TWILIGHT

A Tantric Biography

by

Michael Harris

About The Book

Although there have been many Westerners kidnapped in Asia by Islamic Fundamentalists and various other religious and political organizations, the kidnapping of Claire Marie Bailey and her 15 year old daughter by a Sri Lankan terrorist in July, 2000, was picked up by the media in the West for a totally different reason - her husband’s lifestyle as a tantric practitioner, and his international fame as a spiritual teacher (the “White Guru of India”), a professional author, and a suspected connection with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam  (L.T.T.E).

     Press interest, however, quickly waned when both Claire Marie and her daughter were released after only a few days - held in relative comfort in the Lankatilaka Vihara temple - and the discovery of Claire Marie’s romantic and sexual relationship with her captor.

     Now, in “Twilight”, Claire Marie’s own story is told for the first time, and sets out with total honesty the emotional trauma and relationship with her captor during the beautifully evoked Esala Perahera, Sri Lanka’s biggest annual festival.

     “Twilight” is an erotic adventure, a spiritual odyssey (as well as a very good introduction to tantra) and is a fascinating and compelling super-fast story with a bitter-sweet climax, and a highly-charged account of Claire Marie’s struggle to come to terms with her husband’s tantric lifestyle and her own spiritual growth  - it is that rare thing, a work of consummate literary art and highly entertaining.

              Arun Razdan (The Times of India)

             (Extracts of “Twilight” were originally published in ‘Life Positive’- Sept.

             issue, 2001 – as “The Jewel In The Lotus”)

'The fundamental idea behind it is that at the moment of orgasm a tremendous force is released. The practice demands the same training in visualization as is involved in rituals based on the Cabala. The participants must be able to prolong intercourse and defer orgasm until a subjective reality of such intensity has been built up that at the moment of orgasm it is projected as an objective reality'

'The Directory of Possibilities'

(Colin Wilson/John Grant)

FOREWORD

In Pakistan, on the Indus River in the ancient city of Mohenjo Daro, stands a monument bearing a golden seal reliably dated at 6000 years old. It depicts a person sitting in a Yoga posture performing a Tantric ritual. This is the oldest evidence known of Tantric Yoga, the Royal Path of sexual Yoga, sometimes called the eighth path. Tantra antedates  Hinduism (sanatana dharma), Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, and its origins are shrouded in the mists of ancient times.

     Tantrics use ancient texts such as the Bhagavadgita – many tantric practices stem directly from verses in the Gita – the Bible - particularly the Song of Songs – the Koran, and the writings of Patanjali, and have a strict, if unusual, moral code. Stories of using tantra for “black magic” or “unnatural” acts are true, but those who do such things are as blasphemous as those who use the Gita, the Bible, and the Koran, for the same purposes.

     The method is not to blame.

     It is not that Tantra has been tried and found wanting – it has been feared and not tried by those who speak against it.  

     Tantra is a key to a vast treasure house, an almost unlimited and largely untapped physical and spiritual power labeled by the non-religious as “magic”, by the religious as “miracle”,    by   Spiritualists   as   “'psychic”,   and   in   New  Age   circles   as   “cosmic

consciousness”.

       It is Vajrayana, the “thunderbolt vehicle”, said to break through the barrier of the mundane to spiritual awareness faster and more effectively than any other method or system known. As a “way of action”, rather than a philosophy, tantrism can neither be attacked nor defended by argument - it is a pragmatic method of physical healing and spiritual development – “it works” is its one and complete reply to critics.

      Tantra is primarily a spiritual discipline, sometimes called  “God’s secret science” or the secular “science of ecstasy”, employing and in harmony with physical and non-physical forces inadequately investigated or even understood by modern science. There are Christian tantrics, Neo-Gnostic, Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, Taoist, and tantrics who subscribe to no religious affiliation at all.

       Religion and Society today in many so-called “civilized” countries fear sex. It is “whispered in the ear”, and the beauty and sacredness of sex has been buried beneath the social and cultural conditioning that sex is the cause of many evils. As a result an awareness of the power of sexually generated energy has been lost.

      Tantric masters originally devised tantric rites and exercises for initiates only, the inner meanings safeguarded by oaths, a secret language – “twilight” speech – and mantras, passed from Master to pupil, and not to be shared with others.

      Mantras are believed to be of Divine origin and used by tantric practitioners to focus energy produced by the rites and exercises as a lens focuses the sun's rays.

     Om Mani Padme Hum – “hail, the jewel in the lotus” – is both a mantra and “twilight”

speech, the penis in the vagina, and is frequently used by many spiritual teachers and tantric practitioners. It produces a resonance and acts like a lightning rod, drawing down power.

       There is no “bible” or “rulebook’' for tantric students, and each must find his or her own personal guide.

       There was a time when people with an awakened consciousness practiced tantra with an artistic and cultural lifestyle of pure bliss and harmony with each other and the universe.  

      They lived in a state of enlightenment.

      Tantra is the art of spiritualizing sexuality and offers practical tools to transmute fear and attachment into love and universal power. Put simply, tantra is the total surrender or letting go of all mental, emotional and cultural conditioning so that universal life energy can again flow through us like a river without effort – it is a letting go to universal oneness to love.

      The word tantra has many definitions, and perhaps its real meaning has been lost to antiquity. Some scholars claim it comes from the Sanskrit or Hindi word for fabric or tapestry, meaning that it is woven into one's life. Others say that it comes from two Sanskrit words tanoti and trayati.

      Tanoti means to expand consciousness, and trayati means to liberate consciousness.

      Tantra expands and liberates consciousness, making it the fabric of existence. As the

highest  possible synthesis between love and meditation, tantra is the connection between

this and other planes of existence.

       While not a religious philosophy, tantra embraces a deep spiritual understanding of life, and  an  ancient  art  of  living  in  harmony  with yourself, and with others. It is a poetic science of sexuality that dates back thousands of years, not only to India and Tibet, but to the Far East, Polynesia, and indigenous cultures of all parts of the world, including North America's native Cherokee culture.

      It was used as a vehicle to achieve cosmic consciousness and union with divinity.

      Tantra treats sexual energy as a loving friend rather than something to be suppressed or talked about secretly. It does not deny sex, or consider sex a hindrance to enlightenment, instead it says that tantra is the only spiritual path that holds sex as something sacred, not a sin.

      Tantrics are god-loving, rather than god-fearing. Tantra doesn't tell you to suppress your sexual urges to reach god, but just the opposite. It supports development of this  vital energy to achieve union with divinity. The essence of tantra is the full expression of being - a merging with, rather than a withdrawing from. It is the ultimate yoga - a Sanskrit word for union.

       In tantra the orgasm is with the universe. You become part of the primal energy of everything - and merge your individuality with the Absolute.

       In the Kama Sutra genital contact is only one way of making love. Tantrics learn to make love in many ways and with everything, letting go of all barriers to pure joy. Sex becomes  sacred  and  divine  when  you  approach  it from the heart and body rather than

just the mind.

       It is common for tantrics to “drop the mind” in tantric lovemaking. When the energy comes from a space deep within you - your essential Self - it connects you to you, to your partner, and to god, shifting you to an altered state of consciousness - into the realm of the spirit.

       On the tantric path you learn to use sexual energy in an extended way, not denying the physical but going further, deeper, higher. You dance with the electromagnetic force field of your partner, and that dance leads to cosmic oneness.

      The difference between unenlightened sex and tantra, is that tantra declares “the kingdom of God is within you”. In Sanskrit it is called Pinde So Brahamande – the physical body is the temple of God – and the body is the replica or representation of the entire Cosmos.

      Social and cultural structure supports separation or dualism and has created  division  among  people  -  and nations - violence and war. “Make love, not war” used to be the message of the 60's. Today we're back into fighting each other.

     The world uses sex for manipulation - sexy models to sell cars, soap and everything else - while at the same time suppressing sexual expression. With sex being such a powerful force, we have created the perfect environment for neurosis, and sexual deviancy - and violence.

     What affects the individual, affects the family, what affects the family affects the nation.

      Tantra says we can celebrate life when the idea of separation of dualism, disappears and allows people to meet on all levels of consciousness - physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual.

      While most fundamentalist religions focus on the elimination of sensual pleasures, tantra welcomes the full expression of bodily pleasure, recognizing that in the body is hidden the 'bodiless' or the spiritual.

      If you can learn to be conscious of the body and the breath, you can be conscious of the Universe. What Buddha said can be said of tantra, “The truth of the Universe can only be realized within the framework of the physical body”. We create our own reality, and it can be anything we want it to be.

      It's possible to study tantra for years, learning technique, meditations, and the many nuances of the tantric lifestyle, but tantra assumes you already are what you will become, and enlightenment is already yours – all you need to do is realize it - it is like sitting in a dark room when all you have to do is turn on the light.

      Tantra doesn’t ask you to believe anything. In fact, it says let go of all belief systems. Find a teacher who can guide you through the essential experience – and in the experience itself you’ll discover your own oneness with the universe.

____________________

“Everything exists because of the way it functions, and it functions in the way it does because of the way it is. It isn’t perfect, and that’s an essential part of the way everything is. Everything is changing and developing. We change and develop with everything else. That’s our purpose. To grow, change and develop. We, and everything else, exist to strive toward perfection”

PROLOGUE

A squad of six Sri Lankan soldiers had been left behind to bury two Tamil Tiger guerrillas the army patrol had killed in a minor skirmish, and to bring back three young Tamil girls.  Two of the girls looked no more than 14 years, though they both claimed to be older, and the other 17 years.

       The two dead guerrillas could wait. The dead were in no hurry, and the soldiers had plenty of time. The girls were kneeling, hands tied behind their backs, crying, expecting what was about to happen.

       The older girl had already decided not to resist.  No point being beaten too badly, or unnecessarily, and escape if and when the opportunity presented itself. She smiled at the soldiers, enticing them to come to her first.  

      The soldiers stood around her.

      “Well, you going to untie me or not” she asked “Can’t do a lot trussed up like this. Or is this how you want me?

       Margaret Naga was tall for a Tamil, and darker than a Sinhala, with jet-black hair down to her tiny waist, a torn blouse exposing one small firm breast and her skirt riding high showing her long shapely legs and thighs.

       A soldier untied her.

       The soldier ripped her top even more, pulled her panties off then lifted her long legs and entered her. Margaret Naga groaned. If she could do this and stop them going to Julianna and Lilley, her best friends, it was worth it.

       The other soldiers gathered round to watch, squatted, nudging each other and grinning, waiting their turn. The soldier took her twice, wanting her again but the others yelled at him, and two others pulled him off. 

       They took her, one after the other.

       When they were done, they lit cigarettes and gave one to Margaret.

       Julianna and Lilley had stopped crying. A soldier looked at them and offered cigarettes.

       “Illai … no … nandri”  said Julianna Sud..

       Lilley Sud shook her head.

       Margaret saw the leer on the soldier’s face.

       “Hey.” she got his attention “I’m still here”

About the size of Ireland, Sri Lanka is five to nine degrees above the equator and almost midway between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. An island of diverse faiths, a holy land to many, and a Taste of Paradise in holiday brochures.

        Adam's Peak in the East is arguably the world's most sacred mountain because of the footprint that many faiths revere. Muslims say that Adam landed here after his fall from Paradise.  The  Chinese  say  it  is  the  footprint of the Father of the Human Race. Hindus

connect it with an incarnation of Vishnu. Christians say it is the footprint of St Thomas, the Apostle. Buddhists believe Gautama Buddha made the footprint.

       Another myth tells how a wandering minstrel came to Sri Lanka to escape a troublesome wife. His playing of the lyre, his witty repartee, and his simple solutions to difficult problems, impressed the King so much he gave Jaffna to the minstrel, which, so they say, is why the symbol of Jaffna today is the lyre.

      The complexities of the island's ethnic conflict go far back in history - and mythology. Buddhist legends say that the Sinhala, the majority race in Sri Lanka, was founded by Vijaya, a grandson of the union between a minor North Indian king and a lioness.  Banished  by  his  father,  Vijaya  is  said to have arrived on the island in 500 BC with 700 light skinned followers – Aryans. 

       Sinhalas say their name is derived from this story of the king and the lioness. The word Sinha in Sanskrit is lion.

       Tamils claim they inhabited the island long before Vijaya's arrival, Dravidian's from South India, and Buddhism, they say, came long after the Sinhala king and not with him. A Tamil kingdom had its focus at Anuradhapura, until the defeat of Eelala in 101 BC by the Sinhala Prince Dutthagamani. Eelam, the name claimed by Tamils, comes from the name of the last king of Anuradhapura.

       The disagreement between the two is a mixture of the Sinhala sense of ethnic superiority as a lighter skinned race, their greater numbers and a lack of continuous recorded history. Little is known, for example, of theTamil nation after the defeat of King

Eelala.  A Tamil kingdom emerged around AD 1215 in Jaffna Sinhalas say this was merely a peripheral kingdom, a consequence of the national dissention and chaos prevalent at the time.

       But, for Tamils, this period was a Golden Age  - until Western colonialism destroyed it. 

       After the Portuguese, who first arrived in 1505 and found both Sinhala and Tamil kingdoms as distinct and separate nations, and the Dutch in 1658, the British made the island a Crown Colony in 1802 and brought it under a centralized administration, ending Tamil identity as a separate entity and beginning the modern history of Ceylon.

      They brought in Ceylon's plantation economy, dispossessing ethnic Tamils of their land which was given over to low-paid Tamils imported from India. These were little more than cheap labor for the British - initially in the coffee plantations, and, when the seasonal coffee crop failed owing to plant disease, the year long better-known tea plantations took over.

       The movement for freedom from British rule began in 1915. In the 1920's separate and distinctive political aspirations by various groups, all with sectarian goals, emerged, and in 1948 Ceylon became independent Sri Lanka, part of the British Commonwealth –but the British left the island without negotiating an accord between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil  minority,  or  co-operation  or even compromise between the two distinct races.

        Over  the  next few years atrocities against Tamils by Sinhalas in Colombo and other

Tamil minority cities and towns over language, religion and politics, ignited riots by Tamils in the North and East of the island. At Panadura, near Colombo, the priest of a Tamil Hindu temple was burned alive.

        In May 1958, at India's insistence, the Sri Lankan Government declared a state of emergency, and more than 10,000 Tamils were moved from Colombo to Jaffna in the North and 12,000 put into 'protective camps', both the Government and Sinhalas blaming Tamils for the violence.

       And the injustice was felt deeply.

       Tamils of Indian origin had been deprived of their right to citizenship. Now Tamils, both ethnic and immigrant were being stripped of their right to their own language, and their identity as a separate race, and sorely regretted not demanding independence for themselves in 1948.

       The early struggles of the L.T.T.E were directed at the state's police-intelligence network, Tamil police officers and informants in the North, including Alfred Duriappah, Mayor of Jaffna, executed in July 1975.  In 1978 the L.T.T.E. massacred a police squad that had raided one of its camps. The Government responded with a law banning the L.T.T.E. and other similar groups. L.T.T.E protests continued, blowing up the single plane owned by Air Lanka after all passengers had disembarked, and Government troops were given extraordinary powers to deal with the problem which meant, in practice, torture, rape, and murder.

*          *          *

The Palaly-Jaffna road was mined, and guerrillas with grenades, semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and a machine-gun waited in silence.

       The prey was the Four Four Bravo Army patrol from the fortified Palaly Army barracks - a retribution attack for the rape of the three Tamil girls, and the killing of the two Tamil Tiger guerrillas.

       It was midnight on the Jaffna Peninsular and this ambush was to be, though unknown at the time to either the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or the Sri Lankan Army the spark that ignited an anti-Tamil pogrom of burning, torture, and killing by Sinhalas throughout Sri Lanka - and a bloody civil war that would go on for at least the next twenty years.

      Jack lay beside Velupillai Prabhakan, Commander-in-Chief of the L.T.T.E., on a small rise overlooking the dark palmyra palm fringed road. Velupullai grinned as he heard the first faint rumble of the Army Patrol. The others were spread out beside the road on both sides, invisible and silent as tigers waiting to pounce.

      Velupillai was a short and stocky middle-aged man with a face chiseled from the hard rock of many battles, a 9 mm Browning in a holster on one hip and a heavy Russian Army issue knife in a sheath on the other. A soft combat cap was pulled down over his bright black eyes.  He breathed slowly and evenly, relaxed yet alert, his mind focused – a crouching tiger, patient, yet eager for action.

       Jack  was  taller by a foot, several years younger, lean, and a body as strong and hard

as Velupillai’s. He was a christian activist, an unpaid soldier of fortune, defender of the oppressed. Over the years he had joined a disparate assortment of freedom fighters in several countries to fight communists and fascists and dictators – wherever he was needed and whoever needed him. Not enough for him, he answered if asked, to spend his time wiping the noses of christians in comfortable churches in the West or resolving petty disputes while others were being imprisoned for their faith, or raped, or tortured and killed. 

       He too lay relaxed, though unarmed, waiting. 

       Velupillai had decided to oversee this attack himself and insisted that Jack should come along as an observer. The soldiers in the fortified barracks at Palaly were under strict orders not to venture out in less than groups of six, and never at night unless on military duties.

       Velupillai had asked Jack’s advice on finding a way of luring them out, and at night.

       “Simple” said Jack “Get someone to sell you” 

       The younger cadres’ mouths fell open. Later, the Sri Lankan Security forces would offer a million-rupee reward for his capture and 500,000 rupees for Jack. But, now, no one dared think of selling Velupillai Prabhakaran.

       Velupillai roared with laughter and slapped Jack on the back.

       “Good. Very good Jack” he grinned.

       The next day someone telephoned the Army camp offering to sell Velupillai. The offer  was  too good to turn down. The best news the Sri Lankan Army had had for a long

time.

       The first jeep appeared around a bend. 

       The plan was to leave enough space for at least five vehicles to clear the bend before the first one hit the mines then destroy the last one with grenades, trapping the soldiers between two burning vehicles and Velupillai's men.

       There were four vehicles. First a jeep, the next an armored truck, then two more jeeps, filled with soldiers, to capture one man. They moved slowly and cautiously around the bend, indistinct under a tiger moon – a death-shroud of cloud covering a full moon - perfect for a typical Tamil Tiger ambush.

      The first jeep hit the mines and was thrown up in the air, the petrol tank exploding, then crashed down in a twisted burning heap, blocking the road – the soldiers on fire and screaming. Velupillai’s men threw grenades at the last jeep. It exploded and soldiers leaped from the other vehicles.

      Now the night was bright with orange flame and the noise of semi-automatic rifle-fire, pistols, and the machine-gun. The soldiers screamed, making no attempt to re-group, running in mindless panic, and in fear for their lives.

      For the guerrillas it was like shooting fish in a tank.   

      Then the shooting stopped.

      The guerrillas waited in the deathly silence, two jeeps still burning and lighting up the

death-strewn road. The soldiers that hadn't been killed and could run had ran, leaving their  wounded  comrades behind. Nothing on the road moved, only the fires, the smell of

cordite, and petrol in the air.

      Thirteen soldiers lay dead, and fifteen wounded. The guerrillas moved cautiously from cover, crouching, making no sounds. Velupillai and Jack watched them, and the terrain for a possible, if unlikely, surprise counter-attack.

     The guerrillas collected weapons and equipment, identification papers and money, from the dead and wounded. Two climbed in the one undamaged jeep, another scrambled

aboard the armored truck. A good haul for a few minutes easy work. The wounded were left untouched where they lay. The guerrillas were soldiers too, not murderers.

     Then the silence was broken with cheers of victory. The guerrillas hugged each other. Not one casualty among them. Velupillai hugged Jack, and kissed him on one cheek then on the other.

      “You are Tiger” Velupillai told him.

      Velupillai took from around his neck a four inch metal container on a chain and placed it around Jack’s neck, a capsule of potassium cyanide - the badge of a Tamil Tiger - and his men chanted “Tiger! Tiger!”

      Velupillai looked up at the dark sky.

      The moon was just emerging from its death-shroud of cloud.       

      “Code name Tiger Moon” he said.

When the news of the ambush reached Colombo the next day, it set off an explosion of anti-Tamil riots throughout the country. But, in itself, this incident was not the only cause

of the holocaust, which followed.

        There was, it was said, evidence of a pre-prepared plan in case of such an event, which had its base in the capital Colombo and extended to other areas where Tamils were in the minority - as an excuse for the Sinhalas to loot and burn Tamil businesses and homes, while the police stood by and, in some instances, joined in the looting and killing of wealthy Tamils.

        President J. R. Jayewardene, it was widely believed, intentionally failed to crack down on the Sinhala rioters or, at best, found he could not assert his authority over his Government forces. He did admit the riots showed  “a serious lack of discipline and a strong anti-Tamil feeling among the armed forces”.

      In two instances, one in Jaffna itself and the other in Trincomalee on the East coast, the army and the navy went about indiscriminately burning houses and attacking Tamils.

      The weeklong orgy of arson, looting and killing took place in Colombo and other cities and towns where the Tamils were in the minority. In Walikede prison near Colombo fifty-two Tamil political detainees were massacred in what was to be described by the Government simply as a riot. The pogrom destroyed at least 18,000 Tamil homes and 5000 Tamil businesses premises, drove 150,000 ethnic Tamils into refugee camps, and killed 3000 Tamils - their blood still visible on the streets for months afterwards.

The day after submitting an essay The Sri Lanka Government & the Tamil Tigers at the Reform School For Boys of Tamil Origin just outside Colombo,  a  twelve year old Jaffna

Tamil boy, Lawrence Naga, was invited to attend a private discussion with Dean Dr Chandra  Perera.

      Lawrence Naga was the only student invited – one of the new intake of petty thieves and troublemakers sent to Reform School in Colombo by the local Courts three weeks previously as part of a general mopping up operation in Jaffna by the SLA after the countrywide weeklong orgy of arson, looting and killing of Tamils by Sinhalas and the SLA.

      Both his parents had been killed in the riots in Jaffna. His older sister had disappeared, as had many thousands of Tamils.

      The discussion was scheduled to take place in the Dean’s private Study, a wondrous place of luxury compared with the rest of the school. Two overstuffed armchairs, a huge leather-topped desk, a polished oak and glass bookcase which everyone knew doubled as a drinks cabinet, and several comfortable chairs. On the walls Dr Chandra Perera displayed his Diplomas, Certificates, and Awards, and, beneath them, a display case filled with trophies, medals, silver cups, and ribbons. He had been honored several times by his country, his University, and won national academic acclaim and respected for his authoritative knowledge of his country’s cultural, social, and political history. He also desired international recognition, and had written a learned paper provisionally titled The Natural Inferiority of the Tamil Race but had, wisely, decided not to publish it during such troubled times. 

       A  tall   bony  and  cadaverous  man  with  a  much renowned social conscience and a

much publicized and lauded fervent desire to re-educate every Tamil sent to him by the Courts. 

      Lawrence was certain that if the Dean could have his way every Tamil in the country would be given one choice – return to Tamil Nadu, in India, or suffer the consequences. But Lawrence was not from Tamil Nadu, nor his parents or his grandparents, nor did he have any antecedents among the early plantation workers imported from Tamil Nadu by the British.

      He was as Sri Lankan as Dean Dr Chandra Perera himself.

     The Dean could smell a potential recidivist Tamil terrorist ten miles off, and this one was sitting only five feet away, a cheat, by attempting to pass off something cribbed from an official publication issued by the L.T.T.E only a few days ago as his own, and arrogant, by sitting there blatantly smiling knowing this could be his last day of freedom.

        What the Dean wanted, expected and silently demanded, from twelve year old Lawrence Naga, was tears of repentance and a plea not to be expelled, or the immediate activation of his suspended five year prison sentence.

        But Lawrence Naga did not cry. Nor did he plead.   

       “Do you want to go to prison?” the Dean was offering him one final opportunity to recant and accept re-education, as many before and many after him had and would do. 

        Twelve year old Lawrence Naga stood up, leaned with both hands on the leather-topped desk, his face close to the Dean, filled his mouth with sputum, then spat a long stream into the face of Dean Dr Chandra Perera.

        It was, Lawrence thought, probably the shortest and most succinct discussion the Dean had ever had.

Julianna and Lilley Sud found the boy in a cardboard box, with a note in Tamil saying “My name is Stefan. I am four years old. I am a Tamil and my mother is a christian. Please take care of me”. Julianna and Lilley lived with Margaret Naga in a three-story house - her parents’ home - just outside Kandy, and they took him home.

      Margaret adopted him. Her younger brother, Lawrence was lost. She was twenty years old, had not married. Julianna  and  Lilley, both 17 years, adequately filled that need, as she did for them.

     Now, they had a son too. The “family” was complete.

____________________

“If you have the courage to love, you survive, If you love unconditionally, you live. If you forsake all for others, you will never die”

1

Mike Slater and Big Frank Wilson carried only hand luggage as they came out of Katunayake International Airport, Colombo, Sri Lanka. They didn’t expect to be staying in Colombo any longer than it would take Mike to present Court Orders early tomorrow morning to Claire Marie and Jack Bailey for custody of Jason and Danielle Harrison - Big Frank was there to make sure Jack didn’t give them any unnecessary aggravation - then get back to the airport and catch the last evening flight back to the USA.

        Mike had phoned ahead, from the plane at ten dollars a minute, and got their address in Colombo from the British High Commission – and vaguely wondered why Jack hadn’t bothered to rent the apartment in Mount Lavinia under a different name. He hadn’t anywhere else, so Mike had been fairly certain he wouldn’t this time either.

       Colombo’s smart new airport was nice. They had booked a car, and a beautiful young Sri Lankan girl in a brown sari – the uniform for the girls at the Personal Assistance Counter – met them and guided them through to the waiting car. Big Frank leered at Mike, and nodded at the girl. Mike glared at him, and shook his head – a warning and a silent rebuke.

       Big Frank worried him when he got like this – a lot.

The view from the apartment verandah over the tops of the palm trees and the red-tiled roofs of Mount Lavinia to the beach and the Indian Ocean had been gradually disappearing all day.

      Now the breeze had become a wind, the palm fronds lashed the balcony, and the sea was all but lost beneath the darkening sky.

      Jack came up behind Claire Marie, his hands cupped her naked breasts, her nipples still hard from the last session, and breathed in her ear.

      Claire Marie shuddered with pleasure.

      “Again?” she asked him, pretending surprise “You're insatiable”

       She laughed, then turned and kissed him. He lifted her, legs around his waist, pressed her against the wall, and entered her.

       “God! Yes” she whispered.

       The children were asleep in the next room. They had already made enough noise to wake the children ten times over so another noisy session wouldn’t hurt – and she was, she knew, a very noisy lover.  They had started several hours ago, as soon as the children, and Baby Jane, were asleep, and Jack was still just warming up. He could go on and on. Their first session, two years ago, had lasted three whole days and nights, stopping only for fifteen minute breaks. A lot different from her alcoholic ex - or any of her few former lovers for that matter - with his ten-minute, including foreplay, lovemaking.

       The  three-roomed  apartment,  overlooking  the  Indian  Ocean,  was  nice  enough –

though not luxurious even by Sri Lankan standards – and reasonably cheap for its prime location status - but no air-conditioning, just a slow-moving ceiling fan. Originally it had only cane furniture, but she had found a second-hand western-style three-piece suite for the living room, three single western-style beds for the children and another western-style double-bed for them.

          The power cuts were becoming more frequent, two or even three times a week, and they had been warned that from tomorrow the water supply would be cut off between nine-thirty in the morning and nine-thirty at night – and even more severe cuts should be expected in future. They would have to use every bucket and pan to store the water for the day. It was not just inconvenient but a health hazard too – particularly for eighteen-month Baby Jane. Mosquitoes bred in stagnant water, bringing malaria and dengue disease.

         So far, fingers crossed, during the few weeks they had been in Sri Lanka, none of them had been really ill – though Jason had had a stomach problem and could hardly keep anything down for a week, and Susan had been bitten badly with mosquitoes – she’d  scratched the sores and now had what might turn out to be permanent scars on her arms and legs. The anti-malaria tablets they had brought with them had upset Danielle soon after they arrived. Thankfully, and so far, nothing had upset Baby Jane – maybe because she was still breast-feeding.

        Outside, the threatening storm was building up. If they didn't wake the children, the storm would. Claire Marie kissed Jack, her tongue in his mouth, going with him, her arms

around his neck, leaning back, moaning.

        “Yes! Oh yes!” she groaned, trying to keep her noise down.

         She exploded almost immediately.

         So did the storm, the wind rattling the shutters and thunder shaking the walls, and the rain coming down in torrents. Jack carried her to the bed, kissing her neck.

         “You are so beautiful” he said. 

         He opened her legs, lifted them over his shoulders, then entered her. She gripped his head, urging him on.

         He was a great lover.

         He had taught her almost all she knew about sex - despite thirteen years of marriage to an alcoholic, and the discovery that she knew virtually nothing about sex, or that men could also have multiple orgasms  – or, at least, this one did.

         Until meeting Jack, just two years ago, she had never heard of tantra and thought he had invented it just to get her into bed.  It had a purpose, Jack had said, was sex at its best, and it could heal her. She had had  bulimia for over ten years,  and stomach cancer from misuse of stronger and stronger laxatives, and had totally ruined her insides, and, even if she survived the cancer, her doctor said, she would never have more children.

       Jason and Danielle were it.

       Now, Baby Jane was lying asleep in her cot. Jack had brought Susan, his 14 year old daughter from his previous marriage in England – his oldest daughter, May, had refused to  come  -  saying  they  were  crazy if they thought she was going with them looking for

some phantasmagoric Shangri-la in the Himalayas – and preferred to  stay in the UK with her mother. 

       Jack had come straight out about tantra – as he did with anyone - take it or leave it. It will heal you, and, if not, you won’t be any worse, so why not? They had been sitting on high stools in a Pizza Bar, in Cleveland, Tennessee, eating a sea-food pizza. Jack had just told her what only her doctor knew – she hadn’t even told her parents about the stomach cancer, though of course they knew about the bulimia – and she almost fell off the high stool.

        Jack’s next sentence almost made her choke on her pizza.

       “I can heal you”

        She kept her poise.      

       “How?” she asked.

       “By going to bed with you”

        She picked at the pizza.      

        “Oh, I'm sure” she told him.

        Now she rolled him over, got on top and rode him, her hands on his waist, head back, gasping.

         “Go on” he encouraged her, meaning shout if she wanted to.

          She did.

          Much of the sex for her had been, until she met Jack, simply pretense for Jeffrey – and  the  occasional  lover.  Jack  had  had  to teach her how enjoy it without allowing her

social and religious conditioning to interfere.

          Now she was like a wet rag doll. He was still going strong. Not bad for a fifty seven year old, twenty years older than her, and with more sexual energy than a dozen younger men.

         The storm was raging, and still the children slept on. Jack pulled her down, turned her on her hands and knees, then slid inside her from behind.

          “I love you” he said.

          He knew how to please her with his fingers and tongue, often both together.

          Tantra, he had said, was not a religion, more a way of action, and was focused more on the woman than any other religion, elevated woman more than any other. It was the worship of the goddess in every woman by the god in every man.

          No room in tantra for the man simply getting off.

          No one, except Jack, had ever worshipped her.

          Tantric sex was divine.

          She did feel, with Jack, like a goddess.

          Adored.

          Beautiful.

          Loved.        

          The storm had now reached its height.

          So had she.

          His  tongue inside her, her legs round his neck, he slipped in his thumb, driving her

wild - panting, then screeching as the storm battered the shutters, fantasizing that maybe

Jack had even created the storm just to drown the noise she made.

        Finally, she collapsed, soaking with sweat, exhausted but happy.

Stefan didn’t know who his parents were, nor did Margaret or Lilley and Julianna. Margaret had simply told him that Lilley and Julianna had found him in a cardboard box when he was four years old, with a note saying his name was Stefan, his mother was Tamil and a christian, and asking whoever found him to look after him.

       Stefan was content with that. He was loved, and that was all that mattered. Nor did it bother him that Lilley and Julianna were not Margaret’s real sisters but her lovers. He grew up with it, accepting the unusual family setup.

      Then, when Stefan was nine years old, Lawrence, Margaret’s younger brother had suddenly turned up.

       At first, Lawrence was fun. He had been in prison in the North for twelve years, starting with a five year sentence then it had been increased for minor offences, and had finally heard that Margaret was still alive, and living in Kandy. Margaret had always assumed that Lawrence was dead. Many families had lost children, fathers and mothers, disappearances by either death or arrest. Now, he was the male heir to their dead parents property, and head of the family..

       It soon became apparent that Lawrence was opposed to the Tamil demand for a separate  homeland,  actively  fought  against it, and had created a secret militant neo-JVP

organization to fight Tamil activist groups and individuals – and used his influence as a kattidiya, a high priest and magician, and the fear that went with it, to fight the L.T.T.E – and other Tamil rebels – and was both hated and feared by both Tamils and Sinhalas.

       At the age of twelve Stefan had been sent by Lawrence to a secret Janatha Vimukto Peramuna youth training camp just a few miles outside the beautiful hill station of Nuwara Eliya. Lawrence had virtually single-handedly revived the JVP, destroyed by Government forces in the 1980’s, built a house not far away for his eventual retirement -and to personally oversee the training of youths as terrorists. Stefan was to be re-educated, as a Tamil, and trained to fight for the unity of Sri Lanka. 

      But within a month two doctors had diagnosed and confirmed leukaemia. Instead of being rejected, as Stefan had hoped, he was now an ideal volunteer for training as a suicide-assassin. He was virtually a prisoner. Margaret was distraught, fought, cried, but Lawrence was the head of the family now and his words and actions were law.

      Stefan often bunked off training and instead explored the surrounding area by bus and train – his natural bent, an explorer, emerged, and, dying, he decided to discover as much as possible, while his trainers found it useless trying to stop him.

      Nuwara Eliya is some 112 miles from Colombo, along the winding A4 road, and only 48 miles from Kandy. The road follows the course of the Mahaweli River from Peradeniya to Gompola - which was once the capital of Sri Lanka briefly in the fourteenth century.  From Gompola the road rises steeply through the Rambouda Pass tea estates.  Before the plantations were established this area was covered by thick jungle and

and inhabited by a rogue elephant.  Constructing the road, Stefan discovered, had been a dangerous task undertaken by a Major Skinner and his men in the early nineteenth century. Poisonous snakes that the Major named tic polonga bit two of his men, and he treated them with the only medicine he had – gunpowder, pouring it onto the wound then lighting it.

      Now, the poison of the tic polonga was used very effectively by the new JVP. Mixed with bark from the palmyra palm and certain types of fungi, it produced a slow death – often a near somnambulistic or zombie condition, ideal for reluctant suicide-assassins, and to ensure the death of the suicide-assassin in case of cowardice – there was no known antidote. Stefan made sure he didn’t appear too reluctant.

        His training was thorough. He learned to use small arms, semi-automatic weapons, to make molotov cocktails, then more sophisticated bombs. He was taught the special properties of the Czech explosive Semtex – how to shape it, and strap it around his body for the most effective blast – detonators, wiring, and timing devices.   

      Whatever happened, he had no intention of killing himself, and others, in a senseless suicide-attack.

Somebody was kicking and thumping at the apartment door and shouting in Sinhala.

       “Damn!” said Jack.

       Baby Jane woke and screeched.

       “What?” asked Claire Marie.

       Jack got up and wrapped a tie-dyed lunghi round him.

      “Better wake the tribe” he said.

       Claire Marie got out of bed, slipped into a pale blue wraparound, and opened the sliding door to the adjoining room.

       Jack went out.

       “Susan!  Jason! Danielle!” Claire Marie called at the three sleeping figures  “Come on. Get up”.

       Baby Jane was still screeching.

       Susan opened her eyes, instantly awake like her dad.

       “What’s happening Claire Marie?”

       “Don’t know. Sounds like trouble. Jason! Danielle!”  

       Danielle stirred.

       “Mom? What’s that banging?”   

       “Don’t know. Police maybe, who else? Come on, get up”

       She knew very well it must be the police. It had to happen one day, and today, it seemed, was it. 

        Something was about to happen.      

        Within days of meeting him, Jack had given her a simple but profound “insight” – a method of being both fully “involved” and, at the same time “distancing” herself from what was happening. It would, Jack had said, help her analyse her emotions – maybe even enjoy them - by observing them, rather than being “hurt” by them as a participant.

        The Observer was the “real self”, her Higher Self, and the Participant was the “me”, the Lower Self. Anyone, if they took the time, could “observe” the thoughts and emotions of the “participant” – the one “involved” – and conclude that, if such a thing was possible, there must be an Observer, and that the Observer was not the “me” – the “participant” – but a different Self – the “I”.

        Eventually, said Jack, she would be able to merge the “participant” with the “observer” so that she was in complete control of her thinking, her emotions and actions, and take personal responsibility for them, not blaming “things” or others, or ever again be controlled by them – or be a “victim”, or even a “casualty”.

      That was freedom. 

      And it “worked”, mostly.

      When she remembered.

      Jason groaned.

      “I’m innocent, honest mom”

       She heard Jack stumble across the small lounge, swear as he bumped into something, and then flick on the light beside the stairwell door.

       “Okay! Okay!” he called “Said I’d pay you in the morning, but this is ridiculous”

       He was starting his well-practiced innocent foreigner routine.

       Claire Marie went in, followed by Susan, then Jason and Danielle.

       The apartment door crashed open as Jack pulled back the bolt.

       Six  policemen  in khaki military style uniform, all with identical mustaches, carrying

lathis - long thick canes - pushed past Jack into the room, swearing in Sinhala, and started pulling out drawers, opening cupboard doors, throwing everything on the floor, overturning chairs, table and sofa and prodding the upholstery with their lathis.

       “Hey! What’s going on?” Jack protested “You can’t do that!”

       “Looks like they’re already doing it Dad” said Susan.

       A short fat policeman with gold braid on his cap snapped out a command in Sinhala and the others used their lathis to force them all against a wall. 

       “Okay!  Don’t  shove!  Hey!”  Jack pointed at one of them “He’s walking all over my Mickey Mouse tie!”

       “Just be glad you’re not wearing it Jack” said Jason.

       Baby Jane joined in, crying. Claire Marie blew in her ear, the Sri Lankan mother’s answer to most baby upsets.

       The short fat policeman with gold braid on his cap addressed them in English.

       He didn’t look too friendly.

       “I am Chief Inspector Ravi Shankakrishnamurthi, Sri Lanka Internal Security, Colombo City Police. Unless you co-operate you will be charged with conspiracy in the Tamil Tiger suicide bombing of a Security Forces vehicle in Colombo three weeks ago. Do you understand?”     

       His breath smelled of marsala - spices – and he looked at Jack as if he expected an immediate and full confession. 

      Claire Marie understood.

      So did Jack.

      She understood now why Babu had disappeared, and several other things Jack had kept from her. It was safer for them all that way. But it still worried her. This situation wasn’t unexpected, just nerve-jangling. And it was up to Jack to get them out of it.   

      However bad, even seemingly impossible, she knew he would.

      “What?” asked Jack “And the kids? What you think they are? Midget terrorists? No, we don’t bloody understand. Jesus! What do these people have to do to make the Government listen? And what does the Government have to do to make them stop?”

       “Jack” Claire Marie warned him. He ignored her and carried on.

       “We’re christian missionaries for christ’s sake! We don’t kill people, for any reason, and we don’t take sides. Impartial observers, that’s us. And we don’t much like what we observe”

        Chief Inspector Ravi Shankarkrishnamurthi grinned, moving his head side to side in the usual Sri Lankan manner.

        “Indeed, Mr  Thomson, or  Mr Bailey? You are aware, are you not, that two L.T.T.E. terrorists involved in blowing up a Government building two years ago were arrested at this apartment just ten days ago?”

         “How would I know that?” asked Jack “We’re not into politics, or power games”

         Chief Inspector Ravi Shankarkrishnamurthi shrugged.      

         “There are also police warrants out for your arrest in the USA. Kidnapping charges, I believe?”

         “A misunderstanding Inspector Murphy” said Jack.

         “Chief Inspector Ravi Shankakrishnamurthi” he corrected Jack.

         “Chief Inspector” said Claire Marie “It’s a family affair” Ravi Shankakrishnamurthi looked at her.

         “Indeed, Mrs Bailey?  However, you will find the Sri Lankan authorities very understanding if you co-operate. You help us. We help you. It was your babu who detonated the bomb, and decapitated himself in the process” he took a creased and greasy photo from his breast pocket “Can you identify this person as your babu?”

          Only  a head.

          Babu.

         “Did he leave anything with you?  An envelope? A list of names, perhaps?”

          Jack whistled, and shook his head.

         “Nasty!  Where’s the rest of him?  No. Our babu was taller”

         “Jack” Claire Marie warned him again, then smiled sweetly at the policeman.    

         “Chief Inspector, we’ve never seen this boy. He wasn’t our babu. We have no envelope, and no list of names.  And I object to you and your men bursting in here at four

o’clock in the morning and accusing my husband. In civilized countries the accused…”

          “Indeed, ma’am?” he stopped her  “Mr Bailey isn’t your husband. We’re not sure yet who he is, but he seems to have made lying a profession, perhaps even an art form, and it appears to be contagious, yes? Your parents are convinced that Mr Bailey has mesmerized  you.  They  have even hired people to find you, and rescue the children. You

are all, it seems, fugitives, and you may be in grave moral danger”

          “Oh, I don’t know” said Jack.

          “I was referring to Mrs Bailey and the children” said Shankakrishnamurthi “However, we are aware that some misinformed and misguided foreigners are sympathetic to the L.T.T.E. and actively helping them. You, of course, are completely innocent”.

          Jack said nothing.

         “Another misunderstanding, yes?” Ravi Shankarkrishnamurthi went on “But in view of your situation here in Sri Lanka, we must regard you as possible suspects. I have no interest in your domestic problems and we sometimes ignore official requests for extradition” he moved his head side to side “However, unless you hand over that list of names by nine o’clock tomorrow morning you need not worry about the American police or the people chasing you”, he paused, then “The penalty for terrorist activity in Sri Lanka is life imprisonment” he touched his cap in a mock salute “Good morning. Have a nice day”

Stefan was too ill to take the rigorous day to day routine of the training camp, and his heart wasn’t really in it. Lawrence finally capitulated, calling him a coward and saying no

one really knew if he was Tamil anyway, on condition Stefan helped the cause in other ways.

       Stefan agreed.

       Anything to get out of the spartan and filthy training camp, and back to Kandy.

       Lawrence spent most of his time out of the house in Kandy, at his own house at Nuwara Eliya, or elsewhere, leaving Stefan and Margaret, and Lilley and Julianna, to live their own lives, except for occasionally using Stefan as a messenger boy between Kandy and Lawrence’s cells, wherever they were.  

        At first, Stefan was at a loss what to do. There was a limited need for his training and particular skills, and his illness curtailed his choices further – the medical prognosis was a lifespan of less than eighteen months, but they had also said the same thing every year for the last five years.

        Lilley and Julianna tried to interest him in their sexual ménage-a-trois with Margaret. At seventeen, they judged, Stefan needed instruction, and an interest in women. Stefan tried, simply out of kindness to his step-sisters, but it didn’t work.

       Margaret decided he needed a girl closer his own age.

       She was eighteen, a sex-worker, a Westerner with long blonde hair, and her name was Elizabeth.

       The first session was a disaster, until Elizabeth realized that Stefan was a virgin and took charge of the situation. She was very good at what she did, and found ways around his sudden failure at crucial moments. She was fun too. Much of the night they talked, laughed - and played on Stefan’s MegaDrive.

         In the morning, after Elizabeth had left, Margaret and Lilley and Julianna were impatient to hear how things had gone.

         “Great” Stefan told them, and left it at that.  

         They were pleased, if disappointed he wouldn’t go into any details but didn’t press him.

         Stefan and Elizabeth met in the town, and she took him to the Hotel Suisse for a swim, then lunch – second only to, but more expensive than, the Queen’s Hotel. It had a swimming pool, which the Queen’s did not, and was where Elizabeth usually found her best clients.

         She swam like a mermaid, he swam like a turtle.

         Over lunch – seafood, served on silver platters – they shared their stories, told each other jokes, then Elizabeth told him she needed to get back to work.

        “Call me sometime” she told him.

        “Where?”

         Elizabeth laughed.

        “Here, of course” she waved her hand, indicating the entire hotel “This is where I work” 

It was a short walk to the beach across a railway line, Susan pushing Baby Jane in the buggy, Jason and Danielle arguing who had been most scared, Jack in the doghouse and sulking but still holding Claire Marie’s hand.

       “Well, so much for Paradise” said Jack.

       “You shouldn’t have antagonized Ravi Shankakrishnamurthi like that” she said “We

are trying to keep a low profile, remember?”

       The early morning glare off the Indian Ocean dazzled them. Jason hopped over a fresh deposit of human excrement. Danielle was walking with Susan, baby-talking with Baby Jane.

       Jack had kept the details of his involvement with the L.T.T.E. from Claire Marie, and the children, to protect them. The less they knew, Jack and Claire Marie had agreed, the less they could tell if Jack was arrested and the police used them to put pressure on him.

       Like all Tamil Tigers, Jack wore a potassium-cyanide capsule around his neck. That, too had been discussed, and Jack had left Claire Marie in no doubt he would use it - rather than betray his friends.

       Maybe, Claire Marie thought. Blowing up Government buildings was one thing, but this - the BlackTiger suicide-bombing of an army vehicle and injuring policemen – was something else. 

       Something that Jack hadn’t discussed.

       In fact, nothing had been discussed in the apartment. They had made a habit of talking about such things during frequent walks on the beach – just in case the apartment was bugged, as it probably was. Nor did Jack invite his friends, or discuss anything to do with what he did with Babu. While he was in the apartment, Babu was simply a well-paid

houseboy.

      Was this was taking “detachment” too far Claire Marie wondered.

      Jack  had  a  deep  “awareness” of the history of evolution, and the place of individual

actions, social and cultural effects, and its relevance to how the world functioned today.

      He had told her to discover for herself her own “line” back through her parents, her grandparents, her social and cultural history, and from there her “connection” with the entire evolution and history of humankind, then she would “see” the reason, and the purpose, she was here now and the direction her future should take.

       She hadn’t quite got the “hang” of that yet – or that nothing, in itself, was either “good” or “bad”, but simply maya – “illusion” – a “pantomime” with many of the “actors” unaware it was not “real”, or even that inside the “pantomime horse” were “real” people, and once the “pantomime” was over they would all “realize” the “truth”.

      But, right now, Claire Marie admitted, she still “saw” her “pantomime horse” as a “real” horse.       

       As a special treat, and because she was too tired too cook, they had lunch at the open-air restaurant on top of the Homeopathy Teaching University building. Claire Marie liked it because it had the best seer fish and chips in Colombo.       

       Not that Mount Lavinia was really Colombo - except in the guidebook - just a coastal suburb. No iron and steelworks here and no smelly oil refinery. But a good beach and a great swimming pool for when the sea was too rough to swim in.

      “How’s the book coming, mom?” Jason asked.

      “Okay” she said “Catching up. Not an easy thing to do in this family”

       Claire Marie was writing a journal of their travels – and her “experiences”.

      “Dad” Susan began, then cleared her throat nervously “That list Shankakrishnamurthi

wants…”   

      “What about it?” Jack asked “Babu didn’t give me a list”

       Jack never kept anything that might incriminate him, or them, in whatever accommodation they had.

       Jack looked at Susan.

       “Well?”  he asked.   

       “Well … maybe he meant the list Babu gave me and Jason and Danielle”  she said.      

       Jason and Danielle were eating intently, heads down, giving her no moral support.

       “Susan” Claire Marie said.

       “Babu  said  if  anything  happened to him, I should give it to the Security Forces, not

the police” Susan took a folded piece of paper from a pocket of her jeans and handed it to Jack.

         Jack scanned the piece of paper in silence, then looked at Susan.

        “Why didn’t you say?”

        “They were…” Danielle began.

         Susan gave her a withering look.

        “We were not!”

        “Well, no real harm done” said Claire Marie “We’ll just hand it in tomorrow morning”

          Jack looked at her.

         “No.  Ravishing Murphy will charge us with conspiracy. And everybody on this list

will be arrested and tortured”

         “Can’t we just destroy it?” she asked.

         “No” said Jack  “Ravishing  Murphy  has no real proof. Babu’s dead.  It’s over” he

tapped the list  “All we have to do now is get to Jaffna. The police will be watching sea and airports. If things get tough this could be our only ticket out.  We’re in the middle of a civil war. And we’re piggy-in-the-middle”

Elizabeth was born in the East End of London, then moved with her mother to Bristol after her dad had run off with another woman when Elizabeth was nine years old. Her mother was in her late twenties, very pretty, and had lots of lovers. When Elizabeth was twelve, her mother met and married a man from New Delhi, with a nine-year-old son, Andrew, and three huge houses with servants, and swimming pools.

          In India things hadn’t gone as well as promised. The house, with its swimming pool and three cars, was nice but Elizabeth was virtually a prisoner in it, and never allowed out alone. The servants didn’t speak English, only Andrew. So she spent time with him, slowly learning Hindi, Sinhala and Tamil. She seduced him when he was twelve, she was fifteen, though he had been looking at her for months, and it happened one afternoon while her mother and step-father were out and the servants asleep.  

         They did it several times after that, then one afternoon a servant had come in unexpectedly, seen them, and reported it to his father. Nothing happened so they carried on,  less  cautiously.  Then, one day, her step-father raped her, saying that if his son could

have her, so could he. Elizabeth told her mum. Her mum and her step-father had a fight –her step-father insisting that Elizabeth had been after him for some time, and it wasn’t rape – she had been more than willing.  It was, in the end, a simple choice. Either she left, with Elizabeth, and returned to England with nothing, or Elizabeth was sent to live with his sister Gomer, Andrew’s Aunt in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. Her mum agreed. Andrew had a big fight with his father about it, and he too was banished - they would go to Batticaloa together.

        For a while Elizabeth occupied herself, under the ever watchful - and irksome – eye of Aunt Gomer.  Elizabeth liked Batticaloa, on a spit of land with the open sea on one side and a huge - if shallow and a little muddy - lagoon on the other with its “singing fish”, an eerie sound, particularly on full moon nights. No one knew what it really was.

         Some said it was the spirits of the dead.

         Fishermen thought it was top-sail catfish, shellfish, mollusks, or simply the sea passing over holes in the coralline rock. But, whatever it was, the best way to hear it was to take a rowing boat out into the middle of the lagoon, on a full moon night, lower an oar to the bottom of the lagoon and put an ear to the other end of the oar - it was like a ghostly orchestra tuning up or a distant and plaintive tiger in the jungle, not at all like “singing fish”. When Andrew left after a fierce quarrel with Aunt Gomer, Elizabeth went too - first to Colombo, where she couldn’t get a job, then on to Kandy.

         In Kandy, she lived with a pimp who took most of the money she earned from men, then  moved  out  and worked for herself. Then she discovered she had HIV, and after she        

she had spent all the money she had on drugs and doctors, Elizabeth asked the British High Commission in Colombo to repatriate her. They refused, time and time again. Her mum and step-father were still in India, her step-Aunt in Batticaloa, it was up to them to pay, or some other relative or friend in England.

          She had practically given up the idea.

The dusty rusted diesel train screeched and shuddered, slowing, making the natives sleeping and sitting on the roofs of the carriages and clinging to both sides hold on to something, swearing in Sinhala and Tamil, and finally clanked to a halt amid a cacophony of protests.

         Jason threw out the bulging holdall then jumped down onto the gravel beside the track and stood looking around.

        Danielle shouted at him.

        “Jason. Help me down”

         Jason ignored her.

        “Mom” she complained “Tell him”

        “Jason” Claire Marie told him “Help your sister”

         Jason sighed, then helped Danielle down.  Claire Marie was next, holding Baby Jane, with Susan behind her, then Jack.

        “I’ll take Baby Jane” Susan said “You get down”

         She took Baby Jane.

        “Thanks” said Claire Marie, then climbed down. Susan handed Baby Jane to her then jumped down. 

         Susan looked up at her dad.

         Jack was staring at the hills.

         “Dad?” she asked “You coming, or not?”

         Jack climbed down.

        “All right everybody?” he did a quick count, then said “Jason? Where’s the bag?”

        “Got it right here”

        “Should we move?” asked Danielle wearily “Don’t think the natives are too pleased we stopped the train in the middle of nowhere”

         The train suddenly lurched, coughed and belched out a cloud of black diesel smoke, then lurched again and started to move. It picked up speed, clanking, the passengers still complaining and some now waving fists at them, until it rounded a hill and was gone. The sound of the engine slowly faded until all they could hear was the clicking of crickets.

         “Jack” said Danielle “Where are we exactly? All I can see is hills, and more hills”

         “Well, it’s a lot cooler than Colombo” said Susan.

         “It’s a lot cooler than the Sahara Desert” Jason told her  “But that doesn’t tell us where we are”

         Claire Marie looked at Jack.

        “Well?” she asked.

         Jack grinned and kissed her on the cheek.

        “Love you” he smiled “Lots and lots”

Lawrence dropped in, to have sex with Lilley and Julianna, whenever he chose. It was his right, as head of the family – and both Lilley and Julianna were family whenever it suited

him. He left Margaret alone – unless he was drunk. She could be fiery, and obstinate, when pushed, and Lawrence was never quite sure about her.

       Julianna was usually willing, Lilley a little less so, and both accommodated him whenever he arrived – sometimes as a ménage-a-trois. He enjoyed watching them make love to each other – the tenderness, and sheer inventiveness, of two women making love – and they were both willing to perform for him.

       He could relax here – forget, for awhile, the troubles his country was suffering, and his own efforts to put things right.          

They were going to India and, eventually, Siddha Loka, a “mystical” valley in the Himalayas. Legend – and Jack – said that the remotest parts of the Himalayas were the home for many rishis, tapasvis and siddhyois – Eternal Masters engaged in sadhana dedicated to cosmic exploration and guiding the destiny of humanity through the ages. They live, so it was said, in caves in glacial conditions, and some in ashrams situated in verdant valleys but at a vibratory frequency at variance with the “normal” three or four dimensional  vibratory  frequency – analogous  to the two-dimensional expanding surface

of a balloon being inflated. As the balloon is inflated, points on the surface move apart in the same way as stars. But is that all? No, said Jack. Space and time is moving too – creating alternative universes, and much more.

       There are an infinite number of alternate “realities”. Every action or choice gives rise to yet another “reality” – ad infinitum – some virtually identical with this one, others vastly different, similar to photos taken of the same person within moments, or years apart. Everyone knows a little about the physical evolution of life on this planet, but there is also historical, social, family, and individual evolution.

      Mankind can no longer physically evolve any further but evolution does not simply stop. Like a river, it takes another route to the ocean – consciousness. People are increasingly aware – helped by quantum physics, studies of the human mind, and a resurgence of interest in the “spiritual nature” of humankind – that they are more than physical bodies and creators and consumers of material resources.

       An awareness that atoms are mostly space and energy, that elementary particles seem to react to human observation, and can be in two spaces at the same time, go forward or backward in time, and appear to be influenced by human expectation and intention, all goes against the mechanistic model of Isaac Newton as acting in a predictable and therefore perfectly understandable manner.

      The “esoteric” – once the domain of the “unscientific” and the simply “weird” – was now fast becoming the New Science, the science of the New Man. 

       Siddha Loka, said Jack was an alternate “reality” – and as “real” as this one.

       But first, they had to get to the Jaffna Peninsular - and the Eelam Shipping Service at Point Pedro at the northernmost tip of Sri Lanka, the L.T.T.E. method of getting wanted people out of Sri Lanka, and new recruits from India.

       Between the Jaffna Peninsular and them were thousands of Sri Lankan and L.T.T.E. troops fighting for Jaffna - and hungry Army deserters, renegade Tamil soldiers, displaced and angry civilians suspicious of foreigners, mountains and rivers to cross.

        And minefields.

        Behind them were the police, and men her dad had hired to find them.     

        Okay.

        Both Danielle and Jason had been born in the States, from a marriage that had lasted thirteen long years, and three years of living together before that, to an alcoholic too timid even to ask her to marry him – he had got his brother to do it.  Meeting Jack was the best thing that had happened in her life, though her mom and dad hated him almost on sight, mainly because he was twenty years older – as old as her dad – and, suddenly, Jeffrey no longer seemed so bad to them – despite the fact they had been down on him for years, for his drinking and timidness. By then, the marriage had been over for several years – and the divorce finalized two years earlier – so, legally and morally, she was free to have a relationship with whomsoever.

       But not to dad.

       He used to tell her that, when she was eighteen years old, she could do whatever she

liked  –  but  it  didn’t  work out that way. Then it was when she got married. She married

Jeffrey when she was twenty, and dad still interfered – saying Jeffrey needed guidance.  

       True, he did, but it was still just another excuse not to let her go.

       Then when Jack appeared – a man his own age and far too strong to be controlled – a well-known British psychic, which was what dad had always wanted to be, and a spiritual teacher, dad’s jealousy and ire at this foreigner just walking in and taking over his daughter’s – and grandchildren’s – life was total.

        Dad called him a fraud, a con-man, a shyster – and anything that might frighten her off him. It didn’t. What she saw was what she had never found in her twenty years in the Salvation Army – or in her dad’s own pretence as a Spiritualist – the reality of spiritual experience, and definite and quantifiable results. What he said usually turned out to be accurate, and what he did worked.

        Until then, Claire Marie had just about given up. She was dying, and all anyone had been able to offer so far was not provable and doubtful beliefs. Jack healed her of a ten year bulimia problem, and stomach cancer, in less than six weeks – and the method he used proved that dad was right after all – never mind that it had actually worked, and her children would have a mother for a lot longer than they might have had. Both Jason and Danielle took to him right away – he was fun, could do amazing things. Jason was eleven years old, and was soon having his own experiences – a thinker and was pleased that Jack

took him seriously, and took time to explain what he didn’t understand. Danielle was thirteen years old, fascinated but not so interested in magic, and loved his sense of humor

and stronger character than her dad’s.

       They both still visited Jeffrey, some weekends and school holidays, but now they had moved to Culver City, Los Angeles – and Jack had moved in – so the visits were a little strained and became less and less frequent. Then Claire Marie got pregnant – another miracle – with Baby Jane. The relationship between her and Jeffrey, and her dad, grew worse.

       Then, a big scandal.

       The LA Times published a feature on Jack – and the method he used to heal.

       Sex.

       Other city newspapers took it up. Dad was publicly disgusted and infuriated – but secretly pleased that Jack had finally been exposed for what he really was – nothing but a lecher, preying on vulnerable women – and quickly started Court proceedings, citing Claire Marie as an unfit mother, and claiming custody of his grandchildren for Jeffrey.

       It was, it seemed, a good time for them to visit the UK. Jason and Danielle were excited - and eager to meet Susan and May, Jack’s daughter’s from his previous marriage.  Susan was fourteen, and May a year older – but May was still angry with Jack for leaving her mother – and Susan wanted to be with Jack. It was in England they heard that Claire Marie’s dad had got a Court Order prohibiting Claire Marie and Jack taking Jason and Danielle out of the USA.

        Too late.

        Jack thought Jakarta might be far enough away, and he had friends there.

       They  were  there  a  month  before  they  heard that Claire Marie’s dad had hired two

men to find them and bring Jason and Danielle back to the USA – they left for Singapore, then Rangoon, then Sri Lanka.

       Now, it seemed, the two men were still on their trail.

       Claire Marie looked at Jason, Danielle, and Susan. Baby Jane was sleeping on a blanket on the grass.

       She didn’t regret any of it.      

       Jack was standing on the brow of a hill, a hand shading his eyes.

       The rolling green hills as far as she could see, the valley below and the breeze making the grass ripple, was beautiful. 

       Jack had told her that an awareness of beauty, whether in nature, animals, humans, art, music, poetry, was an awareness of the “energy” that formed the basis of all things – from that “energy” we experience love, and then can use that “energy” to heal the physically ill, assist spiritual development – and was the first step to seeing “auras”, something she had wanted to do but so far, had not.

        Now she could see a distinct “shimmer” outlining the hills – a heat-haze, maybe, but there nevertheless. She plucked a blade of grass and held it at half an arm’s length, then tried to look slightly past it – in the same way you can often see a distant star only by not looking directly at it. There was a definite “blurring” – maybe because her eyes were unfocused – and a paler green “outline” with a faint blue tinge. 

       Jack had been able to see “auras” – the “energy field” around everything – since birth,  and  said  that  all  children did up to a certain age but then lost it, and several other

abilities – such as “past lives” memory, a “oneness” with others and things, and the ability just to “be” – and the remainder of their lives was the struggle to recapture the joy of all that, often mistaken for “happiness” which sent them off in another direction entirely – the search for money, fame, power.

       It was more important, Jack said, to “feel” or “experience” the “energy field” of things rather than see them – and to learn how to use that energy. It wasn’t a “plaything”, anymore than was electricity, but the power that creates and sustains the universe, and much more – an “experience” of love far deeper and richer than the purest human love.

        “Mom?” asked Jason “Are we running away, again?”

         Claire Marie looked at him.

        “What makes you think we’re running away?”

         Jason and Danielle and Susan knew less about what Jack did than Claire Marie.

        “Getting woke up at three o’clock in the morning for one thing” said Susan  “That doesn’t happen unless we’re in trouble”

        “And we usually are” said Danielle.

        “And Jack bringing his Mickey Mouse tie” said Jason.

         It was true.

         A sign that they had left for good was Jack’s Mickey Mouse tie and his Donald Duck socks. Jack always packed them, or wore them, when he knew they wouldn’t be coming back.    

        “That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re running away” said Claire Marie.   

        “Always has before” said Danielle “What did he do, forget his Donald Duck socks?”

        “No” said Susan “I packed them for him” she looked up “Oh, oh. Here comes Indiana Jones”

         Jack was heading back down the hill.

        “And looking like Doom” said Danielle.

         Jack flopped down beside Claire Marie, sweating and panting.

        “The book says you can see Kandy from those hills” he said.

        “Oh? And can you?” she asked.

         They were lost.

         She sighed.

         Jack grinned.

        “Yes”

        “You!” Jason punched Jack’s arm, then jumped on him. Danielle screeched and joined in, all three rolling in the grass, play fighting, shouting and laughing.

         Susan, watching, sighed. Claire Marie knew exactly how she felt.

        “What did I do to deserve a crazy dad?”

         Claire Marie smiled at her, and shrugged.    

        “You didn’t have a choice, honey. We’re the ones bought the funny farm”

Stefan wasn’t sure he liked the idea.

         As   usual,   Lawrence   refused   him  details,  and,  to  make  it  worse,  it  involved

Elizabeth.  

         But he was just the messenger.

         If he was clever, it might well be something he could use.

         He agreed.

They stood on top of a range of hills looking down on Kandy with its sloping roofs, hotels, a lake sparkling with the sun on it, several monasteries, and the magnificent Dalada Maligawa - the Temple of the Tooth - and the Mahaweli River looping around the town.

          Jack pointed at the Temple of the Tooth.

        “There she is. The famous Temple of the Tooth. Impressive, eh?”

         Susan snorted.

        “Yuk! It’s like a giant pink fairy cake”

         It was the first day of the Esala Perahera, Sri Lanka’s biggest annual festival. The town was decorated and festooned with pink lotus blossoms, white frangipani, and jasmine. Bunting was strung across the streets, doorways, and on cars and taxis.

        “I’m hungry” said Jason.

        “Dad!” said Susan “If we’re staying, can we leave the Tooth for another day and just eat?”

         “We’re all tired and hungry” said Claire Marie “Don’t think I could face a tooth on an empty stomach, even if it is the Buddha’s”

        “That’s what I like … support!”  said Jack “Just thought you might all appreciate a bit of native culture. But if you’d rather eat…”         

          All three cheered.

Elizabeth was slightly taken aback when she received a call to her room from the reception desk asking if a Mr Lawrence Naga might come up to see her. It wasn’t a name she was familiar with – not a regular client. When she was informed that Mr Naga said he was Stefan Naga’s step-father, Elizabeth asked for him to be sent up.

         Elizabeth did a quick tidy of the room, checked herself in the dressing-table mirror, and waited. Why would Stefan’s step-father want to see her? She distrusted all men. Whatever their reasons, the motive was usually the same. But, if that is what he wanted, why not just say so and pay? No need to mention his relationship with Stefan. She’d had both father and son before – neither knowing that the other had been with her.

        So, what did he want?

       Elizabeth waited several seconds after the doorbell chimed, then opened the door.

       Lawrance was tall, and good looking.

       Very.

      He smiled, and moved his head side to side.

      Cute.

     “Elizabeth Brown?” he asked, perfect white teeth gleaming in a chocolate-colored face.

       Brown wasn’t her name, but it was the name in which she was registered in the hotel.

       He had obviously checked.

       Clever.      

      “Yes” Elizabeth smiled at him “And you are Stefan’s step-father?”

       He smiled again, moving his head side to side.

       “Yes. Lawrence” he said “Please forgive my intrusion, but may I have just a little of your time?”

        Elizabeth stepped back, and motioned him in.

       “Of course. Please”

       Usually she would have told him exactly how much a “little” of her time would cost him – depending also on what he wanted – but, this time, she simply asked “Coffee, tea, or a cold drink?”

        Lawrence smiled, and shook his head.

        “Thank you  … illai … water perhaps?”

        He sat.

        Elizabeth poured iced water into a sparkling clean glass, and handed it to him.

        “Nandri … as-thu-thi …”  he  said,  then  “Stefan tells me you speak both Tamil and

Sinhala reasonably well?”

        “As-thu-thi … nandri … ov … ahmam  … yes” she said, then “What is it you want Mr Naga”

        “Ah  …  ahmam  …  straight   to  the  point”  Lawrence  put  down  his  glass  “Your

assistance, Elizabeth … if I may be so bold?”

They took two rooms at the Queen’s Hotel, a beautiful antiquated Victorian building, and

ordered dinner in the palatial dining room, with a wonderful view of the lake and the Dalada Maligawa, served by waiters that might have served QueenVictoria – throwbacks

to the obsequious years of the British Raj.

        It was crowded with tourists - Asian and Westerners - come for the Esala Perahera, and buzzed with conversation and calls to the busy but always polite waiters.

        Eventually two waiters, one for each of their two tables, returned with an array of dishes - egg and string hoppers, curried fish, par-cooked vegetables, bowls piled high with steaming rice, roti and popudoms.

       “Can’t see the lake…” Danielle complained.

       “Well, turn your chair round” said Jason.

       “It’s not fair” said Danielle “You had the window seat on the train”

       “There weren’t any windows on the train”

       “Mom. Tell him”

       “Hey, you two. Why do you always have to argue?” said Claire Marie “Danielle, if you really want to see the lake, turn your chair”

Elizabeth looked at Lawrence.

        “How do I know I can trust you?” she asked him.

        Lawrence shook his head.

        “Ne-he … you can’t trust anyone. I am not asking for your trust. Your co-operation only”

        “And?”

        Lawrence shrugged.

        “If you do what I ask …” he paused, then “You get what you want”

After dinner Jack and Claire Marie took a stroll through the hotel, while Susan and Danielle and Jason stayed in their room with Baby Jane, exhausted, having a nap. The Queen’s was supposedly the second oldest hotel on the island, and the polished wooden interior, ancient weapons and antique chamber pots on display apparently testified to the fact. They had a drink in one of the two bars, a quick look in the jeweler’s shop and the bookshop. There was no swimming pool but, they were told, they could use the pool at the Hotel Suisse across the lake with its billiard room and better selection of shops.

        When they got back, Susan and Danielle and Jason were ready, had dressed Baby Jane, and were excited.

        “Okay …” said Jack “Let’s go”

Elizabeth had been sitting on her patio watching the evening sun gleam on the golden roof of the Temple.

        Now it was time to leave for the Esala Perahera.

The streets were filled, almost shoulder to shoulder, with people shouting and dancing.

        Claire Marie carried Baby Jane close, elbows protecting her from the exuberant crowd, Jack in front pushing through, then Danielle, Jason and Susan. The noise of the exploding fireworks, horns and drums, obliterated anything they tried to say.

         “Everybody okay?” Jack shouted.

         Susan almost tripped over Jason.

         “Jason!” she shouted at him “Watch where you’re going!”

         The roadside seats were full.

         They found the seats they had booked, then had to stand to see the costumed and masked dancers and drummers  - the air thick with incense and the smell of cordite.

         Susan attempted to shout something to Jack, but it was lost in the noise. She leaned close to Claire Marie.

       “The elephants should be next, led by the big one. The Maligawa Tusker!”

       “What?” asked Claire Marie.

       “The Temple elephant!” she shouted in her ear “It carries the Sacred Tooth!”

         Claire Marie nodded, smiled at Susan, and looked along the row.

         Danielle wasn’t there.

        “Where’s Danielle?” she shouted in Susan’s ear.

         Susan looked along the row then back at Claire Marie, shook her head and shouted in her ear.

         “She was next to Jason”

          Susan shouted at Jason.

          “Jason! Jason!”

          He didn’t hear. Susan shouted again, almost a screech. Jason turned and looked at her, annoyed.

         “Where’s Danielle?” Susan shouted.

          Jason shrugged and pointed at his ear, shaking his head.

         “Where’s Danielle?” Susan yelled

         “Don’t know” he shouted “Didn’t see her go”

         “Jack! Jack!” Claire Marie shouted.

          Jason nudged him and he turned to look at her.  Claire Marie pointed at the empty

seat beside him.

         “Danielle’s gone!” she yelled at him “Danielle’s gone!”

____________________

“He who practices Sukhasana becomes an immobile, frozen, transcendent sculpture of living flesh – and dwells in freedom beyond space and time”

2

Mike Slater was slightly disappointed, but in no way despondent.

         The apartment was empty, the birds had flown - yet again - but a check with the local police had revealed that he and Big Frank were now only two or three days at the most behind them. They had made up almost a week, missing them by that much in Jakarta, a little less in Singapore, then only four days in Rangoon.

         Frank Wilson, his partner for the last two years, was less optimistic. He was a big man, the “heavy” in the partnership - not a thinker. Mike had to keep reminding him that at one hundred and twenty US dollars a day, plus expenses, it didn’t really matter how long it took to find them and get the two kids safely back to the USA – find them they would. That usually calmed him down, plus the notion of giving Jack Bailey a beating when they caught up with him, even though their orders were no violence. Frank had his own idea of what constituted violence.

        So far, the law was on their side. They were in possession of USA Court Orders to retrieve Danielle and Jason Harrison, and return them to the custody of their father, Jeffrey Harrison, in Cleveland, Tennessee – and Claire Marie’s father was paying them generous rates, plus more than enough for first class airfares, the best hotels, food, hire cars,  and  any additional  expenses.  That included getting drunk, girls, or whatever – and

in the two months they had been chasing their quarry across Asia, they had spent over a thousand US dollars a day.

       Mike couldn’t understand what Frank was complaining about.

       Maybe, like Jack Bailey, he was English and didn’t know when he was well-off, and always found something to complain about. Frank had been a bouncer in a London nightclub. He had wanted to be a boxer, but an eight year prison sentence for raping a thirteen year old schoolgirl and a severe beating in prison had left him with just enough compos mentis to get him a job where brawn, not brain, was the essential requisite. 

      They had teamed up two years ago, when Frank was about to be extradited from the USA to England for armed robbery, and Mike had pulled a few strings with friends of friends in the US State Department. Since then, Frank had watched his back and, Mike knew, in any tight spot he could always depend on him, though his eagerness for a fight, particularly when he was drunk, was an ongoing problem.

       Frank accepted that Mike was the brains of the outfit and trusted him. But Mike had learned not to push Frank beyond his limits. That meant not allowing him too much confusion, or alcohol, or money, when they were on a job. Any, or all three, could easily push him over the edge of common sense - let alone simple intelligence.

       In Jakarta Frank had got drunk, on a night off, lost ten dollars on blackjack because nobody had told him that an ace also counted as eleven. He had wrecked the tiny gambling joint, owned by a local “mafia” man, and almost got them both gutted and hung out to dry.      

     Now, Frank was on the verge of being pissed off.

     He needed a drink.

     There was none in the ransacked apartment. The police had virtually trashed the place, looking for whatever, and had no doubt confiscated anything worth having. Mike had gone down, leaving Frank with his head in his hands on the sofa, and paid an auto driver to get them arak.

      They were still waiting.    

      Mike sat down beside him, lit two cigarettes and gave one to Frank.

      It helped.

      “Look at it this way” Mike told him “They can’t go South, East or West. Nothing there now but ocean, right?”

       Frank looked at him. He didn’t know.

      “They can only go North. Right?” he paused to let that go in, then “India …” another pause “And how far can they get in two, maybe three, days. No flights to Jaffna, okay? So they got to take a car, or a bus or a train’

        “Why?” asked Frank.

        “Because of all the fucking fightin”

        That got his attention.

        “What fuckin’ fightin’?”

         Mike sighed.

       “Never  mind.  Listen.  They  got  to hide out somewhere, right? So where would two

white folk, with three white kids and a baby, hide out?”

         Frank looked at him.

        “Somewhere where’s there’s other white folk with white kids” Mike told him “And there’s only one place North of here where a lot of white folk are going to be right now. Kandy. It’s the Esala Perehera”

        “What’s that?”

        “Only the biggest fuckin’ festival on the bloody island”

They were sitting in a café waiting for Jack.

        She was holding down the panic for the sake of Jason and Susan – and tried slowing her breathing, as she gazed out the window. It was dark, and the street filled with noisy revelers throwing powder paint at each other and blowing horns.

       It had been a fear over the last two years though until now nothing really disastrous had happened. She had had more than a few personal emotional traumas - spiritual growth pains Jack called them - but nothing until now that had threatened them physically. 

      Many times Jack had, Claire Marie knew, in his usual ambiguous manner, tried to prepare her for something like this.

      But when you are sinking in quicksand you forget not to struggle. 

      Jack’s philosophy was that while there was something to do, don’t waste time and energy worrying about it, and when there was nothing left to do it was pointless worrying

about it.

          Worry wasted vital energy.

          It gripped you in the coils of maya – illusion – even tighter, losing sight of the idea that maya was not just illusion but also a creative power.

         Negative energy transmuted into positive energy.

         Okay.

         She decided to try and “draw in” the energy in the street.

         The same way, Jack had told her, you immerse yourself in the beauty of nature, or art, or music. First, just be “aware” of it, then look closer, then “feel” it and become part of it by “touching” it - not with the body but with love.

        Plants, she knew, responded in some way to love – whether expressed by touch or by music. So did people, of course, and animals too.

        Everything was beautiful, if you allowed yourself to be aware of it, looked for it, feel it, become part of it - and it responded to you in return when you touched it with love.

        The people in the street were happy – joyful. They were not to blame for taking Danielle, or her fear and anxiety. What they were doing was beautiful – they were excited, and the energy in what they were doing vibrated in the air.

       She “touched” it, tentatively at first, with love – it was nice. Then she “felt” herself part of it – the excitement – “drawing in” the energy. 

       Wow!

     The “force” of it hit her almost like a tidal wave. It would have been good to be out there with them. But Danielle was gone and she had to wait for Jack.

      “Mom?” asked Jason.

      Claire Marie looked at him. He was worried, as was Susan.

      She smiled.

     “It’ll be okay …” she said. 

Mike Slater believed in checking out every town and city ahead.

       Maps, telephone books, railway and bus timetables, were the tools of his trade. He claimed he could find anyone in any town or city in any country anywhere in the world. It was just a matter of time, and, as he insisted on being paid by results, his self-confidence and previous track-record attracted and inspired many wealthy clients.

       For this one there was a bonus of twenty five thousand dollars. So far as he understood the situation, Jack Bailey was a con-man, a shyster, who had moved in on another man’s wife, and her two kids. She’d got pregnant, had another kid by him, and they had disappeared – gone abroad, maybe to Indonesia or somewhere in that direction, and the woman’s father wanted his grandchildren back. There was a restraining order on the runaway couple not to take the two kids from the previous marriage out of the country, and the woman’s father was willing to pay big to get them back.

       That was it.

       He  had  tracked  them  across  Asia  – just missing them by a week in Jakarta, a little

less in Singapore, then even closer in Rangoon. Now Sri Lanka, and they were virtually trapped in the country by the civil war – and their only way out, and the only direction they could go without backtracking, was North – and the only place to hide out, going North was Kandy. 

       Mike was feeling good. It could be all over in a matter of days – and twenty five thousand dollars, plus huge expenses, was practically already in several of his bank accounts if, that is, he could keep Frank from half killing Jack Bailey when they finally caught up with them.

       Mike didn’t like unnecessary violence. He had been a licensed bond enforcer in Los Angeles for many years, and knew the law regarding bringing in absconders and how easy it was for even the guiltiest to sue. Not that it mattered much out here, and they didn’t have to bring back either Claire Marie or Jack Bailey - just the two kids. But, still, it would be good to do the job as cleanly as possible and no loose ends, collect their money and take a little break before the next job.

       The apartment doorbell rang.

        Frank jumped up as if somebody had taken a shot at him.

        It was the boy with the arak.  Mike took it, tipped the boy, then found two plastic beakers and poured Frank his much-needed drink. That was Frank’s problem. Too edgy and jumpy, and one day, Mike thought, it might just be the end for both of them.

       Frank said nothing while he drank.

      He didn’t talk much anyway, and hardly at all while he was drinking.  Mike knew that

Frank would finish the two bottles – potent enough to put an elephant to sleep, or make you go blind - then fall asleep.

      That’s was okay.

      One more day wouldn’t hurt. and Frank would feel more rested. Despite everything, he liked Frank, dumb as he was, and didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. They looked out for each other, and, in the last two years, they had grown as close as brothers –

Mike keeping Frank out of unnecessary trouble, using his head, and Frank getting Mike out of it, using his brawn, when they were already in it. A good man, when there was trouble, but not so good when the situation called for quick thinking.

       It was a good life – lonely, at times, and bad in places like Afghanistan – but the money, and fringe benefits were good. His “pension plan” was the money he was stashing away in several off-shore bank accounts – and the fringe benefits included the under-age girls in the brothels of Malaysia.

      He had never married and, at forty two years old and doing what he did, was not likely too. He had a nice house in the Cayman Islands – Grand Cayman, near Georgetown. Grand Cayman had only eighteen thousand people, but twelve thousand registered corporations, and three hundred banks, and no income tax, corporate taxes, capital-gains taxes, estate or gift taxes. There was little unemployment, and even less crime. The women were twenty per cent white, twenty per cent black, and the other sixty per cent a mixture of both, and all of the young ones beautiful.

      Perfect.     

      Mike was planning early retirement there - maybe by fifty five years old - relaxing on the beach all day, and getting drunk on Red Stripe. Frank had his own plans – something to do with opening a gymnasium and a bar in Los Angeles. Being ten years younger, and British, he was not inclined to sun and sand.

      It was a good life, and could only get better. 

     They would spend the night in the apartment – Frank sleeping, him planning their moves over the next few days. There was no particular hurry, and careful planning - even for the easiest jobs - was what had made him the best at what he did. Claire Marie’s father had done well to hire him - money well-invested - and Mike didn’t intend to disappoint him.

For Claire Marie Asia was an alien world, something she had previously only read about.   

     A world of extremes. It was either too hot and dry, or too wet and everything always damp. The men were either bronzed gods or gross, and the women young and beautiful or old and crabby.

      This was Jack’s world – the White Guru of India, where he was seen as an incarnation of Krishna - and he had “miraculously” appeared in the USA, and in her life, at exactly the right time.

      Now they were here, in Sri Lanka, a land of weird legends, fearful idols, almost unbearable heat, choking dust, vivid color, and awful smells – another world, a different culture, and myths.

      It was easier here to understand, a little, of what he had told her in the USA about maya – illusion. He had told her that people were generally asleep, and dreaming. spiritual awareness was waking up – but the trick is to understand that you are asleep in the first place. The world is a construct of electrical and bio-chemical stimuli, created and perceived in much the same way as are dreams – moment by moment - and slightly, or vastly, different for each individual

       But there is a fundamental flaw in the construct.

      Time and space.

      People do not actually experience time – merely a process of events, and “time” is simply an abstraction from that - an effect can precede the event that caused it, and space is intimately connected with the process of events - “magic” is only “magic” to the limited vision of the observer.

      Jack had healed her of Bulimia and stomach cancer. But, he said, he was not here simply to heal the physical body – medical science, eventually, would discover ways of curing and healing anything – he was here to wake people. Healing the physical body was simply an attention-grabber – if he could do that, then maybe he could also do the other.    

      He had certainly got her attention.

Margaret’s parents’ house, just outside Kandy, was a colonial style three-story stone mansion  perched  on  a  hillside  with  a  panoramic  view of the Mahaweli River and the

Knuckles  Range.   A  six  foot  high  stone  wall  surrounded  the  property,   and,  behind

wrought-iron double gates, two huge slobbering Great Danes snarled in a wire enclosure during the day  - and were let out at night to guard the house.

       A large dining table in the center of a huge dining room-cum-living room was permanently set for meals, with flowers and bowls of fruits and nuts. In a niche in a corner was a picture of Mary and Baby Jesus garlanded with jasmine and beneath it incense burned. On a wall was a large daguerreotype of an old man and an older woman garlanded with white frangipani and pink lotus blossoms and, beneath that more burning incense.

        Lilley and Julianna had their own rooms, as did Margaret, but, more often than not, one or the other or all three shared the same room, and the same bed. Stefan’s room was on the same landing, and a spare room on the top floor was kept for Lawrence.

       Margaret had taken a little longer to discover she enjoyed sex with women as well as men.

        There had been a man, several years ago, with whom she had fallen in love. He was the proverbial tall, dark and handsome kind. The wedding had been arranged, gifts received and given, the wedding dress bought, and the date set.

        But he didn’t turn up.

        At first Margaret and the guests, and the officiating Christian minister, assumed he had simply been delayed. Time passed, and several messages were sent to his home.   

        Finally, a message was returned.

        He  had  apparently  left Kandy,  whereabouts unknown, and would not be attending.

        Margaret wept for three days, then carefully re-packed the wedding dress in its original tissue paper and cardboard box and put in the bottom drawer of her wardrobe.

        Maybe, she believed at the time, one day, he would turn up again and explain that he had made a mistake. Fear perhaps, or something unforeseen had come up, and now everything was all right. 

        But that was a long time ago, and the wedding dress was still in the same tissue paper and in the same cardboard box in the bottom drawer of her wardrobe.

        Julianna had got herself attached to Lawrence. He fascinated her, even though he enjoyed both sisters and, but rarely, Margaret. Occasionally, Julianna liked a ménage-a-trois with Lawrence and Lilley – Margaret did not, with Lawrence, but liked the same with Julianna and Lilley.

       It was, generally, a happy household and a close-knit “family” – and Margaret was, generally, content.      

Jack came into the café, alone.

       Claire Marie’s hopes, fuelled by the notion that Danielle had simply wandered off to buy an ice cream and got lost, evaporated.

       Jack bought a Gold Spot at the counter, came over, sat down and told her about a street-urchin and the girl he’d been taken to see.

       “It wasn’t Danielle?”

       “Not unless she’s suddenly got a foot taller,  five years older,  and  developed …”  he

he left it hanging in the air. 

         Jack was trying to lighten the situation.

          Negativity stifled creativity.

          Nothing in human life, or nature, happened by chance or accident. There was always a reason and a purpose, and benefit, for those “awake” enough to realize it and utilize it.

          The “secret” was, Jack had told her, that we are more than the sum of our parts – we are “connected” with “cosmic consciousness”, and our physical body and intelligence is the “vehicle” or “conduit” through which “cosmic causes” often operate – everyone experiences “coincidences”, good and bad “luck”, some experience precognition and other so-called “psychic” phenomenon.

          All we had to do was “tune in”.

         “Her name’s Elizabeth” said Jack “She’s sick, and selling what she can to get back to England”

         “What’s she selling Jack?” asked Jason.

         “Nothing you can use” Susan told him.

         “All right you two” Claire Marie warned them then asked Jack “Can’t the British High Commission do something?”

         “They won’t” said Jack “She says she’s been trying to get them to send her back for more than a year. Says her parents dumped her. The British High Commission won’t help unless she can prove she doesn’t have anybody in England to pay her fare”

         “Dad” said Susan “You think it might be the men Jason and Danielle’s granddad hired to find us took Danielle?” 

         “We don’t know anybody took her” said Claire Marie “She could have wandered off to get an ice-cream and got lost”

        “They wouldn’t take Danielle without Jason” said Jack “And nobody followed us from Colombo”

        “Ravishing Murphy?” asked Jason.

         Jack shook his head.

        “Doubt it. He could have arrested us in Colombo and beat hell out of me”

        “Unless he wanted to see if we’d run” said Susan.

        “Can we help Elizabeth?” Claire Marie asked Jack.

        “Here we go again” said Jason.

        “She probably knows Kandy like a native” she said “Maybe even speaks Sinhala or Tamil”

         “Yeah” said Susan “And probably makes bombs out of panty-hose and cotton buds in her spare time”

Margaret was concerned.

          Lawrence had come two days ago, had gone out the night before then come back in the early hours, packed a small bag and left again. Not unusual, but she had heard whispers - and Julianna.

         In the morning Julianna had denied it, said she had been asleep alone, and hadn’t seen Lawrence or even knew he had gone until now.

        What concerned Margaret was not whatever Lawrence was doing – bringing back a girl was no big thing – but it was the first time Julianna had lied to her. Lawrence had made it a habit not to share with her what he was doing. Margaret accepted that, and didn’t really want to know. She knew his mission – the struggle for the unity of Sri Lanka – and his passion for it, but she felt it safer not to know the details.

        But, on this, Julianna knew and had lied.

        Why?

        What was so secret, or bad, she would lie?

        Not telling her was one thing, but lying to her face was something else. Margaret felt, for the very first time in almost fifteen years, her trust had been undermined and the closeness they had always shared had been damaged.

        Breakfast was tense.

        It would have been easy enough to ask Lilley if she had heard anything last night.

       Whether she had or not it would have pointed up the fact that Margaret was implying

that Julianna had lied. Not something that Margaret wanted to do. The lie itself was bad enough – no point compounding it with accusations. She loved Julianna, and didn’t want anything to come between them. Margaret decided she would have to deal with it, as she had with so many things, and maybe later it might turn out there was another explanation for the whispers, or a reason for the lie.

       Margaret looked at Julianna.

       “More tea … coffee?” she asked.

       Julianna smiled and shook her head.

       “Illai … nandri … elaneer”

       Margaret passed the jug of iced coconut water to Stefan. He poured some into Julianna’s glass, then filled his own.

       “I thought I heard voices last night” he commented.

        Julianna stiffened, then stood up and put a hand to her head.

        “Emnakku udambu sariyillai …” she said, then went out.

        Stefan looked at Margaret.

       “Did I say something wrong?”

       “Illai …” said Margaret “Doctorai koopidu”

Claire Marie was still “holding” it – better at moments than at others. But the fear and anxiety was there, in the pit of her tummy.

         She was learning.

         But it was hard.

         Elizabeth was almost as tall as Jack, with long shapely legs and in the shortest skirt Claire Marie had ever seen in Sri Lanka, her long blonde hair almost down to her small waist and falling over one side of her small oval and impish face.

        Incredibly sexy.

        No, said Jack.

        Sensual.

        Apparently there was a difference. Nevertheless, Claire Marie still felt the same pangs.

        She knew that even had Elizabeth been plain or even “unfortunate” it would have made no difference. She knew it all in her head. It was her emotions  - like an ice-cold vice slowly squeezing her heart.  She knew too, in her head, that Jack would never leave her. That sounded trite to everyone else. Hadn’t he already left his wife and a daughter? But still the fear of Jack meeting another younger and prettier girl and falling in love with her was always at the back of her mind.

        “Thanks for taking me in” Elizabeth said.  Claire Marie smiled at her. It wasn’t Elizabeth’s fault.

        And she was beautiful.

        It was the same process all over again. Be “aware”, look closer, “feel” it, become part of it by “touching” it with love – then you “draw” the “energy” in order to give it, being careful not to “draw” the “energy” from others – which many do – but from the “essence” of that beauty. A human being – regardless of physical appearance – is always beautiful, but is merely a single representation of beauty as a painting is simply a representation of art.  

        Okay.

       “Don’t mention it” she said “Anyway it’s tough alone”

      “Oh, you’re never alone when you’re schizophrenic” Elizabeth laughed.

        A laugh that tinkled like ankle bells.

       Elizabeth looked at Jack.

       “Sorry. When you spoke to me I thought … “ a pause “You know?”

       “It’s okay” said Jason “You can say it”

       “We do” said Susan.

       “Don’t mind us” Jason told her “Jack’s helping us break down social conditioning. Mom’s still learning”.

       “What’s a four letter word ending in K meaning intercourse?” Susan asked her.

       “Susan!” Claire Marie said, shocked.

       “It’s all right” Elizabeth laughed again  “Bonk”

       “You could have said ...”

        “Jason!” Jack stopped him.

        “Wrong anyway” said Susan “It’s talk. I never mentioned sex”

Julianna was fine.

         The doctor said there was nothing wrong. A little tired, maybe, but nothing to worry about.

         The incident was over, Margaret decided.

         Nothing to be done about it. But it had cast a little cloud of distrust and that concerned her. Maybe Julianna was getting too close to Lawrence, and afraid to admit it -

though that seemed unlikely. They had always been able to talk, about almost anything.

        But, whatever it was, Margaret determined to put it behind her and not let it ruin what they had built up together over the last sixteen years – their “family” was important and there was nothing, Margaret believed, they could not overcome together.

While Elizabeth freshened up, with Susan and Jason, Claire Marie told Jack “Maybe I ought to give Liz Jonathan Livingston Seagull to read”

        “Okay” he said.

        “You are going to sleep with her?” she asked, knowing very well what the answer would be.

        “If she asks” he said.

        Despite a four hundred-rupee surcharge for air conditioning instead of an overhead fan the rooms were not the best they had ever had, or the worst. Their double room cost one thousand two hundred rupees a night - and one thousand five hundred rupees for the triple room next door. It was the only accommodation available. All the cheaper hotels and guesthouses were full.

       Elizabeth had what would have been Danielle’s bed, with Jason and Susan, in the triple. Danielle was probably safe, Claire Marie decided, somewhere here in Kandy, and whoever had taken her would contact them.

        All she could do was wait.

      “Everything  is  both  in  the  process  of  change  and  immutable”  Jack  had  told her

“Opposites interchange, truth and fallacy, love and hate, past and future, subject and object. All part of a Higher Self, ever learning yet all-knowing”.

        You are already what you will become

        Jack’s gnostic and tantric beliefs, and practice, were what had driven them out of the

USA and conflicted with Claire Marie’s own twenty or so years in the Salvation Army. Though widespread among christians in Asia, and acceptable even in some parts of Europe Gnostic tantric Christianity was still anathema in mainstream USA, and not just because it was wide open to abuse - the real problems went much deeper.

        “Experience rather than explanation” summed up Jack’s understanding of both miracles and gnosticism “Even knowledge has to become experiential before it’s of any use”.

         So much she didn’t understand, so much yet to learn.

         But she would, Jack had promised and he never ever broke a promise.

         The pupa does not experience imago without struggle.

         Everything was part of that.

         Meeting Jack.

         Danielle.

         Elizabeth.

         Fear.

         Jack rolled out a huge street map of Kandy trying to roll itself up again and held down by a hand-carved sandalwood elephant, a chinese incense burner, an ornate ashtray,

and a Victorian candlestick.

         At the top of the map, in gothic script was written Kanda Uda Pasrata - the Sinhalese name for the kingdom comprising the five counties of which Kandy was the capital. Beneath that, in brackets, was Candea, the name given the old city by the Portuguese - Kandy was the shortened version of Kanda Uda Pasrata.

       On the radio Meatloaf’s Bat Out Of Hell was playing.

       “We’ll look in the most obvious places first” said Jack “Outhouses, sheds, derelict buildings. Liz?”

       Elizabeth nodded.

       “There’s a monastery here” she put her finger on the spot “With a derelict outhouse. Used to be a communal wash-house. And here…” she put her finger on another spot.

       Just then Meatloaf’s Bat Out Of Hell was cut off and a voice speaking Sinhala interrupted. Elizabeth held up her hand and listened.

       “Police have mounted an island-wide search” she translated as the voice went on “For a fleeing Western family, foreign terrorists, suspected of conspiracy in the Black Tiger suicide bombing of a Sri Lankan Army vehicle, killing a policeman and six others and seriously injuring twenty five. A reward of five lakhs for information leading to their arrest …” the voice stopped and Meatloaf’s Bat Out Of Hell came back on.

        Elizabeth looked at Jack.

       “They’re looking for you”

       “How much is five lakhs?” asked Jason.

       “Five hundred thousand rupees” Elizabeth told him “About seven thousand five hundred pounds. Just over twelve thousand US dollars”

       “Wicked!” said Susan, then looked at Jack “It’s going up Dad. I could buy a nice car with that”

       “We can’t go out” said Elizabeth.

       “We have to” Jack told her “You don’t have to. You can be our base camp”

       “No” she said  “You need me to translate”

       “Okay” said Jack  “But we’d better split up. Less conspicuous that way.  Liz, you come with me. Susan, you take Baby Jane. Jason, you go with Claire”

        “Jack …” Claire Marie said “If the police don’t know we’re here and the men mom and dad hired to find us didn’t follow us, who took Danielle?”

        Jack kissed her on the cheek.

       “Love you” he said “Lots and lots…”

Lawrence was essentially neither Buddhist nor Hindu.

        He was a pragmatist.

        In Sri Lanka religion is almost always intimately linked to politics and, if anything, Lawrence saw himself as an independent political force, willing to use anything or anyone in order to bring peace and stability back to the country he loved – and he was as much opposed to Sinhala domination as he was to Tamil, or any other ethnic, demands.

       The  future  of  Sri  Lanka  was  ethnic  unity, but terror had to be answered by terror,

bomb for bomb – no one listened to the peacemaker, unless he carried a big stick. Lawrence had spent many years, and a great deal of money, making his “big stick” – the JVP – and he was proud of it.

        He enjoyed the drive to Lankatilaka Vihara.

        Kandy was surrounded by verdant countryside, orchards, tea plantations, and green hills that seemed to move in the breeeze like an ocean. Heading toward Peradeniya, down a turning to the left, was the Huduhumpola Vihara at Deiyamnewela – the rice field of the gods. From Peradeniya he took a circular route past three of the most impressive temples in the area – he was in no rush, and needed the time to compose his speech to the young Buddhist monks waiting for him at Lankatilaka Vihara.

       The Embekke Devale, some four miles from Peradeniya, was famous for its woodcarving. The temple is dedicated to the god Kataragama, dating back to the fourteenth century, and its elaborately carved wooden pillars – wrestlers, a dancing girl and a tiger fighting an elephant, symbolized for him a lot of what could not be expressed in words.

      A little more than a mile further on was Lankatilaka Vilhara, a magnificent structure on top of a granite outcrop with breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside. A road went up to the hilltop entrance of the temple compound - or it could be reached from the opposite side by climbing a long flight of steps cut into the rock.

      The hill below the temple was planted with temple trees and wild, sweet-scented Rangoon  creeper.  This  was Lawrence’s second home – his “sky fortress” – and it would

take the entire Sri Lankan Army to drag him out of it.

       The entrance to the devale – and the room where he was to lecture – was on the opposite side of the temple. The images of the deities and their consorts stood in niches in

the walls of a passage which ran around three sides of the outside of the Buddha shrine. Behind a door hanging depicting the Buddha stood an image of Vishnu, and in more niches were images of Saman – one of the island’s guardian deities, the elephant-headed god Ganesha, Kataragama and Vibhisham. Vibhishan, dark with white fangs, was the brother of the demon Ravana, the Lord of Lanka, who was defeated by the god-king Ram of the Ramayana epic, leaving Vibhishan to succeed to the throne.

      If Lawrence identified with any deity, it was Vibhishan.  

      About thirty young in-training warrior-monks were chanting, seated cross-legged in a circle. Lawrence’s two personal bodyguards, Siya and Hathara, sat on each side of him at the center of the circle, then Hathara motioned for silence.

      Lawrence acknowledged them, then began.

It wasn’t exactly love at first sight.

      For one thing, Jack was twenty years older, and, for another, he was still married and with two older daughters. Her mom and dad didn’t like him at all.

      Danielle and Jason did.

      Jason, at the time, was interested in writing a book, and Jack was already a published author, and he made Danielle laugh.

      Claire Marie had said no – she really wasn’t interested in sex. It was true. Her illness was draining her, and it had been so long she had deliberately turned off the desire.

       It was three weeks of gentle coaxing from Jack, before she finally said yes. Why not? If it could do what he claimed, why not – and if not, he told her, she had lost nothing, and wouldn’t be any worse. It was wonderful, amazing, went on for three whole days and nights – a long weekend - with fifteen minute breaks – while Jason and Danielle were with Jeffrey. It amazed her that a man could go on so long – any man, let alone a fifty-seven year old man – and be so good at it. He explored every inch of her body, and found places she didn’t even know she could enjoy.

      They did it several times a week – after Jason and Danielle were in bed. During the second week, the bingeing stopped. Another week later, the laxatives went. Two weeks after that, another scan revealed where the cancer had been, but was not there anymore. Her doctor said it had probably gone into remission, and advised her to continue at least part of the treatment.

      Why?

       It was gone.

      Gone.

      Claire Marie was a convert from that moment.

      Ecstatic.

      It wasn’t difficult to fall in love with Jack Bailey after that.

      Impossible not to.

      Jack’s promise was that she too would one day be able work with energy, not necessarily as a healer – though, in truth, no one healed anyone else, not even a doctor. All healing was essentially self-healing.

      But she would learn how to free her essential Self from the physical body – and how to consciously use both her “etheric” and “astral” forms in “etheric” and “astral” projection and travel.

      The “astral” form was the “dream-state”, and everyone dreamed. Claire Marie had often had the almost common experience of a sudden jerk or jump, and waking. That, Jack had told her, was her “astral” form returning a little too quickly to the physical body. But “etheric” projection and travel – similar, but in the “waking-state” – was less common, usually experienced in “day-dreaming” or reverie.

     One of the first steps to this, Jack said, was the cultivation of “lucid dreaming” – being aware that you are asleep and dreaming, and changing the content of the dream or waking at will. From that it was a short step to consciously using the “astral” form as a vehicle to visit other “realms” not of this earth  – though the “etheric” was always confined to this “realm” – albeit this planet and others.

      So much to learn.       

Lawrence watched as several of the young monks practiced their combat skills outside Lankatilaka Vihara. He was pleased with their progress – and the steadily growing numbers  of  his  resurrected  Janatha  Vimukti  Peramuna.  Here he was the political and

religious activist. In an hour or so he would be talking to another group – his kattidiya devotees – as Vesagmama, Lord of the Demons, and the greatest “magician” in Sri Lanka.

       Whatever best served his purpose.

       Siya had brought out  Lawrence’s favourite horse – a white stallion, Lancelot – well-groomed,  and  tacked  out  in  gold and silver. He was a magnificent horse, but feisty like

himself, a gift from a wealthy well-wisher and symbolized – to the young monks – his strength and power. Siya mounted a black mare – Guinevere – then Lawrence shouted and Lancelot snorted then raced off. Siya laughed, kicked Guinevere into motion, then chased after Lancelot.

       The black mare was on heat and chased the white stallion without too much encouragement. Lawrence loved the sensuality of it, slowed a little to allow Guinevere to draw closer, then  spurred  on  - extending the speed,  and the distance between them – his thoughts on thoughts on quite another chase.

They went along Raja Vidya,  Jason  quiet  as usual, then turned right into Kotugodalle Vidiya. At the end of the street was a railway crossing and beside it a mosque. They went

up the hill toward the Asgiriya Mahavihara monastery.

        “Mom” said Jason “Is Jack going to heal Liz?”

        “Probably” she said trying to sound at ease “That’s what he does”

        “You don’t mind?” he asked.

         “I’ll try not to”

Lawrence finally allowed Guinevere to catch Lancelot.

         At first, and as usual, Lancelot pretended indifference to his mate, making Guinivere whine, nuzzling his hind-quarters. Then Lancelot turned and mounted her.

         Lawrence had watched the same performance several times. Lancelot, he thought, was almost human, with a sense of humor – though others might have called it a cruel streak – and the wickedest horse he had ever owned.

        They were a perfect match.

Elizabeth sat with one long leg draped over the other, her short skirt riding high. Claire Marie tried to keep her promise to Jason, and keep her mind on Danielle.

       “I told you I have HIV” she told Jack  “And you still took me in. Why?”

       “It was Claire’s idea really” said Jack “But we can heal you”

        Elizabeth looked at Claire Marie.

       “How?’”

       “The same way Jack healed me of bulimia and stomach cancer” she said “Tell you all about it later”.

        Claire Marie took off her rose-quartz pendant.

       “Let’s try this” she got up and went to the table “Come on…”  

        They all stood around the table.  Claire Marie held the pendant by its thin chain over

the street map of Kandy.

        “Watch” she said. The pendant began to swing as she held it about two inches above the map “It should move in a circle over the area Danielle is”

        “I thought christians weren’t supposed to do things like this?” Elizabeth asked.

        “Oh? What do you think the Urim andThummin in the Bible was?  And how did Jesus’ disciples choose Matthias after the death of Judas?”

        The pendant was swinging faster.

        “That’s you” said Elizabeth.

        Claire Marie handed the pendant to her.

        “You try”

         Elizabeth held the pendant over the map.

        “Like this?”

         Claire Marie held Elizabeth’s arm.

        “Too stiff. Relax. Elbow up. That’s it. Now think about Danielle”

         Elizabeth looked at Claire Marie.

        “This is…” she began.

        “Concentrate!” 

         The pendant started to swing. Elizabeth’s big eyes opened even wider.

        “It’s moving!” she gasped “It’s moving! It’s moving!”

Lawrence  gave  instructions  to  Siya  and  Hathara  about  the  feeding  and grooming of

Lancelot and Guinever, then got in his imported Cavalier Estate and began a leisurely drive back to Kandy.

        Everything was now in place.

        The scene set.

Night, as usual, had come early and suddenly, without the twilight Claire Marie loved in the USA, and by seven o’clock it was dark.

        They had blacked out the windows as best they could using extra blankets provided by a mystified porter but even then after ten minutes they could see each other, if only as dark shapes, in the flashes of fireworks and they could still hear revellers in the street below, and the horns and drums.

        They sat in a circle holding hands, breathing in through the nose for a count of four, holding it for two, and out through the mouth for a count of six. The technique had been developed over a thousand years ago in India and Jack taught it as an aid to relaxation.

       “What are we doing?” asked Elizabeth.

        Jack was breathing deeply.

       “Shhh!” Susan told her.    

        Elizabeth ignored her.    

        “Hello?” said Elizabeth “Anybody there?”

        Jack sighed and opened his eyes.

        “Anything?” Claire Marie asked.

        Jack shook his head.

        “Maybe them up there don’t know where she is either” said Susan.

        They had a late snack. Honey and yogurt hoppers - fried rice-flour batter, coconut and palm toddy - mango, a pot of  “special” tea without sugar for Claire Marie, coffee for Jack, Pepsi for Jason and Susan, and a Gold Spot for Elizabeth.

        “Can we risk telling the police?” asked Jason.

        “No” said Jack “You heard what the radio said. They want to arrest us. We either find her ourselves or wait until whoever took her contacts us”

        “Who do you think…” Claire Marie began, then stopped.

         Maybe it was best not to know, or say, right now.

        “Are you this Tiger Moon they’re looking for?” Elizabeth asked Jack.

        Jack looked at her, but said nothing.

        “We’ve been invited out for a meal” said Susan “A boy I met at the lake”

        “Oh?” Claire Marie asked “Who?”

        “His name is Stefan” she said  “He’s a Tamil and a christian.  His parents are dead and he lives in a big house with his foster mother and two girl friends” she looked at Jack  “Can we dad?”

         Jack looked at Claire Marie.

         “Love you” she told him “Lots and lots…”

____________________

“Let this mortal clay (self) be the immortal God”

                                 Rig Veda viii,19

3

Big Frank Wilson woke the next morning with a hangover – a growling bear with a sore head – and there was no way Mike was going to take him on a train like that. In normal mode he lacked somewhat in social graces and with any kind of a hangover he was more trouble than a nest of hornets or, more appropriately, a rampaging rogue elephant.

      It would cost them another half day, but give them a little time to see Colombo –maybe even find a nice girl for Frank – and give Mike a little rest. He had been up most of the night, working out his next moves like an expert chess player, and prided himself on his careful pre-planning. It saved time, avoided stupid mistakes, and kept them – if barely – on the right side of the law.

        They took an auto-rickshaw to the Fort, the heart of Colombo, Big Frank complaining and moaning about being dragged out but happy about the prospect of finding a girl – it had been a long time, two days at least, and Frank’s libido was playing up. There was, for men like Frank, a good argument for legalized prostitution, and Mike was sure there must be plenty of it in Colombo – better to start their journey North in as good a frame of mind as possible, for both of them.

      They had a snack of cake and coffee at a tiny open-air bar near the Lighthouse Clock Tower  at  the  corner  of  Chatham  Street  and Janadhipathi Mawatha, then walked down

Chatham Street past several jeweller’s shops and the Pagoda restaurant to York Street, obviously the main shopping center. Mike was looking for a good map of Sri Lanka, and found several in a small dilapidated building in the Map Sales Department of the Land Settlement Office. Outside the Sri Lanka State Trading Corporation building, street-traders sold everything and anything from postage stamps to lace table-mats, incense sticks and cheap jewellery.

      Frank bought enough stamps to write home. He had only an aged mother who cared about him, and he always tried to write to her wherever he was in the world. He bought a bag of humbugs at Millers’s Emporium, then liquor and cheroots next door at Cargill’s Superstore, though buying anything here, he discovered, was a complicated affair. They had to queue at three different counters to find, then pay, then collect the items.  Even Frank could see it was inefficient, but it was work for more staff and an effective deterrent to thieves. Next to Cargill’s was the Sporting Times Accountants and Casamara Restaurant and Bar. They sat on cane chairs, in their straw hats, surrounded by potted plants, while Frank studied the form of racehorses due to race that day in Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. Horseracing was one thing Frank knew something about – an “expert” – and settled down for a while.

        Mike studied his map of Sri Lanka, found Kandy and drew a thick red circle around it.

Susan looked at Jack, and asked again.

       “Dad? Can we?”

        Jack shrugged.

       “Well we need all the friends we can get right now” a pause “And maybe them up there…” he trailed off.

        So life goes on.

       They were doing all they could to find Danielle – and it wouldn’t be helpful to collapse in a soggy heap.          

        So far it had taken them two years – and how many more before she was ready for Siddha Loka? It reminded her of the Israelite’s forty years to reach the Promised Land. They could have done it in little more than three weeks, but they were not ready.

       She remembered, almost word for word, the way Jack had depicted it in a “guided meditation” - in his soft, deep, sexy voice.

      “Siddha Loka is a lush, perpetually warm, and verdant place with ornamental gardens, fruit trees of every description, and sparkling streams – but, to natural human sight, it is a rocky, bleak, landscape with glacial conditions. There is a palatial ashram, with walls that shine as gold and like precious jewels. At its center is a yantra, a sacrificial fire, and the true source of the Ganges - The River of Heaven – feeding seven streams that flow into one, and then returns underground.

       “Inside the ashram there are many high-ceilinged rooms – with walls made of a variety of scented and precious woods, carved in elaborate designs – many  filled  with  ancient manuscripts and books. The Great Hall has a round table, with high-backed chairs

intended for Eternal Masters, Immortals, Rishis, Tapasvis, Siddhayogis – where discussions are conducted and decisions made which affect the world – the spiritual Princes of many nations who watch over and guide countries.

        “Scattered in the valley, and on its slopes, are dwellings of many types, small farms with crops and animals, parks and woodlands, lakes and streams. The inhabitants of Siddha Loka are of all races, live in harmony with each other and with all living things, and those not born at Siddha Loka found it first in their hearts, and through many or great difficulties, and now live at peace with themselves and with all others.

        “There is no winter, and only summer rains fall. Manual work is necessary only for the delight it brings, and magic – a higher vibrational level of thought and action – is the common experience of all, while death is simply a volitional and earned moving on to an even higher vibrational level – though some selflessly choose to remain with the same physical form and serve as Masters, as and when other Masters feel it right to move on. There is no need for laws when love for others and respect for things are endemic, nor for any particular religious ritual or belief when faith is objective. The Masters guide rather than govern, and serve rather than rule.

       “Siddha Loka is a place of tranquility and joy – a paradise on earth but not of the earth – and those who find it are those who have found themselves”.

       She hadn’t yet, she knew “found” herself – but she was still looking. Everything, she also knew, had to be part of the “pattern” she couldn’t yet see – like looking at a tapestry

from  the  “wrong”  side  –  even  why  she  had the parents she did, and why she was the

mother of her own children, “foster-mother” to Susan, why she had been in the Salvation Army for over twenty years, had Bulimia for over ten years, and stomach cancer, here in Sri Lanka with Jack – and why Danielle had been kidnapped.

      Jack had helped her see beyond the narrow confines of her own thirty-two year life-span, and put it firmly in the context of millennia of human evolution – not just a world view but a historical world view, how social and cultural thinking, beliefs and practices had changed and evolved, and an awareness of the historical context in which her own life had meaning. Not simply the history and evolution of technology, but the history and evolution of human thought and consciousness.

     She had to discover the rest for herself – her “connection” with the past, the people with whom she had been brought up and related to, the events of her life, and with everything around her, and finally shed the “false” idea of separation – dualism. Then, and only then, Jack said, could she break out of the “prison” of the physical body and the material world and enter Siddha Loka.

     Even if it took forty years wandering in the desert. 

Frank had had enough of sitting.

        They got an auto and paid the driver extra to find a  brothel. The driver grinned, then stopped suddenly when he saw Frank scowl.

        It took thirty minutes, and Mike was sure they had passed the same places more than once  –  he  noticed  such things – but said nothing. The driver stopped outside a tall, run-

down apartment block, then indicated he would wait – for another two hundred rupees. There was a narrow, dark staircase, and they were met at the top by a man almost as big as Frank – but not quite – all smiles, who ushered them into a large nicely furnished room with two other doors.

       An older, fat, woman sat on an upholstered seat and invited them to sit, one on each side of her.

      “You want nice girl … young girl … older girl?” she asked “Fifty US dollars for very nice young girl … thirty US dollars for very nice older girl … yes?”

       Mike nodded. Frank grinned at her. The woman clapped her small fat hands once, and six girls came out of one of the two doors, and lined up smiling. They were different sizes and ages. The youngest, Mike thought, looked no more than twelve years old, and the oldest in her mid-twenties, all in “see-through” nighties – no underwear.

       “Nice .. yes?” the woman asked “You choose …”

Kandy was full of policemen in their khaki military style uniforms carrying  semi-automatic weapons, stopping taxis and cars and ordering out passengers, sometimes aided by a blow from the butt of a rifle or a lash from a lathi on their bare legs or on the buttocks.

       Overhead, police helicopters buzzed like giant mosquitoes. A porter stopped them in the lobby.

     “Dhaya  vu  saidu …”  he  began,  then Elizabeth translated as he went on  “He says it

isn’t safe to go out. The police are looking for terrorists” she lowered her voice  “That could mean you” she smiled at the porter “Nandri …”

      He smiled, bowed, and went back to the desk.

      “So?” asked Susan “What we going to do?”   

     “Well” said Claire Marie “If we can’t look for Danielle, maybe we could sneak out the back and do a little hill walking.  I can’t stay in”

      Elizabeth was wearing a short skirt and flimsy heels.

      “This is all I’ve got” she said “Why don’t you all go and I’ll stay”

      “No” Claire Marie laughed “You don’t get out of it that easily. I’ve got some things that should fit you” she looked at Jack “Ten minutes. All right?”

      “Yeah” said Jason “And a half hour to put on the landscape”

      “Okay” said Jack  “And I’ll know if you talk about me”

Frank had taken the youngest looking girl. She was a thin delicate creature, waif-like and seemed fragile. Her name was Choo, and insisted on a condom – or not, for an extra twenty rupees. He took her – preferring to use a condom – twice, then wasn’t quite sure what to do with the rest of the time he had paid for.

       “You American, yes?” Choo asked.

       “British” said Frank.

       “Choo … from Lawksawk … Shan State .. . Burma …y’know?”          

       “Wha’ y’doin’ ‘ere then?”

        Choo said she was twelve years old, had been working here for the last eight months – sold by her mother in Lawksawk, a small Burmese village, promised an education in the USA, but she had been brought here instead, locked in, beaten, raped, and made to have sex to pay off the money the man had given her mother.

         “Jeez! No kiddin’?”

          Choo started to cry, and leaned her head against him.

         “Hey …” he put an arm around her “So why don’ya just get out of ‘ere?”

         “They kill me if I go”

          Frank stroked her long black hair. He liked the kid.

         “Yeah?” he gently moved her away from him “We’ll see ‘bout that” 

In the room Claire Marie looked at Elizabeth.

           “What size are you?”

            “A ten. You?”

            “Same” Claire Marie patted her not so flat tummy “Not bad after three kids, eh?”

            Elizabeth moved toward her and kissed her gently on the lips.

            “You are beautiful”

            “Liz…”

             Elizabeth kissed her again. 

             Nice.            

             Claire Marie reciprocated.

            “Let me love you” Elizabeth began to unbutton Claire Marie’s blouse “Jack needn’t know”

            “Oh he will” she told Elizabeth “Believe me, he will”

Mike heard the yelling, then Frank’s huge roar, and came running out.

           The girl’s were screaming. Two men were on Frank’s back as he was squeezing the breath from another. Mike pulled them off, kicked one and punched the other. Frank turned, picked up the man Mike had kicked and hurled him through the window.

          “What the hell’s goin’ on Frank?”

           They heard yelling and men running up the stairs. Frank blocked the stairway, and kicked at the first two, sending all of them tumbling back down the stairs.

           “Frank … what the hell?”

           Frank took the hand of Choo, cowering in a corner.

          “She’s comin’ wiv us”

Elizabeth kissed Claire Marie.  

         “Don’t worry …” Elizabeth said “It’s safe … so long as we don’t exchange body fluids”

        They were naked on the bed.

        Claire Marie kissed her and laughed.

        “You sound like a doctor”

        “Had enough lectures on it” Elizabeth said “I know what I can do, and what I can’t”

         Claire Marie nodded.

        “Think Jack might surprise you”

        “How?”

         Claire Marie laughed.

        “I’ll let him tell you …”   

Mike and Frank were in the back of a police van with a wooden floor spattered with blood. The others were in a second van, and Choo had been taken off in a police car. The van went at speed, hitting potholes, jarring them. Mike held his head in his hands, then sighed and looked at Frank.

         “So … what d’you think is gonna happen?”

         Frank looked confused, dazed.

         Six policeman had punched and kicked him before dragging him into the van.

         “Wus just … helpin’ the girl” Frank mumbled.

         “Helpin’?”  Mike  sighed  “Jeez!”  he  shook  his  head  “Helpin’?  The bitch wasn’t askin’ for that kinda help. She give you that spiel to get you to give her money. She’s probably not even twelve … more like sixteen … an’ you kick six pigs down the stairs. We got police assault … and attempted kidnappin’ charges … what do you think is gonna happen?”

*          *          *

The hill country was totally different from anywhere else on the island. The altitude dispelled the sticky heat that hung over Colombo and the dry heat elsewhere. Here it was almost perpetual springtime - the light and the views something artists and tourists swooned over. Ahead, Jason and Susan argued about carrying the picnic basket and, behind them, Elizabeth carried Baby Jane.

          They were heading for the Udawattakele Nature reserve, which, Elizabeth told them, was a tropical forest with philodendron and scindapus, and a tranquil pool overhung with creepers.  Susan wanted to go skinny-dipping. Elizabeth said it wasn’t really permitted but if no one was about, why not?

          “Claire Marie?” asked Elizabeth.

          “Not for me” she smiled at Elizabeth.

          “Go on” said Jack “If you do, I will”

           Claire Marie knew he wanted to see Elizabeth naked.

          “All right” she told him.

           Jason and Susan and Elizabeth with Baby Jane were well ahead.

          “Did you make love?” asked Jack.

          “Yes” said Claire Marie.

          “Was it nice?”

          “Yes”

*          *          *

It was four hours before two policeman came and unlocked their cell door.

          They were taken to a dirty interrogation room, and left there for another hour. Finally, the door opened and a short fat policeman with gold braid on his cap and two others without gold braid came in.

         The short fat policeman took off his cap, laid it on the table, pulled out a wooden chair and sat down facing them. The other two policemen remained standing just behind him.

        “I am Chief Inspector Ravi Shankarkrishnamurthi, Sri Lanka Internal Security, Colombo City Police” he told them, then smiled, moving his head side to side “You are in very serious trouble, yes?”

       “Chief Inspector …” Mike began, paused, then “It’s all a terrible mistake … a misunderstanding, that’s all”

       “Ahhh …” Shankakrishnamurthi turned and spoke to one of the policeman standing behind him “Why do Westerners always say that?”. The policeman grinned and shook his head. Shankarkrishnamurthi turned back to Mike Slater and Frank Wilson.

       “Two of my officers have been seriously injured, and you try to kidnap a young sex worker …” he nodded “Yes. A mistake. A terrible mistake. For you”

       “No … I meant … we were trying to rescue the girl … and Frank thought we were being attacked … by thugs”

        Shankarkrishnamurthi shrugged, moving his head side to side.

       “Rescue? Rescue the girl … from what? Her job?” he laughed. The two policemen behind him laughed. 

A six foot high stone wall surrounded Stefan’s home, and, behind wrought-iron double gates, two huge slobbering Great Danes snarled at them.

        Stefan came out, smiling, ushered the dogs behind a wire enclosure then unlocked and swung open one half of the double gates.  He greeted them in perfect English and ushered them into the house. He was, thought Claire Marie, very handsome.

        A woman hurried in from the open kitchen. She wore a pink sari, taller than Stefan, a little older than Claire Marie, with large dark eyes, high cheekbones, and long black hair in a thick plait down to her waist.

        Beautiful.  

       Stefan introduced her. His foster mother, Margaret Naga. She smiled a greeting, hands together.

       “Ayubowan” she said “Welcome, so happy you could come” she bobbed her head apologetically  at  them,  then  indicated  the table  “Karunakara … please sit … sit” then

she hurried back to the kitchen. 

Chief Inspector Ravi Shankarkrishnamurthi scrutinized the two passports.

       “Tourists?” he inquired “American … and British … tourists?”

        Mike Slater nodded.

         Shankarkrishnamurthi placed the two passports on the table, one hand on them.

        “Give me twenty five thousand rupees each” he said.

Lilley and Julianna Sud giggled like schoolgirls at Claire Marie’s attempts to eat with her fingers. Younger than Margaret and. if possible, even more beautiful, they wore Western dress - jeans and short tops.

        “Lilley! Julianna!” Margaret scolded them. Stefan smiled apologetically at Claire Marie, then looked at Margaret.

        “Margaret … wouldn’t it be better if you sat between Jack and Claire and Lilley and Julianna with Jason and Susan and me with Elizabeth. That way they can all see?”

         Jack and Jason had opted for knives and forks. Susan wanted to learn how to eat with her fingers. Elizabeth already knew. Margaret smiled, moving her head side to side.

        “It’s not that important” she said then looked at Claire Marie “I’m amazed … losing Danielle. How you can just … carry on?”

         If only she knew.

       “Thanks” she said, then to prove she’d got it she made a small moist mound of rice and samba, and scooped up a little with two fingers and thumb.

        “Very good” Margaret nodded approvingly.

         Then it all fell apart, some falling on her lap.  

        “Oops, sorry” said Claire Marie “Maybe I haven’t really got it after all”

         The girls giggled again.

        This time, so did Stefan.

        “Shhh!” Margaret rebuked all three, then to Claire Marie “Don’t worry. I’m sure you will” she smiled, then added “Though I’m not so sure about this … Siddha Loka”

Mike was angry with Frank. They had been released, minus fifty thousand rupees, and warned not to try to kidnap any more sex workers.

          Very funny.

          And expensive.

          They were in the Pettah, a short walk from the Fort, a bustling and crowed bazaar. The word Pettah was adopted for the area in early British times – from the Tamil petaai, meaning outside, and the Sinhala pitta-kotuva, meaning a civic settlement outside a fort. Under the British Raj the area housed families of Dutch and Portuguese descent and, until the Second World War when many houses along its narrow streets were demolished,

the district retained many Dutch-style buildings.

          Mike was interested in old architecture. Frank was not, but said nothing as they toured the area. He was in trouble with Mike, he knew, and Mike needed to kick-back in his own way.

         “Sorry Mike …” he said.

          Mike had his head in a tour guide, too angry to reply. The Pettah, the guide informed him, was also the nucleas around which the city grew, and street names recall the  past – Maliban  Street is named after Maliebaan in the Hague and is the equivalent of

the English mall. New Moor Street and Old Moor Street are reminders of where immigrant Muslim businessmen settled, while Brassfounder Street was the area where Tamil craftsmen came to practice their skills.

         On Olcott Mawatha is Fort Railway Station, where they were heading. Mike looked at the timetables in the station, then was told at the ticket office that all trains North were full for the day and they should book now for tomorrow, or come back. Mike swore, then grudgingly booked seats on the only train available for the next day – a slow train, stopping at every possible stop on the way to Kandy.

        “Sorry Mike …” Frank said.

        Outside  the  station,  across  the  road, were pavement shops and snack-bars, and the

the New Crown Hotel.

        Mike booked them in for the night, then ordered the house speciality, a cheap plate of rice and curry.

       “Sorry Mike …” Frank said again.

They sat in an arboretum with drinks, while Susan and Jason and Elizabeth helped Stefan and the girls wash up. Baby Jane was asleep in a laundry basket. Margaret offered Claire Marie a second glass.

        “No thanks” she said “Not for me” It was heady stuff, Margaret’s own home made one-glass-and-under-the-table wine - and very potent.

       “Jack?” she held out the bottle to him.

       “Thanks” he took it and almost filled his glass.

        “Steady” Claire Marie warned him “I don’t want to have to carry you home”

        “Can you really heal people?”  Margaret asked him “Leukemia? Stefan?” a pause, then “ Me-ke gana kee yada?”

        “He healed me” Claire Marie told her “Stomach cancer and bulimia. And in less than six weeks”

         “It costs nothing” said Jack “I believe we’re sent wherever, to help whoever. Yes. We can help Stefan” he looked at his drink then at Margaret “I don’t believe Susan meeting Stefan was chance”

         Margaret looked at Jack.

        “Ne-he” she said “No”

The double room, with two single beds, was clean, but with no room service or Sky TV.   

         All the TV programs were in Sinhala.

         Frank lay on his bed, his big feet hanging over the end, sullen.

         “You wanna go out someplace? Catch a American movie or somethin’?” Mike asked.

         Frank shook his head, staring at the TV.

         Mike shrugged.

         It was going to be a long night.

*          *          *

The evening was cool.  It was a pleasant walk back to Kandy, Susan pushing Baby Jane in the buggy.

         “Well” said Claire Marie “That was nice”

         There was the sound of an approaching car.

         “Stefan’s got a MegaDrive”  said Jason

         The car engine was suddenly gunned.

         “Isn’t that a bit dated now?” Jack asked Jason.

         “Yeah” said Jason.

         The car was closer.

        “It’s good though. Got all kinds of…”

         “Jack!” Elizabeth shouted “Watch out!”

         Claire Marie half turned and saw the car heading for them.

          “Get in!” Jack shouted “Get in!

          The car hit him.  Jack was thrown over the hood, hit the road and lay still. The car accelerated away, tires squealing, turned a corner and was gone.

          “Jack!” Claire Marie shouted “Oh, god! Jack!”