Petals from the Sky (31 page)

“Ma, are you sure you know what you’re talking about?” My voice remained in the high register.

“Why does a daughter always sound so suspicious when her mother is telling her the truth?”

“Then tell me, who is this
gweilo
—an American?”

“Yes. He was an ambassador in the American Consulate—”

“An ambassador? Oh no, not possible!”

“If my daughter can charm a doctor, how come her mother’s not good enough to attract an ambassador?”

“Ma…” My voice now sounded defeated. “All right, how did you meet?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Can you just let me finish in peace?”

Mother sipped more tea, popped several shrimp chips into her mouth, and chewed noisily. “It was the year of the dog, when we lived in Wanchai. One late afternoon I went to the market to shop for food. Besides some meat and vegetables, I also bought two live chicks. I wanted to raise them to cook for the Chinese New Year, which was coming in three months. You know, it’s much cheaper that way than if you buy them during the New Year. Your father, as usual, was not at home, probably in Macao gambling his ass off. I was walking along the pier and thinking about his gambling until I started to cry. Damn the year of the dog that made me work like a dog. I kept cursing and spitting into the angry waves below the pier. Since I was not paying attention, I bumped into a lamppost and fell. The vegetables and meat spilled all over the ground and all the chicks ran loose. I was busy getting up and then trying to catch them. Several Chinese gathered to watch, but no one helped. Then this
gweilo
—by the way, his name is Jim Si—”

“You mean James? James what?”

“How am I supposed to remember? It’s been such a long time. Anyway, no Chinese can pronounce that last name, it’s too crazy. And anyway, Jim Si put down his expensive-looking briefcase and helped me up; then in his expensive-looking suit he chased after the chicks and finally got them back for me, then…then—”

“Then what?”

“Then you know what.” Mother’s eyes suddenly went blank.

“You mean you did
that thing
with him, just like that? But where could it have happened?”

“In our apartment—where else could it have been?” Mother looked me in the eyes for moments without blinking. “It’s just a few blocks from the market—”

“That…quickly? Ma, you hardly knew him!” I was yelling again.

Mother ignored my shock and went on, her expression turning tender. “Jim Si deeply moved my heart. He acted so gentlemanly, helping up a poor woman and chasing around for those filthy, fifty-cent chicks in his expensive suit in front of the Chinese onlookers. Since I couldn’t afford to buy him a gift to show my gratitude, I thought I could at least offer him a cup of tea to show my appreciation. That was why I invited him to our house, not only for a cup of tea, but also to wash his hands and clean his clothes. After that, he came for one more cup of tea, and I went to his office for a cup of coffee and that was that.”

“You mean you went to the American Consulate in Garden Road in Central?!”

Mother proudly nodded. “Very classy office, clean, painted all white with lots of sun and air and plants.”

“And where did you…” I felt too embarrassed to finish my sentence.

So Mother finished it for me. “Meng Ning, silly girl, you’re a painter, right? So you must know there’re different angles to paint an object. So, by the same logic…there’s also more than one way to—” She gulped down her tea and made a face. “To do you-know-what.”

“Then what happened to him after that?”

“He said the consulate had to transfer him back to America. But of course he lied, for I saw him twice, by accident, several months after, with other women. When I tried to accost him, he pretended not to recognize me.”

“I’m sorry…Where was I when all this happened?”

“At school, where do you think you’d be? You went to afternoon school, remember? It was cheaper.”

“So he’s…little brother’s father?”

Mother shrugged.

“Ma! What do you mean? Yes or no?”

Mother nodded.

“Did you tell him that?”

“No chance. I tried to, but never made it. The guard by the consulate’s entrance never let me in.”

“Did Baba know about this?”

“I don’t know—maybe yes, maybe no. Of course I didn’t have the chance to tell him either.”

“But couldn’t he tell the baby was Eurasian?”

“Possibly, but not necessarily. Your little brother was only three days old when he died. How can one tell with a three-day-old?”

I suspected that Father had known, at least sort of. Otherwise how could he have taken little brother’s death so lightly? I’d never considered that little brother’s death, instead of a punishment for her love with Father, as I’d always guessed, was in fact the karma for her love with a
gweilo
.

Mother sighed.
“Hai!
Meng Ning, you understand now why your marrying a
gweilo
worries me?”

I didn’t respond. A meditative silence, then she asked, tentatively, “Meng Ning, do you…despise your mother now?”

In fact, I didn’t, not at all. Strangely enough, after I’d learned the secret, I even felt happy for Mother. Now at least her life didn’t seem that miserable after all. She’d had some fun. Besides, I also admired her. This took courage, didn’t it? Especially when it happened almost twenty years ago when Hong Kong people were very closed-minded and any contact with
gweilo
s was considered wicked.

I patted her hand. “Ma, I’m sorry…”

To my utter surprise, Mother said, looking almost cheerful, “But I’m not.”

“Because you loved this James?”

“No, because…I had a good time.”

Another silence, then I said, “Ma, I’ve always thought Baba was your first and only love.”

Again, she surprised me. “He still is. Jim Si was only a small American adventure.”

I put my arm around her. “You know what? When I said sorry, actually I didn’t mean it. In fact, I feel happy for you. And…”

Just then I remembered something. I dashed into the bedroom, snatched out the jade bracelet from my handbag, then hurried back to Mother.

“Ma, I hope this will make you more happy.” I felt choked with emotion as I handed her the bracelet.

“Meng Ning, where did you get it?” Mother scrutinized the jade, looking both surprised and pleased.

I told her it was a gift from Michael.

Mother caressed it with her plump, callused hands.

“What do you think? You like it?”

“It’s a decent piece. But I think Grandma’s one was better, greener and more translucent.”

“Ma, try it on.”

“But it’s yours.”

“No, it’s too loose for me. So it’s now for you.”

But the bracelet refused to slip onto her wrist—it was too small.

Simultaneously we sighed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, now feeling completely drained.

Mother looked at me affectionately. “Meng Ning, you’re such a lucky girl. This Mic Ko, you’d better be nice to him and treasure him as Grandma treasured her jade bracelet.”

“You’re not worried anymore?”

“Ah, Meng Ning, silly girl. Look at all this Mic Ko has done for you, even before you’re married to him. Grandma was right, she could see that you’d fall in love with a nice man, marry, have many children and a good life.” The corners of her lips curled into a mischievous smile. “Besides, you’ve been worrying about money and haven’t found a job yet, and Hong Kong will soon go back to China, so it’s good that this Mic Ko comes along now, not to mention he’ll give you free medical care!”

“Ma, you think I’m marrying Michael because of this?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But it’s still a bonus that he’s an American and a doctor, don’t you think?” Then she added, widening her eyes, “But, still, be careful. This Mic Ko is still a
gweilo
after all!”

We laughed.

“Meng Ning, about the bracelet. Why don’t you donate it to that pretty nun who always appears on television?”

“You mean Yi Kong?”

“Whatever you call her.”

“But I thought you didn’t like her.”

“Ah, silly girl. I disliked her because I feared you’d follow her to be a nun.” Mother made a face. “In fact, I like her now; she’s so pretty and gave you so much help. So I think we should pay her back by donating this to her temple. Besides, we can also accumulate more merit—”

“But, Ma…How do you know that she helped me?”

“Ah, you think your mother’s a stupid old woman, eh? Of course I knew, I just didn’t want to embarrass you. How could you have had the money to pay for your father’s funeral, and pay back the debt to the Big Ear Hole? Of course I know. I always do.” Mother winked. “Like your grandma, I have a third eye.”

39

Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust

T
wo days later, I rode the train to Golden Lotus Temple, passing the sights that had become familiar to me since my teens. But this time I was seeing Yi Kong to announce my wedding. How would she react—angry? worried? detached? Would she agree to conduct a Buddhist wedding for me? I also had determined to donate my jade bracelet to the nunnery, for this was to accumulate merit for Michael, Mother, and me.

I had called Golden Lotus Temple and asked for Enlightened to Emptiness. After I’d told her my wish to visit Yi Kong, she said, “You’ve got perfect timing, Miss Du.” Her voice sent waves of vibration to me from the other end of the line. “For Yi Kong Shifu has just returned from Suzhou this morning.”

Before I had a chance to ask what the purpose of the trip was, the novice’s enthusiasm again swelled in my ear. “This time Shifu has brought back several architects to build an imitation Suzhou rock garden for our temple.”

But wasn’t the nunnery in financial difficulty after its benefactor had disappeared?
I thought, but stopped myself from asking.

Yi Kong was already waiting for me when I entered her office.

“Hello, Meng Ning,” she said, looking up at me. Her face beamed, her hands choreographing several tiny antique Buddha figures on her desk. “Please sit down.”

I sat down in front of her large wooden desk. Amidst her curios were set a teapot and two cups; rose petals floated on the steaming amber liquid. The aroma reached into my nostrils, then seemed to travel down my esophagus and deep into my chest. Beside the tea set was a ceramic plate with nuts piled into a small mountain.

Yi Kong said, “Let’s have tea.” As we sipped our tea and nibbled on the nuts, I started to give an initial report of my work at Anyue, then our conversation drifted around her work, her art collection, and her recent trip to China.

I’d been expecting her, as usual, to lecture me on the illusion of human passion and the delusion of human love. But, to my surprise, after we’d finished our second round of tea, she spoke not a single word related to these. Just when I was wondering if maybe this was the right moment to bring up my marriage, she flashed a lighthearted smile. And, instead of posing her usual question,
When are you coming to play with us?
she said, “You look good, Meng Ning. When are you getting married?”

This took me by surprise. Perhaps she’d acquired psychic powers from her nearly thirty years of meditation and was able to tell that I’d come to announce my marriage. Or, was
I’m getting married!
printed on my face like a poster?

“Hmmm…” I stuttered, “soon…Yi Kong Shifu.” Then, following the Chinese saying that when you hit a snake, let it crawl up the stick, I asked, “And, Shifu…I’ll be very grateful if…if…” I mustered up all my courage and blurted out, “You can take the time and trouble to perform a Buddhist wedding for us.”

She looked at me for a few moments with her penetrating eyes, nodding. “Yes.” Then, “What is the date of the wedding?”

“Early next year, February nineteenth.”

“Then I can arrange for the wedding to be held at our new Hall of Grand Heroic Treasures.” She lifted her cup to her lips. “Let’s have more tea now, then I’ll take you to see the murals in the new hall.”

After we had finished our third round of tea and flattened the mountain of nuts, she stood up from her chair and cast me a sidelong glance. “Well, be happy.” Then, “Come, Meng Ning, let’s go.”

I hurriedly followed her out of the office. Together we strolled past the library, the nursing home, the orphanage, the elementary school, and the half-finished construction site. She walked steadily with her back straight and her head held high. On the way, half a dozen workers and passersby stopped to bow to her with their hands held together in the adoration gesture; she returned a nod and a smile. Though she’d put on some weight, her gait was still as graceful as a crane’s. It pleased me to watch her heels mysteriously playing hide-and-seek from under her robe. I wondered what the arches of her feet looked like wrapped inside those soft slippers. The hollow of a bridge, or the curve of a fish?

“Here we are. This is the Hall of Grand Heroic Treasures.” Yi Kong’s voice cut off my idle thoughts. She was already stepping across the threshold into the hall; I quickened my pace to fall into step behind the undulating hem of her robe. Cold air blasted from within, raising gooseflesh on my arms. A mixture of raw wood, wet cement, paint, oil, and turpentine stung my nostrils.

The hall was huge—seven or eight thousand square feet. Round, thick red pillars like giants’ legs soared from its four corners to the high ceiling above. The entire wall was covered with an enormous mural—a whirlwind of pink, gold, and periwinkle. Turning my head in a circle to take it all in, I discovered it was filled with goddesses; hundreds, possibly thousands of them: flying while strumming a mandolin, bowing a fiddle, plucking a harp, tapping a drum. I could almost hear the twang of a plucked string, the lingering echo of a vibrato, the wailing of a fiddle, the distant thunder of a drum. The goddesses’ supple bodies and limbs curved in graceful arcs; their clothes with long-flowing ribbons rippled in between ornamental clouds. I could almost feel the sensuous caress of the silk strips against my bare arms.

“Very impressive,” I said, dropping my gaze back to earth, to Yi Kong.

Except in some rare, lavish art books, I had never seen frescos so beautiful and complex. The entire wall from floor to ceiling was filled with Bodhisattvas, gods and goddesses, people of all sorts, birds and auspicious animals. This huge mass of human forms and animals moved gracefully in a seemingly endless procession. Elegantly dressed Guan Yins marched abreast with sumptuously attired emperors, empresses, and lords. Some Bodhisattvas rode on white elephants, others on lions, with birds hovering above and peacocks trailing behind, fanning their thousand-eyed feathers. Farther back in the procession strolled poets and scholars, followed by servant boys with stacks of books weighing down their backs. Farmers held spades; fishermen, buckets filled with squirming fish; woodcutters with axes resting on thick shoulders walked here and there. Sailors and pirates fresh from the sea hastily fell in line to join the long queue, soon approached by prostitutes with pouting lips and flirtatious smiles.

I let out a gasp. “Yi Kong Shifu, I’ve never seen a modern Buddhist painting so magnificent.”

But as we came closer to the mural, I discovered that lurking in corners and shadows were the outcasts: beggars, lepers, cripples and, almost hidden from sight, the ugly and the diseased, the old and dying.

Suddenly I realized something. For my whole life I’d been obsessed with beauty, especially female beauty, beginning with my girlhood crush on Yi Kong. Chasing after these floating, transitory images had unsettled my mind, so that I’d neglected what was really meant for me in this life. But hadn’t my obsession with beauty later extended itself to men? I didn’t think I would have fallen in love with Michael—despite his rectitude and compassion—if he had been unattractive. I wouldn’t have gone out with Philip Noble if he’d had greasy hair and a crude face. I wondered: Would I have forgiven my father despite what he did to our family, if he had been wrinkled and ugly? If Lisa was plain-looking, would I have so easily been taken in by her?

And yes, also Guan Yin. Whenever I visited a temple, I’d always prayed just to Guan Yin, so I could admire her elongated eyes, curving brows, and crescent-moon lips. It was not so much her compassion as her beauty that I’d worshipped.

At last I saw that I’d missed the real lesson from my fall into the well. Spirituality for me had always been connected to things beautiful. Enlightenment was a jeweled paradise, a multicolored wonderland where beautiful celestial maidens danced to ethereal music and drank sweet elixirs. I’d ignored that it also includes hell—smelly and filled with trash, filth, rotting flesh. Though I’d been told many times over that enlightenment leads not to heaven, but to where I was now, I’d never accepted it. Enlightenment happens in the Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust—where sin and virtue, dreams and nightmares, truth and delusion, nun and not nun,
samsara
and
nirvana,
all exist together.

Yi Kong was right to teach that we shouldn’t discriminate. Life just
is
. So it’s pointless to reject the world, hoping to escape
samsara
—suffering. All we can do is keep to our ordinary mind.

So, what’s all the fuss about?

I was feeling expansive when Yi Kong softly said, “Let’s look some more,” and resumed walking.

I reached to touch the Guan Yin pendant hanging around my neck.

Yi Kong cast me a meaningful glance. “Time never stops. It’s been seventeen years since the day I threw the pendant to you into the well.”

Then I thought of something else and blurted out, “Yi Kong Shifu, since you’ve always talked about the illusion of human passion, then you must have experienced—”

“No, nothing like that.” She cut me off, her voice calm, her gaze as clear as a cloudless sky.

A light dawned in me, illuminating what had been in shadow before. There are different ways for people to see their “original face”—to perceive their different callings in life. Hers was to shave her head to become a nun—perhaps a worldly nun who gathered large donations for charitable projects. Dai Nam’s karma was to taste bitter love, then become a recluse, far from this dusty world. And mine was to be awakened to the spirituality of this Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust through the love and compassion of a man. All of us: Dai Nam, an ascetic nun meditating on a high mountain; Yi Kong, ambitiously gathering large donations and carrying out huge projects; Enlightened to Emptiness, who, though happy in the empty gate, knew she would never have the chance to love; or me, simply a woman in the world, about to be married and starting a career—we were just a few of the myriad sentient beings struggling with our own problems and striving for enlightenment in this unsatisfactory world.

As we continued walking, my thinking shifted. I no longer felt small in my teacher’s strong presence. Our karmas were about to diverge. Yes, Yi Kong had been my mentor and I would always respect her for that. But already the hold she’d had over me was weakening. Now I could feel sympathy for those parts of her life as a nun I’d only recently understood, like the need to attract donations from vulgar businessmen like Sunny Au. From there, my magnanimity continued to expand to the late Professor Fulton and his daughter Lisa, Philip Noble, even the taxi driver….

Feeling free, I smiled.

Yi Kong cast me a curious glance.

As if my hands were directed by some higher force, I snapped open my handbag, took out the brocade bag with the jade bracelet, and handed it to her. “Yi Kong Shifu, remember you said the temple welcomes any nice stone?” I slid the bracelet out from the bag. “Here’s my offering.”

But Yi Kong didn’t take it; she didn’t even look at it. “Meng Ning, please go to the general office for any business related to a donation.”

Embarrassed, I dropped the bracelet back into my pocketbook. Then, trying to fill the awkward silence, I asked, “Shifu, what’s the title of this mural?”

“Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust.” She turned to face me and placed her hands together.
“A Mi Tuo Fo,”
she said, and was gone.

I had just given the jade bracelet to Enlightened to Emptiness and she was studying it like a little girl given a Barbie. “Thank you so much, Miss Du; it’s very generous of you to donate this.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Nan Mo A Mi Tuo Fo,”
Hail to the Merciful Buddha, the novice said as she walked me to the door.

I made a deep bow to her and she bowed back. After that, I stepped through the door into the courtyard, which led to the stone garden.

I was listening to the clicks of my high heels on the gravel path in the garden leading toward the temple’s exit, when I saw my carp-viewing bench and suddenly remembered Chan Lan, Dai Nam’s great-aunt. Where was she? As I was wondering, there appeared the familiar face of the nurse who had helped Chan Lan the last time I saw the centenarian.

I hurried up to her.

She smiled.

I smiled back. “Where is Chan Lan?”

“Oh, don’t you know?”

“Something happened?”

“She died yesterday morning.”

“What?”

“Miss, don’t feel bad. She was one hundred and one; it was a happy death.” The nurse scrutinized me behind her thick glasses. “Oh, by the way, we found in her drawer this letter for you from her great-niece the Wonderful Countenance Shifu. You’re Miss Du Meng Ning, right?”

I nodded. “Thank you.” I took it from her and saw my name in neat penmanship on the envelope. “Do you have any news about Shifu?”

“No. I only heard that she still doesn’t talk.” The nurse smiled at me and continued down the path.

After I’d torn open the envelope and fished out the letter, my gaze fell on a poem:

Hundred flowers in spring and a moon in autumn

Cool breeze in summer and snow in winter

If there’s no worry in your mind

that’s your good time on earth.

I held the letter to my chest and a sigh escaped from my mouth. Then I read the poem again and again, like reciting a mantra, until I’d memorized it.

Relief washed over me.

I knew Dam Nam was fine. And I knew that she’d know that I knew, too.