At the Heart of the Universe

by Samuel Shem

  The crowd flows past. Most glance at her photo with its message; many of them smile. Trucks and buses and bicycles and motorbikes shred the air, stir the hellish heat, the dust, the dirt, the coal-throated evil. She is lost. China has taken her back.

  

  She has no idea how long she has been walking. She turns a corner and sees “DRIPPING WATER CAVE HOTEL.” There is a finality to the sign, an accusation of incredible negligence, of the most profound failure of any mother, the failure to take care of your child. As if the sign will mark the place where she lost her daughter. She stands for a long time that is no time, tears in her eyes. She watches dully as one of the frantic, crippled buses puts on its brakes and shrieks to a stop at the end of the block. Oily black fumes blast out from a tailpipe. Out of the bus stream the Chinese, and one of them, a tall, thin young man in a white shirt and tie, stops after he gets out and turns around and reaches back into the bus for something and that something is—

  “Katie!”

  Clio starts to run, elbowing people out of her way and, when that doesn’t work, jumping off the curb into the street and screaming at the top of her voice her daughter’s name over and over, but Katie doesn’t hear her and isn’t looking and there’s not only the man in the tie but a young woman in a flamingo-pink dress and Clio keeps running and shouting, “KatieKatieKatieKatie!” and finally Katie hears and sees and she’s shouting too and running in a frantic yet graceful way toward her she’s alive she’s alive in her arms heart-searing joy.

  

  Hugging her with all her might, feeling that little thin body rock-solid against her own, Clio sobs and sobs and tries to stop and cannot, and can’t even speak for the longest time. Katie is crying her heart out and burrowing into Clio’s breast. Finally, when the rough, fierce tears of joy have softened to a glow of relief, Clio looks her up and down and asks, in a shaky voice, “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re filthy—are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got lost. I went out of the hotel and I was just waiting and I followed a dog—big mistake!—and I got so lost? But these kids”—she points to the two young Chinese—“they found me. They speak English and are really nice. I told them ‘Dripping Cave Hotel’ and they said, ‘You mean Dripping Water Cave Hotel?’ And I said yeah, and they took me back here on the bus—on two buses actually.”

  Clio turns to the boy and girl. “Introduce me, dear.”

  “Mom, this is Leston, and this is Happy.”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Macy,” Leston says, taking her hand.

  “Good morning, Leston.” His handshake is watery.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Macy,” says Happy, also taking Clio’s hand.

  “Good morning. Thank you so much for finding our daughter and bringing her back to us. We were so worried, you can’t imagine!”

  “It was very scared, yes?” Happy asks. “He is lost?”

  Clio nods. “You just left the hotel on your own?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But why?”

  Katie hesitates. “I... I’ll tell you and Dad together, okay? Where is he?”

  “In the hotel, waiting—come on, let’s go.” She turns to Leston and Happy, thinking they deserve a reward but not having any money to give them. “Please, will you come into the hotel and meet my husband?”

  “Thank you. We have to go back to learning for school. It is a far a way. Two buses under a far distance. We are welcome to thank you.”

  “Come meet Pep. Come into the hotel—you’re late already, come.”

  They smile, and follow. Clio stops to look again, deeply, at Katie, and then, her arm around her, walks on. Leston and Happy go on ahead.

  They enter the Dripping Water Cave Hotel. The desk clerk sees them and smiles. The elevator takes a long time.

  They knock on the door. Pep opens it at once. “Katie!” She buries herself into his chest, and he starts to cry. His sobs come out in weird coughs. The three of them are in a tight hug together, crying.

  Finally Katie pulls away and looks up at his face. “Dad, you sound like Cinnamon throwing up.”

  They laugh through their tears. “But he’s a cute pup, isn’t he?” Pep says.

  “You always say that, Dad!”

  Pep feels like he has been brought back from the dead. He breathes out a long, trembling sigh, the tension riding on it out, away, gone. Thank God.

  Katie again nestles into him, into the fresh scents of almond oil soap and beer, the familiar scents of her dad. When Katie pulls away there’s an imprint of her two cheeks in black soot on Pep’s white shirt.

  “I want to give Leston and Happy a reward,” Clio says.

  “Absolutely! Let me get my wallet!” He comes back and takes out as many yuan as he can find and offers the money to them.

  “Oh no,” Leston says, “we cannot give money to you. No.”

  “Sure you can. This is what we do in America when someone does a good deed.”

  “No,” says Happy, “we do not give money. It is good deed, it is very triumph yes?”

  “Well, let us give you something anyway, to remember us by.”

  They ransack the room for gifts, wanting to give them everything!—and find a deck of playing cards featuring Goofy, Mickey, and Donald, a Rotary International pin, two photos of Katie and Cinnamon, Pep’s copy of Ben Hogan’s Power Golf and Clio’s copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Being Peace and—to Pep and Clio’s surprise—Katie’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. They hold out these presents for the two Samaritans to choose from. Each takes a photo. Leston takes the Disney playing cards, the golf book, and the Rotary International pin. Happy spots the Harry Potter, and screeches. Being Peace is remaindered. They exchange contact information, say goodbye.

  The Macys sit together on one of the beds, their arms around each other.

  “Are you sure you are okay, darling?” Clio asks.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Nothing, um, happened to hurt you?”

  “Nope. I’m okay. Just a little dirty.” She yawns, and the yawn is contagious. Pep yawns too, then Clio. They laugh through their yawns.

  “But what happened?” Pep says.

  “I set my Baby-G for three and ran away, and I was gonna come back at five, but I got lost, really, really lost! It was dark, and lonely, and I was in all these wind-ey streets like a maze and then I got so scared I like panicked?” She feels like she’ll cry and tries not to by keeping on talking but then out it all comes, crying and talking all at once. “I missed you so much!” They hold her tight, and finally she stops. Pep gives them all Kleenex from his left pocket. All blow their noses. “I’m sorry, really, really sorry.”

  “But why...” Clio starts to say, and then gets it, and see that Pep gets it too.

  “Oh my God,” Pep says.

  “You didn’t figure it out?” Katie asks, surprised.

  “You did this so we’d miss our train?” Clio says.

  “So that then we’d have to stay, and then you’d agree to go find my birth mom—I had to do something!” They’re staring at her like they’ve seen a ghost. “But then I got so lost, like for hours! You musta gone crazy not knowing.”

  “We were going crazy,” Pep says. “We were afraid of the worst.”

  “Yeah, me too. I was mad because you didn’t do what I wanted, and I did a dumb thing.”

  They sit quietly with each other. Over and over again Katie looks at each of them in turn, and they at her, as if drinking in all the life in each other’s eyes.

  “But you know,” Katie goes on, “something happened, I mean inside me.” She fidgets between them, and then gets up and walks to the cot, picks up Shirty, and stands facing them, running the soft cloth through her palm with the finger
s of a hand. “When I was just really lonely, before I got really scared? And I like imagined if I ever got back here what I’d say to you?”

  “Go ahead,” Pep says.

  Katie hesitates. The old feeling of not wanting to be the center of attention comes up, of not wanting anyone—not even them—to stare at her. Stop it, don’t be scared, you have to say this you want to say it just say it. She can’t. She turns away, and holding Shirty she walks up and down the room with him until finally she can say what she promised herself she’d tell them if she ever saw them again. The words come out as if they were already spoken before she even thought of what they were, so that they sound fresh to her, and alive. “What I found out is that it is really scary out there and dangerous—really. And that you protect me from it all the time.” She glances at Pep. “From the risk?”

  “Exactly,” Pep says. “You got it.”

  “But that you don’t do it just to... um... to keep me back, like from growing?”

  “Never. It’s to keep you safe.”

  “Even maybe too safe?”

  Pep smiles. “Maybe. We’re wrong sometimes too, you know.”

  “I know. So I decided something.” She takes a deep breath. “If you don’t want to risk going to find my birth mom, that’s okay with me. It’s okay if you decide that. Because I want to thank you for taking like really good care of me?” She glances at each of them. Her mom has her hands clasped together over her heart, and is nodding slowly. Her dad is wide-eyed, his mouth open. “But there’s one thing I never knew that you have to know.”

  Pep is amazed. She’s never been like this with us before. Astonishing. He glances at Clio, sees his amazement mirrored in her eyes. He squeezes her hand. She squeezes back.

  “Well, I always said that I wanted to find my birth mom, and that’s true but it’s not all. I don’t just want to find her, I need to find her. And maybe you need to find her too. All of us, together?”

  Clio has the urge to hold out her arms for Katie to come to her, but something stops her. Her daughter has changed. Not a child standing there, but—is it possible at ten?—a young woman. Tears come to her eyes again, tears of pride, tears of loss. The loss of that four-month-old baby who I could almost hold in my hand. The loss of the wide-open child who shared everything with us. All the losses that nourish this luminous moment.

  “Katie!” Pep says, “You grew up!”

  “Not totally, Dad, but yeah, I think a lot.”

  PART THREE

  Spring comes early to the gardens Of the South, with dancing flowers

  . . . . .

  The willow leaves are long,And really are curved like a girl’s eyebrows.

  —Ou Yang Hsiu, “Green Jade Plum Trees in Spring” Song Dynasty, 10th–12th century

  22

  Sleep comes fitfully to her now. It is her hellish time of year. Her first thought upon awakening? Five days ago was Chun’s tenth birthday and in less than a month it will be the tenth anniversary of taking her to Changsha and abandoning her.

  Dawn is a relief. Her favorite time of day. The first sunlight hits the tops of the high white spruce and transforms to a russet glow. Clearing the eastern peaks, the dawn pours down through the tree trunks on a million splinters of hazy light. The forest is still, crisp, the air metallic, like the taste of a cold metal coin. The silence is that mysterious one of mountains—immense, dead, alive, expectant. A time for her to sit in silence, to listen to the dawn awakening the birds awakening the day.

  She sits, following the movement of her breath, and when that fails, following the movement of her mind. Busy mind. Always, busy mind. She gets up, goes out, washes in the icy brook and hauls water for tea, and feeds goodnight cookies to the gentle, expectant deer, the dawn being their bedtime. Now it is time for calligraphy.

  She unrolls a fresh sheet of rice paper on the long, smooth board she has fashioned and shellacked to a deep maroon, and then places the four black stream-polished stones that hold the paper in place. Often she awakens with an image of the day’s four characters. The first strokes—not always now, but often—are each day’s variant on the character for Chun, “Spring.” This practice began three years ago in the long, lonely days and nights when she first found the abandoned hut on this, the shy side of the mountain. She started with drawings on scraps of paper. Not having practiced calligraphy since she left her mother and father to get married, at first she was hesitant and reluctant, unsure. It was a burden merely to get through one day, and then another. Like putting one foot ahead of another on a narrow log spanning a ravine. To do more was out of the question—such was the sorrow in her heart at abandoning not one daughter, but two. Xia she would see again; poor little Chun was gone. She thought often of killing herself, of going up to the highest peak of the mountain, Sacrifice Rock, and, like so many other souls crippled by abandonment, throwing herself off to her death. One winter day, when the streams were still icy and there was snow on the trail, she found herself standing there on the edge of that precipice for a long time. To abandon your beloved is to abandon yourself.

  But something else happened. Rather than jump, she walked. At first she walked the trails on the mountain, and then she just walked, scratched and cut by the bushes and grasses and low-lying limbs and bruised by the slippery rocks and frozen at night and drenched during the day, as if saying to the world, “If by my wandering I die, it is my karma”—in fact saying, “I hope I come across one of those poisonous brown snakes that kill you before you know it.” For a while stepping heavily, hoping to chance upon one and quickly die.

  But she didn’t die, and after a while, lost, weak from hunger and fatigue, her clothes in tatters and her face masked with scratches and dirt, she happened to circle close enough to a temple to be found by an old nun who was gathering kindling. In the nun’s eyes she could see surprise at finding this wild... wild thing—human, but barely. Seeing in the nun’s eyes a horror and disgust, despite her vow to avoid humans she fell down and cried out like a baby. She recalled her cheek lying against a smooth stone, and then something wet—blood? water?—and then she felt thin old arms around her head, pulling her head up from the rivulet of the stream she had fallen down into and placing her cheek on the rough grass of the bank and a word came into her mind, which began the salvage of her soul: celery.

  The nun helped her back to the Elephant Temple where, with the two other nuns who lived there, she nursed her back to health. Three nuns only, for, ever since Mao, the Elephant Temple had been preserved as a tourist site, with only the three nuns and twenty monks, to keep things going, for show. The care of these kind women, after so many years of uncaring in her husband’s family, touched her heart, and the something else began to happen.

  Perhaps her silence appealed to them. They saw the worn jade Buddha around her neck, and took it as a sign. They invited her into their Buddhist practices: sitting in silence and following the movement of the breath and the mind, and walking meditation, and chanting. The something else arising from these Buddhist practices reminding her of those of her mother, whose chants were done so softly in the middle of the night in the kitchen so as not to be heard—but they were heard by her as her two sisters slept. One day, in gratitude, she showed the nuns her mother’s little box of gods.

  Like a muscle unused, her heart strengthened. Eating only vegetables cleansed her. Her job was hauling water. When the nuns tried to talk with her, their voices seemed to pierce her sealed vessel of sadness. She resented it, and remained silent. They wondered if she could make sounds. When they found out that she indeed could—they heard her talking to one of the tame monkeys, and to the trees—they saw it as a sign of her suffering that she did not.

  One day, wandering far upstream on the wild mountain, she came to an abandoned small hut in the woods near a stream. Set against the mountain, it was one room, of rough planks and logs, with a wood bed and table. Although neglected for many yea
rs it was well made, solid as the rock it touched. It must have been there for countless years, for the beams were darkened and mossy from the rain and mist of the secluded site. Beside it in the cliff face was an abandoned cave. It was said to have been the cave of a hermit, a holy man. She claimed the hut and cave for her own, and told the nuns. It was so far into the woods, so far above the last sacred outlying structure of the home temple—the Dusk-Enjoying Pavilion—that the path to it had been overgrown by ferns and saplings and low brush, and could no longer be seen from any of the other cleared paths.

  A refuge.

  For almost three years she walked to and fro once each day, to her new task at the monastery. This new job, a job she asked them to give her—one of the rare times she spoke out loud, and the only time she asked for anything—was to sweep the stone path and the two hundred steps that started at the mouth of the trail coming up the mountain from below, and ended at the top of the steps, at the grand gate of the Elephant Temple. To keep the ancient bamboo grove lining the path clean and neat, and free of tourist litter. All visitors came up by this path. She grew to know every inch—every tree, leaf, stone, every ribbon of velvet moss. When the visitors passed by and left tracks on the path, she swept the path clear once again.

  If you saw her walking to and from her hut each day you would think she was at best peculiar and at worst deluded, for she walked in a slow meditation, placing each foot with awareness, and each day taking different routes so as not to trample a more obvious path through the hungry jumble of the underbrush to her hut. She wanted no one to wander toward her unwanted. I am a failure at being with human beings. I can’t be with them anymore.

  Her loneliness began to turn to solitude, her despair to surrender. It didn’t turn, no, but it began to turn. She realized this one day, in the way she broke the silence with the deer, for there was a slight lilt in her greeting, a slight acceptance of her plight: I’m just a being too, in a new beginning. She said it out loud to the deer, “I’m just a being too, in a new beginning.”