“None of your friends have ever mentioned the famous Cafe de Flore to you?”
“I don’t have friends.”
An awkward pause. Finally I ordered espresso and she Orangina. After the waiter had left, I said, “Dai Nam, next time you can order espresso like me; it’s the cheapest. Other drinks cost double.”
“I don’t drink anything with caffeine-except Chinese tea.”
“You can’t sleep at night?”
“No, not that…”
“You don’t like the taste?”
“No, not that either.”
The waiter returned with our order.
After he left, Dai Nam took a long sip. Her gaze looked abstract while her face seemed to relax a little. “I was a nun in the past.”
The revelation took me by surprise. “Oh, then…” I looked at her full head of hair. “Why did you quit the
“Because my mission had ended.”
“Your mission? What was that?”
Dai Nam took another noisy sip of her Orangina. “To gather materials to write about my experience as a nun.”
I tried but failed to think of a comment on this peculiar reason for becoming a nun.
Dai Nam’s voice was a monotone amid the high-pitched chatters and giggles of the two Japanese women to our right, the earthy, asthmatic voices of the two French women to our left, and the busy traffic in front. “I chose to shave my head in Thailand because in that country nuns are discriminated against within the Buddhist order. I wanted to understand the situation based on firsthand experience.”
Before I had a chance to ask whether she was a feminist, Dai Nam said, her gaze darting between several teenage girls giggling as they walked past the cafe, “Since women cannot be ordained there, I wanted to break that tradition. Maybe ‘break’ is not the word; ‘break through’ is more appropriate.”
“Did you succeed?”
“No. I completely failed,” she said. “During my four years in Thailand, not a single monk was willing to ordain me.”
“Why?”
“Because the tradition of ordaining nuns had long been abandoned. And no monk is willing to revive it. No one has the courage to shave a woman’s head.”
“But what’s the big fuss about shaving a woman’s head?” Like a mountaineer, my voice climbed higher and higher.
“Monks are not supposed to touch women-not even their heads.”
“But we’re living in the twentieth century!”
“Yes, you are, but not those monks. Inside the temple walls things are pretty much the same as they were a thousand years ago. The monks don’t feel they have any grounds to change the rules that have been the same since the Buddha’s time. So finally I shaved my own head, put on a nun’s robe, rented a small hut, and practiced on my own. Besides meditating, I begged; sometimes I also sat in the back of a temple and joined in the chanting. The Thai monks were very uneasy about what I did.” Dai Nam went on after some consideration. “I looked and lived like a nun, but at the same time I was not a nun.”
“Then how do you feel about being…a non-nun nun?”
She frowned. “The Chinese say, ‘being disappointed by the secular world, one puts on a Buddhist robe. Being more disappointed by the Buddhist regime, one puts it off.’ That’s how I felt.”
I tried to digest what she’d said. “Then are you…content with your life now?”
“I am disappointed both by being a nun and by not being a nun.”
“Then what are you going to do with your life? I mean…what will you do?”
“I’m still looking for the true Dharma and I won’t give up until I find it.”
“What is this truth you want?”
Dai Nam picked up her cup and swallowed the last drop of her drink. The neon lights cast colors of red, yellow, blue, and green on her face. It was like the tension in a theater before the show begins. While everything is ready-music blaring and lights criss-crossing-something is still missing.
Dai Nam’s voice again sounded disturbingly harsh. “An intense spiritual life. Having visions, opening my third eye, being at one with things and beings, and most important, achieving nonattachment.”
I almost chuckled. Although I didn’t know her well enough to judge, Dai Nam gave me the impression more of an escapist than a seeker. She rarely even looked at me when she talked, so how could she think she could achieve all these spiritual goals?
I studied her in the twilight. What exactly was the intense spiritual life she so eagerly sought? Perversely, I thought of the Tibetan statue in the Guimet Museum showing the god and his consort in the
Now, accented by a shaft of fading sunlight, suddenly her scar seemed to come alive, struggling to tell an intense story I could not grasp.
Dai Nam’s throaty voice piped up again in the cool Parisian air. “The strange thing is, while nuns are not allowed to be ordained in Thailand, temples are scattered everywhere side by side with prostitution houses.”
I thought: The house for “selling smiling lips” and the temple work together: one saves your soul; the other saves your body. Why shouldn’t they exist side by side?
“Do you know whether the prostitutes and the monks-”
Before I finished my question, with “have any social interactions?” Dai Nam’s eyes suddenly glowed. “Look, someone is going to perform.”
I followed her gaze and saw a street performer in front of us, smiling and bowing to the clientele in the cafe.
Dai Nam’s voice now turned into a child’s shrill. “See, Meng Ning, he’s smiling and winking at us.”
Right then a young couple strolled by, arms around each other’s waists. The girl’s eyes looked dreamy and her lips slightly parted in a half smile. The mime winked at the people in the cafe, then dashed behind the couple to imitate their gait and the girl’s intoxicated expression. Laughter scattered here and there; the lovers turned and spotted the pursuer. They looked puzzled for a few seconds before big smiles blossomed on their young faces. The performer saluted them as they walked away happily.
Next came a lanky old man clutching a bag tightly to the chest of his expensive suit jacket. The sober, defeated expression on his wrinkled face made it appear longer than it was, like those in Modigliani’s paintings.
The mime quickly went up behind him to imitate his long face and dejected gait. Again, laughter sprinkled the air. Encouraged, the mime pressed closer to the man until his body brushed against the other’s suit. His imitation was now so exaggerated that the audience burst into loud laughter, and, to my utter surprise, among them Dai Nam’s was the loudest.
The old man turned and soon realized what was going on. Anger broke out on his face like the eruption of a volcano. All his wrinkles seemed to flush a flaming red. He yelled and shook his bag at the performer, “Allez-y, vous merde!” Go away, shithead! He waved so hard that the bag finally fell and spilled its contents onto the ground-a pink-laced half-bra and bikini pants, garters, a corset, fishnet stockings. Now his whole face seemed to be on fire; then, like a mouse scurrying across a busy street chased by drunks waving broken bottles, he sped away.
Men in the cafe burst out laughing while the women gave out disgusted sighs. The two Japanese girls lowered their heads to stare at their hundred-dollar shoes. The two French women killed their cigarettes in the ash tray and spat a wet “Salaud!” Scumbag!
The mime, probably deciding that as a professional he should finish his show with dignity, began to pick up the underwear piece by piece from the ground. More laughs from the men and disgusted exclamations from the women. When finished, he chased after the old man, waving bras and bikinis and stockings over his head and screeching like the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute: “Monsieur, attendez! Vous avez oublie vos trucs!” Wait, sir, you’ve forgotten your things!
Dai Nam, her face blushing a deep purple and her scar an angry black, shot up from her chair and barked at me, “Meng Ning, let’s go!”
Later, while I thought on and off of telephoning Dai Nam, one day she called me up to invite me to her home for dinner. Her friendliness surprised me, for as far as I knew, she’d never invited anybody to her room, let alone to have dinner. At the end of our short telephone conversation, she said, “It’s also a farewell dinner. I’ll be leaving for China in two weeks.”
Dai Nam lived in the Septieme Arrondissement, a relatively expensive area in the vicinity of the Eiffel Tower. However, like most students, she didn’t live on one of the main floors but in the attic. I wondered whether she had to clean house in exchange for rent.
Light seeped out from her slightly open door, tinting the gloomy corridor pale yellow, like a moldy lemon. I knocked gently, careful not to wake her from any of her visions. “It’s me, Meng Ning.”
Dai Nam’s voice boomed from inside. “Come in!”
I pushed open the door and was startled by what I saw. Right by the entrance, she was squatting with legs far apart and stirring some broth in a pot on a small stove. I apologized for almost knocking her over; she looked up at me. “Meng Ning, go and sit wherever you like.”
I looked around the room and was startled again-the four walls were all painted black. In the darkness, desk, chairs, lamp, books, piles of papers, and trails of incense appeared to be floating like wandering ghosts. A sense of oppression closed around my throat, forcing out a gasp.
Dai Nam cast me a sidelong glance. “I should get a stronger lightbulb.”
“But why didn’t you…”
“Paint it white? It was white originally; it took me a whole day and cost me one hundred francs to paint it all black.”
“But why?” The incense’s strong aroma tore at my nostrils. “Don’t you find it a bit-”
“Oppressive? That’s the point.” Dai Nam’s hand kept vigorously stirring the pot. “I want to force open my third eye.”
Startled at this declaration, I almost saw a black-haired, yellow-skinned witch in front of me, mocking my ignorance. Yes, it’s sometimes in darkness that we obtain the light of wisdom. But painting a room black? Did she want to see ghosts?
Dai Nam looked at me from the corner of her eye past the thick rim of her glasses. “I can teach you how to do it, too, if you want.”
“Oh, no. Thank you very much,” I said, feeling perspiration break out on my forehead.
After looking around the eerie room, I finally sat down on a cushion on the floor next to bookshelves made of stacked crates. The strong-smelling incense wafted from an altar with a small ceramic Buddha. Next to it stood a writing desk, its surface piled with books and manuscripts; on it a solitary lamp gave out a faint beam of light. Above the desk was, more to my liking, a narrow window looking out over the Left Bank with the tip of the Eiffel Tower visible in the distance. Nearer to us, past rows of light green rooftops, lines of traffic moved like glimmering, meandering dragons. Only the window linked Dai Nam’s vision to the bigger, more cheerful world outside.
“I didn’t have time to clean up, for I have to finish my dissertation before I leave.” Dai Nam stood up, releasing herself from her awkward squat, and then walked to the sink. She still wore the same white blouse, loose blue pants, and sandals. Did she have different sets of the same style, or was she wearing the same clothes over and over? Staring at her back, I felt distaste slowly crawl up
