Peach Blossom Pavilion

by Mingmei Yip

  But I didn't.

  Who were they to feel contempt for another woman? So what if I was a prostitute? Was their situation any better? If I was enslaved to men, then we all were. The only difference being that I was paid in cash, and they with status. I aimed a flirtatious smile at all the unhappy faces, then, in shredded-golden-lotus steps, followed the nun to my place in the corner, all the while wriggling my fur-covered bottom. After I sat down, I sensuously peeled off my fur coat to reveal my garishly embroidered silk cotton gown.

  A hush fell over the hall as a plump, elderly nun led five younger ones through the entrance. Each held a flask in one hand and a willow branch in the other. As they walked, each of these bald-headed, sexless creatures would dip the branch into her flask, then flick the water into the air.

  Infinite Emptiness leaned close to me. "Our shifu are now purifying the room with their magical Dharma water. When they are finished, the room will become a pure land."

  Pure land. The two words gave me a jolt. Nobody here could know that I also kept a pure land in my heart-my qin. Though my pure land was now lost, I firmly believed that someday it would come back to me.

  After the purification, Infinite Emptiness told me that the nuns were now going to invite all the unearthly beings-Buddhas, bodhisattvas, heavenly deities, ghosts from the six realms-to descend into the hall to participate in the Water and Land Ceremony.

  As I watched the nuns chant and mumble mystifying incantations, I wondered whether Pearl, Ruby, and my father were among the ghosts who would cross the boundary separating their yin realm from the living world of yang. Eerie chanting began to flood the room, sending chills up and down my spine.

  The older nun now raised a banner to signify that the ceremony had officially begun ...

  30

  Flight to Heaven

  the next morning I feigned female discomforts and begged off - attending the rest of the Water and Land Ceremony. I was bored by the interminable ceremony and weary of the angry stares of Ouyang's wives and the disapproving scrutiny of the nuns. On the last day, however, Ouyang insisted that I must attend the concluding ritual so as to receive merit.

  "I paid a lot for this to get good fortune for you, so please don't waste my money," he said chidingly.

  A few more tedious hours at the ceremony were far preferable to antagonizing my favored guest, so I quickly agreed to go.

  To show I was not intimidated by the wives and nuns, I took extra care with my makeup and dress. Once at the ceremony, however, I was as bored as before and found myself either daydreaming or dozing off until the crowd stirred at the announcement: "Mother Wonderful Kindness Abbess is going to perform the ritual to send the deities back to heaven and the ghosts back to the yin world."

  Hearing that dramatic proclamation, I sat up straight, now fully awake. My eyes strayed to the windows as I idly wondered whether any ghosts would be going through them on their way home. Turning back, I saw a lean, fortyish nun pass through the gate and walk in measured steps toward the giant Buddha facing the entrance. Behind her trailed a small retinue of young nuns, some beating wooden fish, others reciting sutras. I couldn't see the older nun's face but her immaculate saffron robe and the elegant way she walked told me she was Wonderful Kindness, the abbess.

  The bald-headed entourage bowed and prostrated to the gilded Buddha, then continued to chant and walk around the hall. As they turned to head in my direction, I could see that the abbess's face, though slightly weathered looking, was actually quite handsome. As she neared my row; I looked up and met her eyes. To my surprise, as if detecting some dirt or scars on my face, she studied me for long moments. Then her calm, emotionless face transformed. It was hard to describe the change; all I could say was she looked as if she were greatly disturbed by what she saw, but desperately trying to hide her agitation. I assumed my heavy makeup, embroidered yellow silk gown (I'd refused to put on a black robe), and hair coiled on top of my head like a snake had provoked her discomposure. Perhaps she had already surmised that I was not a decent woman, but someone who belonged to the domain of the wind and moon, now tracking licentious mud into her pure land.

  But something more was happening. The abbess continued to stare hard at me until I suddenly realized-as if struck by lightning-the reason for her scrutiny. This hairless, seemingly emotionless, and depressingly slack-robed woman was my mother!

  I felt tossed into a dark well of anguish and shame.

  My heart beat like a whip slashing on naked flesh. When I finally gathered my scattered qi and was about to address her, to my utter surprise, the nun silenced me with a sharp, meaningful glance and an imperceptible shake of her head. And then, turning away, she continued to perform the ritual as if nothing had happened!

  I lost track of the ceremony until at the end I found my way out with the departing crowd. I feared my confusion would prompt questions from Ouyang that I was ill-prepared to answer. Fortunately he merely nodded toward me as he accompanied his wife, concubines, and children out the door. To my relief, the car he'd arranged was waiting right near the door. I quickly climbed in and pulled the curtains over the windows.

  That evening, I flipped and tossed in bed like a fish frying in a wok. All these years my mother had been alive but never cared to write! She had even refused to acknowledge me-her only flesh and blood on earth. Now the abbess of an extremely successful nunnery in Peking, yet so heartless! I wondered which was the real teaching of Buddhism: compassion? or nonattachment? Would an enlightened being have been afraid to acknowledge her prostitute daughter? All these years, I had lived in the hope of being reunited with Mother. Now I'd finally found her-only to discover that she was ashamed of me!

  I was also bewildered by how different Mother looked from that evening ten years ago when she had climbed onto the train. Her eyes, lustrous then, were now two dusty beads. Her cheeks were sunken and her forehead creased. Like the other nuns, her scalp was marked by twelve scars. Had my mother really become this austere abbess, or was she just another apparition like my dream of her on the mountain?

  The next morning I woke up at six and put on the coarse, homespun clothes and the worn robe Qing Zhen had bought me-and which I'd not had the heart to throw away. My puffy face in the mirror distressed me but I paused only a moment to try to hide it with some powder. Then I hired a rickshaw and headed straight to Pure Lotus Temple.

  "Hurry, hurry! " I kept shouting to the coolie's skeletal back covered only with a thin, many-patched jacket. I listened to his grunts punctuating the traffic sounds. Memories of my mother from my childhood mixed with the image of the gaunt, shavenheaded nun I had seen yesterday. Both clung to my mind like hungry ghosts.

  Would my mother turn out to be like Hong Yi, the legendary high monk? At the age of thirty-nine, he cut off all worldly attachments. Shortly after he'd become a monk, his young wife brought their two small children to the temple to see him. Resolved to overcome his attachment to his family, he had them sent away.

  Had my mother refused to acknowledge me for the same reason?

  As I approached the temple, I feared both that I would not see my mother and that I would see her. Would she scold me severely for the life I had been living, or even just for the gaudy clothes I had worn in her temple? Yet as much as I wanted to see Mother, I hated to cause her pain. I still remembered her agonized expression when she had recognized me. Would she be better off if she never again saw her prostitute daughter?

  Shrouded in the chilly morning mist, the temple was silent. No fragrant guests clamored in the courtyard. Yesterday's boisterousness and animation were replaced by a melancholic quietude. In the distance, a few nuns were doing their cleaning meditation. Snow drifts, like jilted women, mingled with yesterday's debris, adding a deserted feeling.

  As I strode rapidly toward the main building, I saw a very young nun lumbering toward me. A pail bounced from each end of a bamboo pole, which cut deeply into her thin shoulders. Water kept sloshing and spilling onto her cloth-slippered feet.r />
  I put my hands together, smiled, and said respectfully, "Good morning, shifu.

  The young nun let the bamboo pole slip off her shoulders and the pails landed on the ground with a heavy thud. More water spilled. She smoothed her robe and wiped her forehead with the back of her small hand.

  "Good morning, miss." She smiled back, revealing melon-seedlike teeth.

  "Shifu, I'm looking for Wonderful Kindness Abbess. Would you kindly tell me where she is?"

  The young nun's thin brows knitted. "Why do you want to find her?"

  For a while I weighed how to respond. How would she react if I revealed I was her abbess's daughter? So I lied. "It was Wonderful Kindness Abbess who asked me to come visit her today."

  Now the young nun looked even more puzzled. "She did? But that's not possible."

  I felt color rising to my cheeks. It was like Hong Yi! Mother must have left orders not to allow me to see her. I pulled my coat around my chest to ward off the chill. "Why ... not?"

  "Because she's already left the temple."

  My heart raced. "When?"

  "Around five-thirty, right after she finished chanting her morning lesson."

  "But why?"

  "No one really knows."

  "That's strange," I smiled amicably, "for she did ask me yesterday to come to visit her. So what happened?"

  The young nun cast me a curious glance. "Last night Wonderful Kindness Abbess told us she'd seen some strange visions during the ceremony, so she needed to go right away to the mountain to meditate. We can't tell anyone where she went. She said that she'll only be back when she's gained illumination. Eternal Purity shafu will take over the temple's affairs until she comes back."

  I was amazed by this news. "Did Wonderful Kindness Abbess say what kind of visions she had?"

  The young nun paused to look around nervously, then plunged on, "She didn't, but Eternal Purity shafu noticed that Wonderful Kindness Abbess look disturbed and acted strangely toward the end of the ceremony. Eternal Purity shafu said she couldn't figure out why, since our abbess is always calm.

  "Fortunately we have Eternal Purity shifu who's been assisting her in matters big and small, but still, no important decision will be made without Wonderful Kindness Abbess's permission. We just can't imagine life here without her, even for a few weeks. There are so many things waiting for her to decide. Oh, Wonderful Kindness Abbess does so many things! Like meeting with the big hufa to get donations, discussing plans about the next ceremony, expanding the temple, organizing charitable deeds ..."

  I was trying to understand how my mother had changed since she'd climbed on the train to Peking ten years ago. I'd been too young then to have any idea of what might have awaited her, but now I realized how precarious things must have been for her. She might have arrived at the nunnery only to be turned away. Or allowed to stay but assigned the most menial tasks. Yet now, listening to this young novice's descriptions, I suddenly realized it had not been like this at all. In ten years, the fragile, introverted housewife I'd known as my mother had somehow worked her way up to be come an important, decision-making "business nun." A change that Baba, I was sure, would have been unable to believe.

  Then the irony seized me: Both my mother and I had become prestigious, albeit her as a nun and me as a prostitute!

  I asked the young nun, "Do you know which mountain the abbess has gone to?"

  "The Empty Cloud Mountain."

  "Where is this Empty Cloud Mountain?"

  "West of the Temple of Heaven, about twenty miles ..." the young nun blurted out, then slapped a hand against her mouth. "Oh heaven, I'm not supposed to tell this!"

  I put on the warmest smile I could maneuver. "Don't worry, shifu; I won't let anyone know where the abbess is."

  The young nun didn't respond, but stared at me with suspicion. Her almond eyes widened. "Miss, I hope you are not going to find her; are you?"

  I didn't answer her question, but asked instead, "Do you know exactly where, I mean in which temple, she is dwelling?"

  She wiped the moisture from her brows. "But Eternal Purity shifu said Wonderful Kindness Abbess wishes to be left alone. No one's supposed to go look for her on the mountain. Only Eternal Purity shifu knows exactly where she is."

  "It is on a matter of extreme urgency that I'm looking for her."

  She cast me a suspicious glance. "Then what is it and who are you?"

  I was tiring of this nun's self-importance and almost wished I'd come wearing an expensive dress with conspicuous jewelry. With some annoyance I said, "I'm sorry. I'm afraid I can't tell you. I can only tell the abbess herself."

  "Miss, we must all wait until Wonderful Kindness Abbess knows it is the right time to come back."

  There was no point in talking to her further, so I put my hands together, bowed, and took leave.

  As soon as I got home, I began to pack for my trip to Empty Cloud Mountain. When Ouyang stopped in for his lunchtime rain shower with me, I told him that I had to go back to Shanghai for a week to attend my father's funeral. I felt a bit guilty about using my long-dead baba to cover up my lie, but since I was doing this to find Mother, I was sure Baba would forgive me.

  The next day, when the sky outside the window was still as dark as ink smeared on rice paper, I leaped out of bed and quickly dressed in a plain padded top and pants. I took only a few things with me-an umbrella, another set of clothes, a quilted jacket, rice cakes, hard-boiled eggs, and a pouch filled with silver and copper coins. Then, when I was already outside the apartment, I remembered something more important and dashed back-to grab the four fu amulets Qing Zhen had painted for me. Since I had no idea where in the mountain Mother was staying, I decided, like last time when I'd traveled with Teng Xiong on Taiyi Mountain, to start from the base and work my way up. Whether I'd find her or not was entirely up to my Karma.

  After a long, tedious ride in a hired car over bumpy roads, I finally arrived at the base of the mountain. Peddlers selling incense and other Buddhist paraphernalia accosted me but I waved them away. Finally I agreed to pay an excessive amount to two coolies to be taken up the mountain in a sedan chair. We stopped at the gate of one temple after another, as I asked about my mother. Some had already heard of Wonderful Kindness's disappearance and, sipping their tea noisily, threw out endless conjectures about this abrupt departure, never imagining that the cause was right in front of their eyes. When asked why I was looking for the abbess of Pure Lotus, I answered that I wanted to entreat her to be my Dharma teacher. Many looked at me curiously but none inquired further.

  Five days had passed, and as I worked my way higher and higher up the mountain, I still hadn't any word about where my mother was. When night fell, a temple would carry out its compassion by inviting me to stay the night and to eat in their Fragrant Kitchen. To repay their kindness, I'd drop some copper coins into their Merit Accumulating Box-depending on their degree of hospitality. Though disappointed, at least I had the good luck not to be discovered by bandits. Having learned my lesson painfully, I avoided any hidden path and did not travel at night.

  On the afternoon of my sixth day on the mountain, the weather suddenly turned bad. Curtains of rain swept over the path, shaking the trees, knocking down leaves and mercilessly pelting the roof of my sedan chair. The wind picked up speed, attacking like a ferocious beast. Soaking wet and battered by this invisible enemy, the coolies stumbled a few times before they finally spotted a temple. Then they demanded that I double their payment, not only for their hard work, but also because it was Chinese New Year. I'd completely forgotten the approaching holiday. Would heaven grant my New Year's wish of reuniting with Mother?

  The abbot of the small monastery was an old man with a large head and a small torso. After he led me into a small reception room, he pointed to a rattan chair and invited me to sit. Though he had a kindly look, I somehow felt I should not intrude too much on his quiet life on the mountain. So, as soon as we were settled and a young monk came in to serve tea, I came straight
to the point, expressing my intention to find Wonderful Kindness Abbess from Pure Lotus Temple.

  The old monk looked at me intently, his eyes clear and bright. "Miss, there are many nuns on this mountain."

  "Do you know her and where she is?"

  He nodded. "One time when Pure Lotus carried out a big ceremony for the release of hungry ghosts, she invited many temples to join, including ours."

  "But do you know where she is now?"

  "Miss, I think you should go back to Peking."

  "Master, why ... shouldn't I look for her?"

  He caressed his smooth, shiny scalp. "It's too dangerous for a young girl like you to be traveling alone on this mountain. You're lucky that you haven't run into bandits, so the Buddha must be protecting you. And if you want to learn Dharma or meditation, there are many teachers around. Besides, even if you find her, that doesn't mean she'll agree to teach you. We monks and nuns come to Empty Cloud Mountain to be left alone." He paused to sip his tea, then said, "She might feel disillusioned by her hectic life in a city temple. In those big temples, you have to go around begging rich people for money instead of meditating and studying sutras.