The lamp was low. Outside, the night was full of the small sounds of the village settling down — a dog turning in the dust, the last cricket, the far soft drumming of rain on the hills. Jeeva lay on his mat, eyes heavy, while Aaji sat beside him the way she did every night.

"Aaji," he said sleepily, "you have told me so many stories this season. About the wind in the open sky, and the leaf and the flower, and Vidura's greens, and the night everyone bowed under the banyan." He yawned. "If I forget all of them — if I can only keep one little thing — what should it be?"

Aaji smiled in the lamplight. She smoothed the hair back from his forehead.

"Then keep this, child," she said softly, "for it holds all the rest inside it. There are only four small things, and they fit in one breath."

She held up one finger. "Think of God. When you wake, when you walk to the fields, when you paint on the wall — let a little corner of your mind rest on Him."

A second finger. "Love God. Not out of fear, not to get something. Just love Him, the way you love me."

A third finger. "Give your day to God. Whatever you do — sweeping the floor, sharing your food, mending Manju's painting — do it as a small gift offered up to Him."

A fourth finger. "And bow to God. Lower your proud little head now and then, and remember you are held by something far greater and far kinder than yourself."

She folded her four fingers gently into Jeeva's small hand.

"Do these four things," she whispered, "and make Him the home your heart is always walking toward — and you will reach Him. You do not have to be learned. You do not have to be rich. You do not have to be perfect. You only have to turn your face toward the light and keep walking. That is the whole secret, Jeeva. That is the king of all the secrets. And now you carry it."

Jeeva's eyes were closed. His breathing had gone slow and even. His hand was still curled around Aaji's four fingers.

She sat a while longer in the quiet, watching him sleep, and then she too bowed her head toward the white-painted figure on the wall, and blew out the lamp.