Petals from the Sky

dripped down their deeply tanned faces; their tightly muscled arms flexed and gleamed under the scorching sun. Judging from their solemn expressions, they must have felt honored to work for the most influential temple in Hong Kong.

The new sites under construction did not really interest me. I wanted to go to the old stone garden, hoping to see the carp in the fishpond. Before I went to Paris, I’d spent many days reading in the garden, perched on my favorite stone bench overlooking the pond. When tired, I’d walk up close and stare at the carp to abstract my spirit. Sometimes Yi Kong would join me to discourse on Buddhism, the arts, or her many charitable projects while we sat shaded from the sun, or under the bright moon and twinkling stars.

I felt relieved that the garden was not under construction, and pleased to see that the bamboo, evergreens, ferns, and moss looked more spirited than before. The air still held their fragrance and qi still flowed through plants and the pond as I stepped along the pebbles set in contrived random patterns on the ground. I smiled, remembering Yi Kong explaining to me how the spontaneity of most stone gardens is really the result of a deliberate scheme. She’d also reminded me that we should not only raise our heads to admire the trees; we should also lower our heads to appreciate the moss below. I thought she said this to remind me of the lesson of nonduality that I should have learned from my fall into the well-spirituality can be attained low down as well as high up.

Across the pond I saw an elderly woman doing qigong, energy exercise, under the shade of the bamboo trees. She was the only other person in the spacious garden, except for the occasional nun who’d pass with a straight back, quickened pace, and an I-know-what-I’m-doing expression.

Carps lazily wagged their tails amidst the entwined water plants. One with patches of gold among white scales broke the surface into concentric circles of ripples before disappearing into the murky depths of the water. Was it my favorite one that I used to feed five years ago?

A girlish voice chimed, “Good morning, miss.”

I looked up and saw Ah-po, the old woman, her face heavily wrinkled with a grin. She swayed her arms in the form of the Chinese character “eight.”

“Good morning, Ah-po.” I smiled. “What kind of exercise are you practicing?”

“Aromatic intelligence awakening qigong.” Ah-po’s breath whistled through her nearly toothless mouth, her tone parodying a master’s authoritative utterance.

“Ah, very good for your health.” I studied her leathery face and wondered how old she was.

“You bet. I’m one hundred,” she said, now flapping her ears with her puny hands.

“Wow! Is that true? Congratulations! You only look eighty.”

All the creases on Ah-po’s face deepened; she looked pleased. “Thank you. You look eighteen.” Her toothless smile stretched so wide that the distance between her nose and her lips seemed to be dissolving.

“Oh, thank you, but I’m thirty,” I said, then peeked in the pond and was startled that my reflection-among the fish, the seaweed, and the ripples-was as wrinkled as Ah-po’s. I suddenly felt very old.

Ah-po’s eyes glowed with interest. “How many children do you have?”

“I’m still single.” I stared at the empty space next to my reflection in the pond and thought of Michael. What was he doing now in Tibet? Was he used to the thin air there? Was Professor Michael Fulton all right? Why hadn’t Michael called me?

Ah-po’s tone turned disapproving, but her smile still stretched big. “Ah, single at thirty, no good. Better get a man and get married fast.” She narrowed her eyes. “Miss, any man is better than no man!”

“Why?” I asked. Of course I knew why she thought so, but I still wanted to hear it from her.

“Because even when you’re old, you’ll have someone to quarrel with. It’s still better than talking to the four bare walls!”

“How’s that?”

“At least you get some response!” Ah-po laughed, then she began to swing her elbow from left to right.

I counted the wrinkles on her face. “How many children do you have?”

“One daughter, but she died a long time ago.”

“I’m so sorry…and your husband?” I immediately regretted asking. Since she was one hundred, her husband must have already been dead a long time.

But her answer surprised me. “No husband.” She kept smiling, but her smile was now lopsided.

I wondered why, because during her generation it was inconceivable to bear a child without a husband. Right then, from the corner of my eye I saw, at the other end of the garden near a stone lantern, a cheek with a red scar gleaming under the sun. The scar belonged to a nun approaching the dormitory, her bald head shining like a bright mirror.

“Nice to talk to you, Ah-po.” I waved good-bye to the centenarian as I hurried past her to follow the nun. Behind me I heard Ah-po’s cheerful voice echo like the many ripples of the pond. “Get married soon and have children! Many, many!”

Now the nun quickened her pace, passing doors and windows as her cloth slippers scraped harshly against the pavement. As I again noticed the two mutilated fingers, my heart pounded within my chest. In order not to miss her, I dashed to the parallel path on the other side of the garden, scurried a short distance ahead, then cut across another path perpendicular to the one that the nun had taken.

We stopped, face-to-face. I tried not to stare at her scar. “Dai Nam!”

She halted. Her face had the expression of a frightened cat.

“Dai Nam, don’t you recognize me? I’m Meng Ning, your friend from Paris.”

The nun’s face showed no recognition. “I am Miao Rong.”

Wonderful Countenance.

“I’m sorry…Miao Rong Shifu,” I said, looking at her scar and feeling ridiculous. Why did the temple give her this name? To remind her of her past karma? And what karma was that?

An awkward pause, then I said, “Can we find a place to talk?…I’ve been thinking about you since you left for China…”

“What do you want from me?” the nun asked flatly. I could almost see her scar writhe like a trapped snake.

“I don’t want anything. I just want to talk, to know how you are.”

“I’m fine.” Her eyes flickered suspiciously under her oversized, black-rimmed glasses.

“Yes…but that’s not what I mean…” I hated my stammer. “Can we talk? Dai…Miao Rong Shifu.” I moved close to her to let her know that I would not give up. That although she was bigger and older than I, and now had the status of a nun, I was not intimidated.

Her eyes looked impenetrable.

“Please, I won’t take up too much of your time.” I felt embarrassed to be pleading, but stood firm on the ground in front of her.

“All right…follow me.”

Once we arrived in her room, Dai Nam excused herself. “Please sit and wait for a moment.”

I was suspicious. Would she just disappear as she had done three years before in China?

Her room was small and neat; the air conditioning seemed almost noiseless. Outside buzzed the distant noises of construction; inside floated the scent of fresh flowers and incense. Along one wall rested a cot; beside it stood a wooden chest as tightly closed as if stoutly guarding its mistress’s secrets. A bronze incense burner and a bowl with fresh lotuses sat before a small altar with a ceramic Buddha. Framed pictures and documents hung conspicuously over her desk.

I stepped closer to inspect the pictures: Dai Nam as a nun in Thailand, holding a begging bowl, in front of strangely shaped stone ruins. Dai Nam in front of the Arc de Triomphe, her full head of black hair fluttering in the wind. Dai Nam with her French professor at the entrance of the Universite de Paris VII. Her doctoral certificate in a gold frame. The pictures hung in chronological order, but none showed her stay in China. Why had she left out this part of her past?

I slumped down into the chair. Did Dai Nam really think she could settle her mind by shaving her head, putting on a robe, and strenuously tidying up her room? I wondered what torrents flowed under her emotionless face and the tidy appearance of her room. And what demons knocked around within her.

I remembered that one evening as we were sipping tea in her attic in Paris, Dai Nam told me how she’d run away from her alcoholic-gambling-womanizing father and money-thirsty stepmother, and had swum across the shark-infested Mirs Bay to Hong Kong. She had tried and failed seven times. She said, “During Daruma’s nine years sitting in Zen meditation, his legs were nibbled away by rats, withered, and fell off. Yet after that, he remained upright because he had found his center through meditation. You know the proverb, ‘Fall down seven times; get up eight.’ The limbless Daruma doll always rights itself when knocked over. That was also how I came to Hong Kong.”

After she had arrived in the Fragrant Harbor, Dai Nam’s great-aunt took her in, bought her a Hong Kong identity card, and enrolled her in a charity Buddhist middle school. Later, she sent Dai Nam to a Buddhist college. When we met in Paris, Dai Nam had just spent two years in Thailand experiencing the life of a lay nun, begging for her food-the experience she had turned into her Ph.D. dissertation.

Dai Nam and I became friends because of our shared interest in Buddhism. Her eccentricity, her loneliness, and her obsessive cultivation of nonattachment intrigued me. Yet her withdrawn personality had always made our friendship tense and difficult. She rarely looked me in the eye when she talked, and when she did, her eyes were bottomless holes revealing nothing. Although her face never showed definite emotion, her gaze betrayed agitation and restlessness. Silent most of the time, she could also be talkative. When she talked she seemed more withdrawn-her eyes would turn abstract and her mind seemed to be at some far-off place.

One day when we were still living in Paris, she’d invited me to her home and told me she had to leave for China immediately. Her long-estranged father was dying from lung cancer. That was the last time I, or anyone else I knew, saw her. Until now, when suddenly she had resurfaced in Hong Kong as a nun.

The door’s click woke me from my musing. Dai Nam entered with a tray laden with a pot of tea, two cups, and a plate of fruits. She put the tray onto the desk, pulled up another chair, and poured tea.

“Please,” she said.

I watched her closely as she held the teapot with her mutilated fingers. How had this happened?

I took the cup she handed me with both hands to show my respect for her new status as a nun. “Thank you…Miao Rong Shifu,” I said. It still felt odd to call her by the preposterous name of Wonderful Countenance.

I quietly sipped my tea and struggled to think of something appropriate to begin the conversation. Dai Nam picked up a couple of grapes, popped them into her mouth, and chewed noisily. Despite the small wrinkles around her eyes, her thick-rimmed glasses, her disturbing scar, and the worn-out clothes she wore, this enigmatic woman in front of me might have been attractive in this life. Did she deliberately hide her charm? Why this radical effort at nonattachment? What really resided in her mind and in her heart?

Finally, I could only think to say, “How have you been?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“When did you come back to Hong Kong?”

“A couple of months ago.”

“Oh…did you ordain as a nun in this temple?”