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Chapter 3 - ChildrenOur little cruise ship was docked at a most spectacular location, near the end of a spit of land that sheltered the nearby harbor. The previous owner of the ship had driven two pylons into the lakebed, that were used as anchoring posts to tie the ship up. Access was provided via a floating bridge. Our location was spectacular, in that the harbor with all its colors and lights provided a splendid background to the East, with Lu Mountain towering behind it, to complete the scenery towards the rising sun. In the evening, that scene was flooded with the golden light of the sunset that unfolded over the lake. We could hardly have found a better location as a home base. Since the ship was designed for sight-seeing cruises, it featured a large upper deck that was completely open on all sides except, for a couple of narrow structures that carried the navigational scanners and the engine exhaust. Apart from these, we had a 360 degree view of the surrounding world, a world busy with fishing boats, cargo ships, passenger ferries, river barges, floating markets, and countless smaller vessels that constantly entered and left the harbor, even in the dark of night. "Will this do, as an acceptable place for us?" I asked Sylvia on the third day after our arrival as we relaxed on the upper deck after dinner. We were luxuriating in the mellow glow of the setting sun. There was a slight haze over the lake. Still, the lake was bright with the glist of the setting sun. Sylvia nodded. She smiled, but said that there was still something missing in our New World. Since I couldn't figure out what this might be, she reminded me of our meeting way back in Washington, on the evening of my return from Sukhumi. She reminded me of the flower shop that we had found that night on our walk after the thunderstorm. We had been looking for an ice-cream store. She reminded me that I had given her two roses in the flower shop, which, I had said, signified the life we had had together up to that day. Then she reminded me that I had added two dozen more roses to signify what our life was destined to be like in the future. "Something doesn't add up," she said and grinned. "The size of our family doesn't reflect the metaphor." She conceded that we had already surpassed Nicolai's perception of a big family, by a long way, but she also pointed out that we were a long way short in the size of our family to match the number of roses that we said should reflect our future life together. "This means, there is a whole lot missing," she said. "Do we only have twelve people in our family?" I asked. I began to count. There were Tony, Dag, and Al; and Heather and Ross; and Steve, Ushi, Fred, Giovanni, Sylvia and I; and our two Chinese ladies who were living with us on the ship. "I count thirteen," I corrected Sylvia. "I count six men and seven women." Here I had to laugh. "We have grown into such a large family even without having any children," I said to her. "Don't you think the time has come for children to be added?" asked Sylvia. "Now that we are all solidly married to each other in recognition of what has always existed in truth between human beings living at the leading edge, shouldn't there be a still fuller unfolding happening from now on?" "We might become a family of two or three dozen soon," I commented and grinned. "Imagine what a precedent we would establish among the Chinese people, who love to have large families," said Sylvia. I suggested to Sylvia that this expansion might have to wait a while until the foundation for it has been fully established. "Unless there is a total commitment by all of us, to enrich one another's existence, and this commitment is based on a higher platform, the larger scene is open to abuse on many fronts." || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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