My father scrubs off up to the elbows, warms a spoonful of olive oil for the callouses. His hands are small, the fingers bent. Lime has eaten into his knuckles and the pads of his fingers. Skin-hooks snag when he would smooth my hair. But after we have eaten and the dishes cleared away, his hands are the hands of an artist as he sets the box of watercolours on the table. Under the electric light its rosewood lid shines, wine-coloured, still as a lake. Silence trembles to the edges of the room: a silence from the heart of ceremony. This is the moment when the lid is lifted to reveal the cubes of colour inside. But dry, opaque, they are not yet fully known. What light is to crystal, so water is to pigment. Bring me The Tears Of She Who Lives Under The Lake, my father always says. (A glass of clean tapwater is brought.) In the drawer of the box lie the brushes – sable buds that will bloom on the white china palette. Still my father waits. The brushes, the paper, the colours wait. And so must I. Only the artist whose hands are fragrant with olives knows the meaning of this long pause. At last he passes me a brush. And, as he has taught, first I dampen the paper, clean the brush. Only then may I begin to paint. With The Tears Of She Who Lives Under The Lake, I release the light of the crystal.