by Mingmei Yip
Our conversation didn’t last long; Dai Nam said that she had come to the library to study and did not have time to talk. When I suggested we meet another day in a café, she would set no definite time. I was curious to get to know her better, so when I ran into her again in the institute I suggested we meet at the Café de Flore on Boulevard Saint-Germain. This time she agreed.
Dai Nam had been in Paris longer than I, so I imagined she’d have been to this famous place before. It would be my first time. I hoped I’d have the luck to sit at the same table where Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir used to sit many decades ago!
Yet on Saturday evening when I arrived at the famous café, I felt disappointed. Except for the prices on the menu by the entrance, it didn’t look particularly special. Maybe it had been when Sartre and de Beauvoir set up literary shop here during World War II. Then I suddenly remembered my guidebook’s comment: “As with all historic cafés, beware of the prices!”
I took a seat on the front row of the terrace. It was one of those days in Paris when people looked as if merely breathing the Parisian air was the greatest blessing in life. Near me sat two giggling young Japanese women with expensive suits and handbags. Two French women lounged and smoked, hurrying sips of espresso amidst ceaseless talk.
I turned to look at the busy boulevard. A taxi pulled to a stop in front of me and spat out a veiled and gloved old woman in a hat and coat. After she’d paid the driver with her shaking hands, she began to wobble along with the support of a crooked cane. Three chattering young women in four-inch heels and miniskirts strode past her, almost knocking her over, but not noticing. The old woman raised her cane to swing at their bared backs. She missed, but was not discouraged. In the middle of the street, she kept waving her cane in threatening arcs and mouthing obscenities at the departing figures. Bravo, I almost shouted to her. Where did she get her strength? Surely not from her arthritic hands nor her crooked cane. Was it from jealousy aroused by the aura of youth and beauty that had once shone on her, but had now passed on to the girls? I was lost in this scene when Dai Nam’s voice rang like a broken bell in my ears. “Meng Ning.”
I looked up and saw my friend in a plain white cotton shirt, loose dark blue slacks, and sandals. Her hair seemed shorter than the last time I had seen her. Her large, thick-lensed glasses perched low on her nose, blurring her otherwise quite delicate features. She had a large green canvas bag slung across her sturdy shoulders.
Dai Nam sat down and immediately asked me about my life in Paris.
“I love it,” I said.
“Why?”
Both her tone and question surprised me, so I pondered for a while before I said, “The whole city has so much energy, like a piece of calligraphy saturated with qi.” Then I looked at her pale, chapped lips, wondering how they’d look if painted a seductive red. “What about you? Do you love Paris?”
Dai Nam’s eyes followed a passing young woman who was fondling her terrier. “I like it OK, but I wouldn’t use the word ‘love’.”
Right then a waiter came to take our order. Dai Nam read the menu very carefully before she whispered into my ear, “There’s almost nothing for me in this café…either too expensive or too strong.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I picked it because Sartre and de Beauvoir used to come here. So I thought you would like it.”
She adjusted her glasses and looked around; her gaze flickered suspiciously. “I’ve never been here before, never even heard about it.”
“None of your friends have ever mentioned the famous Café 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. “Espresso et Orangina.”
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 Sangha?” I asked, referring to the Buddhist order of monks and nuns.
“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 café, “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 yab-yum posture of copulation. But of course I shouldn’t imagine Dai Nam in that situation.
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 café.
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 café, 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 café 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 oublié 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 Septième 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 my skin, but suppressed it.
She began filling the pot with water and said, her voice loud to compete with the noisy tap, “Rest for a while, Meng Ning. Dinner will be ready soon. Now I’ll fix tea.”
She spoke again when she returned from the sink. “My father is dying.” Her tone sounded so casual she could have been telling me that the water was boiling.
“I am terribly sorry. What happened?”
“Lung cancer. He smokes too much.”
“Oh, I am so sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry; it’s his karma,” she said flatly. Then, to my slight disgust and fascination, she squatted down once again to prepare tea.
The “kitchen” was a small area with several bricks on top of which rested a few cooking utensils, bottles of sauces and condiments, and two gas burners. The soup now emitted an aroma of mixed vegetables and herbs. The water for tea began to boil, uttering a deep guttural sound, like a wise old man trying to give advice. I started to feel more relaxed.
After a while, Dai
Nam went to the wooden table, cleared space among the manuscripts, and motioned me to sit down opposite her. She began to arrange a ceramic tea canister, a teapot, and four tea bowls on a lacquer tray. To my surprise, the bowls were as tiny as soy-sauce dishes. Was she not thirsty, or was her tea that precious? She lifted the kettle and began to pour hot water over the outside of the pot and the bowls.
I asked, “Dai Nam, shouldn’t you pour water inside the pot?”
“I’m performing tea ceremony for you.” She looked at me chidingly. “It takes time. This is only the first step, called warming the utensils.”
Feeling embarrassed, I remained silent while intently watching her next move. With her strong, thick fingers, she took tea leaves from the canister and dropped them into the pot, then added water until it rose to the top. “Now let the tea enjoy a quick spa,” she said, closing the lid. Then she repeatedly poured hot water over the pot and bowls. “This is to warm the pot and bowls. Otherwise the taste will be spoiled.”
Moments later, she lifted the lid and told me to appreciate the leaves. “Before we taste it with our mouths, we should first savor it with our eyes. Now look at how the leaves blossom into different shapes when they unfold in the water.”
After we’d taken a quiet moment to appreciate the leaves, she poured tea into the four bowls. “I laid them in a straight line so that when I pour water into the bowls, the tea’s strength will be the same. “She handed me a cup. “Now appreciate the color.”