of killing himself. This was his theme song: he had no friends, he was a failure as a musician, there was no other career open to him, he hadn’t seen his family for five years, and he couldn’t go back to Indo-China because of the communists. He magnified his own troubles and minimized other people’s troubles. When I was in hospital with an old acquaintance, amoebic dysentery, Pravin came to see me every day. Thanh, who was not very busy, came only once and never again. He said the hospital ward depressed him.