If the Moon smiled

The wattle is in full golden blossom and the most beautiful thing in the garden just now. The araliya that I take so much more trouble with, that I have nurtured for years, has shed all its leaves. It is autumn. The ends of branches are pinched and black-scabbed.

In the wattle's haze, I see my father's village. There, the araliya is laden with succulent green leaves and clusters of white blossoms. It is poya day. My father wakes up early and stands under the tree with his long stick, plucking flowers for the temple. He permits no one to do it for him. I see him through the window from my bed. He twists a bunch with the hook at the end of the stick and lowers it. Then, carefully, so as not to damage the petals, he removes the flowers from the bunch, one by one, collecting them in a small rattan basket. He will not pick a single flower off the ground. They must not be contaminated with dust or dirt.

The little girl can no longer contain herself in bed. She rushes out of the house. She wants to be involved in this flower romance. She takes the basket from her father and arranges the flowers in an intricate design. She pauses often to caress her face with the white-gold petals, and feels them delicate against her skin.

The village temple is small and built in the centre of vast lands. Her father holds her hand and together they enter the temple ground. They leave their slippers in the crevice by the gate. The little girl digs her toes in the sand, relishing the tingle on her bare soles. Her father stops to talk to this person and that.

The chief monk drapes his yellow robe close around his body.

'Worship the sadu,' her father tells her. He is always mild and indulgent with her. He arranges the flyaway frill of her bodice neatly around her shoulders. She worships the robe, her palms pressed one against the other at her forehead.

At times the monk invites them to his deep, dark lounge. The little girl sits with her father on the mat, facing the monk who addresses them from the low couch. She regards the ornate brass vases, the paper flowers, the mats intricately stitched of colourful remnant cloth. The monk's voice is the drone of a large bee.

After a while, she gets bored and runs away to the olinda tree by the side wall. She picks up its tiny red and black seeds. When she returns home she will ask Thilakasiri to pierce them in a chain.

As her father is about to enter the main hall, he beckons to her and they walk in together.

The Buddha stands on a lotus. The little girl barely reaches up to the tips of the pink cement petals.

Even now, I am fascinated by the tall majestic statue of the Buddha.

'You must try to be like that nelum flower,' her father often says to her, pointing to it. 'Blossom free of the mud in which it is born, unsoiled by it.'

Together they lay their flowers at the foot of the Buddha. An old man bends over and sweeps the faded flowers into a basket to make room for the fresh ones. The little girl listens to her father chant into his folded palms. She blends her voice with his: 'As these flowers must fade, so must my body towards destruction go.' But even as she chants she turns her face towards the old trembling fingers collecting dead flowers. If she had her way, she would bless them with immortality.

Her father moves back and kneels with other devotees, his back against the wall. He touches his forehead to the floor. There is a grace about him. The child sits close to him, her legs crossed before her. Her gaze crawls up, up to the face of the Buddha. She half closes her eyes and tries to purse her lips like he does. The edges of her mouth tremble with the effort. She looks around at all the people and grows subdued in the quiet atmosphere. Old women sit around in white cloth and bodice. Their faces stamp on her memory. They look weary and resigned. Their lips move eternally in chant.

Later, she would recall their story: the futility of their search for detachment in a world that passionately demanded and offered attachment. But now, she accepts the scriptures without question and is made tranquil. She imitates the women. She closes her eyes and concentrates on breathing deeply, in and out, in and out. She begins to feel a lightness, as if she were being lifted out of her body.

On the way back, they stop at the tea boutique to buy some white tissue paper for Vesak lanterns. Later on, through the month, whenever Thilakasiri is free, he will sit in their inner courtyard whistling under his breath, cutting and pasting the paper on the old bamboo frames.

She sits beside him, helping him. As the darkness encroaches, she draws her low stool closer to him. His mind is on other things. In a little while, having washed the pots and pans, Karuna will come out of the kitchen wiping her hands on her cloth. As she crosses the courtyard, Thilakasiri will tease her in a low voice. The little girl seeks to respond to him as Karuna would, glancing at him under lowered lashes, a half-smile lurking somewhere in the eyes.

He passes her another square of paper. As she dips her finger in the paste, he swats a mosquito on her bare knee, and carefully wipes out the smudge of blood. Large moths rush around the lamp above them and, singeing their wings, flutter down into the basin of water. Stirred by their agony, she edges towards the basin and lifts one wingless moth onto her hand.

'Leave it, baba,' Thilakasiri tells her. 'Can you give it new wings?' And, lifting the basin, he splashes the water onto the cement beyond. The moths scatter away in all directions.

Vesak. After returning from the temple, the little girl lights the candles. Thilakasiri takes them one by one from her and fixes them to the crossbar at the base of the lanterns. With Karuna, he draws the lanterns high into the air.

The mother lantern has a long wavy tail and her four babies have short feathery ones. Up in the air, they sway to a languid rhythm and shed a magical radiance over the garden.

It always rains before Vesak. The garden is full of puddles of water that reflect the lanterns. The little girl is perched gleefully on the low verandah wall. There is a sudden gust of wind. The lanterns dance dangerously making a sara-sara sara-sara sound.

Breathlessly I watch. Any moment now, they might go up in flames. And if they did, my father would say: 'Did you see that, duwa? That is the impermanence of life. All is transitory,' and wipe my childish tears away.

But they don't burn up this year and settle back to their rustling. The wind drops. The little girl breathes again. Her mother comes out onto the verandah and stands by her. She is dressed in her white sari. She has spent all day in the temple hall observing ata-sil. The scents of the temple are still on her. She combs down the child's hair and replaits it.

In the long still evenings after these activities, they would recall to her the colourful stories from the scriptures. Yasodara is a specially loved tale.

'So Yasodara renounced the world when Siddhartha left her to seek enlightenment soon after the birth of their first child,' the mother would say. 'She robed herself in yellow and when she heard that her husband was taking only one meal a day, she also did the same. When she heard that he had given up all luxury, she did the same: she gave up garlands and scents. She refused to remarry. So virtuous was she. In the end she became a nun.'

The little girl would immediately imagine her father disappearing into the temple. She and her lonely mother would then shave their heads and take the robe. Drawing closer to her mother she clutches tightly the edge of her sari.

'And the Buddha said to the king: "Not only in this last birth, O King, but even in a previous birth, Yasodara protected me and was devoted and faithful to me".'

The mysteries of births and rebirths. Sacred marriages. A wife's devotion.

'Will I also be married like that, Amma?' Her mother smiles and strokes her hair.

'Yes, Manthri, you will. And like a floral offering to a deity, you will blossom for your husband and derive value from him.'

Her father stretches out in his armchair. He puffs at his cigar. The smoke curls in the air, pungent and grey. They gaze into the evening, the three of them.

May it go on, life after life, birth after birth. This moment, this dream: this memory.
