So barely two weeks after I’d come back from Paris I was packing again. My hands were busy smoothing the tiny red flower on a pair of black lace bikini panties, from which Mother’s suspicious eyes seemed unwilling to part.
Then my mother, who’d never been to New York, but who had her opinion about any city, told me emphatically, “Meng Ning, when you take a taxi in New York, you have to make sure you never take your eyes off the meter, because the driver has fixed it to jump faster.”
“Ma!” I cast her an annoyed glance, stuffing the panties in the suitcase. The flower now looked like a drop of blood on the black spider-web pattern.
Mother plunged on. “I was told in New York passersby will just stand and watch while people are being robbed, or even murdered. But this is not the worst. The most disgusting is that when passengers push and shove to get onto the subway, they’ll thrust others onto the rail and the train will just keep going and nobody cares. So this is New York! Be careful!
“Oh, I also remember there is a place called something like Sentro Bark which is famous, not for its scenic spots, but because it is packed with drug addicts, murderers, whores, child molesters, gigolos, rapists, and vampires at night. So promise me you’ll never go there, will you?”
On September third, near the end of the six-hour flight to New York from San Francisco, the captain’s cheerful voice announcing the plane’s arrival at JFK awoke me from a nap. I looked out the window and saw the 747’s wing bank low over the water and turn back toward the sandy beach. Inland, miniature buildings, cars, highways, skyways, and a few patches of green angled away from me. When the plane finally struck the runway, I realized I’d be seeing Michael in a few minutes. My heart started to pound. I took out the painting I’d made for him and looked at it one last time as the plane taxied down the runway. It was a white-robed Guan Yin riding on a huge lotus leaf, holding the Heart Sutra. Since I couldn’t afford to buy him anything expensive and did not want to bring him anything cheap, I hoped the Bodhisattva I had brushed onto gold-speckled rice paper would find her way into his heart.
The moment I walked into the waiting area I spotted Michael leaning against a pillar. I was startled by the sadness on his face and by the leanness of his once robust frame. A pain stabbed inside me. Then our eyes met. The air had reincarnated. Michael swiftly came to me and, without a word, pulled me into his arms. After long moments of silence, he whispered into my ear, “Meng Ning, I’ve missed you so much.” Then more hugs and kisses before he released me, grabbed my suitcase, and led me to the cab stand.
Beside me in the confines of the cab, Michael looked very appealing in his black turtleneck and gray corduroy pants. I felt happy feeling his shoulder against mine as the nearness of his body soothed my heart. My eyes busily played a tug-of-war between the passing scene outside and his long-missed face within. Michael put his hand on my thigh as the car sped along Grand Central Parkway toward Manhattan.
Michael held my hand during the trip, until our taxi pulled to a stop at a nondescript apartment building. “We’re on the Upper East Side,” he told me as he paid the driver. A blue-uniformed doorman came to open the door for us and carried my baggage into the lobby.
“Good evening, Doctor,” he said to Michael.
Michael introduced me and told Frank, the doorman, that I would be staying for a few weeks. Should I need any help, his assistance would be appreciated. Frank nodded while he held open the elevator door and punched the button for the twenty-eighth floor. “Nice to meet you, Miss Du. Enjoy your stay.”
I smiled back and saw Michael stick a twenty-dollar bill into his hand.
After we entered his apartment, Michael set down my luggage, took my arms, and tilted back to study me. I felt his lips warming my forehead and my brows. Moments had passed before he released me to look me in the eye. “Meng Ning, how come each time I see you you’re more beautiful than before?”
With his fingers, he slipped the band from my ponytail so that my hair tumbled over my neck and shoulders. He smoothed it back and began to search my lips with slow, gentle kisses.
“I missed you,” he whispered, his breath light and ticklish in my ear.
Feeling myself stir, I pulled him to me and ruffled his soft hair. “I missed you, too, Michael.”
We collapsed in the chaise longue in the foyer. His caresses started to alleviate my body’s stiffness from the twenty-two-hour trip. When I was about to rest my head on his shoulder, I noticed the door was still left half open.
“Michael, the door…”
But he murmured, “Forget the door,” then kicked it shut and pulled me closer to him…
With my first glance I could see that Michael’s home was full of books, paintings, and works of art. The residue of incense permeated the air. I suddenly remembered something and broke away from him.
“Meng Ning, stay with me. I haven’t seen you for weeks.”
I ignored him, went to open my carryon, took out the Guan Yin painting, then returned. “Michael”-I handed him the framed miniature painting-“I did this for you.”
Michael scrutinized the Goddess, his eyes like those of a child who has just discovered a treasure chest. Moments passed and his gaze was still glued to the white-robed image riding a lotus on the turquoise waves.
Finally I asked, “You like it, Michael? The Goddess will protect you-”
“Like it? Oh, Meng Ning, it’s wonderful.” He turned to look at me hard and long, as if this were our first encounter. “How come you didn’t tell me that you’re also so talented?”
I blushed.
“And so seductive,” he said, tilting up my chin so that he could press his lips hard on mine.
Ten minutes later, Michael stuck his head out of the kitchen and asked, “Is tea OK?” his spiked hair sending a tinge of warmth to my heart.
“No,” I said. “I want Coke. Since I’m now in America, I want something American.”
“Then Coke it is.” His voice sounded cheerful and the sound of his energy filled the kitchen.
I walked around to appreciate the apartment. Illumination from two blue-and-white porcelain lamps warmed the cozy living room. Several pieces of antique Chinese furniture glowed in the soft light. On a low table stood a delicately crafted and subtly glazed
Bookcases lined two walls; the others were covered with Chinese paintings. A very simple brush painting caught my eye: Han Shan and Shi De-the two legendary lunatic-poet-monks of the Tang dynasty-swept the floor of the temple gate with straw brooms, and laughed as if everything in this Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust is but a joke.
One of Han Shan’s poems was written in cursive calligraphy in a corner of the painting:
Unknown
I live on the mountain
Enjoying the solitude among white clouds
Michael’s apartment possessed a lonely quality. Was this what drew him to Zen? Was I feeling the loneliness of someone orphaned at a young age, or something more philosophical-or both?
Again I looked at the two hermits in the painting. Han Shan- Cold Mountain -got his name because he’d lived a secluded life on a remote mountain where, even in the hottest summer, its snowcap never melted. His friend Shi De-Picked Up-got his name because he was an orphan dumped on the street and found by a Zen master who went about riding on a tiger. Since the boy had no name, no parents, no possessions, the Zen master simply called him by the way he’d found him-Picked Up. Picked Up lived a carefree and detached existence. His eyes always shone clear and bright, and his smile was penetrating. Day in and day out, he and Cold Mountain swept leaves, scrawled poems on rocks, played with the village children, and appreciated the moon. They are honored in Chinese legend because they lived their lives according to the Dao-The Great Way.
A strange feeling crept over me. Michael’s life, in a certain respect, resembled that of the two monks. He’d been orphaned (I hadn’t yet had the chance to ask how). He seemed detached; he wrote poems and appreciated the moon… However, instead of an isolated mountain monastery, Michael lived in a nice apartment in one of the busiest cities in the world. But hadn’t some of the old Chinese sages taught that the true hermit feels free of the dusty world while dwelling in the clamorous city?
I walked to the kitchen and asked Michael whether he needed help. He was arranging crackers in a bowl. “No, Meng Ning. You must be tired from the trip; why don’t you relax in the living room? I’ll join you in a minute.”
I went back into the living room, not because I wanted to relax, but because I had to suppress an urge to cry. I was confused. If I was so attracted to Michael, why had I turned down his proposal in Hong Kong? But then what about Yi Kong, and the Goddess of Mercy? What about my calling since my fall into the well seventeen years before? What about my dream to be part of the nuns’ carefree life?
I leaned against one of the bookcases, and to distract myself began to read the titles. There were many volumes of Chinese philosophy and literature, all in English translations: the
The moment the young monks saw the wife of Wu Dai, their Buddha nature and Zen mind were lost. Their hearts were like unleashed monkeys and their spirits untamed horses. In disarrayed groups of seven and eight, they collapsed in her sensual aura…
When they were supposed to strike the stone chimes, their minds were so bewitched that they wrongly smashed the elder monks’ scalps. All the efforts of their meditation in the past drained into the gutter; even the Buddha’s ten thousand warrior attendants could do nothing to guard them against their desire for this woman…
This was followed by a woodblock print graphically portraying the beautiful woman coupling with a monk.
My cheeks felt hot, yet my eyes wouldn’t detach themselves. I was fascinated by the forthright description, written three hundred odd years ago, of the monks’ sexual craving for an attractive woman. The author’s courage to express the yearning of his heart without fear of condemnation by Confucian hypocrites deeply moved me. I felt a heat rising gradually in my groin. I was sure my cheeks were now the color of a monkey’s butt, but that didn’t stop my hands from impatiently turning the page to read more.
Just then I heard Michael coming from the kitchen. I pushed the book back onto the shelf.
“Meng Ning, what are you reading?”
“Oh…nothing special.” While I felt the burning sensation in my cheeks, my mind raced with scenes of our first night together behind the mound in Cheung Chau, the bold declaration of the two nuns in the Kun opera, Michael’s poem, our resumed intimacy not long ago…
Michael put the tray onto the low Chinese table, then came to embrace me from behind. I heard playfulness in his voice.
“But you look so absorbed-something sexy? Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
He reached toward the shelf for the book, but I pushed his hand away.
“Must be some kind of love story between a monk and a nun, right?” He nibbled my neck. “If you entered the empty gate to be a nun, I’d also become a monk.”
There was a long, pregnant pause. Then he released me and led me to sit down on the sofa. “Let’s have something to eat.”
Then he offered me his white-glazed cup with Iron Goddess of Mercy tea. “Want to try?”
“No. Thanks. I have my Coke.” I decided to be stubborn, like an American woman. Then I said, “Michael, I envy you living in such a lovely apartment,” expecting he’d finish the sentence with the “but no bachelor’s house is complete without a hostess” cliche I’d detested so much in the past.
Then I sensed something discordant. The
