by Samuel Shem
The deer, eye level with them in the safety of the rhododendrons, hesitate.
Katie watches their eyes flick from Xiao Lu to her, and then down to the Goldfish, and back up. The biggest one, with a set of small horns, takes one step toward Xiao Lu, and another, then bends his head to the Goldfish and nibbles them up.
Katie is left with her hand out. The doe looks at her, looks back to Xiao Lu, approaches, steps back, approaches again, steps back again. Katie’s hand is getting tired, but she holds it as steady as she can—bringing her other hand up to support it from the bottom like she’s offering a gift to a god—and sure enough, the doe comes back, nibbles the fish quickly from her palm. Her lips feel rough and strong, as if eating harsh leaves and twigs and bark has made them tough. But it tickles, too—it’s all she can do to keep from laughing. The doe bounces off—like a reebok or a bongo on Animal Planet—but then stands a few feet away, staring.
Xiao Lu pours more Goldfish into Katie’s hand and into her own, and the deer come back. This goes on for several turns, until finally all the deer, even the fawn, have come up to eat. Xiao Lu shows them her empty hands, and the deer, Katie thinks, almost nod. Then they walk away, gentle-gentle, into the woods.
Katie watches them go. Amazing how fast they disappear in real life, with hardly a sound! It’s different from TV. She turns around to where Clio stands. “Mom, did you see it? They ate from my hand—there was a whole little family, a momma, a daddy, and a bay-bee!”
“Wonderful, dear,” Clio says, smiling. Katie starts to walk back toward her.
Xiao Lu follows her with her eyes. Again the word “Mom” hits her like a branch whipping back in her face. She was totally in the moment with her daughter just now, her mind emptied of all else—this new moment is filled with the torment that often comes when she tries to be with other people, especially now with this woman. Again she feels a crush of despair, the despair that made her think of killing herself by drinking fertilizer when she still lived with her husband and his family. Even after she fled to this mountain, this despair that made her wander aimlessly, all the way to the top of Sacrifice Rock. The only thing that stopped her from throwing herself off the edge was the dream of finding her baby again. But if I’d known it would come to this? She stares at Chun walking excitedly away from her toward the other woman—and meets the other woman’s eyes. This angry woman cannot be Chun’s mother. Will not be.
Clio sees, in Xiao Lu’s eyes, something she has never seen before—not just her hunger but also her desperation. She realizes that Xiao Lu sees her seeing it. For a second it scares her. But then, trying not to blink, she stiffens her jaw and clenches her teeth, sending her a message: Don’t.
“Did you see ’em, Mom, they’re really, really tame, and they come in the morning and at night, and there was this fawn!”
“I did.” She smiles at Xiao Lu. “Did you thank Xiao Lu for showing them to you?”
“Nope, I forgot.”
“Go back to her and tell her. Try out a few shay shays.”
As Katie turns toward her, Xiao Lu glances again at Clio and nods, as if she understands what Clio is doing. They walk around the clearing, looking for more wildlife, bending and gesturing. Xiao Lu tells her the Chinese word for each thing they see and, when Katie repeats it, tries to correct her intonation. It’s a game of sounds, she saying it, Katie trying to mimic it, until she gets it right and Xiao Lu laughs and claps her hands and Katie teaches her how to do a high five.
After a while they come back and stand together before Clio, like two kids without a game to play.
“What are we gonna do now, Mom? What happens today anyway?”
To Clio it is a familiar question. In Columbia, like many other well-off kids living in their private, protected houses, Katie is used to having her time scheduled. She often seems not so much into the current activity as checking it off from a list before the next one, and not into the next because of the looming next, until at bedtime, she’ll ask about the next day’s schedule. And despite the frantic scheduling, any lull is met with a petulant “I’m bored!” Clio has worried about her daughter living too much in the future, but she and Pep and their friends live there too. Now, with Katie looking to her for ideas, Clio looks around at the cliff and woods and hut and moon gate leading out to the high west prospect, and realizes that here, stranded on a mountain halfway to the Himalayas in primitive China, the day looms endlessly ahead. No schedule, none.
“First thing,” she says, “we help to get Daddy better.”
“Okay, but that’s the monk’s job, right? What else?”
Xiao Lu has picked up the water bucket and motions to Katie to follow.
“There’s the answer. We’ll just follow along to help Xiao Lu. Let’s go.”
When the women return with firewood and fresh spring water, True Emptiness has Pep on his stomach in bed. Clio starts to talk to Pep, but the monk silences her. Soon Pep feels a warmth on his back, between his shoulder blades.
He sighs and starts to turn over, but hands like steel bands and a sharp command stop him. Exotic fumes fill the tiny room with a complex scent suggestive of something that died painfully a long time ago. The warmth turns to heat, the heat suddenly a fire in the center of his back. The guy’s set me on fire! He tries to struggle free but the monk has him pinned down. The pain suddenly increases, as if an insect with a big hot mouth is trying to suck his skin up in a ball and swallow it—is he doing leeches? Clio and Katie gasp. His cry of pain is muffled by his being facedown in the quilt. The insect releases with a pop! He burns. He yelps.
“Relax, darling,” Clio says, trying to hide her disgust at the smell and the round red welt where a cup has been removed, “it’s just moxibustion.”
“It’s what?”
“Moxibustion. An ancient remedy. Tulku gave us a lecture on it, on traditional healing. I think the smell is mugwort. He’s combining it with cupping. Trust him.”
“Why?”
The monk has let go, and Pep manages to turn his head to see what’s happening. True Emptiness is staring at the small glass cup he’s removed and cursing under his breath, as if it were defective. He throws it against the wall and it shatters, sending flying shards of glass onto the stove. Xiao Lu berates him. He growls back at her, and indicates that all of them should leave him alone with his patient.
Clio protests, in vain. “Just relax, Peppie,” she says. “We’ll be right outside.”
“Fine. Do me one favor—when he’s done cooking me, don’t let him eat me, okay? And no fancy funeral. Just family, dog, and bird.”
As they leave, the monk indicates that Pep should lie back down.
Biting down on the edge of the quilt, Pep feels a series of hot mouths starting to suck at his body, from the nape of his neck to the crack of his butt. Each sizzles for a while, sucks at the skin, and then—pop!—is torn off. But after a while the mugwort fumes seem to be working on his brain, as if loosening screws and leaving him in a high that reminds him of his peace movement years. Fun years, the only time I was loose, except meeting Clio. Love does that. Loosey-goosey love.
The monk is chanting quietly to himself, a two-tone chant: a high short note—hm—then a low long note like a hum—hmmm. Pep tunes in to the silky rhythm. Hm, hmmm. Hm, hmmm. Soothing. Words come to mind, latching on to the enticing sounds, in the same tone and duration: Tight, loooose. Tight, loooose. Hm, hmmm. Hm, hmmm. Pep finds his grip on the pain loosening, his mind filling with all the ways he lives tight—family, job, even golf, even love, hell, even sex! All these phobias—trying to tighten, to close down and live without feeling. If you do feel something, kill it. And—here’s the real killer—if you have opened up once to someone so that the other person really sees you, shame comes down on you like a baseball bat! You feel so ashamed of having been seen that you kill it off, once and for all, so the next time you see that
person you pretend that what happened didn’t happen, you just go right on with the pretend-shit, so that even if you’re dying of cancer you repudiate the offer of a last true touch of your child’s love.
Like my own father, on his deathbed, when I went to embrace him, even kiss him, said, “Now, now, Pep, none of that puff stuff now.”
Pep feels a need to tell someone. “Hey,” he says to the monk, “this is working.”
“Hm, hmmm.”
“No question I’m tight,” he goes on, relieved the monk can’t understand. “Getting older, I’m getting tighter. When you’re old, it’s not about what you think anymore, it’s about what you feel, right?”
“Hm, hmmm.”
“So it all boils down to this. Loosen up. Either you do it or you miss it. Right?”
A pause. And then: “Hm, hmmm.”
34
The morning passes. Katie, Xiao Lu, and Clio do the chores: gathering and chopping wood, hauling water, washing, fixing, cooking, cleaning, starting a new quilt. The monk continues to work on Pep. He moves on from moxibustion to a brisk massage, pounding Pep’s back with a wooden mallet rife with knobs, which seems to make his internal organs wobble. Next, oral treatments, concoctions of herbs, mushrooms, a slimy green and foul-smelling potion Clio thinks is the notorious bear’s bile she’s seen on TV, gathered from bears chained in cages with infected catheters in their bile ducts. Gamely, Pep swallows it. After each treatment, the monk stares at him suspiciously as if he hasn’t really drunk or endured it, then, gingerly placing a finger on Pep’s wrist, mutters a curse and withdraws to the chair to drink some more green tea and brood. The only noticeable effect of all this on Pep is in his bowels. He spends much of his time limping back and forth to the latrine.
On one trip, taking his own pulse—fast and random like two steel bands dueling—Pep suddenly thinks of his poker buddy, Marty Van Buren. Dr. Orville Rose diagnosed Marty with a heart arrhythmia, “atrial fib.” When meds couldn’t control it, Orville told Marty he had to go on blood thinners, right away—otherwise a clot could form inside his heart and blast up into his brain and stroke him out. Marty refused. Two days later, he stroked out. Never walked or talked again—never even played poker. Died years later a vegetable. Pep breaks out in a cold sweat. Shit. If this is what Marty had, and doesn’t stop in a day or two—I’m dead! He shivers. But what can I do? Take a ton of aspirin. And don’t tell Clio.
As Xiao Lu works with Katie, she points out all kinds of animals, birds, and plants, and mixes play with the tasks. Clio does her best to join in. Each chore is turned into a game, a chance for her to teach Katie the Chinese words for things. Katie repeats each one, and then Xiao Lu goes to work on the tones until Katie gets it right. Clio can hardly hear a difference in the tones, and for the life of her can’t remember the words for any length of time. Katie can, and does. As if, as Katie said before they left for China, the language is in her, ready to come out.
Clio is amazed at how Katie, who steadfastly neglects to do her only two chores—to feed and water Dave and Cinny, and carry her dishes to the sink—is pitching in with everything, even hard things, like getting down on her knees beside Xiao Lu to clean the old stones of the floor, one by one. Side by side they work with picks and brushes, stone by stone. With each chunk of muck dug out there’s a triumphant laugh—two happy prospectors chipping out gold.
Katie likes working with Xiao Lu. She makes it a game, like a friend, and she’s happy when I do good, and laughs—she’s a good laugher!—and helps me on the hard stones—like cleaning out Velcro’s hoofs with Mary. It’s so fun to learn things—how to tip the pail to get the water from the stream without getting mud in it and how heavy water is! Xiao Lu’s way strong, and even though I’m huffing and puffing—Dad said we’re at like eight thousand feet—she doesn’t even breathe hard. She let me chop wood, showed me how to use the hatchet so I don’t hatchet my legs or fingers. The way if you put the edge of the hatchet just right and hit the back with that big wooden hammer she has it goes shhhwittt! and like magic there are two pieces of wood the inside all tan and smelling sawdusty and the grains running up and down like veins. At home Mom and Dad don’t do stuff like this with me, not even fixing a flat tire or washing the windows or mowing the lawn. They pay somebody else to do it. They pay people like Xiao Lu to do their things. I wish they’d teach me themselves like she does.
Xiao Lu indicates it’s time to stop cleaning the floor and start preparing lunch. Katie stands up in front of Clio proudly, pointing to the dozen or so stones they’ve finished.
“Great! But you’re filthy—please go wash your hands?”
“She isn’t washing her hands.”
“That doesn’t mean we don’t. I’ll go with you to the spring. And remember—don’t get any water in your mouth, not a drop.”
Katie glances at Xiao Lu and sees that she’s picked up this tension. Like Mom thinks it’s a kinda contest—but all it is really is a pain.
When they come back from washing their hands Xiao Lu teaches Chun how to cut up the vegetables—bok choy, onion, bamboo shoots. Soon Chun is following her, matching her precise shapes. It is a slow process, a challenge to Chun. She concentrates hard and seems to admire how fast Xiao Lu does it, how fine she chops, how alike the pieces are. But Chun does it too fast. Xiao Lu grasps her racing hand, pats it, and smiles, meaning “Careful!” She and Chun stir-fry the vegetables with wood ears in the beat-up wok. Garlic and soy are added. Rice follows. It is a simple, healthy meal that Chun and the others seem to like very much.
Afterward Xiao Lu takes Chun outside again to collect small branches and logs for the evening’s fire. Again Xiao Lu watches as the woman trails along behind, helping a little. She is on alert, never letting them be alone, watching like a hawk, and always glancing back to make sure the man is all right. She seems very worried and very tense. Each moment with Chun is precious!
Toward the end of the afternoon Chun asks if she can do more calligraphy.
Xiao Lu sits close to her at the table. Today she will teach her the eight basic brushstrokes that every Chinese child her age will already have learned.
Katie tries hard to follow her lead, surprised at how difficult the brush is to control, and amazed at Xiao Lu’s skill. She’s a good teacher, Katie thinks. She makes it fun and doesn’t get impatient like her mom does, and she isn’t in a hurry and doesn’t seem to have something else on her mind.
After a while the strokes are good enough, so Xiao Lu teaches her the classic stroke order for each character. As she describes the stroke, she motions to make Katie see what the word is. First horizontal, then vertical, like the character for “ten”:
First above, then below—like the character for “three”:
First to the left, then to the right—like the character for “man, person”:
First in the middle, then on the sides—like the character for “small”:
First outer, then inner—like the character for “moon”:
But if the outer stroke, like in the character for “sun,” forms a closed square, the lower stroke is written last. “First go in, then shut the door”:
Chun seems to really enjoy this, Xiao Lu thinks. Her head is bent low to the paper, the brush held upright, just as she has shown her. As she makes the characters, Xiao Lu giggles and applauds. Chun smiles at her. Xiao Lu feels a warm glow. It’s like when I was a child being taught by my own mother, and then by my dear teacher. By the time Xia was old enough to hold a brush, she had turned against me. I never taught her. Now I am teaching my own child.
Suddenly Xiao Lu realizes she has not yet shown her the most important character, the one for her name, Chun, “Spring.” She points to her, and says, “Chwin.”
“Chwin,” says Chun, pointing to herself.
Xiao Lu smiles and nods—the accent is almost perfect. The woman is standing beside Ch
un now, looking over her shoulder. Xiao Lu catches the woman’s eye, seeing that she is not happy at this. Why? It is her girl’s name. She wonders how to show that Chun means “Spring.” She sits, puzzled. Then she realizes she can tell Chun the same story her first teacher told her—she remembers the day like yesterday! She holds up three fingers to Chun and says in Chinese, “Three,” and draws the character for “three”:
Then she points to the character they just drew for “man, person,” and says it in Chinese and superimposes it on top of the “three”:
Finally she points to the character they’ve drawn for “sun,” and puts it below:
Over and over in gestures she paints a picture in the air above the character, pointing to each character as she makes it and saying to Chun: “Three. People. Sit. In. Sun.” She pauses. “Chwin. ‘Spring.’” She has Chun repeat each word, and corrects her intonation until she gets every syllable right. “Three people sit in sun—‘Chwin, Spring.’” Finally Chun understands and says the whole sequence perfectly. It is her first sentence in Chinese and Xiao Lu claps her hands. Chun claps too, and turns and talks to the woman. The woman pretends to be excited. It is all Xiao Lu can do to keep from laughing at her clumsy effort.
Xiao Lu laughs and claps, says, “Chwin-Chwin,” and invites her to draw it. Carefully—too carefully, so that it is chunky and out of proportion, she does. Xiao Lu takes her hand and guides her, over and over for ten “Chuns,” twenty, until she is starting to relax, and then another ten or twenty until, through her relaxation, it starts to be drawn, the character starts to come alive. She smiles and laughs and pats her on the head, and then she takes her by the hand and leads her over to a wall where some of her calligraphy scrolls hang. She points to the top character of one of them—it is a “Chun” much like the character she drew. Then she points out the top character of another “Chun,” but drawn with more freedom. She points out others, some so stylized that they barely resemble the first character she drew.