believes protects this house. Since I am a guest in this house and she looks after me well, I humor her idolatry.
Win is as superstitious as all his countrymen. He told me last year a whole family—parents and two children—in the village where his cousin lives had died because they had cut down a banyan tree without making an offering to the tree spirits. A few days after I arrived, Win summoned a friend to paint a magic design above the door to protect me in my new home. You see these designs everywhere—on gates and arches, on the shields and banners of the king’s soldiers. This painter is a quiet fellow who speaks in a whisper. I think he is afraid of awakening the demons and dark spirits Peguans believe hide under eaves, in dim, damp corners, and at the bottoms of wells. The nails of his thumb and small finger on his left hand looked as if they had never been cut—they were several inches long and had begun to curl toward his palm. I am sure he caught me staring. I thought this was some heathen custom to pierce the invisible bodies of malicious spirits, but Win said long nails showed that he did not do the rough work of a slave or a commoner. Before he painted the magic squares that now greet my arrival and send me safely on my daily way, he asked the date and time of my birth.
Though more conjecture than certainty in the minds of Auntie and Uncle, I remembered my supposed early-morning arrival, since our friend Leon, who wished to see what fate the stars held in store for me on my journey, had asked me the same question before I left.
How such a prodigious, learned mind can play among the stars confounds me. If all is ordained by birth—by some auspicious star—then what need have we to study the Torah? What right would the Holy One, blessed be He, have to punish or reward us puppets of the stars? But there is no hope in arguing with Leon and his charts and pages of scribbling that only he can decipher.
—Don’t tell me I am going on a long journey, I already know that,
I told Leon. —
Tell me if I will see your face again
.
—God forbid your eyes should be robbed of such beauty,
he laughed that high-pitched cackle that sounds like a cat screeching in an alley.
—
God forbid you should die among the idolaters. But if that is your sad
fate, take comfort—I will write you an epitaph fit for the Assembly presi-dent or the Messiah himself.
I thanked him for his reassuring words and left my fate in the hands of God.
I find Win’s faith an incomprehensible jumble—the more he speaks of it, the more confused and puzzled I become. I put my hand over my mouth and chin to appear a serious student of his words, while actually I am smiling, bemused by this stew of blasphemy, fantasy, and folly. You would think every man here was a Talmudic scholar, the way they carry on. Men who cannot write their names love to talk about their Buddha, his teachings, and subjects so eso-teric that the Rambam and Aristotle would scratch their heads in exasperation.
Last night I asked Win to tell me about his Lord.
—
King Nandabayin, what do you wish to know?
—No, the Buddha, your god, the lord you talk about.
—I have no god.
—But you call him lord.
—As the king is my lord. Buddha is only a good guide pointing the way to a land of safety. He is not like Massimo’s god. A very strange god.
Dying for everyone—what good is that? Only a man can save himself,
not another man, not even a god, not even our Buddha. If you are lost, the
Buddha can give you a map, but it is you who must follow it and walk
with your two feet out of the jungle.
What kind of faith is there without a god, even if he is not the God of our fathers, blessed be He? What kind of world is it that has no creator, no protector, no divine guide to lead us? What good is a map, if we are doomed to suffer such an endless wasteland? Are we all just madmen babbling prayers in an empty room? Their loneliness is something I could not bear. Not even a god
Win is as superstitious as all his countrymen. He told me last year a whole family—parents and two children—in the village where his cousin lives had died because they had cut down a banyan tree without making an offering to the tree spirits. A few days after I arrived, Win summoned a friend to paint a magic design above the door to protect me in my new home. You see these designs everywhere—on gates and arches, on the shields and banners of the king’s soldiers. This painter is a quiet fellow who speaks in a whisper. I think he is afraid of awakening the demons and dark spirits Peguans believe hide under eaves, in dim, damp corners, and at the bottoms of wells. The nails of his thumb and small finger on his left hand looked as if they had never been cut—they were several inches long and had begun to curl toward his palm. I am sure he caught me staring. I thought this was some heathen custom to pierce the invisible bodies of malicious spirits, but Win said long nails showed that he did not do the rough work of a slave or a commoner. Before he painted the magic squares that now greet my arrival and send me safely on my daily way, he asked the date and time of my birth.
Though more conjecture than certainty in the minds of Auntie and Uncle, I remembered my supposed early-morning arrival, since our friend Leon, who wished to see what fate the stars held in store for me on my journey, had asked me the same question before I left.
How such a prodigious, learned mind can play among the stars confounds me. If all is ordained by birth—by some auspicious star—then what need have we to study the Torah? What right would the Holy One, blessed be He, have to punish or reward us puppets of the stars? But there is no hope in arguing with Leon and his charts and pages of scribbling that only he can decipher.
—Don’t tell me I am going on a long journey, I already know that,
I told Leon. —
Tell me if I will see your face again
.
—God forbid your eyes should be robbed of such beauty,
he laughed that high-pitched cackle that sounds like a cat screeching in an alley.
—
God forbid you should die among the idolaters. But if that is your sad
fate, take comfort—I will write you an epitaph fit for the Assembly presi-dent or the Messiah himself.
I thanked him for his reassuring words and left my fate in the hands of God.
I find Win’s faith an incomprehensible jumble—the more he speaks of it, the more confused and puzzled I become. I put my hand over my mouth and chin to appear a serious student of his words, while actually I am smiling, bemused by this stew of blasphemy, fantasy, and folly. You would think every man here was a Talmudic scholar, the way they carry on. Men who cannot write their names love to talk about their Buddha, his teachings, and subjects so eso-teric that the Rambam and Aristotle would scratch their heads in exasperation.
Last night I asked Win to tell me about his Lord.
—
King Nandabayin, what do you wish to know?
—No, the Buddha, your god, the lord you talk about.
—I have no god.
—But you call him lord.
—As the king is my lord. Buddha is only a good guide pointing the way to a land of safety. He is not like Massimo’s god. A very strange god.
Dying for everyone—what good is that? Only a man can save himself,
not another man, not even a god, not even our Buddha. If you are lost, the
Buddha can give you a map, but it is you who must follow it and walk
with your two feet out of the jungle.
What kind of faith is there without a god, even if he is not the God of our fathers, blessed be He? What kind of world is it that has no creator, no protector, no divine guide to lead us? What good is a map, if we are doomed to suffer such an endless wasteland? Are we all just madmen babbling prayers in an empty room? Their loneliness is something I could not bear. Not even a god
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