“Because America is rich, just like its breakfast. You need more energy,” she answered without looking up from her paper, then, “
I stopped chewing; she went on reading. “Hmm…lucky nobody’s hurt…because an American and a Chinese doctor helped people leave through windows.”
My heart raced. Mother continued, “This
I snatched the paper from Mother despite her protest. The headline of the article read: “Seven-Day Buddhist Retreat in Fragrant Spirit Temple Canceled Because of Fire. People Saved by an American Buddha, Nobody Killed, Only Slight Injuries.”
The article went on to describe the fire, the panic, and the damage. At the end, it said:
The American doctor, Buddha Michael Fuller, thirty-eight, who saved many lives, is a neurologist graduated from Johns Hopkins University, and currently works in New York Hospital.
A participant at the retreat, Dr. Fuller took refuge as a lay Buddhist in the Shanghai Jade Buddha Temple and was given the lay Buddhist name Fangxia Zizai. Monks and nuns from the temple expressed immense thanks to Dr. Fuller and Dr. Du, a Chinese lay woman attending the retreat.
I spilled coffee on my name in the newspaper to smear the ink before I handed it back to Mother. Then I gobbled down my breakfast. It must have been the temple that had given the newspaper our names. And it must have been the gossipy newspaper that had put them together.
Memories of Michael holding the child, carrying and lifting me through the temple window, and tending my knee played slowly in my mind. Men had rarely held particular interest for me, but now when I thought of him and his Buddhist name Fangxia Zizai, which means Let-Go-and-Be-Carefree, I felt something stir inside me. And I was afraid…
8. The Same Moon Shines Over Us All
I peeked at Mother, who was still completely immersed in her gossip-column reading. Judging from the cheerful lifting of her lips, I assumed it must be something really juicy. Yet sadness engulfed me, for I knew well this had been the same expression she’d worn when she’d listened to Father’s
So careful that she’d spend an extra dollar, an extra half hour, and an extra half mile riding a tram to the particular market where, according to her, not only did the pork cost one dollar less, but also weighed one
“If you’re careful, you can steer your ship for ten thousand years.”
“But, Ma,” I’d argue, “what’s the point of steering a ship for ten thousand years when we’re even lucky to have eighty years to live?”
Mother’s tongue would click away as if it were rolling in oil. “Ah, insolent girl. It’s the philosophy, the wisdom behind it.” Then she would pour out words while picking up her favorite dish, fatty pork, with her chopsticks. “Let’s say your grandmother taught me to be careful, and now I teach you. While in the future you’ll teach your daughter, and in the far future my granddaughter will teach my great-granddaughter…then all the generations added up together will be ten thousand years of wisdom, or more, right?”
But Mother was careful only in words, not in deeds. While she would warn me not to open doors to strangers, she’d let salesmen into our apartment, serve them tea, and let herself be sweet- talked into buying expensive kitchen equipment that she’d never learn how to use, and which cost her a whole month’s food money. While she’d tell me not to drink any beverage offered at a friend’s house, she’d happily toss down a dollar onto a street stall and pick up a filthy glass swirling with unidentifiable liquid.
And despite her incessantly cautioning me to beware of handsome, honey-lipped, flower-hearted men, she had blindly loved Father and willingly let herself be cheated by him.
Father had charmed her, not only with his good looks, but also with the numerous love poems he had written her. In his slick calligraphy, he’d write them on fancy rice paper printed with flowers and birds or sprinkled with simulated gold flakes. Occasionally he’d also write them on photographs of himself that he had sent her. Above the poems he would add, “To dear Mei Lin, remembering our eight years’ separation”-then below, “Forever yours, Du Wei.”
Over the years, Mother carefully pressed the poems in her diary together with the daisies or irises or roses she had bought from wet, smelly, slippery markets or picked from public parks. From time to time, she’d take the poems out to read, or recopy them with brush and ink, imitating Father’s calligraphy. Although I was deeply moved by these romantic acts, they also made me sad.
For Father had never written those poems. He had plagiarized them from ancient poets.
I could never pin down Father’s real feelings for Mother. One time when I’d asked him how he had courted her, he looked surprised. “I didn’t court your mother,” he said, lowering his voice, “it’s she who chased after me.” Then he told me a different version of the gold-store story. There, when they had run into each other, he had not recognized her at all. “How could I?” He frowned and looked surprised. “She was nine years old when we were in Hualian, but when we met again in Taipei she’d grown into a young woman.” “Besides,” Father added, “how could I remember her puppy love when she was nine and me nineteen?” But then when I asked him why he had dumped his fiancee for Mother, he suddenly changed the subject to talk about the weather. Had he actually been after Grandmother’s gold?
One evening, a few weeks after Father’s death, Mother decided to bind into a book all the poems he had written her. I helped her work on the project at our dining table.
Although the room was hot, Mother told me not to turn on the fan, for fear the wind would blow off the papers.
I gathered poems from her different diaries; Mother pasted the dried flowers onto a hard board to be used as the cover of the collection. As we were cutting, pasting, and binding, now and then Mother would hum “One Day When We Were Young,” then recite the poems Father had written her as if he were still hovering somewhere in the house, meanwhile quietly wiping away a tear or two.
I peeked at her. “Ma, do you understand Baba’s poems?”
Mother frowned. “Meng Ning, you don’t understand a poem; you feel it.”
“Then how do you feel?”
Mother frowned deeper. “If I can tell you how I feel, then your father’s poems aren’t very good. With good poems you never quite know how you feel. Sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes sweet, sometimes sour, sometimes bitter, sometimes generous. Sometimes you feel and sometimes you don’t.” She paused, her eyes losing their focus. “When your heart is like a knocked-over shelf of condiments spilling a hundred different flavors and feelings, then the poem is a very good poem. Your father’s poems can do just that.”
Suddenly Mother stood up, went to the window, opened it, and pointed outside. “Meng Ning, look at the moon, so bright and beautiful tonight. I wonder what your father is doing over there right now.” Then she sighed. “
She meditated awhile on the moon, then came back to sit down by me. “Your father was such a great poet, and he was psychic. He knew that the moon would bring him and me together.”
I swallowed hard. Didn’t she know this was not Father’s poem, but Su Dongpo’s?
Mother took a picture on top of the pile of papers and handed it to me, her eyes misted. “Your father when we met again after our eight years’ separation.”
The brownish, hand-tinted photograph showed a very young and handsome Father. His hair was pomaded and slicked back in the fashion of the forties, while his eyes, large, sparkling, and dreamy, seemed to radiate pleasure and passion. He looked eager to show off, with his generous smile, his sensuous lips, and gleaming white teeth. Mother had told me, repeatedly, he was so handsome that many people had mistaken him for a movie star. A Hollywood, American movie star. “Kar Gay Bo,” she said proudly. Clark Gable. Looking at Father’s picture, I could understand why, despite his dishonesty, Mother could never gather enough strength to resist him.
Although my parents had lived together for more than twenty years, Mother had never really captured Father, for he was as slippery as a snake-just when you thought you might get a hold of him, he had already vanished into the depth of the bush. Sometimes this made me think that maybe in life you should never try to capture what you really want. For at the moment when you’re holding the conquest in your hands, your victory only signifies the beginning of the end. Maybe only the ignorant will hold on. The wise will either let go or simply live with imperfection as it is. Or, maybe, in her own way, Mother truly felt happy with Father. For this romantic love was the only dream she had in life; without it, she’d be like a flower without the sun, a beauty without a mirror. Softly, Mother began to recite the poem written on the picture:
“Eight years blurred between life and death;
Even as I try not to think, I can’t forget.
A solitary grave a thousand miles away has no way to express its melancholy.
I fear, when we meet, my face will be dusty and my hair white.”
“That’s how he wrote to express his grief for our eight years’ separation,” Mother said. Then she looked lost in thought. “Your father was such a genius; he had such deep feelings. If people could appreciate poetry today…he’d be famous, very famous…”
It saddened me to see how the years had caused Mother’s lips to droop helplessly at the corners and her eyes to lose their luster. Too, it saddened me to know the truth that, again, this poem was not written by Father but by Su Dongpo, the great Song dynasty poet. Worse, Father had changed the original “ten years” of Su’s poem to suit his eight years’ separation from Mother. It broke my heart that Mother could not see the truth, even when it was bared right in front of her eyes. To her, believing
Suddenly, a strong wind blew from the window and the rice papers scattered on the floor in a flurry. Mother stooped to pick them up, embarrassing me with her plump torso and her awkward pose.
“Quick, Meng Ning, close the windows! And be careful not to trample on your father’s poems!”
I went up to the windows and saw, to my surprise, that what brightly shone outside the window was not the moon, but a streetlamp.
The phone’s trilling jolted me awake from my reverie; I snatched it up. “Hello.”
“Can I speak to Meng Ning, please.”
“Michael?” My heart raced.
“Yes. Meng Ning.” A pause, then, “Are you all right? I called last night, but nobody answered the phone. I was worried about you.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Michael. I didn’t hear anything. Mother must have turned off the phone. Sometimes she doesn’t want to be bothered. I’m fine.”
“Your knee and ankle…you want me to come over and change the bandages for you?”
“No thanks. I think I can manage,” I said, feeling a tug at my heart and suppressing it.
He asked whether I would like to go to the hospital with him to visit Yi Kong and other patients from the fire.
I was glad he’d asked, and suddenly ashamed. How could I have forgotten to think of my mentor, who not only had taught me Buddhism and Zen painting, but also had given me free meals and even lent me money for my father’s funeral?
Michael was waiting for me by the entrance of Kwong Wah Hospital when I arrived at five-thirty in the afternoon. We bought some fruit and juice at a street stall outside, then walked into the lobby.
Yi Kong slept, with two nuns sitting at her bedside-the eye-twitching nun and a young novice. Once I’d put the gift on the chest beside the bed, they signaled us to go outside.
When we were in the corridor, they both exclaimed, “
