Petals from the Sky

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.”