But mostly in Chiang Mai there were wats, which meant temples. There were more than three hundred wats in the city, and Claude was pretty sure they saw every single one of them. They were right in the middle of everything, plopped next to a restaurant or a bank or a grocery store, right where you were going anyway so that they served, their guide Nok explained, as a reminder. What the temples wanted to remind you about was the Buddha. Maybe he wasn’t God, but then why were there so many statues of him? Each temple had legions of Buddhas. Oodles of Buddhas. Buddhas galore. There were paintings and drawings and murals of Buddhas. Stories of the Buddha. Statues of Buddhas with flames blooming from their heads toward the sky. Buddhas walking or meditating or sitting on a snake or talking to animals. Buddhas who looked like they were taking a nap. Buddhas with their eyes all cast down (because it is important to see oneself before others, Nok explained) and their ears stretched long (to listen, to observe, and also because long ears mean long life; Claude fingered his own but could not judge their relative length).
But what drew Claude to the Buddha first was not his eyes nor his ears but his fingers. Actually, his fingernails. They were long and shapely. They were elegantly filed. Often, they were painted gold. His hands lay quietly in his lap, easy and neat and turned gently open, like he was asking, and genuinely caring, how you were, like he was getting ready to offer to make you a snack or some tea. Like a girl. The Buddhas wore jewelry and snailed their hair. They had full lips and secret smiles and shy eyes, high cheekbones and delicate noses, eyebrows that swept like swallows. Some had soft little bellies. Some had two squiggles that formed a triangle between their legs, and maybe that was the bottom of his jacket, but maybe it was something better. Sometimes the Buddhas lay on their sides, heads propped on hands, looking like if they could speak they would say, “So! Tell me everything!” just like Poppy’s friends did during sleepovers. One was wearing a floor-length beaded gold gown, the sparkling diamond weave of which snugged the Buddha’s gentle curves, and a black updo framing eyes that gazed modestly down at the dress and said, “Damn, I look good.” The Buddha had long, rounded thighs, smooth shoulders, flared hips, and a narrow waist. He had delicate feet, hands poised at his sides like patient birds. Sometimes up top, he was flat as the stone he was carved from. Sometimes robes or dresses or sashes seemed to hide something more up there because no matter the material, posture, expression, or outfit, the Buddha looked like a girl.
Claude wasn’t sure it was polite to ask why—the Buddha may not have been a god, but in all the stories, he definitely was a he—but he did anyway. It was unlike him, but he had to know.
Nok said, “Buddha peaceful, gentle, nonaggressive. So look female.”
He said, “Buddha many lives and bodies before enlightenment.”
He said, “Nothing belong to you. Not even the body of you.”
None of which really answered the question. What was clear, however, was that the Buddha was born male, then cut off all his hair one day and got enlightened, then ended up looking like a girl. And as if that weren’t enough, the Buddha also seemed to feel that even things as unalterable as bodies were temporary, and what mattered was if you were good and honest, and forgiveness solved everything. That was how, whatever else they were, Claude and Poppy became Buddhists for life.
*
Their last day in Chiang Mai was the king’s birthday, and the whole city, the whole country, was having a party. People were giving out free food in the markets, shoving oranges into Claude’s hands and fish balls on a stick and a bowl of sweet, creamy pumpkin soup. And everywhere he looked, everyone was wearing yellow: yellow shirts and dresses, yellow hats and shawls, yellow shoes and yellow scarves.
“Why is everyone wearing yellow?” Claude had to yell so Nok could hear him over the chanting.
Nok smiled that smile that meant he must have made a mistake with his poor English comprehension skills because no one could possibly be as ignorant as Claude was. “It is color of Monday.”
“What?”
“Yellow.”
“What’s yellow?”
“The color of Monday.”
“Monday has a color?”
“Every day have a color.”
“It does?”
“Of course.”
“But it’s Wednesday.”
“Today is Wednesday, but king is born on Monday, so his color yellow. What day you born?”
“June seventh.”
“What day of week?”
“Oh,” said Claude. “I have no idea.”
This news was greeted with incredulity. “Then how you know your color?”
Claude did not know his color.
“What day he born?” Nok asked Rosie.
“June seventh.”
“What day of week?” Nok repeated patiently.
“No idea.”
“Find out,” Nok advised. “Is important. Your day tell what your color and also what your Buddha position.”
“Buddha position?” Claude and his mother said together.
“King’s Buddha position—Monday—is Dispelling Fear. Standing with one hands up or two hands up.” Claude had been thinking of these as talk-to-the-hand Buddhas. He looked like he was about to do one of those moves where you do three snaps in a Z and add, “Whatever it is, girl, I do not want to hear about it.” But apparently (and not, Claude reflected, surprisingly) it was more loving and generous than that. He was dispelling fear. Sometimes the position was meant to suggest holding back storms or an angry sea. Sometimes it was calling for peace, keeping fighting and fear at bay, reminding people to choose calm, choose love. Let be.
*
That night after dinner, they went back to the fish spa. Armed with a cell-phone connection, Claude discovered that, like the king of Thailand, he had been born on a Monday as well.
“Makes sense.” His mother wiggled her toes to give the fish a ride.
“What does?”
“Your color being yellow.”