Healing Hands

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‘I felt his hands go through me.  Honest!’
‘Have you seen his eyes?  He can see in your soul, he can. His hands were so warm when he laid them upon me and I have never had any more headaches since.’
‘He felt my pulse and it was as if there was an electric current going through me.’

Miriam sat at the table and wondered whether or not to go ahead with it.  She, an educated woman, a professional.  That she should willingly subject herself to such a palaver. One of the women turned to her.
‘What are you coming in for?’ she asked.  She touched Miriam’s knee.  Miriam wanted to slap the hand away.
‘Well, it is kinda private, actually.’
‘Ach, you are here now.’  The woman beamed.  She was wearing long, colourful skirts and numerous bangles and necklaces.  Had this been the Sixties, she would have been a Child of Aquarius.  Now, in the second decade of the Millennium she just looked out of place.
‘Oh but he is wonderful.’  A woman with a tight perm and a shirt that was too loud grabbed both Miriam’s hands.  
‘You will love it!’  She smelled of patchouli underlaid with a vague smell of despair. 
‘I was just like you the first time.  Shy, and not quite believing.  The Master saw right through me; saw immediately what was wrong with me. And look at me now!’
Yes, look at you now, Miriam thought. All the more reason to get up and go.  But she didn’t say anything, just smiled vaguely.

The waiting room was full of happy, excited women.  There was a single man between them and Miriam could see that he felt very uncomfortable.  She suppressed the urge to come to his rescue.
‘Women’s trouble.  That’s it!’  The woman with all the jewellery clapped her hands.  The bangles tinkled. 
‘You are in for women’s trouble.  You see, since I started coming to Sri Baba Akshay for healing I have developed my spiritual side.  Sometimes I can feel what others are coming in for.  I may be a healer myself, says Akshay, but not yet.  Is it women’s trouble?  The Master is very good with women’s trouble.’
The woman with the perm nodded and made affirmative noises.
‘He’s not been with a woman.  Ever.  Celibate, the Master is.  All his desire is transformed into spirituality’

Miriam smiled vaguely, not wanting to draw too much attention or to insult the woman.
At last it was her turn.  She picked up her rather lame bunch of flowers everybody was supposed to offer to the master.  The cheque with the fee had been collected by Sri Baba Akshay’s assistant, a young woman with an ethereal beauty and long, flowing hair.  Miriam stood up to be shown in.  Some of the women embraced her, urged her to have courage and accept the healing hands of the Master.  The assistant showed her through a door, into a dark room thick with incense, lit by two candles.  

Sri Baba Akshay sat with his head in his hands.  Miriam walked up to the table, put the flowers down and fished a photo out of her handbag.

‘Hello Jamie,’ she said.  ‘Care to take a look at a photograph of your daughter?’

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