smooth with time, you're growing old, she will be aware, especially if she's a nun, she understands love and compassion, doesn't she ?
- There are eighteen nuns in this monastery." As she erased in her mind what had just been said, as making her ill at ease.
She had to walk as they were no taxi in the small villages. People when she asked the place of the monastery were smiling at her and helpful.
Even if they were in the dry zone, as they said, nature was green, but it was so hot she had already drunk the little bottle of water, she had taken in her room at the Red Canal hôtel.
To avoid being aware of her perspiration and red face under the hat, she focused of the tiny room where she would stay perhaps a few days, with mosquitoes outside even if the couch outside on the balcoon was tempting.
The last skinny man she talked to, was cleaning his little motorbike under a tree, he showed to her a red and green portal. There was the monastery.
She shouted hello three times.
A young nun, around eighteen years old came to open the gate.
Following her, she entered an open room, but pleasant as the roof protected them from the heat. The young nun didn't talk, showed to her to take off her shoes and shocks and left.
They arrived silently, and she suddenly was frightened at the idea they might have made the wish of being mute.
They were all with the dark red and burgundy dress. Someone had explained to her it was the nuns the harshest with themselves, living with a lot of constraints.
She began the talk and looked at what, in her guess, was the oldest one.
- "I'm the mother of Sylvaine, my name is Françoise Dussonchey. I'm trying to have some news from her. I'm worried."
They all looked at her with opened faces. One young girl in white outfit served them with tea, a cup of coffee with condensed sugar, and gave her a glass of water and a big bottle, nearly frozen. Another young nun with a gracile neck gave her a plate with a papaya salad, a small cup of peanuts and cashewnuts. She remembered that they couldn't eat after twelve am and so refused politely the food, but drank the tea. Then the coffee that was sweet, and put her hands on the glass of water to try to cool down her body's temperature.
She remembered to have kleenex in her bag, but wouldn't take them as embarrassing to absorb the drop of perspiration in front of all this beautiful and calm nons, wrapped in their outfit, as not feeling the heat, indifferent to it.
Another nun talked to her in an hesitating English, she took her time to wrap words with silence and make them as a gift.
- "We happen to have met Sylvaine in our path. Sylvaine is someone with a lot of energy and bright, she learnt the texts in Pali very quickly.
-… You mean she's not with you anylonger ?
- She left three years ago, she met people in the University, and her meditation visa expired at that time. I believe she wanted to follow them in another country."
She had so many questions. Who were this people, which nationality, why would she leave without giving an address ?
Instead of that, she just asked : " Was she in peace with herself ?"
One of the youngest nun smiled in a nice way. They were all with beautiful big eyes, and a presence she had never felt with other human beings, she had the sensation to be supported, even if they said nothing. She asked to them : "I'm catholic, I'm not buddhist, what would be your advice to me ?"
There was a silence, then a very tiny nun, she hadn't notice, without wrinkles on her face and a skinny body, that looked in fact like the chief of the group of nuns said, in a monoton tone : "You could meditate each day, even five minutes. Even if you believe in a god, it would free you mind. Focus on your breath. Think of solidity, cohesion, heat, motion. It could help you."
The other nuns were looking at her with empathy. She was nearly to ask if they knew were she was, but she understood that even if one of them knew, they would respect the request of a secret.
They proposed to her to see their shrine.
She accepted and they took a few minutes in front of the flowers and the image of buddha. She felt calm.
Then the nun that she talked to expressed to her that she could come back anytime as a guest and sleep in the monastery, as they were about to having a new building in bricks, not in wood, thanks to a donator from Mandalay.
Spontaneously, she asked to them : "Do you listen to music ? Are you allowed to sing ?" An image of Sylvaine singing under her shower when she was sixteen coming to her mind, a song of Jennifer Lopez.
The young nuns had a subtile laughter. The oldest one said : "We're not allowed to listen to music. We meditate three hours a day. Then we learn the texts."
She knew they woke up at four as in every monastery and had to go every other day to take their foods from donors, while walking in a line in the village, it took them two or three hours.
It was time for her to leave, to much emotion, she felt she could lose control of her calm appearance. She was realizing she was in a far away country, to look for her daughter, and that she didn't have now any clue of where she could be in the world.
She just asked to the nuns, not looking at one on them particularly.
- "Were the people she met in the University having a good influence on her ?
The wiser one answered : "There is no good and bad. There is the matter and the mind.Noone can influence you in anyway when you take care of yourself. You're the one to decide."
She didn't catch what she meant, but read in her body langage no fear or hostility, so she felt relieved.
After a silent pause, she took another glass of water, and then thank them for their welcome.
The tiny young nun that had opened to her, and was presented as having already ten years of University of Bouddhism as having begun at six, took her back to the gate.
She waved at her while leaving. The nun hesitated, smiled first, then waved at her back.
On her long way back to the hotel, she cried. Her tears were visible, and from time to time she could see local people looking at her, surprised to see a Western woman crying, she used all the kleenex. She felt lost and alone in the world, on the bumpy road in the bus, surrounded by people smiling and talking to each others in an animated way, guys with their long shirt wored with elegance, women graceful and posée, children with big lively eyes.
She had so many questions to Sylvaine. Why ? Leaving home is something, without any messages and signs of being alive is another. They never argued.
She was the one to decide at home, especially after her husband had left them. Perhaps it was that, or Sylvaine asking for the contraception pill and her refusing, asserting she was too young and had first to take our temperature for six months and meet her gynecologist while being here. Perhaps it was a mistake. Perhaps it was to have shared with Sylvaine that sex was bad with her husband and that she hated when he leapt her breast. Or refusing to meet his first boyfriend as not looking good with his ear piercings and long hair in the neck, and classified as not being an intellectual as not to say more.
When had she lost her ? She suddenly remembered a dinner with her husband. She tried desperately to still connect with him. It was in the late seventies, and she had accepted to go to a weird restaurant where couples were making love on a net above the guests having dinner. She couldn't eat anything and was so disturb she had to leave the place. They had watch movies. Porno movies at the time where you needed to go to the theater for that. She remembered a scene with a woman having a rabbit eating her sex, and her having an orgasm. Why was she remembering this disturbing moment of lifes, and especially now. She had forgotten so many lunch and dinner, family parties.
Sylvaine was a fat baby, and plump little girl, then she became so skinny, not allowing to eat any meat, nor milk or eggs. Sylvaine on a bicycle, laughing, as the first time without the little wheels. Sylvaine skiing and enjoying the snow as child do, in a big battle. Sylvaine coming back with an A in Latin langage and the congratulations of her teachers for her semester.
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Begining to breath as the nun had recommended, she tried to focus her attention on the air inspired and exhaled of her nose.
A few years in her life, time was flying.
She had three adventures with men. One with a teacher she had met in her charity donating for fled areas in Myanmar and Philippines. Another with a taxi driver, she met coming back from Roissy airport. And the latest one with her butcher.
None of them was satisfactory to her, but listening to them, entering in their world and having a male presence in her deserted flat, comforted her. The first one, she stopped answering his calls, the others left as they had entered in her life, smoothly.
Her job as speaker for her party, based on the trade union history, was not essential to her life. Resigning, she took a few months to read, enjoying unemployment as some French people can do, and then took a job, not very well paid, as an assistant in the library in her district. She could read during hours and it was appropriate for what she needed. She met grand mothers having time to talk as retired, shy men happy to enjoy the calm atmosphere of the room, and lively children with their nanies or mothers, compelled to choose the book of the week for reading.
She appreciated the shadow of the "Marronier" in the court, one couldn't say it was a garden, but when she was tired of reading, she could see the light playing in