The girl on the clock tower

After a month of rainy nights, the moon had rose, flooding the otherwise dimly lit road that stretched in front of me. Twinkling stars were scattered in the sky, appearing like fragments of a broken galaxy. Oak trees, growing on either side of the road, bent and swayed, their spirally arranged, serrated leaves fluttering with the activity of the wind. Soft, light breezes flew past my face as I enjoyed a late-night stroll down the mall road of the hill station of Shimla. The road was desolate, deserted for it was midnight but I occasionally heard the whistle of the night chowkidars, who were prowling the grounds of the hotels on the mall road. Rest all was silence, but only human silence.   

In the vicinity, I could hear the musical echo of nature. The rustling of leaves who seemed eager to detach themselves from the branches and venture on a journey of the world; the shaking of branches as if they wanted to dance with the wind; the trees, who were jiggling to uproot themselves and walk to whole new places; the sound of nightbirds who produced deep, pensive cries hidden in the trees and the crisp, cold winds that brought me fragrant of blossoms from distant lands.  

I walked further down the levelled road and then uphill, towards the end of bazaar. In the bright moonlight, only my footsteps were the only sounds that broke the stillness of the night. The shops and restaurants had their shutters down, with stray dogs, barking and howling in front of them, provided me a sense of loneliness as if I was the only human in this world. I sauntered among houses, in which people were fast asleep and I, the only wanderer out, in the cold night.  

An hour passed. Normally, I’d have walked back home by this hour but I wanted to stay longer, to feel the mountain air in each breath. Walking steadily, I reached another part of the town, towards a tall, old clock tower of the Christ church built several years ago, one of the enduring legacies of the colonial era.  

It was large building housing a turret clock, with one of more clocks faces on the upper exterior walls. It was adjoined to the Christ church, the second oldest church in north India, with its silhouette visible for many kilometres around Shimla. I stood under its archway and minutely glanced the time. It was one’ o clock in the night. Too late to be out. I’d better go home. But just as I was about to turn back, my eyes fell on a faint glow of the figure of a girl-if it was one, standing on the roof of the tower. 

 

Against the moonlight, I saw her, her beautiful face, round, with iridescent eyes and pink cheeks. Her hair, all black and curly, fell over her forehead. Presumably a young girl of about ten, I gathered. But what was she doing on the roof of the clock tower in the middle of a dark night? Wasn't someone with her? She smiled and waved a hand at me as if calling me to join her. For a moment, I hesitated, then, I prepared to wave back. 

I raised my hand and waved to the girl. She tittered and waved again. 

I was about call to her when a thick gush of dusty winds coming out of nowhere blinded my eyes. I rubbed them vigorously with my hands. But when I got my vision back, the girl had gone. She had simply vanished into the night air.  

                                             -X-X-X-X-X- 

The next day, I headed for the clock tower on an impulse to explore it in the daylight. Unlike last night, the shops and restaurants were open, flourishing with tourists for it was the height of the season. The roads were bustling with people mainly natives, tourists and their guides but no one noticed me as I went along the way. Once there, I stood under the same archway and looked up, but no girl manifested herself.  

I decided to climb up the clock tower. The old staircase had been disused for many years since no one had ventured up them. A faint, musty smell of damp, abandoned spaces flooded my nostrils as began my ascend. The walls had plastering peeling off in places, while at some places it had peeled off completely, exposing the bricks underneath. Large cobwebs decorated the corners; the squeaks of rats were the only noises; the stairs creaked under my weight and once or twice, I heard the sound of a cat scouting for mice.  

It was not long before I reached the top of the stairs. The door to the roof was bolted; I unbolted it but it refused to give away, deformed because of years of negligence. Later, it relented and gave way.  

The roof was practically empty, its floor covered and soaked in the same old dust as the staircase cellar. Its waist-high walls were in a bad shape, torn and patched in places, besides a horde of bird droppings dotted its floor. I had expected to find some cleanliness or traces of human contact or at least a mark that someone had been here but I found none. Only coldness in the atmosphere and a certain forsakenness. I descended the steps rather slowly, disappointed that I could not find anything about the girl. 

That night, too I walked up and down the road of the Christ church clock tower but the girl did not come on the edge of roof of the tower.  

                                               -X-X-X-X-X- 

 

Almost a month passed before I was that young face again, on the roof of the clock tower. I had been returning from a late-night party at a friend’s house when I saw her. She waved at me, as usual, smiled and rocked her head sideways before disappearing and then reappearing. I called out to her to stay there, that I was coming to enjoy the weather with her. The church was open to outsiders even at this late hour and slipped easily inside. I hurried up the stairs to meet her but when I landed on the roof, she was no longer there. I called out to her but no response. 

Was she playing a trick on me? Or: had I been hallucinating all this time? I had to put an end to this puzzle.  

 The next day, I approached a very old friend of mine, older in years, who collected old newspapers. I begged him to lend me those and went through them. After hours of skimming and scamming, I came upon the news I was looking for. 

 

Some ten years ago, when I myself was a boy of ten years, a small girl had died on the roof of the clock tower. Apparently, she had wanted to take a glimpse of the city during the night from the roof of the clock tower.  On one such night, she managed to flee from her house to fulfil her desire without telling her parents. But somehow, she had got locked out on the roof. She tried to break down the door but to no avail and her cries too were drowned out by the height of the structure that entwined with the sky.   

That night was a wild night, too with thunderstorms of hail, sleet and lightning. No sooner had she got trapped, it had started to rain. She had no means to shelter herself and fell sick because of the cold. In the morning, when a church attendant came up to the roof, he found the girl, stiff and cold, lying on the roof. She was rushed to the hospital but declared brought dead. 

That night, I didn’t wander away towards the clock tower for I had no intention to encounter that ghost girl again. But I couldn’t resist myself, so I once more went to the Christ church road, only to find her waiting for me. She waved to me and threw open her excited arms and danced in the air. I waved back only too happy to see the phantom girl again, so jubilant, so contented. Then I walked home. 

The night air felt fresh and cold, with the nightbirds breaking into a sing-song of celebration. I was all alone out there in the darkness without a soul around but yet not that lonely. I had the trees and their branches and their leaves as my companion; the sky as my heaven of serenity; the birds as my messengers and the wind as my soulmate.