She arranges the cups so the count is 108, twelve rows of nine on a steel table marked by use, straightening wicks and filling each, according to implacable tradition.
“Nah – massshstay,” eyes up from the work, her two-syllable pronunciation so unlike this region’s emphatic three, different enough to make locals pause and find her through the smoke. Here secrets are shared across glances, through accent and manner: the Burmese bend to a nose Westerners call pouty; a bow void of passivity; thick eyelashes, black and long, like those boys from around here only see in magazines; a collected voice, soft, the final saffron flavored phonetic sliding through her teeth like a plea.
“...sshstay. sshstay…”
Today she wears a flower print angyi, the traditional blouse of her people, square cut and buttoned closed at the side just as her mother taught her when they tended butter lamps together. It’s too small, like yesterday’s plain brown, and each time she bends to tend a candle the fabric rises just enough to unshelter the bra the women at the camp gave her. All day she pulls it down.
Keys cluster hanging from a red string necklace, each one kept from a place she’s called home. They fall on each bend, fillip the table, then as she rises, tap her heart and rest for a moment waiting for the next bend. Down and up, smack, thump, bang, metronoming her minutes in a rhythm not unlike the very different life she used to lead.
Beside the table businessmen gather offers while their sons stack the steps behind, waiting, watching, wondering when their propositions will grow as big as their father’s. Blue-shirted button-downs with inherited red ties take the lowest perch, achieving a better angled view to each bend, the spoils of geometrical facts learned in private schools Butter Lamp Girls don’t attend.
This morning these same boys chased pigeons with their little slings and pointy arrows. Most escaped to hide away the day. Some were hit, split open and poked, left in the gutter, eaten by dogs. Now, with their fathers near, the boys hide intentions. Embarrassed book bag insignias lap unpleating khakis. Some giggle. Others squirm, watching the more comfortable boys almost as closely as they do her. Public school boys squat higher, no ties or book bags to conceal their age. At the top, in some obtuse reversal of social hierarchy, sit fatherless street boys with a view of nothing but braided hair. They tongue cigarettes and sweat into dire clothes, hoping Butter Lamp Girl knocks a cup to the ground.
“Kati, Didi?”
“Paanch rupee, Buwa – ji.”
“Three, Didi.”
“Na, no. Paanch only. Five dinus, please sir.”
Gone quickly, little cups destined for some home alter, their flames reflecting framed pictures of those lost: a mother, a father, a child, a love.
Money goes in a silk bag with a rosy Ganesh embroidered so big on the side that it almost doesn’t fit. Butter Lamp Girl knows the story well, at least the way her mother told it.
Ganesh, the only child of Goddess Parvati and Lord Shiva.
“Pour the butter while very hot.”
“Yes Amma.”
Ganesh, his mother abandoned.
“Sometimes it will burn.”
“Yes Amma.”
Ganesh, whose father’s rage was legendary.
“Wicks tall, never bent.”
“Yes Amma.”
Ganesh, who adored his mother and protected her fiercely.
“108, like beads of the prayer necklace. Never one less, never one more.”
“Yes Amma.”
Ganesh, who feared his father’s return.
“Be wary of men.”
Ganesh, who died by his father’s sword.
“Find a bed. Stay off the street.”
Ganesh reincarnated, the elephant, the steadfast one, remover of obstacles, the god of starting over.
When the candles are gone she tidies the table. Her movements augur coherence. These men know it is best to be home now. She remembers visits from ones who did not.
The table is wiped. Wicks wound and returned to their proper place. Cups are stacked and set aside. Only the unwanted and abused ones remain, spilling butter capillaries on the steel, forming blisters, yellowing as it cools.
With some earnings, she buys a knotted baggie of cracked corn from a blind woman, opens it with fingers that can’t hide the rage of hot metal, waves it high, back and forth, flagging surrender, freeing even the slightest bit of broken corn. It wings though the air, whirling about from place to place, then settles evenly on the ground. Pigeons arrive from their hiding places and feast.
