Petals from the Sky (27 page)

32

The Elevator

A
round two-thirty in the afternoon, Enlightened to Emptiness and I said good-bye to each other and Little Lam drove her to the airport. After that, I bid farewell to all the nuns and took a taxi back to the city.

A few hours later, I arrived at the Chengdu Golden Cow hotel. Although the pillars and moldings were all painted gold to match its title, the hotel was an eyesore. Loud and cigarette-dangling-from-lips men were talking with violent hand gestures. Exhausted mothers were yelling to their kids to behave. Shabbily uniformed staff walked around slack-mouthed, grunting…

As I was hauling my luggage toward the counter, to my utter shock, I saw a familiar face appearing and disappearing among milling people.

Michael? I couldn’t believe my eyes. Could it be Michael right here in Chengdu, in China, in front of my eyes? Or was it a hallucination?

Then Michael’s tired face and gaunt body were quickly approaching me.

“Meng Ning!” he screamed. A few people threw him curious glances.

“Michael, is that you?!” It was now my turn to scream back.

Suddenly Michael was standing in front of me. A long silence. Then he said, trying very hard to suppress his voice and seemingly rising anger, “Meng Ning, why did you just shut me out like this? Do you have any idea how much I worried about you? My heart is torn when I think of the danger you might have encountered in China—all alone in the middle of nowhere!”

Now a small group of people started to gather around to watch this free drama between a Chinese woman and an American barbarian in a cheap hotel in this Heavenly Capital—Chengdu.

“Michael, please, people are watching. Let’s talk later after we’ve gotten a room. Please…”

“Fuck these people! I don’t care about them, I only care about you! Haven’t you realized that? If I hadn’t asked your mother, I’d have never found out where you are. How can you do this to me?”

“Michael, please, I’m so sorry, so terribly sorry…please lower your voice and…can we talk later?” I was scared and pleading. I’d never seen Michael so angry before.

He demanded, “Then answer me!”

My voice came out like a wounded animal’s. “I…just wanted some time to think things over.”

“Then have you finished yet?”

“Forgive me, Michael. I’m so sorry. Please…”

After some time, he finally emitted a soft, “All right,” then pulled me to him to plant a kiss on my forehead.

The crowd applauded and cheered.

A middle-aged woman split a big smile, while quoting a popular Chinese proverb. “Yes, when a family is harmonious, ten thousand things will be prosperous!”

A cigarette dangling between yellowish teeth, a young man echoed with another popular saying—“Yes, fighting at the head of the bed and making up at its foot!”—to another loud round of applause.

Michael cast the onlookers angry glances, then turned back to me. “Are these people making fun of me?”

“No, Michael, they’re happy that we stopped fighting! Please, let’s go.”

In silence, we lugged our bags to the counter, behind which sat a man in a navy blue uniform and a fortyish woman.

I said, “My name is Du Meng Ning, and I have reserved a room.”

The man stared hard at me, then Michael. “Are you two going to stay in separate rooms?”

I turned to translate to Michael.

He looked pained. “Now, are you saying that after I flew all the way across the Pacific to see you, you want to stay in a separate room?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I’m just translating his question.”

“All right, then tell him that not only are we staying in the same room, but also the same bed.” Of course I left out “the same bed.”

I said to the man, feeling ill at ease, “He’s staying with me in the same room.”

The guy’s malicious small eyes ping-ponged between me and Michael. “You’re married?”

Sensing that there might be trouble coming up, I again translated our conversation to Michael.

He frowned. “Tell him that we are husband and wife.”

“But—”

“Just tell him, Meng Ning.”

I turned to the man. “Yes, we’re married.”

His response came as a surprise. “Then show me your marriage certificate.”

I translated that to Michael. “Marriage certificate?” He looked very upset. “Tell him we don’t have it with us.”

I told the guy. Face hardened, he put on an authoritative air and said, “Then you have to stay in separate rooms.”

“But we’re husband and wife.” My voice sounded unconvincing even to my own ears.

Without losing a beat, he shot back, “Then prove it.”

“I’ve told you that we don’t have it here.”

“Then where is it?”

“Back in the United States.”

“Then why are you not traveling with your American passport but with your Hong Kong Entry Permit?”

“Because I haven’t gotten my passport yet. My husband and I have just been married for a few months.”

We kept arguing back and forth like this for a while before I translated everything to Michael.

To my utter shock, he lost his temper. Face flushed and eyes intent, he yelled at the man in English, thrusting his open hand toward him. “Listen, I’m not going to put up with this bullshit anymore—just give us the damn key!”

I didn’t think the guy understood English, but the yelling worked. With a look of humiliation he handed Michael the key.

Then, when we were walking toward the elevator, I heard him complain to the woman next to him. “It’s not my problem if the police come around here tonight and she fails to show their marriage certificate. And don’t blame me if they stamp ‘prostitute’ on her reentry permit.”

“Old Zhang”—the woman chuckled—“don’t forget she’s with an American, so, believe me, the police won’t give them any trouble.”

Walking toward the elevator, I imagined all eyes were upon us, as if on my forehead were engraved two large characters:
jinu
—prostitute; and on Michael’s the characters
laofan
—old barbarian.

As the elevator door closed, cutting off the piercing gazes, a sense of safety immediately flooded the confined area. In this temporary refuge, we listened to the elevator’s humming and felt its rising momentum to the fifteenth floor.

“Meng Ning.” Michael reached toward me, his tone now soft. “Aren’t you happy that I flew all the way to see you?”

“Of course I am.” I looked at his sad face and felt a surge of love swelling inside.

“But you don’t act that way.”

“Because I still haven’t gotten over the shock of suddenly seeing your face here.”

“It’s because you never called to let me know where you were. Please think more about me. Meng Ning, if you’re really happy to see me, then show it—”

Before he could finish, a screeching sound slashed the air and swallowed his words. Then everything went black. I felt my heart leap into my throat as if I were plunging down a precipice. But I quickly realized it was the elevator plunging.

I grabbed onto the rail and fervently prayed, “Guan Yin, now please hear our sounds and come to help!”

Memories of my fall into the well flashed across my mind.

Would I die this time? Or would I miraculously survive, as I had seventeen years ago? While silently praying to the Goddess of Mercy, I heard myself blurt out, “Michael?” and I reached for him, still holding the rail with my other arm.

Then I was knocked off my feet by a strong jolt.

Fate plays games with mortals. I’d survived the well, and now this! This would be the end of everything, nun or not nun, married or single, empty gate or dusty world. I was going to die. I was dying, and Michael…Oh, Michael!

But the elevator had only jolted to a stop, and I didn’t die. Silence roamed tortuously through the dark, expansive confine.

I tried to reach for Michael, but my hand touched only emptiness.

“You OK, Michael?”

“You OK, Meng Ning?” Our voices sounded simultaneously in the dark.

Then his voice, now pained, arose in the eerie obscurity. “I fell. My leg hurts terribly…. Meng Ning, I can’t see you at all!”

This was the first time that I sensed fear in him.

I groped in the dark for a few seconds before feeling his body. He grabbed my hand. Though I tried to help him up, he seemed glued to the floor.

“I don’t think I can get up. My leg hurts too much.”

I knelt down beside him and put my arms around his shoulders.

“My leg…” He sounded very upset. “Damn, they may not even realize that we’re trapped here.”

“I’m sure those people at the counter will get us out,” I said, surprised by the sudden calmness descending on me. Seconds later, my hands started to bang on the door.

Michael joined in the banging, but feebly. I told him to save his energy and kept banging until my hands hurt. But nothing happened; we were again engulfed in a dark, ominous silence.

“Michael, let’s just wait. This is a hotel—sooner or later someone is going to use the elevator.”

“All right,” Michael said, sounding dejected, then, “Meng Ning, please hold me.”

As I reached to embrace him, a tenderness rose in me, a different sort of tenderness than I’d felt with him before. I held Michael gently, aware of his neediness and feeling warmth grow in my heart and, to my surprise, between my legs. These were feelings I’d never considered—or even knew existed—when contemplating a life inside the empty gate.

In the darkness I smelled his scent of sweat and cologne; felt the texture of his cotton shirt, his warm breath.

I nestled his head tighter against my chest. His heart felt strong—but also vulnerable—beating here with me in the dark. A feeling of deep karmic connection with Michael rippled through me.

I thought of the phrase
xinxin xiangyin,
two hearts merge in one. I had known this Buddhist saying, but it had not meant much to me. And another that I had heard only recently, the fortune-teller’s saying: With absolute sincerity, even metal and stone can be opened.

It was as if the moon, pure and luminous, slowly emerged from behind a cloud to light up the dark earth. I’d fallen in the well and fallen in love with Guan Yin; now, in a shabby elevator in a cheap hotel in China, I fell in love all over again—with a man. This fall, like the earlier one, had somehow pacified my mind. In Zen it might take a blow with the master’s stick to trigger insight. For me it had taken two steep falls.

I’d never imagined that Zen would lead me to a life with one of the species called “man,” which I’d so despised. I’d recognized my need for people, but I hadn’t realized being needed myself. Just as Yi Kong was needed by her disciples inside the empty gate. Which, however empty, was still built upon the same ground of this dusty world.

“Don’t let go of me, Meng Ning, please. Ever. You’re all I have in life,” Michael said, his voice much calmer now.

I touched his cheek. “I won’t.” Then I teased, “Though, as a Buddhist, I should Let-Go-and-Be-Carefree.” Let-Go-and-Be-Carefree was Michael’s Buddhist name.

He let out a nervous laugh.

I asked, “How’s your leg?”

“It doesn’t hurt as much now. With China’s five thousand years of history, how long do you think it will take before someone will rescue us?”

Just then the light was snapped on and mingled voices were heard from above. “Hey, are you people all right in there?”

I yelled back in Mandarin, “Couldn’t be better!”

I looked at my watch. We were only trapped in the elevator for seven minutes. But it already felt like a whole incarnation.

As soon as Michael closed the hotel room door behind us, he hugged me. He held me so tightly it seemed as if he were trying to squeeze out anything that might be between us. The world around us seemed to fall away slowly, leaving only him and me in the cocoon of this dilapidated hotel. We clung and kissed for what seemed an entire incarnation until he finally released me.

He said, “Meng Ning, are you happy to see me?”

I touched his hollow face as my heart swelled with pain. “Of course.”

“Promise me you’ll never run away from me again.”

“Michael, I’m so sorry.” Then I lied: “I did try to call you from a public phone, but it just never connected.”

“All right.”

Some silence, then I asked, “Michael, how’s your leg?”

“It’s a bit sore, but I think it’s no big deal.”

“Then let’s go eat. I’m hungry.”

“But I have my
dim sum
…right here,” he said as he picked me up and carried me to the bed.

“Michael,” I protested, “they might hear.”

But he ignored what I said.

33

The Peach Blossom Garden

T
he next morning, after breakfast, Michael suggested we visit the famous Le Mountain to see the big Buddha—to pray to him to bless our reunion in China.

The taxi ride toward Leshan was bumpy and dusty, as expected. Michael stared out the window, seemingly entranced.

“There’s really not much to see, Michael.”

“I don’t care; I just want to see China.”

His enthusiasm pleased me.

Some silence, then Michael suddenly pointed out of the window. “Here’s something. Meng Ning, look—maybe it’s a temple.”

Partially hidden in thick groves, the building looked like a modest woman peeking out to the world through a crack in the screen of her private chamber.

It wasn’t in our plan, but somehow I was intrigued by the half-hidden temple. I suggested to Michael that we take a quick look.

“I was just thinking the same.”

So I asked the driver to make a detour. He made a U-turn onto a meandering dirt road and followed it for another ten minutes, frequently expressing doubt that we’d find anything. Finally, we spotted a flight of narrow stone steps and he pulled up and let us out.

“Miss, I’m afraid you two have to climb your way up. I’ll wait here.”

Slowly Michael and I made our tortuous ascent of the steep, heaven-bound, zigzagging stairs. The day was getting hot, but luckily, heavy canopies of foliage shaded us from the sun. It took us ten minutes before we finally emerged onto level ground, sweating and panting.

Michael smiled, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. “We made it, Meng Ning.”

Dressed in running shoes, jeans, and a pale green T-shirt, Michael looked relaxed and happy, blending perfectly with the tall bamboo and its dappled, dark green shadow.

We walked along the level path until we reached a moon-shaped gate made of old gray stones, the lower portion overgrown with plants. On top of the arched structure were large Chinese characters in seal script: Universe of Empty Nature. Once through the round gate, between patches of leaves we could spy fragments of a distant temple with upturned eaves. Inhaling the fragrance of unknown blossoms, I felt far from the dusty world, as if we had just found the fabled Peach Blossom Garden.

Peach Blossom Garden, a lost Chinese utopia, was the subject of a famous poem by the Six Dynasties poet Tao Yuanming, who, at forty-five, had become disgusted by his official life and decided to become a farmer. Thereafter, he enjoyed a simple life: he tended his garden, read, drank wine when he had a few coins to pay for it, and wrote poetry.

Tao Yuanming told of a fisherman from Wuling who used to boat along a nearby river. One day, forgetful of how far he had gone, he spied a grove of blossoming peach trees. He beached his boat and entered the garden. At once he found himself inside a secluded world forgotten by time. The small village was inhabited by farm families living simple, honest lives, unaware even of the passing of the dynasties over the centuries.

Tao’s poem was immensely popular over the ensuing centuries, for it spoke of a paradise where people unselfconsciously appreciated the simple joys of spring: blooming flowers, singing birds, and the clouds passing over distant peaks. The Confucian moral rules were unnecessary because the people were naturally good. All lived for more than one hundred years because of their closeness to nature and freedom from stress. As the day grew late, the fisherman returned home, intending to revisit. Yet, though he knew the river well and searched earnestly, he could never again find the Peach Blossom Garden.

We approached the temple. Red paint was peeling off the wooden pillars supporting the bluish-green roof. Beside the entrance ancient pine trees towered like guardian gods.

“Michael, come take a look,” I said.

We hurried up to the temple and peeked through the wooden-latticed windows. An antique bronze Buddha, unsurprised by my intrusion, stared back at me, smiling compassionately.

“Let’s go in.” He took my hand and we stepped inside the courtyard.

The first thing we saw was a plum tree with pink blossoms. As we looked up at the petals, Michael started to recite, “‘In the past, we frequently met in the emperor’s house. Many times, I heard you sing in the grand hall. Now south of the river, I meet you in this season of falling petals.’”

It felt strange to hear Du Fu’s famous poem from Michael’s mouth. I sighed, feeling lost in the familiar dream of a past life where we, as lovers, had lain down in a petal-strewn, sweet-scented garden, singing and reciting poetry.

The temple floor was well swept, leaving an impression of venerable age, but not decay. There were also inscribed stone tablets. I did my best to translate to Michael those I thought would interest him.

One told the story of a young man whose beloved, a village lass, had married someone else. Having recognized the delusive nature of worldly desire, he had taken refuge in this very temple.

After my translation, Michael shook his head. “That’s not a good reason to be a monk—”

Just then a gentle voice breathed at our back. “Honorable visitors, may I be of service?”

We turned and saw a muscular young monk. He was clad in a gray top and pants, with a white sash tied around his middle, perhaps a touch of vanity to accentuate his lean waist. His manner seemed refined, his bald head glowed, and intelligence emanated from his almond eyes.

Placing our hands in the prayer gesture, Michael and I bowed respectfully. Then I said, “Shifu, we’ve just been looking around and appreciating the temple.”

With equal respect, the monk bowed back with his hands together. “Thanks, you are welcome here,” he said. “I apologize that I did not meet you at the gate. It has been a long time since we have had visitors. Stay as long as you like. Please join us for tea?”

“Thank you, Shifu, we’d love to,” I said, then translated our conversation to Michael, whose face lit up instantly.

We followed the young monk through another moon gate. He pointed out a stone lion, an enormous bronze incense burner, and a tower with a green encrusted bell, so ancient it looked as if it had been last struck a thousand years ago.

Then, when we passed a small pond laced with weeds, the monk stopped and pointed to what I’d thought was a stone ornament covered with moss. “My honorable guests, I would like you to meet Perfect Merit, our enlightened tortoise. We believe he is the direct descendent of that tortoise who lived on the bed of the Eastern Sea and carried the Five Divine Mountains on his back.”

Before I could express my amazement, he went on. “Perfect Merit has witnessed the vicissitudes of many lives and is older than the three of us together.”

I translated this to Michael, and he exclaimed, “Is that so? How old—one hundred?”

I told the monk. He raised three fingers and smiled proudly. “No, three.”

I asked, “Can we touch it?”

“Sure. He’s achieved wisdom and compassion.”

Michael and I stooped to pat the tortoise’s shell, and the spiritual creature, instead of shrinking his head, cast us a slow soulful glance, as if saying, “Please leave me alone, you deluded mortals with your worldly entanglements!”

As I drank in the beauty of the place and inhaled its mingled fragrances, a sense of purity and freedom rose inside me.

The young monk led us from the sunlight into a cool, dim hall. Following him, we crossed another threshold into a sparse interior. The wooden furniture was plain and worn smooth. On one wall hung an ink painting of Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, with an expression warning that he had no time for nonsense.

The young monk excused himself into an adjacent room.

The feeling here was quite special; there’d been nothing like it in the large cave temple that I’d documented with Enlightened to Emptiness. It was as if I’d somehow found myself in one of the remote mountain temples in a Song dynasty landscape.

Michael’s thoughts were echoing mine. “When I first looked at Chinese art, I imagined myself in a temple like this. I never thought it would really happen.” Smiling, he asked, “You think we’ll be able to find our way back?”

“Who cares?” I smiled. Perhaps, like me, he hoped that somehow we could live together in this simple place far from the confusion of the real world. But of course, a monastery would be the last place I could live with Michael!

A pause, then I went up to take a close look at another hanging scroll. The ink pale, the style effortless, it portrayed a dozen elegantly crisscrossing plum blossoms; in between their branches a big moon peeked through. The poem to its left read:

When cold chills every crack, purity arises.

Now I realize I was the moon in a past life.

I kept savoring “I was the moon in a past life,” until Michael asked, “What is it, Meng Ning? Can you translate it for me?”

After I did, he said, “If I were the moon in a past life, then you must be the Moon Goddess Chang E, who ascended to heaven and flew into my arms.”

“Sometimes I wish I were Chang E.”

Michael looked puzzled. “But what of her poor husband? Meng Ning, don’t go away to the moon. China is far enough away. I need you here on earth. With me.”

It felt strange to me, talking of earthly desire in this isolated temple. Strange to really be wanted by a man.

We went on joking for a while before my gaze was arrested by a piece of calligraphy. I went up to take a close look at the flowing characters executed in the running style.

So I have looped around. From the preciousness of sensation to the harmfulness of being attached to it.

Intrigued, I wondered who had written this poem and what the motivation was.

I translated to Michael and told him my thought. He said, “I think it’s just another Zen poem about nonattachment.”

Just then the young monk returned. With tender respect, he helped another monk, old and wrinkled, who was inching forward with a cane. As slow as the turtle, Old Monk settled down onto a chair. His brown leathery face, brown robe, and brown cane blended in with the chair and the room. If a guest entered the room now, I bet he’d have taken Old Monk merely as another piece of antique furniture!

The young monk invited us to join them at the table.

Old Monk looked at us and split a toothless smile from a mouth like a dried-up well. His eyes, though yellowed and clouded, still penetrated, as if transmitting the law of Dharma directly from his mind.

Young Monk was now busy arranging the teapot, teacups, and dried fruit. When finished, he knelt at the altar table, muttered a short prayer, then offered his tea and fruit to the Buddha with utmost piety and respect.

I felt moved by this act of sincerity and devotion.

Then he poured another cup of tea and went to the old monk. To my surprise, he knelt down and offered him tea with the same piety and respect he’d paid to the Buddha.

After these offerings, the young monk, now looking relaxed, poured us steaming tea. Then he introduced the old monk to us as Master Detached Dust and himself as Eternal Brightness. Old Monk responded with an innocent smile.

Eternal Brightness said, “In comparison to our tortoise, my Master Detached Dust is quite a young man at only one hundred and five.”

I translated this to Michael. He exclaimed disbelief, but then bowed respectfully to Detached Dust. And, I believed, to the mystery of his longevity.

Suddenly the master spoke. “Do you two watch TV?”

This question from a one-hundred-and-five-year-old Zen monk recluse really took me by surprise—he should have long transcended the seven emotions and the five desires.

I translated to Michael. He said, “I feel sorry for him; he must be extremely lonely here.”

Then I turned back to Detached Dust. “We have a TV, but we don’t watch much.”

The master surprised me again by saying, “I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never seen it.”

“Master, you mean never in your whole life, not even
once?
”

“No.”

Now this living fossil really intrigued me. “Aren’t you curious to watch TV?”

Instead of directly answering my question, he smiled contentedly. “I have my garden, my
sutras,
the sky and the clouds.”

I translated this to Michael and he said, “Ask him whether he’s bored sometimes.”

I turned and asked the master.

His reply was, “Night after night the moon shines on the pond.”

Eternal Brightness eagerly chimed in. “Since his youth, Master’s eyesight has been weak,” as if an apology were needed for Master’s not watching TV, and not connecting to the modern world.

“Then how can he read his
sutras?
” I asked.

“He’d already memorized most of them before he reached twenty.” He paused, then added, “But Master possesses the Buddha eye.”

I translated this to Michael and he nodded, looking deep in thought.

A brief silence. Then the young monk stood up, went to the cauldron, and held out a bamboo tray on top of which lay fat, snowy-white buns. The bun, hot and steaming in my hands, seemed alive and palpitating.

Michael, probably very hungry by now after our long climb under the sun, was devouring the bun and gulping down the tea with relish.

“Mmm.” He raised his thumb to the monks.

Eternal Brightness smiled back politely, while Master Detached Dust cupped his mouth with his gnarled hand and giggled.

Then, seeing that I was not eating, Detached Dust cast me a meaningful glance. “Miss, eat! Eat while it’s still hot.” Then he added, “Don’t wait till it gets cool.”

Was it a metaphor for my being indecisive about marrying Michael?

I smiled at him, then split open the bun. Paste of red beans spilled to peek at the world outside and immediately I stuck out my tongue to take them into this Mortal’s Field of Red Hot Passion.

When we finished our snack, Master Detached Dust said, “Honorable guests, I now have to work.”

Work? At one hundred and five?

Seeing that I was staring doubtfully at his master, the young monk explained, “Master is going to tend to his garden.” After that, he helped Detached Dust outside.