After Cleo (36 page)

‘Don't be too impressed,' she said as he walked away toward the kitchen. ‘It's just country dialect.'

‘You mean hillbilly talk – like “them thar grits”?' I asked.

Lydia led me to the buffet where she pointed out some local delicacies, which she assured me were delicious. It was too early in the trip to take gastronomic risks and become a healthcare liability, so I quietly avoided them in favour of pasta. Over lunch I asked Lydia if any other Westerners were staying at the monastery. She said no, it would just be us.

Soon after, with much bowing and hem-kissing from hotel staff, the monk and his entourage climbed back into the van. He slid into the front seat next to the driver, with the nuns sitting down behind him. Lydia I took the back seat. No seat belts. We'd have to rely on the Buddha perched on top of the rear-view mirror, along with the protection beads and (Christian?) cross dangling below it. Sweating already, I glanced hopefully at the air-conditioning unit sighing lukewarm air above our heads. Whatever lay ahead was going to be an exercise in trust.

The engine coughed to life with an explosive backfire. There was enough rural blood left in my veins to diagnose the scraping noise as clutch trouble. Staff waved a royal farewell as we roared and spluttered out the hotel gates. We rumbled over potholes past stands selling coconuts, bananas, brightly coloured blow-up toys, and (I was getting used to them now) the omnipresent Buddha statues.

I asked Lydia about the rows of brand new aeroplane seats that lined the roadsides. She said they were everywhere. Apparently, there was a tax exemption for vans imported with no windows or seats. Enterprising locals had got around the loophole by importing these vans like ours, drilling out holes for windows and putting in the seats. She pointed out the impromptu finishing in our vehicle.

Some villagers bowed when they saw the saintly beings in our van. Others kept going about their business – shopping, gossiping or carrying loads on their heads. We passed a handsome young man with no legs in a wheelchair, soldiers with machine guns slung like afterthoughts over their shoulders, boys playing cricket, girls with bright umbrellas strolling beside a railway line, a white heron in a river. A man with a box on his head smiled through our window and offered us evening shoes studded with jewels.

Sri Lankan roads aren't for the faint-hearted. They're mostly two lanes with an invisible third lane down the middle, which is disputed territory. Traffic from either direction claims the middle of the road with as much speed and aggression as his vehicle and the condition of the road allows. Drivers charge forward blasting their horns, daring anyone to challenge them. Even a bull elephant on the back of a truck doesn't get right of way. It's a combination of bluff and split-second negotiation – and a miracle head-on collisions don't happen every two minutes.

In the back of the van without a seat belt, I was probably in more physical danger than I'd ever been. There was no point worrying. A monk and two nuns on board put the odds in our favour.

Halfway up a hill, we lurched to a halt outside a bank so I could withdraw money for the van hire. When the driver tried to start the vehicle up again it refused to budge. Helpful bank guards gave us a push start up the hill – heavy work, and beyond the call of duty. The engine heaved reluctantly to life.Triumphant and sweating, the guards waved us off.

Villages gave way to rice paddies, pineapple fields and stands of banana trees. Landscape unfurled in shades of green ranging from gloomy to fluorescent. As the road became steep, winding its way toward Kandy, the senior nun pulled her hood up over her head and slept like a caterpillar. The other nun's smooth head gleamed in the steam-bath atmosphere of the van. The air-conditioning had died. Opening the windows would've been futile. Inside and out were equally hot and dusty.

We passed trees with leaves the size of dinner plates, a truck graveyard and a roadside box with Buddha radiating a pulsating neon light aura. Despite the intensity of the heat, I was taken by the colourful spontaneity of the place. Roadside advertising posters were refreshingly free of the semi-pornographic images we've become inured to in the West. Women were portrayed as wholesome and modestly dressed. Anorexic models didn't get a look in.

The clutch jerked violently as the road became even steeper and more perilous. Toiling up a hill through a village selling nothing but pottery, I was reminded of the first time I visited Ubud in Bali twenty-five years earlier. People always say Bali was better twenty-five years ago. If they want to find out what it was like before tourism took over, they should visit Sri Lanka.

‘Sri Lankans don't think of themselves as poor,' said Lydia. ‘They just think Westerners are ridiculously rich. When you look at any distribution-of-wealth chart, that's a fact.'

My spiritual daughter has a way of presenting things with surgical clarity sometimes. She was right. Compared to Sri Lankans we're awash with wealth, yet we mentally impoverish ourselves focusing on what we don't have.

The people of this flood-ridden, war-torn, tsunami-drenched island seemed to have a humanity the West had somehow lost in its consumerist thrall. I found myself wanting to share Sri Lanka with the world and protect it at the same time. If tourists swarmed there, the country would gain monetarily but potentially lose a lot.

The monk instructed our driver to pull over at a sweet shop for tea. After the internal massage my organs were getting from the road, it was a relief to stop and get my legs moving. Curious faces watched the monk, nuns, Lydia and I make our way to the sweet store.

My eyes took a while to adjust to the store's darkened interior. The decor was stark, but the ambience was friendly. I felt immediately at home. It was a Sri Lankan version of Spoonful. We chose homemade sweets from a counter near the door and sat down on a bench. Overstaffed by Western standards, the service was impeccable. There was one person to bring our sweets, another to pour the tea, and at least three assistants to watch.

A photo of a stern, handsome man with a handlebar moustache glowered down from behind the counter. An older, even more distinguished version of him stood at the door. I tried a smile. His eyes flashed handsomely back.

We gorged ourselves on strong tea and delicious sweets. Mouth-wateringly nutty, the sesame sweets deserved to be world famous. Jaggery sweets made from unrefined whole cane sugar came a close second. As for the coconut ice, I was an expert connoisseur because Dad used to make it when we were kids. The sweet shop's version, layered in lurid pink and white sprinkled with fruit, was the best I'd ever tasted.

Back in the van, our driver made a brave assault on the last few hills to Kandy. Though he was willing, the clutch was not. It screeched, clunked and finally expired on a steep bend. Hot and tired, despite all the sugar we'd consumed, we piled on to the side of the road while the van driver and curious onlookers stared into the bowels of the engine.

An amiable cafe owner invited us to sit at tables with red and white checked cloths. We ordered cans of Coke and waited. The monk produced his mobile phone and called a mechanic. Flies circled above our heads and mosquitoes buzzed around our ankles. I reached in my handbag for the high-grade insect killer only to find its pump was missing. I'd brought it all the way from Australia and it didn't work!

Under normal circumstances I'd have freaked out, wondering: How long would it take to get a mechanic? Would he know how to fix the van? Would we still be in this cafe in three days' time? Was I going to get one of those mosquito diseases and die? But it was pointless worrying or looking at my watch. I had no control and therefore no responsibility. The sensation was surprisingly liberating. I hadn't felt this free and on the edge of things since I'd travelled alone in Samoa in my twenties.

As Lydia and I sipped our Cokes and chatted, she was warmer and more open than she'd been for years. She wanted to hear about everyone at home – how Annie's crawling was coming along, and if Jonah's ‘little problem' was still driving us nuts. Heartened, I realised that if she was going to become a nun and live in this country she'd still want to stay connected to us.

More time passed as we sat in the cafe on the road to Kandy. Hours and minutes, lateness or earliness, became irrelevant. If we were still stranded there at nightfall, the owner might be kind enough to let us sleep on the floor. And that would be okay.

The mechanic miraculously showed up and managed to fix the clutch with minimum fuss. In the meantime, the monk had been busy on his phone. He'd just found out he had important business in Kandy. A car collected him and he disappeared in a plume of dust, leaving the nuns and us to complete the final leg to the monastery with our apologetic driver. I'd hoped the monk might spare some time so we could have a serious discussion about Lydia's future. Maybe tomorrow.

Sri Lanka is remote by many people's standards. A lot of those living in Colombo regard Kandy as out of the way. I was soon to learn that most people in Kandy would have difficulty locating the simple forest monastery that was our destination.

Once we'd passed the turn-off to Kandy, the road became even narrower and bumpier, winding around the edge of a river canyon.

‘Just pretend you're on a four-wheel-drive tourist excursion for this part,' said Lydia as we veered off the main street up a perpendicular track. I gripped the side of the van as it carved through dense jungle. We were rocking so violently, I wondered if my abdominal scar might spasm. But anxiety would be counter productive. People in this country had far greater concerns.

The driver beeped his horn for a woman with a child on her hip, a man in a sarong and another carrying a sack of flour on his head. Their smiles lit the dark green gloom. We passed a sign for ‘Computer Repairing' which seemed incongruous in the depths of the jungle. After we'd negotiated a hairpin bend and lurched over a particularly large hump, the senior nun turned to me, her eyes ablaze.

‘Look, Sister Helen!' she cried. ‘There's our mountain!'

If we'd been in a movie, heavenly voices would've surged over the background music just then. The heroine (Doris Day? Julie Andrews? No, Meryl Streep!), her eyes sparkling with tears, would have raised her face to the clouds.

Monastic

Old people bring many blessings

Laden with tropical growth, Boulder Mountain rose sharply above us. Its slope appeared to be held together by enormous stones, many of them larger than elephants. While a few creepers had the audacity to scramble over them, most of the rocks were bare and lined with age. Immovable sculptures of the forest, the boulders were both beautiful and forbidding in the heavy shadows of evening.

Other monks had tried to make a home here in the past, the nun explained, but they'd been frightened away by evil spirits. The current monk, Lydia's teacher, was made of sterner stuff. Meditating in the cave near the summit for several years, he claimed the place.

Though the mountain air was cooler than it'd been at sea level, it was still and lifeless. I longed for a breeze, especially knowing 200 steps were hiding in the forest. My suitcase was ludicrously large. I wished I'd settled for a backpack.

As we slid out of the van, the driver gallantly hoisted my suitcase on his shoulder and disappeared up some mossy steps. We followed him, climbing and climbing. Jungle plants wrapped themselves so voraciously around the path that there was no view of the valley below. All I could see was the next set of steps ahead. Soon my eyes were stinging and my chest pumping. Stopping to catch my breath, I waved the others to go on ahead. To my relief, they vanished into the folds of the jungle. Only Lydia remained, waiting patiently behind me. I apologised for holding her up. She said not to worry, she felt like a breather herself.

When my lungs returned to normal, Lydia shadowed my footsteps with no sign of annoyance or frustration. Dad, who'd been an enthusiastic mountain climber, had a saying: ‘Always let the slowest go first.' With gratitude, I realised it's exactly what Lydia was doing. I made an effort not to count the steps, concentrating instead on scaling one set at a time without worrying how many more might be lurking on the slope above us. It was a good exercise in living in the present – perfect for the ascent to a Buddhist monastery, really.

Shadows grew longer as we reached the plain two-storeyed building that was the nuns' quarters. I slipped my shoes off at the door and stumbled into a harshly lit room.

‘Sit,' said the senior nun in a tone that wasn't to be argued with.

Dusty and sweaty, I lowered myself on to a plastic chair covered with gold fabric. Not a word was said, but I later found out that seat was reserved for monks only.

A ginger kitten trotted toward me and rubbed against my ankle. As it gazed up at me through amber eyes, I thought of Jonah and wondered how he'd enjoy monastic life. Jonah's personality was so pervasive I saw him everywhere these days, even in the eyes of racehorses and wild animals. His beauty and intensity seemed to be part of every animal.

‘What a lovely kitten!' I said.

‘It's not a kitten, it's a cat,' Lydia explained quietly. ‘The nuns found her mewing in the forest eight years ago. She's had several litters, but none survived. She's vegetarian.'

A vegetarian cat? I didn't like to say anything. Maybe she was a high-minded feline. Or she was just conforming to monastery rules.

‘What's her name?'

‘Puss. Just Puss.'

The van driver said goodbye and bowed deeply to both nuns. To my great embarrassment, he then turned and bowed just as deeply to me. Heat prickled up my neck. I must've been blushing.

‘It's what we do for the oldest person present,' the senior nun explained.

Looking at her, it was impossible to tell how old she was – thirty or forty? She had one of those unlined ecclesiastical faces. I later discovered she was just two years younger than me – we were closer in the walking-frame stakes than I'd thought.