In the Shadow of the Banyan Read Online Free PDF Page A

were already a ghost? Invisible to the world?
    “She’s here with us,” Mama said, squeezing Papa’s hand, “in spirit.”
    I was tempted to ask if the New Year’s celebration was back on. It had been canceled because Om Bao was gone. If she had returned, even if only in spirit, should we still celebrate?
    I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Milk Mother. She pulled me aside and said, “You must promise me you’ll behave while I’m gone.”
    “You promise you’ll be back tomorrow?”
    Mama had insisted Milk Mother go and be with her family. It was good to have a break, even if we couldn’t celebrate.
    “It’s New Year tomorrow,” I reminded her.
    She examined me. “The tevodas will come, darling. But it’s not to celebrate New Year. It’s not possible now. They will come to mourn her as we do.”
    “But you’ll be back then, right?”
    “Yes, most likely in the evening. Until then, promise me you’ll keep yourself out of trouble?”
    I nodded but did not say what I truly felt—that I didn’t want her to go, that I feared she too would be “gone.”
    •  •  •
    A little while later, when everyone had retreated into the cool silence of the house, an apparition in white appeared in the courtyard. It was OldBoy. He had changed into clean clothes and now stood before the spirit house, making an offering of red frangipani blossoms. He gave me a handful of the blossoms so I could place them on the spirit house’s tiny steps.
    “Why are you dressed like that?” I asked, wondering why he was wearing funerary white when there was no funeral.
    “I’m in mourning, Princess,” he replied, his voice faltering.
    I wanted to reach up and caress his face, as Om Bao had done in those moments when they thought themselves alone. But he looked so fragile, I was afraid if I touched him he might crumble to pieces. How was it that in a matter of a couple days, his age seemed to have caught up with him? I couldn’t stop staring.
    “When you love a flower,” he said, as if wishing to explain his altered appearance, “and suddenly she is gone, everything vanishes with her. I lived because she lived. Now she is gone. Without her, I am nothing, Princess. Nothing.”
    “Oh.” To mourn then, I thought, is to feel your own nothingness.
    Tears rimmed Old Boy’s eyes, and he turned his face away from me.
    I let him be. I knew what I must do. I headed straight for the citrus garden in the back. Papa said that when he wanted to escape from something unpleasant or sad all he needed was to find a crack in the wall and pretend it was an entryway into another world, a world where all that was lost—yourself included—would again be found. Inside the bath pavilion, I found a portal much more generous than a crack—a row of tall, slender windows with the shutters swung open for air and light. I chose the middle window, as this gave me a full view of the whole grounds at the back of the estate. First, I saw the usual—ankle-high grass rippling like an emerald pond, tall bamboo vibrating with the whispers of a million tiny creatures, red and yellow birds-of-paradise frozen in flight, swooping bracts of lobster’s claw hanging like Mama’s jewel necklaces, and towering coconut trees like giant sentinels guarding an entrance. I looked harder, more carefully. Then I saw it!—this other world of which Papa spoke, where the lost was found, where a part of you always resided. It was quiet and lush, at once earthy and ethereal. There were no rocketsor bombs exploding, no people crying or dying, no sadness, no tears, no mourning. There were only butterflies, fluttering their gossamer wings, each as brilliant as a dream, and there, near the trunk of a coconut tree, was Om Bao. She was in the form of a rainbow-colored moth, bulbous and bright, as she’d been when she was our cook. All along she’d been here waiting for Old Boy, while he waited for her. Should I go tell him?
    No. Not yet. He was still mourning her. He