"I never knew anything," Lakshmi whispered. "I could only see.'"
"I remember your telling me about seeing the Clear Light," said Susila. "Would you like me to remind you of it?"
The sick woman nodded her head.
"When you were eight years old," said Susila. "That was the first time. An orange butterfly on a leaf, opening and shutting its wings in the sunshine-and suddenly there was the Clear Light of pure Suchness blazing through it, like another sun."
"Much brighter than the sun," Lakshmi whispered.
"But much gentler. You can look into the Clear Light and not be blinded. And now remember it. A butterfly on a green leaf, opening and shutting its wings-and it's the Buddha Nature totally present, it's the Clear Light outshining the sun. And you were only eight years old."
"What had I done to deserve it?"
Will found himself remembering that evening, a week or so before her death, when Aunt Mary had talked about the wonderful times they had had together in her little Regency house near Arundel where he had spent the better part of all his holidays. Smoking out the wasps' nests with fire and brimstone, having picnics on the downs or under the beeches. And then the sausage rolls at Bognor, the gypsy fortuneteller who had proph esied that he would end up as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the black-robed, red-nosed verger who had chased them out of Chichester Cathedral because they had laughed too much. "Laughed too much," Aunt Mary had repeated bitterly. "Laughed too much ..."
"And now," Susila was saying, "think of that view from the Shiva temple. Think of those lights and shadows on the sea, those blue spaces between the clouds. Think of them, and then let go of your thinking. Let go of it, so that the not-Thought can come through. Things into Emptiness. Emptiness into Suchness. Suchness into things again, into your own mind. Remember what it says in the Sutra. 'Your own consciousness shining, void, inseparable from the great Body of Radiance, is subject neither to birth nor death, but is the same as the immutable Light, Bud dha Amitabha.' "
"The same as the light," Lakshmi repeated. "And yet it's all dark again."
"It's dark because you're trying too hard," said Susila. "Dark because you want it to be light. Remember what you used to tell me when I was a little girl. 'Lightly, child, lightly. You've got to learn to do everything lightly. Think lightly, act lightly, feel lightly. Yes, feel lightly, even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.' I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly-it was the best advice ever given me. Well, now I'm going to say the same thing to you, Lakshmi . . . Lightly, my darling, lightly. Even when it comes to dying. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self-conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Goethe or Little Nell. And, of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the Clear Light. So throw away all your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That's why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling. On tiptoes; and no luggage, not even a sponge bag. Completely unencumbered."
Completely unencumbered . . . Will thought of poor Aunt Mary sinking deeper and deeper with every step into the quicksands. Deeper and deeper until, struggling and protesting to the last, she had gone down, completely and forever, into the Essential Horror. He looked again at the fleshless face on the pillow and saw that it was smiling.
"The Light," came the hoarse whisper, "the Clear Light. It's here-along with the pain, in spite of the pain."
"And where are youV Susila asked.
"Over there, in the corner." Lakshmi tried to point, but the raised hand faltered and fell back, inert, on the coverlet. "I can see myself there. And she can see my body on the bed."
"Can she see the Light?"
"No. The Light's here, where my body is."
The door of the sickroom was quietly opened. Will turned his head and was in time to see Dr. Robert's small spare figure emerging from behind the screen into the rosy twilight.
Susila rose and motioned him to her place beside the bed. Dr. Robert sat down and, leaning forward, took his wife's hand in one of his and laid the other on her forehead.
"It's me," he whispered.
"At last. . ."
A tree, he explained, had fallen across the telephone line. No communication with the High Altitude Station except by road. They had sent a messenger in a car, and the car had broken down. More than two hours had been lost. "But thank goodness," Dr. Robert concluded, "here I finally am."
The dying woman sighed profoundly, opened her eyes for a moment and looked up at him with a smile, then closed them again. "I knew you'd come."
"Lakshmi," he said very softly. "Lakshmi." He drew the tips of his fingers across the wrinkled forehead, again and again. "My little love." There were tears on his cheeks; but his voice was firm and he spoke with the tenderness not of weakness, but of power.
"I'm not over there any more," Lakshmi whispered.
"She was over there in the corner," Susila explained to her father-in-law. "Looking at her body here on the bed."
"But now I've come back. Me and the pain, me and the Light, me and you-all together."
The peacock screamed again and, through the insect noises that in this tropical night were the equivalent of silence, far off but clear came the sound of gay music, flutes and plucked strings and the steady throbbing of drums.
"Listen," said Dr. Robert. "Can you hear it? They're dancing."
"Dancing," Lakshmi repeated. "Dancing."
"Dancing so lightly," Susila whispered. "As though they had wings."
The music swelled up again into audibility.
"It's the Courting Dance," Susila went on.
"The Courting Dance. Robert, do you remember?"
"Could I ever forget?"
Yes, Will said to himself, could one ever forget? Could one ever forget that other distant music and, nearby, unnaturally quick and shallow, the sound of dying breath in a boy's ears? In the house across the street somebody was practicing one of those Brahms Waltzes that Aunt Mary had loved to play. One-two and three and One-two and three and O-o-o-ne two three, One- and One and Two-Three and One and . . . The odious stranger who had once been Aunt Mary stirred out of her artificial stupor and opened her eyes. An expression of the most intense malignity had appeared on the yellow, wasted face. "Go and tell them to stop," the harsh, unrecognizable voice had almost screamed. And then the lines of malignity had changed into the lines of despair, and the stranger, the pitiable odious stranger started to sob uncontrollably. Those Brahms Waltzes-they were the pieces, out of all her repertory, that Frank had loved best.