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unending service? Ready never to step out of the places where you are set down, store or school or healing house?
    “Are you ready never to love any but the spices again?”
    Around me my sister-novices, their garments still wet fromthe seawater she had poured on them, stood silent, shivering a little. And it seemed to me the prettiest ones kept their eyes lowered longest.
    Ah, now I have learned how deep in the human heart vanity lies, vanity which is the other face of the fear of being unloved.
    But on that day I who was the Old One’s brightest pupil, quick to master every spell and chant, quick to speak with the spices, even the most dangerous, quick to arrogance and impatience as often I was, had thrown them a glance, half pity and half derision. I had looked the Old One boldly in the eye and said, “I am.”
    I who was not beautiful and thought therefore I had little to lose.
    The Old One’s stare stung me like the thorn-herb. But she said only “Very well.” And called us to approach her, each alone.
    Through sea mist the island cast its pearl light around us. In the sky rainbows arced like wings. Each girl knelt, and the Old One bending traced on her forehead her new name. As she spoke it seemed the girls’ features shifted like water, and something new came into every face.
    “You shall be called Aparajita after the flower whose juice, smeared on eyelids, leads one to victory.”
    “You shall be Pia after the
pal
tree whose ashes rubbed on limbs bring vigor.”
    “And you—”
    But I had chosen already.
    “First Mother, my name will be Tilo.”
    “Tilo?” Displeasure echoed in her voice, and the other novices looked up fearfully.
    “Yes,” I said, and though I too was afraid, I forced my voice not to reveal it. “Tilo short for Tilottama.”
    Ah how naive I was to think I could keep my heart hidden from the Old One, she who would later teach me to look into the hearts of others.
    “You’ve been nothing but trouble ever since you came, rule-breaker. I should have thrown you out at our first meeting itself.”
    I wonder still that she was not angrier that day, the First Mother. Did she see mirrored, in my headstrong self, her own girlhood?
    The roots hanging like dreadlocks from the branches of banyan trees rustled in the breeze. Or was it her, sighing?
    “This name, do you know what it means?”
    It is a question I expected. I have the answer ready.
    “Yes, First Mother. Til is the sesame seed, under the sway of planet Venus, gold-brown as though just touched by flame. The flower of which is so small and straight and pointed that mothers pray for their girlchildren to have noses shaped like it. Til which ground into paste with sandalwood cures diseases of heart and liver, til which fried in its own oil restores luster when one has lost interest in life. I will be Tilottama, the essence of til, life-giver, restorer of health and hope.”
    Her laugh is the sound of dry leaves snapping underfoot.
    “It is certainly not confidence you lack, girl. To take on the name of the most beautiful
apsara
of Rain-god Indra’s court. Tilottama most elegant of dancers, crest-jewel among women. Or had you not known?”
    I hang my head. For a moment again I am the ignorant youngster of my first day on the island, sea-wet, naked, stumbling on the sharp slippery stones. Always she can shame me this way.For this I could hate her if I did not love her so, she who was truly first mother to me, who had given up all hope of being mothered.
    Her fingertips, light as breath in my hair.
    “Ah, child, you’ve set your heart on it, have you not? But remember: When Brahma made Tilottama to be chief dancer in Indra’s court, he warned her never to give her love to man—only to the dance.”
    “Yes Mother.” I am laughing with success, with relief, with triumph at this battle fought and won, pressing my lips to the Old One’s papery palms. “Do I not know the rules? Have I not made the vows?”
    And now she writes my new