Silk Umbrellas by Carolyn Marsden Read Free Book Online Page B

daughter. Your
krathong
is in the hands of the river spirits now.”
    Yet Noi couldn’t help looking over the luminous water again, searching for a promising sign.

The next morning, Kun Mere handed Noi a silver bowl with designs on the sides. It was full of rice and bits of crispy dried fish.
    Noi took the food and went down the ladder outside the house, balancing the bowl carefully with one hand.
    Three monks strolled down the lane in bright robes the color of the sun rising behind them. Noi noticed the way the orange stood out against the green background of banana leaves and vines climbing up the coconut palms. Each monk carried a large silver bowl.
    Noi bowed to them, kneeling on the soft dirt. As the monks held out their bowls, she spooned the food in, carefully dividing it into three equal portions.
    After the monks had moved on to the next house, Noi stayed kneeling. She opened herself to the trilling calls of the birds, the breeze lifting the hairs around her forehead, to the lemony feel of the early sunlight.
    When she rose, she approached the spirit house underneath the big tree. The spirit house was a miniature building raised to eye level on a single pole. Kun Mere had already lit incense here and laid out flowers and food. Instead of a Buddha, the shrine housed an Indian yogi with a long beard, a water buffalo, and a farmer wearing a big round hat.
    Once Noi had asked Kun Ya why all Thai families had both a Buddha altar and a spirit house.
    Kun Ya had taken a moment to think. Then she’d leaned forward and said, “Do you remember, Noi, when Srithon’s oldest son was sick? Srithon prayed to the spirits. But when it looked as if the son might die, Srithon went to the temple to pray. He prayed to the Buddha that his son would have a good transition between lives.”
    Noi moved the farmer closer to the water buffalo and the yogi behind the fresh orchid flower. They led such simple lives here in the spirit house, as did the monks who wandered the road in their daily ritual of begging food.
    Which could understand her complicated worries? She wondered if she should carry those worries to the Buddha who lived on the altar, or to the spirits who lived all about her.
    “Here, Noi.” Kun Mere handed her a pineapple as she was leaving for school. “Remember, Kun Kru asked you to bring one today.”
    Noi took the pineapple under her arm and cradled it, the prickly skin against her own, the spikes of the leaves against her neck.
    In the afternoon, Kun Kru asked the children to place their pineapples on the desks. The room smelled sweet.
    Even the boys had brought pineapples. If the school had been bigger, the boys would have gone with a male teacher to learn how to weave fans or baskets out of bamboo. But since there was only Kun Kru, they, too, learned how to carve fruit.
    Kun Kru held up a photograph of a pineapple shaped like a bird. Then she took her own pineapple and sliced off the skin, the tough diamond shapes falling to the table. With quick, practiced strokes, Kun Kru transformed the yellow block of fruit into a feathery bird. The room smelled even sweeter.
    When Kun Kru finished, Noi and the others took out their pocketknives and set to work.
    Noi cut carefully, making sure that her knife didn’t slip. She enjoyed the different shades of yellow inside the pineapple, including the pale, almost white, streaks. She felt saturated with the golden colors. The juice stickied her fingers.
    “It’s coming along nicely, Noi,” Kun Kru commented as she circulated among the students, helping guide a knife or make a suggestion.
    At the end of the afternoon, Kun Kru displayed all of the carvings on a large table. The birds looked crisp and delicate, as though they would bring goodness to whoever ate them.
    Yet flies were beginning to circle the pineapples.
    Suddenly, Noi recalled Ting bringing home a watermelon carved into the shape of a swan, even the green-and-white rind part of the design. Everyone had gathered to