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Tooth of Buddha
a short story
by William Starr Moake
In lurching stops and starts Mathew Foster
maneuvered the blue rental car between throngs of people clogging
the highway south of Colombo. He knew they weren't refugees from the
civil war nor pedestrians in the ordinary sense, but rather
destitute vagabonds who inhabited the pavement as if it were a
dwelling place, a chaotic human blur that made him feel dizzy.
Foster was in Sri Lanka on business.
It was his first trip to Asia and he had rented a car to escape the
stifling congestion of the capital city. The drive had started out
pleasantly enough. He stopped at a river to watch a "mahout"
lovingly wash his elephant, a domesticated beast of burden. From the
beach he saw fishermen perched atop odd-looking pole structures just
offshore, grappling with hand lines. In a palm grove he gaped in
disbelief at a man who scurried across a flimsy rope bridge in the
treetops collecting sap to be fermented into a popular beverage.
But the farther south he drove,
the more crowded the highway became and now he was mired in a morass
of people and slow-moving oxcarts. At this rate he realized he would
never reach Galle by nightfall and he had no intention of driving
after dark. He had jammed the brakes so many times to avoid hitting
people his right leg felt on the verge of seizing up in a charley
horse. His fingers tingled from the tight grip he held on the
steering wheel and sweat trickled uncomfortably down the back of his
neck. Spotting a hotel sign, he turned onto a dirt road that
zigzagged through palm trees to the shoreline. The hotel was a
delightful surprise, much larger than he had presumed and displaying
an elegant tropical design.
“Serendipity at last,”
he murmured
to himself, recalling that the island had been named Serendib by the
European explorers who discovered it by accident.
When Foster climbed out of the car,
he noticed that his hands were shaking. He decided he needed a drink
to calm his nerves and went directly to the open-air bar. He ordered
a glass of the palm liquor, hoping to get in the proper mood, but
the first sip tasted vile and scorched his gullet. He set it aside
and ordered a Singapore sling.
“How far is Galle?” he asked the
white-coated bartender.
“Three hours,” the bartender
replied with that peculiar provincial habit of measuring distance in
time rather than miles.
“Is
there a room available for the night?”
“Yes,
sir.”
After checking in, Foster had a pot of
tea delivered to his room. Ceylon black tea was reputedly the best
in the world and Foster had already become accustomed to drinking it
in the local style, very strong with lots of sugar and cream. The
caffeine from two cups seemed to clear his mind. He closed the
window curtain and turned on the ceiling fan. Perhaps he would go
for a swim later, but at the moment he was in a contemplative mood.
He removed his shoes and stretched out on the bed.
His thoughts drifted to the strangely
attractive woman he had met at Barclay Brothers Limited, the textile
firm that marketed clothing through his company in California. The
first time she saw him in the Colombo office she appeared to be
startled for some reason, and later when they passed in the halls,
she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of him. Foster was curiously
flattered by her awkward behavior. Her face was exotically beautiful
with large brown eyes, a voluptuous smile, and wavy black hair. She
had a slim build and looked to be about thirty.
One morning on the spur of the moment
Foster approached her and introduced himself. She said her name was
Maya T, explaining with a laugh that he would never be able to
pronounce her full last name. She said she worked in the billing
department. When Foster invited her to dinner that evening,
she stared at him with a troubled expression.
“How
do you know I am not married?”
“You don't have a wedding ring,”
he
observed.
“In Sri Lanka many married women do
not wear wedding rings,” she said.
“I
apologize if I offended you.”
In the end she accepted his
invitation without revealing her marital status. At a restaurant of
her choosing Foster admitted over after-dinner drinks that he had
been perplexed by local customs since the day he arrived in Sri
Lanka. At the airport the male baggage handler appeared to be
wearing lipstick when, in fact, he was only chewing the bright red
betel nut. And Foster could not get used to the idea that shaking
one's head up and down meant "no”
while a sideways shake signified "yes.”
“Maya
is such a beautiful name," he said.
“Wasn't
that the name of the Buddha's mother?”
Maya shook her head sideways
with a grin.
“And
doesn't it mean 'illusion' in Sanskrit?”
“I see you know our history,” she
said.
“To be honest, I've always thought
that women in general represented the illusory side of life,”
he confessed.
“Wearing
makeup to disguise their looks, never letting a man know what
they're really thinking.”
“Forgive
me for saying so, but you seem rather disappointed with women.”
“I'm
divorced, if that's what you mean.”
“Do
you have any children?”
“My
son is nine. He lives with his mother and stepfather.”
“How
often do you see him?”
“Two
weeks every summer. We usually go camping or fishing. The older he
gets, the less he thinks of me as his real father. It's sort of
embarrassing for both of us.”
“I am reminded of a story I heard
when I was young,”
Maya said.
“An
Englishman who lived alone fell on bad times and ran out of money to
pay his servants. They didn't mind and continued working for him
without wages. They pitied him because he depended only upon money
to live while they had their families to support them.”
“And yet money has its uses,”
Foster smiled, calling for the check.
“Are you a Buddhist?” Maya asked.
“I don't belong to any organized
religion,”
he said. "I've done a lot of reading
about Buddhism and other eastern religions. You might call it an
intellectual hobby.”
“Do
you accept the doctrine of reincarnation?”
“It's
a fascinating idea, but I'm not convinced it's true.”
Maya hesitated before she continued.
“What
if I said we knew each other in a past life?”
Foster looked into her eyes.
"Are you serious?”
“Quite
serious.”
“I
wondered why you gawked at me in the office.”
“I
recognized you at once.”
“I sincerely hope we were lovers in
our past life,”
he joked.
“You were a young slave and I was
your master,”
Maya said.
“Though
you were my servant, I was kind to you and treated you like a son.”
Foster squirmed in his chair.
“Am
I supposed to believe that?”
“It does not matter what you
believe,”
Maya declared. "The past is fixed in
the present and cannot be erased by skepticism.”
Outside the restaurant they hailed a
taxi and rode in silence to her apartment. While the taxi waited,
Maya shook hands with Foster and thanked him politely for dinner.
“I would like to see you again
before I leave,” he said.
“You should visit Galle on the
south coast,”
she suggested.
“It
is a very peaceful town with a beautiful beach.”
Two days later Foster was ensconced in
a hotel half-way to Galle. Suddenly the whole thing struck him
as ludicrous. What did he expect to find in Galle? He felt
embarrassed, almost ashamed of himself. His friends back home would
die laughing if they knew what he was doing. He leaped out of bed
and telephoned room service for supper, resolved to return to
Colombo in the morning.
But that evening Foster slept
fitfully, tormented by bizarre nightmares, and he awoke at dawn in a
nervous condition. After a breakfast of nasi goreng, he checked out
of the hotel and drove south. Miraculously, traffic was light and he
was able to make good time the rest of the way to Galle.
The bucolic little town and its beach
were disappointing to Foster, who had seen more picturesque places
enroute. He parked the rental car in front of what looked like the
only hotel and set out on foot in the bustling streets. He had no
idea of which direction to take and he had walked less than ten
minutes when his eyes were drawn to a woman holding a toddler in her
arms. The woman wore the traditional wrap-around skirt and looked up
at the last second as he approached.
“I knew I would find you here,”
he
smiled.
Maya returned his smile.
“I
always come home to Galle at weekends. This is my daughter, Tali.”
The little girl blushed and buried
her face in Maya's bosom.
“I assumed you weren't married,”
Foster said.
“I
am a widow. My husband was killed in the war.”
“Oh,
I'm sorry.”
Maya motioned for him to follow.
“I
want you to meet someone.”
She led him to a rickety hut at the
edge of town and introduced her parents. The father, a short thin
man with a wizened face, smiled broadly and said something in the
native language while the mother hid bashfully behind him. Foster
nodded and mumbled hello.
“They do not speak much English,”
Maya said.
“I see,” Foster said, but it was a
mystery to him why so many Sri Lankans spoke no English after two
hundred years of British rule.
After a tour of the simple
two-room house, Maya said:
“If
you would like, I will join you for dinner tonight at the hotel.
They serve a very good chicken curry.”
“Of
course. What time?”
“I
will meet you there at eight o'clock.”
Foster checked into the hotel and
went for a swim after lunch. All afternoon he lay on the beach
thinking about Maya in a sun-soaked stupor, vaguely aware of a
shapeless fear lurking in the back of his mind. At seven he got
dressed for dinner and went to the bar to sample a Singapore lager,
the only beer chilled on ice.
Maya arrived wearing an exquisite gold
dress with a black shawl. Foster felt a strange pang at the sight of
her. The curried chicken was a little too hot for his liking, but
the after-dinner brandy tasted just right. Without understanding
why, he found himself in an argumentative mood.
“Is it true that one of the
Buddha's teeth is kept as a religious shrine somewhere on the
island?” he asked.
“Yes,
in Kandy.”
“It
strikes me as barbaric to worship a body part like an idol. I mean,
surely that is not what the Buddha wanted his followers to do.”
“Did Christ want Christians to
worship the shroud he wore the day he was crucified?”
Maya countered.
“And
how barbaric is it to eat the flesh and drink the blood of God's
son? Is not that symbolic cannibalism?”
Foster retreated.
“I
see you know our history.”
“May
I ask how old you are?”
“Thirty
three.”
“The
same age as Christ when he died.”
“When I was younger, I had a morbid
fear of dying,”
he said.
“But
then I came to the conclusion that no one dies until they are ready
to.”
“What
about murder?”
“That's
a different matter.”
“By
your logic, the murder victim must have wanted to die.”
“I never thought about it that
way,”
he admitted.
“Of
course it's always wrong to kill someone.”
“Why?”
“Because
human life is sacred.”
“Not to everyone,” she said.
To change the subject, Foster asked
about the swastikas he had seen all over Sri Lanka. She explained
that it was an ancient symbol for good luck.
“The
Nazis borrowed it from us,”
she said,
“but
it brought them no good luck.”
She asked if he was familiar with the Buddhist precept of right
livelihood.
“I've
read about it.”
“Is
the work you do right livelihood?”
“Probably
not,”
he conceded.
“In
America our custom is to take the best-paying job we can find and
try to hang onto it as long as possible.”
“If
you were a Buddhist, you would try to gain merit in your present
life to improve your situation in the next incarnation.”
“How
would I do that?”
“It is not for anyone else to tell
you,”
she replied.
“You
must decide for yourself.”
“And
what if I decided I wanted to sleep with you tonight?”
Maya blushed.
“I
would say no.”
“Why?
Do you find me unattractive?”
“No,
you are handsome in your own way.”
“Then why?” he persisted.
“It
would only be sex.”
“What's
wrong with sex?”
“Nothing,
if it is an act of worship and not self indulgence.”
Foster cursed his bad luck. He
had traveled half-way around the world to find a Puritan
masquerading as a beautiful Asian woman.
“Do not be sad,”
Maya said, reading the look on his face.
“I like you as a friend.”
“In my country,”
he scowled,
“that
is the worst thing a desirable woman can say to a man.”
She laughed and said,
“I
do not believe you.”
Resigned, Foster walked her home in
the light of a nearly full moon. At the doorstep he lifted her hand
and pressed it against his cheek.
“Tell me how I can gain merit for
the next life,” he pleaded.
“You already have tonight,” she
said.
“How
so?”
“By
not insisting that I sleep with you.”
“May
I kiss you goodbye?”
“You realize this is not a custom
in Sri Lanka,”
she said.
“Couldn't
you make an exception just this one time?”
Maya leaned forward with her eyes
closed and her lips puckered. It was such a comical pose, so forced
and awkward looking, that Foster had to stifle a laugh. He kissed
her on the forehead and she drew back with a surprised expression.
“Goodbye, Maya,” he whispered.
*****************
On the afternoon of his
departure Foster struck up a conversation with a middle-aged
Australian man who bought him a beer at the Colombo airport bar.
“How did you like Sri Lanka?” the
Aussie wanted to know.
“Beautiful
country, but the poverty is rather depressing.”
“Compared
to India, this is the garden spot of south Asia.”
“Then
I never want to see India.”
“Meet
anyone interesting?”
“As a matter of fact,” Foster
smiled.
“I
can tell by the gleam in your eye it was a Sheila.”
“What's
a Sheila?”
“A
woman, mate.”
“Yes,
it was a woman.”
“Had
a good time with her, I'll bet.”
“More
like a strange time.”
“Thinking
about writing to her after you return home?”
Foster glanced at the man
suspiciously.
“I
might just do that.”
The Aussie shook his head in disgust.
“You
bloody Yanks are all alike. Fall for the first piece of nookie you
get over here.”
“It wasn't like that,” Foster
frowned.
“No,
it always seems like true love. She probably told you she was your
lover in a past life.”
Foster could feel the blood drain out
of his face.
“What
did you say?”
“I
knew it!”
the Aussie bellowed.
“Oldest
trick in the book, mate.”
From that point on Foster perceived
everything in slow motion, as if time had suddenly slowed to a
crawl. His mind went blank and he felt completely disoriented. A
strange tingling sensation surged through his body. The Aussie
jabbered incoherently in a voice that sounded like a growl, his face
bloated into a grotesque form that slowly changed as Foster watched.
Mechanically, Foster lifted his
beer bottle and smashed it against the Aussie's head. Then he felt a
crushing blow to his cheek and he was falling backward with his legs
tangled in the barstool. The back of his head hit the tile floor
with a loud crack, he bounced once and came to rest with a gurgling
noise in his ears. He heard voices, people shouting. He clamored to
his feet and began running.
He sprinted through the terminal,
smashing into people without stopping. He bolted outside and
continued running until his lungs burned and his leg muscles ached.
When he finally halted to catch his breath, he found himself at a
taxi stand. His head throbbed and he felt nauseous. He ran his
fingers through his hair and found blood on them. One of the taxi
drivers rushed to help him.
“I
will take you to a hospital, sir.”
“I want to go to Barclay Brothers,”
Foster said.
On the long taxi ride he drifted into
a state of semi-consciousness that seemed like a dream. He saw
strange visions that disturbed him. At one point he choked back sobs
to avoid alarming the taxi driver any further.
In the lobby of Barclay Brothers
Limited Foster asked the receptionist for directions to the billing
department. Staring at the blood on his shirt, she pointed without
saying a word. People gasped and ducked into offices as he walked
down the hallway, barely able to feel his legs beneath him. He
entered the billing department and looked around until he spotted
Maya. He staggered to her desk and she stood up.
“I missed my flight,” he muttered.
She helped him into a chair and
shouted for someone to call an ambulance. "Who did this to you?” she
asked, pressing a handkerchief to his head wound.
He began to weep.
“I
remember what happened in our past life.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck
and hugged him gently.
“Poor Mathew,”
she cooed.
“Do
not think about it now. The doctor will be here soon.”
He looked up at her with pleading
eyes.
“Why did I do it, Maya?”
he wailed.
“Why
did I cut your throat when you were so kind to me?”
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