On a cruciform cloth squared in black and white two old men are playing, with ivory and ebony pieces, worn as the dust-caulked stones they squat on, a game. I do not understand game, rules, or anything else here. On the other side of the temple square a Garuda folds gilded wings at the top of a pillar in this town whose syllables are so strange I keep relocating them in the guide book as though their sounds could say the place I am. Turning from the play of old men I watch a girl squat before a rough circle of pebbles with open palm toss one to the air, gather in its fall three from the dust and capture the fourth's plummet in her cupped hand. By the catch of childhood she names. |