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out his equipment, which he had secreted there on previous visits: one long perfect spear of heartwood and a steel spike.
The heartwood he had cut himself. During the long march to the village when Rael was still a child, Mr. Sarnath had from time to time explained the properties of certain plants. Cassia had learned them all; he none of them but this, for he had tripped upon the heartwood root and gashed himself so deeply that he had remembered when he chanced to find it in the forest. He had stripped away its leaves, its branches, and the soggy, fibrous flesh of its long stalk until the heartwood was laid bare. Yet it was so tough that even then he had not contrived to break it from its root.
So he had left it there, naked, pointed to the sky, half a day’s peripatetic journey from the village, and he had returned only when he found the spike. That he had scavenged from the wreckage of an old factory—one of the ruins in the jungle hills. Most of the metal had already found a second life—put to more productive uses in the village, but this spike he had found himself when there was no one else around. He had worn it sharp between two stones, and brought it to the heartwood tree. Then he had smashed the tree down to the ground and scraped clean his long spear.
Now he pulled it from his hole in the cracked trunk.
*
At that time, fifteen hundred days after the master’s death, Mr. Sarnath was living in a one-room cabin, which the novices had constructed for him at the top of the hill. As he got older he had drawn into himself, and he preferred to spend his time in solitary meditation. Cassia came up every day after school to care for him and cook his food.
The cabin was constructed on a frame of dry bamboo. Its walls were plaited palm. In the heat of the day, the dark interior was pierced with beams of light. One, stretching unbroken between a spot on the floorboards and a small hole in the roof, gave him particular pleasure, and often when the sun was bright he would spend an entire day seated on a comfortable cushion, watching that taut beam of light change color subtly in front of him, and change its angle by methodical degrees. Whatever countryside his mind was traveling, he found in that bright wire a small connection to the world, for without thinking he could see the turning of the earth, and see also with immense precision just what kind of day it was, by examining at any moment the metallic content of the wire—how much silver, how much gold, how much copper, how much brass.
He was never taken by surprise, for example, when the sun passed behind a cloud. He would close his eyes the instant before the beam of light was broken, and open them an instant after it had reappeared. Or when evening fell and the sun sank at last behind the teakwood trees, already he’d have turned his face away.
As evening fell he would get up. He would put on his dressing gown and he would sit out on his small veranda with a glass of water. He would watch for Cassia to come along the rutted track. At the crest of the hill there was a bald place in the trees with the cabin in the middle of it, built on thin and rocky soil. Mr. Sarnath could see from the veranda a hundred yards along the track, to where it emerged from the wood beside a banyan tree. And though in those days his mind was never concentrated on one thing, still part of him would watch for her, and he would wait for the sight of her in her white dress. Below the banyan tree the path fell steeply to the village; climbing up, she always paused to catch her breath beside the tree, just at the moment she came into sight.
Near sunset on the same evening that Rael drew his spear out of the hollow log, Mr. Sarnath was sitting out on his veranda at his desk, a small wooden table with a top of lacquered ebony. It supported an oil lamp, an inkwell, and six hundred sheets of paper scattered over a palm-leaf blotter. Among them in its nest of parchment lay the dull brown
The heartwood he had cut himself. During the long march to the village when Rael was still a child, Mr. Sarnath had from time to time explained the properties of certain plants. Cassia had learned them all; he none of them but this, for he had tripped upon the heartwood root and gashed himself so deeply that he had remembered when he chanced to find it in the forest. He had stripped away its leaves, its branches, and the soggy, fibrous flesh of its long stalk until the heartwood was laid bare. Yet it was so tough that even then he had not contrived to break it from its root.
So he had left it there, naked, pointed to the sky, half a day’s peripatetic journey from the village, and he had returned only when he found the spike. That he had scavenged from the wreckage of an old factory—one of the ruins in the jungle hills. Most of the metal had already found a second life—put to more productive uses in the village, but this spike he had found himself when there was no one else around. He had worn it sharp between two stones, and brought it to the heartwood tree. Then he had smashed the tree down to the ground and scraped clean his long spear.
Now he pulled it from his hole in the cracked trunk.
*
At that time, fifteen hundred days after the master’s death, Mr. Sarnath was living in a one-room cabin, which the novices had constructed for him at the top of the hill. As he got older he had drawn into himself, and he preferred to spend his time in solitary meditation. Cassia came up every day after school to care for him and cook his food.
The cabin was constructed on a frame of dry bamboo. Its walls were plaited palm. In the heat of the day, the dark interior was pierced with beams of light. One, stretching unbroken between a spot on the floorboards and a small hole in the roof, gave him particular pleasure, and often when the sun was bright he would spend an entire day seated on a comfortable cushion, watching that taut beam of light change color subtly in front of him, and change its angle by methodical degrees. Whatever countryside his mind was traveling, he found in that bright wire a small connection to the world, for without thinking he could see the turning of the earth, and see also with immense precision just what kind of day it was, by examining at any moment the metallic content of the wire—how much silver, how much gold, how much copper, how much brass.
He was never taken by surprise, for example, when the sun passed behind a cloud. He would close his eyes the instant before the beam of light was broken, and open them an instant after it had reappeared. Or when evening fell and the sun sank at last behind the teakwood trees, already he’d have turned his face away.
As evening fell he would get up. He would put on his dressing gown and he would sit out on his small veranda with a glass of water. He would watch for Cassia to come along the rutted track. At the crest of the hill there was a bald place in the trees with the cabin in the middle of it, built on thin and rocky soil. Mr. Sarnath could see from the veranda a hundred yards along the track, to where it emerged from the wood beside a banyan tree. And though in those days his mind was never concentrated on one thing, still part of him would watch for her, and he would wait for the sight of her in her white dress. Below the banyan tree the path fell steeply to the village; climbing up, she always paused to catch her breath beside the tree, just at the moment she came into sight.
Near sunset on the same evening that Rael drew his spear out of the hollow log, Mr. Sarnath was sitting out on his veranda at his desk, a small wooden table with a top of lacquered ebony. It supported an oil lamp, an inkwell, and six hundred sheets of paper scattered over a palm-leaf blotter. Among them in its nest of parchment lay the dull brown
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