the worshippers. She’d never seen people dressed so color-fully and wondered why everybody in America who went to church seemed to wear black or gray. She asked their guide this question and he paused from rowing.
“The Ganga is the most sacred place in India,” he said, his English quick and precise, much like his oar strokes. “People come to Varanasi to die, and this makes them happy, their families happy. If you are Hindu and you die in Varanasi, then you have much to smile about. You have won the lottery for death.”
Next to Mattie, Ian studied her face, wondering if they should be here. He wasn’t certain what she would think of such a place. She’d asked to walk along the river, among all the people, but he hadn’t wanted her to get such a good view of the dead bodies. Better to watch such things from afar on the river.
Though Ian feared letting Mattie see the dead up close, he’d been reluctant to skip Varanasi. He believed Hindus possessed an acceptance of death that didn’t often exist in the West. They saw death as a spoke that made up a wheel of life, believed death led to rebirth. And while Ian didn’t seek to remind Mattie about death of any sort, he hoped that somehow a trip to the Ganges River would show her that some cultures associated death with hope.
“Can we go closer to shore?” she asked, a yellow pencil moving incessantly in her hand.
The man adjusted his turban. “My oars will take you anywhere you like. Except north to the mountains. I have enemies there.”
“Enemies?”
“A girl,” he said, smiling. “It all began with a girl.”
Mattie nodded, not understanding, and wanting to finish her sketch. As she worked, Ian turned around, looking across the river. In the distance he saw what he thought was a bloated body floating past. The poor, he knew, couldn’t afford to burn the bodies of their loved ones and simply set them free in the Ganges. Glad that Mattie hadn’t seen the corpse, he turned back to her.
Their guide pointed to a stone outcropping below a pink temple. The outcropping extended above the water and held a group of people dressed in orange and yellow robes. Near the river, a fire burned, twisting in the breeze, sending the scent of sandalwood in all directions. “This is a ghat,” their guide said, pointing.
“What’s a ghat?” Mattie asked, pausing at her work.
“A place where Hindus burn the bodies of their loved ones. The body is burned, and the ashes are swept into the Ganga by a relative. Hindus believe that since the body has been burned to ashes, the journey toward rebirth will be easier. And that journey happens in the river.”
Mattie watched a man in white robes add more wood to the fire. Looking up and down the banks of the river, she saw dozens of other fires on similar structures. As the man in white used a long pole to poke at the nearby fire, another man, dressed in colorful robes, began to move his hands and chant.
“He is the priest,” their guide said.
“Might you tell us about rebirth?” Ian asked, edging closer to Mattie along the bench.
The man shrugged. “I am a Muslim, so I do not understand everything that the Hindus believe. Muslims believe that we go to Paradise after death. That is our jackpot. The Hindus believe that one is reborn, and this makes death not such a bad thing, because the soul . . . changes its direction at death . . . and then returns to Earth in a new body to continue its journey.”
Mattie looked from fire to fire, thinking of her mother’s funeral. “What if you were buried? Could your soul still be reborn?”
The Indian picked up his oars and rowed a few times, his lips pursed. “I do not know for certain what the Hindus would say. But I think they would nod their shiny heads. They would believe that the soul could never be caged. The Ganga, of course, makes rebirth easier. But the ground is not so different.”
On the nearby shore, the fire appeared to be losing its strength. The man in white continued to poke with his long pole, sifting through the remains.
“If it is a man they have burned,” the guide said, “his ribs may remain. If it is a woman, her hips may be left. That man is seeing if everything has been burned enough. If it has, a