Murder by the Book, page 20
The Book of Honour
John Creasey
John Creasey (1908–1973) was a natural storyteller whose determination to become a published novelist was such that he overcame hundreds of rejections before achieving his goal. Once he’d seen his work in print, there was no stopping him, and he became one of Britain’s most prolific published novelists. Not only is it easy to lose count of how many books he wrote, it is also hard to keep track of the many pen-names he used. Creasey was not a sophisticated prose stylist, but his industry and inventiveness ensured that his books sold by the million. Several were filmed, and there were TV versions of his series featuring the policeman George Gideon and also John Mannering, alias “The Baron.”
Even if he had not been such a successful author, Creasey would deserve the gratitude of his fellow writers for the efforts he made to establish the Crime Writers’ Association, of which he became the first chairman. There was a John Creasey Mystery Magazine and a series of John Creasey Mystery Bedside Books, which evolved into a long series of Crime Writers’ Association anthologies. “The Book of Honour” first appeared in the sixth Mystery Bedside Book in 1965.
***
There can be no greater tragedy than for a man to be hated by his son. For a good father it carries a daily hurt, thrusting deeper each day. So it was with Baburao Munshi, my oldest friend in Bombay. I say friend, but we were closer than that or I would not be able to tell this story of how his son Krishna hated him, and how they fought each other. It was not a physical struggle; I have never heard of a Hindu laying a hand upon his own father. It was a war of attrition.
When I first saw Baburao, I thought he was a beggar. I hadn’t been in Bombay long enough to tell the difference between the simply poor and the destitute; between the man who works and the man whose work is begging.
I was twenty-three at the time, and had come from England to assist an ageing Irishman who represented several large English publishing houses. I loved books and wanted to trade in them…
One January morning a softening haze spread over the unrippled water of the harbour, so that the white sails of small yachts and the dark sails of native boats and Arab dhows were etched against the serene blue of sky and sea. I walked from my hotel near Apollo Bunder. Across the road, the Gateway of India stood dark and massive.
Most of the beggars, the itinerant chiropodist with his little black case, the sellers of foreign stamps and crude postcards, knew and did not accost me. Two tiny boys, black hair long and matted, faces filthy, bodies clothed in rags, each thrust a hand in front of me, rubbed a thin stomach, and chanted: “Me no eat, me no eat, me no eat.” I dropped a paisa on to each palm, and they beamed and bobbed and hurried off.
As I walked to the sea wall to watch the shapes emerging from the haze, I saw a Hindu about my own age, a few yards away. He was very slim, with rather sharp features, and had the familiar, drawn look of hunger. His jacket had once been black but was now green and shiny, with holes at the elbows and one shoulder. His dhoti was tied round his waist and pulled up between his legs, looking like a pair of loose-fitting pantaloons. It was snowy white, like the twist of his turban.
He moved towards me, carrying a few picture-postcards. Obviously he was too diffident to have much success importuning tourists. He held the postcards out and spoke in better English than most. “Sahib want postcards?” he asked.
I didn’t, really. They were cheap pictures of the Gateway, Bombay Castle, the Rajabai Tower, the Hanging Gardens. He didn’t speak again, but his eyes talked eloquently; fine, clear brown eyes, at once proud and appealing in that hungry face. I thrust my hand into my pocket, and the first note I pulled out was a five-rupee.
I gave it to him. He hesitated, almost embarrassed. “I cannot change, sahib.”
“Never mind the change,” I said, and took half a dozen of the postcards. “Thanks. Good luck!”
When I hurried away, I wondered whether I had been a fool, whether he would pester me every morning. I found myself expecting him next day, but he wasn’t there.
***
He did not reappear for several weeks but, when he did, I recognised him on the instant; a remarkable fact, since every day I saw thousands of men dressed like him.
The Irishman I was working for had gone home on leave, and I had been extremely busy. The staff was well-trained, Hindus and Anglo-Indians who worked conscientiously, and I was planning a long trip, north to Delhi and across to Calcutta, to meet customers whom I hadn’t yet seen.
On the day before I left, I saw Baburao—my postcard seller—again. He was selling newspapers at a corner of Phirozeshah Meta Road, near the little hole-in-the-wall shops which offered everything from a needle-and-thread to a tiger-skin. I bought a paper. Obviously he recognised me, but neither of us spoke.
A month later, I came back from a long, wearisome, dusty, harassing trip by train with enough orders in my pocket to make it worth while. Baburao was at the same corner, dressed exactly the same; but he had added to his stock. As well as newspapers there were a dozen or so thin paper books.
Books always loosen my tongue. “Hallo,” I said. “Going into the book trade?”
“That is so, sahib.”
“When you run out of stock, come and see what I have,” I said, and told him where my office was.
He gave a little, secret smile. “I know well where it is, sahib. Thank you.”
About a month after this, I was sitting in my office with the door open and the fans whirring; the April heat was as oppressive as a blast from a brick kiln, for the rains hadn’t yet broken.
I looked up and saw Baburao. He looked hot and damp, but as always, his clothes were clean, if old. And the hungry look was gone. There was something else different, too—he looked as if he were lit up by a flame that sprang from great joy.
“Good morning, Baburao,” I greeted, “how are you?”
“Today is a great day, Mr. Graham, for my first-born is a boy.”
“I’m delighted,” I said. “May it be the first of many.”
“It will be,” said Baburao confidently. “There will be many mouths to fill, and so I must increase my business. That is another reason why I am here. I wish to sell more books. I think that I could sell some of these.” His gaze roamed round my shelves. “I would like to try, sir.”
He was implying that he could not afford to buy stock and wanted credit, but would never ask for it.
I said: “Look around, select what you want, and I will send you a bill in a month’s time. If you want me to take any back, please protect them against the weather.” I had an eye on the coming rains.
“That is already done,” said Baburao. “When I have selected and arranged them, you will see. Thank you.”
He wasn’t surprised by my offer, but was pleased. He left with a carton of books, mostly paper-backs but with a few cloth-bound volumes. I wished he hadn’t been so ambitious, for these were likely to get dirty. But obviously he was confident.
At the end of the day I went out into the street, where he was squatting by his stand. He had built a kind of bookcase with a wide, overhanging top, against the wall of the stone building where he had his pitch. It was on the right side of the road, where the rain, when it came, was likely to be blown the other way; he also had a canvas canopy.
“You’re really working at this,” I said with admiration. “It looks fine. Good luck!”
“Thank you, Mr. Graham.”
“By the way,” I said, “what is the name of your first-born?”
“Krishna,” Baburao told me. “Krishna Munshi.”
There was joy in his eyes—then.
I was astonished when Baburao appeared next morning, selected three cloth-bound books and several paper-backs, took these to the trade counter and paid in cash. I went to find out what he’d bought.
“Repeats of titles he took before,” said Mary Lewis, my counter-clerk, a bright, business-like Anglo-Indian with a very fair skin. “He wanted three others, but we’re out of stock.”
That night I noticed that his shelves were packed so tightly that he couldn’t squeeze another book in. I mingled with the colourful, noisy crowd of home-going clerks, and watched. Baburao sold two books while I was there and promptly replaced them from a wooden box, which he used afterwards as a chair.
He came for a little stock most days, always repeating popular titles, and gradually built up a steady business. He improved the appearance of his stand, but never of his clothes. He paid in cash for everything he bought, but nothing off the first bill. Mary Lewis told me that she had put it into his hand, but he had blandly ignored it.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “he’ll pay one day.”
My interest stimulated by Baburao’s great pride in his son, I began to understand the strength of Hindu family loyalty, with its always fanatical influence, and to respect my friend’s love for his first-born. Whenever I asked about Krishna, I was told he was a strong, healthy, and intelligent boy; just the son to take over his father’s business one day.
That was Baburao’s dream…
By Krishna’s first birthday the bookstand was twice its original size and Baburao had to step on to a stool to reach the top row. He was turning over several thousand rupees a month—not big money by western standards, but none the less impressive for a Hindu who had started from nothing.
As I became more familiar with Indian ways and customs, I learned that Baburao was of high caste, had come to Bombay with a flood of refugees from a famine area, and now lived in a shelter against an old wall of a dismantled building. The roof and walls were of banana fronds, his wife cooked on bricks outside the tiny entrance, and washed their clothes on the stones at the water’s edge nearby.
Hundreds of thousands lived like them in poverty which bred fatalism and despair—but, in Baburao, hope…
Mary Lewis reminded me of Krishna’s next birthday, and added tartly that although he paid cash for everything he bought now, Baburao hadn’t paid that first bill. I ought to remind him, she said.
I went into the street to congratulate Baburao, and caught him stepping down from the box—not with a book but a hammer in his hand. Above the stand was a painted sign:
BABURAO MUNSHI & SON
BOOKS
I didn’t speak about that old account…
Three months or so later he told me that his second son, Rama, had been born. He was pleased but not overjoyed. He was changing in some ways, and had become a brisk, confident business man with a flair for knowing which books would sell. He acquired many regular customers and ran accounts for them. Hindus, Moslems, Sikhs, Parsees, and Europeans, students, business men, and clerks all patronised him, and Baburao made friends with them all.
His English was now almost perfect. He dressed a little better, but it was noticeable that, whenever he needed an assistant, he took him from among the destitute. There were more and more fugitives in the city from famine areas.
Just before Krishna’s third birthday, Baburao asked me to have lunch with him. We went to an ordinary little restaurant in Hornby Road, not far from Crawford Market. With its rioting colours and contrasts, its variety of tiny shops, the insistent pleading of the sidewalk pedlars and the beggars, the Chinese with their paper lanterns, the district always fascinated me. The food, served in little metal bowls and eaten with the fingers, was spicy and sweet.
“Mr. Graham, I will be grateful for your advice,” Baburao said when we had finished. “I wish to open another stall or shop. I wish to employ one or two men who are not ignorant of books and who can be trusted. You can tell me of those who are not ignorant, and I will judge their loyalty.” He smiled at me, modestly. “You do not think I am foolish?”
I said: “I think I could recommend one or two men, but there’s something I ought to have said to you long ago, Baburao.”
His smile was gentle. “That old bill, perhaps?”
“No—I shall leave that to your conscience. It’s about your business. You buy all your books from me, and I represent only a few English publishers. You should buy from the other agencies in Bombay, and stock all books which have a ready sale.”
He leaned across the little table and touched my arm. “You are generous and a good friend, Mr. Graham. Perhaps I will do that. I do not think you will sell less because of it.
“And now I will tell you something. I am making a book.” He was obviously highly amused. “It will be a big book, and when it is finished I shall give it to you. All the time I worked on it, I remind myself of some postcards on the Apollo Bunder, and also of the day when you first allowed me credit. It is—what is the phrase?—a labour of love.”
“Don’t be too long finishing it,” I said.
“Look forward to the day when Krishna begins to work with me,” he answered…
It was at a period of great crisis, when Gandhi was at the height of his power, that I met Baburao and Krishna near Crawford Market. The boy was nearly ten. I had never taken to him, but exerted myself to be friendly.
“Hallo, Krishna,” I said, after greeting his father. “How are you?”
He stared at me with great, dark eyes; and he said, slowly and deliberately: “Bloody Englishman.”
The pain in Baburao’s eyes gave me my first hint of his tragedy. It was a long time before I realised the truth: that his son had been born evil, as Baburao had been born good.
Nevertheless, Baburao was flourishing. He had moved from the banana-frond hut, first into a flat and then into a big, rambling old bungalow near the museum. Occasionally I spent an evening there, but the atmosphere was never really happy. Krishna, young though he was, spoiled it by sitting and staring at me as if in contempt. So, more often, Baburao came to me.
He no longer needed advice about books; he had five shops and as many stands, and was one of the biggest booksellers in the city. Practically all of his assistants came from the famine camps, and he spent much time and money in relief work.
The only time I really saw him angry was when he discovered dope pedlars busy in a camp. The hungry and the hopeless were easy victims of dope traffickers, and money desperately needed for food, clothes, and children was spent on the vile stuff, which gave an illusion of happiness and yet sent men to hell…
And then the nightmare came—partition.
Hordes of refugees, turned out of Pakistan, strained the resources of Bombay and brought a plague of disease and despair. It was horror.
Day after day, Baburao worked until he dropped. By now, Krishna was working in the business, and showed his remarkable maturity by taking his father’s place when Baburao was out on relief work. He was studiously polite to me, but I was sure that his dislike was as bitter as ever. His eyes still had a burning defiance which mingled with arrogance. Against his father’s wishes he had given up the dhoti—which Baburao always wore—for western clothes.
Rama, the second boy, was very different. Willing, eager, and gay, he made up in friendliness what he lacked in experience. I came to know him well enough to ask him: “What doesn’t Krishna like about me, Rama?”
The boy hesitated before answering quickly: “It is not you alone, Mr. Graham. It is any friend of our father.”
Then he went on to talk freely, worriedly. Krishna was bitter and aloof with his father, he had a cruel streak, and loved to hurt—animals, insects, his brother, his servants. Rama gave depth to the picture I had always imagined of Krishna. I feared…well, I don’t know what I feared for Baburao.
I did not fear the worst, but it came.
In business, Krishna soon proved his brilliance. More and more was left to him. While Baburao worked for the refugees, his son became master of the complex working of a firm with thirty branches, mostly in Bombay, but some in Delhi, Calcutta, and Madras. His father could take pride in him, yet be afraid.
One evening, Baburao came to me, relaxed in a long chair, and watched me drink my whisky—he himself neither drank nor smoked. Obviously he was happier than he had been for a long, long time, and I felt reassured.
“I think I shall be able to finish the book before long,” he told me. “I shall soon have more time. A miracle is happening, Malcolm. At last Krishna has seen what urges me to work for the poor. You will never guess what he has started to do.”
“I won’t try,” I said.
“Imagine this, then—he has started libraries. Travelling libraries, which go to the camps and lend books to those who can read. Malcolm—” Baburao sat up, almost excited—“you know and I know that the greatest evil we have to fight is that of drugs. Can the people be blamed for taking refuge in them when their life is such a misery? Can they?”
“We’ve agreed about that before,” I said, “but how does Krishna’s new idea affect that?”
“But it is obvious. Those who can will read aloud to their families, there will be something new to fill their minds, a fresh interest, a great distraction. First a few and gradually many will be wooed away from drugs. Many who would start taking them will never do so. Why, this could be the weapon to attack illiteracy, to begin a thirst for knowledge.”
I had never seen him so pleased—and, oddly, I had never been filled with such disquiet. But I could not say a word to spoil Baburao’s dream.
