DUST ON MOUNTAIN: COLLECTED STORIES (87 page)

When it was winter in the hills, a cold wind blew down from the snows and went
whoo-whoo-whoo
through the deodar trees, and the garden was dry and bare. In the evenings Grandfather told Rakesh stories—stories about people who turned into animals, and ghosts who lived in trees, and beans that jumped and stones that wept—and in turn Rakesh would read to him from the newspaper, Grandfather’s eyesight being rather weak. Rakesh found the newspaper very dull—especially after the stories—but Grandfather wanted all the news …

They knew it was spring when the wild duck flew north again, to Siberia. Early in the morning, when he got up to chop wood and light a fire, Rakesh saw the V-shaped formation streaming northwards, the calls of the birds carrying clearly through the thin mountain air.

One morning in the garden, he bent to pick up what he thought was a small twig and found to his surprise that it was well rooted. He stared at it for a moment, then ran to fetch Grandfather, calling, ‘Dada, come and look, the cherry tree has come up!’

‘What cherry tree?’ asked Grandfather, who had forgotten about it.

‘The seed we planted last year—look, it’s come up!’

Rakesh went down on his haunches, while Grandfather bent almost double and peered down at the tiny tree. It was about four inches high.

‘Yes, it’s a cherry tree,’ said Grandfather. ‘You should water it now and then.’

Rakesh ran indoors and came back with a bucket of water.

‘Don’t drown it!’ said Grandfather.

Rakesh gave it a sprinkling and circled it with pebbles.

‘What are the pebbles for?’ asked Grandfather.

‘For privacy,’ said Rakesh.

He looked at the tree every morning but it did not seem to be growing very fast. So he stopped looking at it—except quickly, out of the corner of his eye. And, after a week or two, when he allowed himself to look at it properly, he found that it had grown—at least an inch!

That year the monsoon rains came early and Rakesh plodded to and from school in raincoat and gum boots. Ferns sprang from the trunks of trees, strange-looking lilies came up in the long grass, and even when it wasn’t raining the trees dripped, and mist came curling up the valley. The cherry tree grew quickly in this season.

It was about two feet high when a goat entered the garden and ate all the leaves. Only the main stem and two thin branches remained.

‘Never mind,’ said Grandfather, seeing that Rakesh was upset. ‘It will grow again, cherry trees are tough.’

Towards the end of the rainy season new leaves appeared on the tree. Then a woman cutting grass scrambled down the hillside, her scythe swishing through the heavy monsoon foliage. She did not try to avoid the tree: one sweep, and the cherry tree was cut in two.

When Grandfather saw what had happened, he went after the woman and scolded her; but the damage could not be repaired.

‘Maybe it will die now,’ said Rakesh.

‘Maybe,’ said Grandfather.

But the cherry tree had no intention of dying.

By the time summer came round again, it had sent out several new shoots with tender green leaves. Rakesh had grown taller too. He was eight now, a sturdy boy with curly black hair and deep black eyes. Blackberry eyes, Grandfather called them.

That monsoon Rakesh went home to his village, to help his father and mother with the planting and ploughing and sowing. He was thinner but stronger when he came back to Grandfather’s house at the end of the rains, to find that the cherry tree had grown another foot. It was now up to his chest.

Even when there was rain, Rakesh would sometimes water the tree. He wanted it to know that he was there.

One day he found a bright green praying mantis perched on a branch, peering at him with bulging eyes. Rakesh let it remain there. It was the cherry tree’s first visitor.

The next visitor was a hairy caterpillar, who started making a meal of the leaves. Rakesh removed it quickly and dropped it on a heap of dry leaves.

‘They’re pretty leaves,’ said Rakesh. ‘And they are always ready to dance. If there’s a breeze.’

After Grandfather had come indoors, Rakesh went into the garden and lay down on the grass beneath the tree. He gazed up through the leaves at the great blue sky; and turning on his side, he could see the mountain striding away into the clouds. He was still lying beneath the tree when the evening shadows crept across the garden. Grandfather came back and sat down beside Rakesh, and they waited in silence until the stars came out and the nightjar began to call. In the forest below, the crickets and cicadas began tuning up; and suddenly the tree was full of the sound of insects.

‘There are so many trees in the forest,’ said Rakesh. ‘What’s so special about this tree? Why do we like it so much?’

‘We planted it ourselves,’ said Grandfather. ‘That’s why it’s special.’

‘Just one small seed,’ said Rakesh, and he touched the smooth bark of the tree that had grown. He ran his hand along the trunk of the tree and put his finger to the tip of a leaf. ‘I wonder,’ he whispered, ‘is this what it feels to be God?’

H
e stood on the grass verge by the side of the road and looked over the garden wall at the old house. It hadn’t changed much. There’s little anyone can do to alter a house built with solid blocks of granite brought from the riverbed. But there was a new outhouse and there were fewer trees. He was pleased to see that the jackfruit tree still stood at the side of the building, casting its shade on the wall. He remembered his grandmother saying: ‘A blessing rests on the house where falls the shadow of a tree.’ And so the present owners must also be the recipients of the tree’s blessings.

At the spot where he stood there had once been a turnstile, and as a boy he would swing on it, going round and round until he was quite dizzy. Now the turnstile had gone and the opening walled up. Tall hollyhocks grew on the other side of the wall.

‘What are you looking at?’

It was a disembodied voice at first. Moments later a girl stood framed between dark red hollyhocks, staring at the man.

It was difficult to guess her age. She might have been twelve or she might have been sixteen: slim and dark, with lovely eyes and long black hair.

‘I’m looking at the house,’ he said.

‘Why? Do you want to buy it?’

‘Is it your house?’

‘It’s my father’s.’

‘And what does your rather do?’

‘He’s only a colonel.’

‘
Only
a colonel?’

‘Well, he should have been a brigadier by now.’

The man burst out laughing.

‘It’s not funny,’ she said. ‘Even mummy says he should have been a brigadier.’

It was on the tip of his tongue to make a witty remark (‘Perhaps that’s why he’s still a colonel.’), but he did not want to give offence. They stood on either side of the wall, appraising each other.

‘Well,’ she said finally. ‘If you don’t want to buy the house, what are you looking at?’

‘I used to live here once.’

‘Oh.’

‘Twenty-five years ago. When I was a boy. And then again, when I was a young man … until my grandmother died and then we sold the house and went away.’

She was silent for a while, taking in this information. Then she said, ‘And you’d like to buy it back now, but you don’t have the money?’ He did not look very prosperous.

‘No, I wasn’t thinking of buying it back. I wanted to see it again, that’s all. How long have you lived here?’

‘Only three years.’ She smiled. She’d been eating a melon and there was still juice at the corners of her mouth. ‘Would you like to come in—and look—once more?’

‘Wouldn’t your parents mind?’

‘They’ve gone to the club. They won’t mind. I’m allowed to bring my friends home.’

‘Even adult friends?’

‘How old are you?’

‘Oh, just middle-aged, but feeling young today.’ And to prove it he decided he’d climb over the wall instead of going round by the gate. He got up on the wall all right, but had to rest there, breathing heavily. ‘Middle-aged man on the flying trapeze,’ he muttered to himself.

‘Let me help you,’ she said and gave him her hand.

He slithered down into a flower bed, shattering the stem of a hollyhock.

As they walked across the grass he noticed a stone bench under a mango tree. It was the bench on which his grandmother used to sit when she tired of pruning rose bushes and bougainvillaea.

‘Let’s sit here,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to go inside.’

She sat beside him on the bench. It was March and the mango tree was in bloom. A sweet, heavy fragrance drenched the garden.

They were silent for some time. The man closed his eyes and remembered other times—the music of a piano, the chiming of a grandfather clock, the constant twitter of budgerigars on the veranda, his grandfather cranking up the old car …

‘I used to climb the jackfruit tree,’ he said, opening his eyes. ‘I didn’t like the jackfruit, though. Do you?’

‘It’s all right in pickles.’

‘I suppose so … The tree was easy to climb. I spent a lot of time in it.’

‘Do you want to climb it again? My parents won’t mind.’

‘No, I don’t think so. Not after climbing the wall! Let’s just sit here for a few minutes and talk. I mention the jackfruit tree because it was my favourite place. Do you see that thick branch stretching out over the roof? Halfway along it there’s a small hollow in which I used to keep some of my treasures.’

‘What kind of treasures?’

‘Oh, nothing very valuable. Marbles I’d won. A book I wasn’t supposed to read. A few old coins I’d collected. Things came and went. There was my grandfather’s medal, well not his exactly, because he was British and the Iron Cross was a German decoration, awarded for bravery during the War—that’s the First World War—when Grandfather fought in France. He got it from a German soldier.’

‘Dead or alive?’

‘Pardon? Oh, you mean the German. I never asked. Dead, I suppose. Or perhaps he was a prisoner. I never asked Grandfather. Isn’t that strange?’

‘And the Iron Cross? Do you still have it?’

‘No,’ he said, looking her in the eye. ‘I left it in the jackfruit tree.’

‘You left it in the tree!’

‘Yes, I was so busy at the time—packing, and saying goodbye to friends, and thinking about the ship I was going to sail on—that I just forgot all about it.’

She was silent, considering, her finger on her lips, her gaze fixed on the jackfruit tree.

Then, quietly, she said, ‘It may still be there. In the hollow of the branch.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘After twenty-five years, it may still be there. Unless someone else found it.’

‘Would you like to take a look?’

‘I can’t climb trees any more.’

‘I can! I’ll go and see. You just sit here and wait for me.’

She sprang up and ran across the grass, swift and sweet of limb. Soon she was in the jackfruit tree, crawling along the projecting branch. A warm wind brought little eddies of dust along the road. Summer was in the air. Ah, if only he could learn to climb trees again!

‘I’ve found something!’ she cried.

And now, barefoot, she runs breathlessly towards him, in her outstretched hand a rusty old medal.

He takes it from her and turns it over on his palm.

‘Is it the Iron Cross?’ she asks eagerly.

‘Yes, this is it.’

‘Now I know why you came. You wanted to see if it was still in the tree.’

‘I don’t know. I’m not really sure why I came. But you can keep the Cross. You found it, after all.’

‘No, you keep it. It’s yours.’

‘But it might have remained in the tree for a hundred years if you hadn’t gone to look for it.’

‘Only because you came back—’

‘On the right day, at the right time, and with the right person.’ Getting up, he squeezed the hard rusty medal into her soft palm. ‘No, it wasn’t the Cross I came for. It was my lost youth.’

She understood this, even though her own youth still lay ahead of her, she understood it, not as an adult, but with the wisdom of the child that was still part of her. She walked with him to the gate and stood there gazing after him as he walked away. Where the road turned, he glanced back and waved to her. Then he quickened his step and moved briskly towards the bus stop. There was a spring in his step. Something cried aloud in his heart.

L
ast week as the taxi took me to Delhi, I passed through the small town in the foothills where I had lived as a young man.

Well, it’s the only road to Delhi and one must go that way, but I seldom travel beyond the foothills. As the years go by, my visits to the city—any city—are few and far between. But whenever I am on the road, I look out of the window of my bus or taxi, to catch a glimpse of the first-floor balcony where a row of potted plants lend colour to an old and decrepit building. Ferns, a palm, a few bright marigolds, zinnias and nasturtiums—they made that balcony stand out from others. It was impossible to miss it.

But last week, when I looked out of the taxi window, the balcony garden had gone. A few broken pots remained but the ferns had crumpled into dust, the palm had turned brown and yellow, and of the flowers nothing remained.

All these years I had taken that balcony garden for granted and now it had gone. It shook me. I looked back at the building for signs of life but saw none. The taxi sped on. On my way back, I decided, I would look again. But it was as though a part of my life had come to an abrupt end. The link between youth and middle-age, the bridge that spanned that gap, had suddenly been swept away.

And what had happened to Kamla, I wondered. Kamla, who had tended those plants all these years, knowing I would be looking out for them even though I might not see her, even though she might never see me.

Chance gives and takes away and gives again. But I would have to look elsewhere now for the memories of my love, my young love, the girl who came into my life for a few blissful weeks and then went out of it for the remainder of our lives.

Was it almost thirty years ago that it all happened? How old was I then? Twenty-two at the most! And Kamla could not have been more than seventeen.