She stands to wind a jade-green sari around and around her waist. Its silk, like liquid, takes the shape of her body. She has a handbag to match every pair of shoes. I hear her heels clacking a neat, precise rhythm on the wooden floor as she gathers her sequin-spangled accessories and leaves. The scent of her perfume rushes after her like a ghost.

I linger on in her room, sit at her stool and explore her jewel box, lifting the earrings and bracelets and necklaces and brooches one by one. My child-fingers, thick and awkward, fumble with the clasps. I find the tiny golden key, wind it as tight as I dare, then let go. The pink ballerina spins into her glassy celestial song, twirling like a captured seraphim on the mirrored dance floor.

Soon my mother will be dancing: the waltz, the foxtrot, the cha-cha-cha. The men wear black suits; the women, in shimmering silk, will smile demurely, locked into their arms in taut, entrancing rhythms.

I pull open the top drawer of the dressing table, scan the neat rows of jars and tubes and brushes and nail-polish bottles until I spot the new golden lipstick, a gift from someone recently returned from abroad.

I remove the cover and peek inside. The lipstick is shaped like a human finger. Flesh- coloured. I twist the base up and down, then spread the buttery substance across my lips. It smells like bubble gum.

II

Now it is October, time to make the Christmas cake. We shop for ingredients - cinnamon, cloves, raisins, almonds, cashew nuts, glace cherries - at the Indian provision store in town. Inside, a discordant array of husky, dusky smells clamour amongst the aisles. I leave my mother to chat, examine, bargain with the storekeeper while I drift through the aisles, which are crammed full of jars and tins and packets, bundles of herbs, and dried salted fish hung on hooks from the rafters.

The back of the store is dark and full of cool shadows. Thin slivers of afternoon sunlight crack through the blinds, stirring up the dust motes. A row of enormous gunny sacks line the wall, spilling over with grains - red, green, and brown lentils, mung beans, chick peas, barley, semolina, red, brown and white rice. I run my fingers through a sack of pearl-white rice, over and over again, watching it shimmy through my fingers like water. And I think how everything in the world is all made of tiny pieces.

Rice is clean
Rice is nice
Rice is altogether, yet separate
all heaped into the sack
the sack is my skin
the skin is the world
and inside I am
just one grain
just one gram

III

Now it is afternoon. Hot, sticky. But inside, the theatre is dark and crispy cool with air conditioning. All the seats are empty except for the front row, which is scattered with items of clothing, paper bags, brown paper parcels of sandwiches, and thermos flasks.

My mother disappears behind the curtains into the muffled chatter and laughter backstage and I snuggle into the velvet seats, pulling some clothes over me to keep off the chill. I have a burning fever, but cried and refused to stay at home. My eyes, dry and burning, are fixed onto the stage.

All falls silent, the curtain is drawn, then she is there, draped in an ivory satin costume. A silver chain decorates her waist, one arm and shoulder is bare.

Her eyes are lined with black kohl and a wreath of flowers garlands her hair. She is holding a lace handkerchief.

The actors' voices float through my fever and sleep.

Thundering above the rest, I hear my father's voice. Dressed in a green tunic and red velvet cape, he paces the stage, grasping her handkerchief. He is angry, raging. His eyes are red. They bulge out of their sockets. My mother pleads with him, My Lord, My Lord. He pushes her onto the couch. His fingers clasp around her throat like a thick necklace until she can no longer speak. She struggles against his weight, but is too delicate, too small, too beautiful to escape.

IV

Now, I am sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows, too weak after childbirth to lift a spoon. My mother has arrived, and is feeding me soup. She says, 'It's been such a long time since I fed you.'

And in her eyes I see her remembering.

V

Now, I stand in the mouth of a vast cave that yawns out into the ocean. The tide has been out and is now lapping back in. The stones beneath my feet bubble water through the spaces of my toes. The sea-shadows sing across the water, and I search for my mother through the blue. Booming water-echoes crash against the damp rock in unfathomable hollow voices. They sound like a thousand monks chanting.

I think of her now, when I am drifting, when everything has lost its skin, when I have let go of the sides. Where did she go? Did the waves wash her down like salt icicles? Did she erode so slowly that nobody noticed where she wasn't? The seaweed whirls around the shore, like her long black hair, the stones her mirror. She is melted into the ice white, and she is everywhere. Beyond, the mountains are suffocated by leaden cloud. The grey of them matches my memories, and I think of the strange places where you meet your heart.

VI

I think of her now when I put my child to sleep, his hand pressed against my cheek, his nose buried in the soft and scent of my neck. And know that she never slept with her arms clasped around me so, holding me, like a jewel, to her breast.

–   Nilmini Fernando, Beara Peninsular, Ireland

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