Peach Blossom Pavilion

by Mingmei Yip

  "Wonderful Kindness Abbess is very famous, but I'm sure she knows well that all worldly achievements are transient." He looked at me sharply. "So, miss, I think you should leave her alone. She must have exhausted herself while trying to be enlightened by the Water and Land Ceremony. Please leave her to the peace of the Dharma."

  Now the young monk began to refresh our tea. "Master," he said eagerly-obviously he'd been listening to our conversation"I heard that in the big ceremony, a flower girl got into the inner altar room . . . "

  I felt a jolt inside.

  The old monk cast a sharp glance at his disciple before he turned to me. "Miss, I think that I and young shifu here have talked more than we should." Now he said to the young monk, "Bring this miss to her room and get her some dinner. But please don't bother her with any more talk."

  The next morning, although the rain hadn't stopped, I decided to go on with my search.

  When I took leave of the old monk, he exclaimed, "Miss, I hope I didn't say something to make you leave! You're most welcome to stay as long as you want."

  "Shifu," I put my hands together and made a deep bow, "I'm extremely grateful for your generosity. But I just want to go on with my trip."

  "Why not stay until the weather is completely clear? The paths are very slippery now. It's not safe."

  "There's no real safety in life anyway."

  "I agree with you." He cast me a curious glance. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be careful. Buddhism also tells us to take good care of ourselves."

  I conveyed my regret that I must take leave.

  He gave in. "Then let me give you a simple blessing before you go.

  Watching the rain streaming outside the sedan chair, I thought maybe I should have listened to the abbot and given up my search. The trip had exhausted not only me, but also my wallet. I'd stuffed too much money into too many Merit Accumulating Boxes, and tipped the coolies far more generously than I should have.

  Since my mother seemed to be running away from me, why didn't I just go home and forget about her? But I knew I wouldn't die with my eyes closed if I didn't see her, at least one last time.

  I must have fallen asleep, for when I opened my eyes and looked outside, everything was white. This reminded me of Baba's hairturning white overnight after the verdict of his execution had been passed. Then a famous scene from the novel Dream of the Red Chamber emerged in my mind. Tricked into marrying the wrong woman after the death of his true love, the young master Baoyu decided to cut himself off from all worldly entanglements and become a monk. When he stepped out of his grand mansion and headed toward the temple, he noticed that the whole world was covered with snow. "How white, boundless, and pure! " he exclaimed, then plunged into the snowstorm and was never heard from again.

  Suddenly the sedan chair bearers stopped, jolting me awake from my reverie. Ahead of us rose a long flight of stairs.

  The puller in front turned around to look at me, his face wet and his hair white from the snow. "Miss, I think the snowstorm is getting worse."

  The stout one now came from behind. "And we want to go home." He pointed a gnarled finger toward the steps. "There must be a temple up there, so why don't you pay us and get off here?"

  I craned my neck and looked. The long, narrow steps seemed to soar all the way to heaven. From the mountainside, branches stretched here and there, looking like esoteric symbols struggling to show me the way to enlightenment.

  I turned back to the coolies. "How do you know there's a temple up there?"

  "I heard about it," the skinny one shrugged, "anyway, why else would all these steps be here?"

  "But it looks like nobody's been there for a long time."

  "Miss, all temples here look like this." He paused to wipe the moisture from his face with a filthy rag. "Now we'll either drop you off here and you go up to find the temple yourself, or if you like, we can take you back." He cast a glance at his comrade. "We're going home before the storm gets any worse."

  I said to the two dark faces, "Why don't you two wait for me here for an hour. If I don't come back, you can leave. If I do, I'll pay you double."

  They jabbered loudly to each other, their eyes darting around. Then the stout one said, "We'll wait thirty minutes and you pay us three times-or else we don't wait."

  "All right." I took a deep breath and blurted out, "It's a deal."

  The climb was never-ending. I counted the steps: ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, one hundred, one hundred twenty, two hundred, three hundred ... until my mind became a blur. And in the deepening snow, so did the steps. Tired and short of breath, I climbed very carefully, lest I lose footing and slide back down. My throat felt dry and my lips cracked. The inconsolable rumble of my stomach sounded like an old wife's incessant complaints. I took out a bun and chewed; it tasted like a salted stone.

  As if this were not bad enough, the snow was beginning to soak through my clothes. I hugged my chest but that still didn't stop my body from shivering nor my teeth from chattering. My vision was blurred from my exhaustion and the glaring whiteness. I took out and opened my umbrella, but it was immediately blown away by the wind.

  "Damn!" I spat.

  Although now I could not see the top of the stairs, nor where I had started from, I somehow kept going. While my leather-booted feet continued to drag me upward, the question I dreaded began to harass my mind: What if there was nothing at the end of the steps?

  I panicked, turned, and mustered all my strength to scream down to the coolies. But I heard nothing except faint echoes of my own voice bouncing off the rock cliffs. To avoid the strong wind swirling down the steps, I staggered against the wall to catch my breath. I called out again to the sedan bearers, but the buffeting wind immediately knocked the breath out of my chest.

  They must have left without waiting for me!

  My breath froze in my chest. I started to have a feeling like floating in space. Through the blur of snow, the world seemed small yet infinite. The deep imprints of my footsteps stared back at me like enlarged eyes. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I savored the momentary sensation of warmth prickling on my skin.

  I began to feel certain that there was nothing at the end of the stairs. This thought, spinning within, synchronized with the swirling snow without. Horrible thoughts entered my mind: When the storm was cleared, someone-a monk, a nun, a pilgrim, a bandit-would discover a corpse on these steps. The battered body would look as if suspended between heaven and earth. The eyes would be wide open, as if the deceased were still resisting being dragged down to hell, since her earthly wishes had been left unfulfilled. The monks and nuns whom I'd asked about my mother would recognize my face but my identity would remain an eternal puzzle. The local gossip newspapers would desperately try to discover who I was. When they failed, they'd just fill in the puzzle with a story from their wildest imagination-a runaway girl from a rich family, lost on the mountain on her way to meet her clandestine lover, accosted by bandits, raped, then brutally murdered ...

  I shivered from the thoughts as well as the bitter snow. My breath had become harsh and labored; my lungs felt as if they were submerged in boiling water. Delirious, I looked up at the sky and muttered a prayer, "Heaven, let me see my mother one last time before my last moment comes. If I have to die, let me die in her arms, please!"

  But heaven, looking so white and pure, seemed completely oblivious to my prayer. Though my feet felt like icy marbles, they dragged doggedly one step after another while my mind danced in the swirls of dementia ...

  To lift my spirit, I began to sing-a medley of Peking opera arias and qin lyrics.

  The strong wind whistled and moaned to accompany my songs. After more demented singing, suddenly I felt my feet land on something unexpected-level ground. I stood still, inhaling deeply to calm and focus myself.

  My eyes looked around until they lighted on a haunting sight. A woman, bald-headed, her thin body wrapped in an equally thin robe, was meditating in the full lotus position. Behind her was a small, dilapi
dated temple.

  The scene struck me with its terrible beauty. It was completely white except for the nun's black robe under the temple's crimson roof. For a fleeting moment I wondered if I was seeing a stone statue. Or a hairless ghost.

  But, of course, she was neither a statue nor a ghost, but the woman who had been Beautiful Fragrance-my mother.

  My heart fluttered like snow falling on a withered lotus. Despite my recent bitterness, now I felt only sorrow seeing her emotionless face and the shivering of her frail body.

  Why was she torturing herself in the freezing cold?

  Overwhelmed by emotion, I had no time to think. "Ma, I'm here!" I screamed and sprinted toward the bell-shaped figure at full speed.

  To my utter surprise, the nun continued to meditate as if she were both deaf and blind-or as if my running toward her was merely an illusion. Or had time stopped forever in her world?

  I kept running and screaming "Ma! Ma!" until I slipped and fell...

  31

  The Reunion

  Then I woke up, I felt cocooned in something soft and warm. I looked up and caught my mother's eyes.

  "Ma . . . " I didn't know what more to say. But now that I was in her arms, what more did I need to say?

  My mother said, "Rest more, Xiang Xiang."

  Tears rolled down my cheeks. The last time I'd heard my name from her lips seemed to have been in some remote, former incarnation. How strange my name sounded now, so sweet and yet so bitter to my ears. Its mere sound brought me back to my childhood when my father had been alive and handsome, my mother a happy wife and mother, and I an indulged child.

  Although her hair was gone, her crown marred with scars, her smooth face replaced by a finely wrinkled one, her name changed from Beautiful Fragrance to Wonderful Kindness-she was still my mother.

  Feeling strangely comfortable, I uttered another "Ma ..."

  "I heard you, Xiang Xiang," my mother said in her nun's calm voice. When she touched my face, I was shocked to see a row of small scars on her wrist.

  "Ma, what happened?"

  "I burned them."

  "But why?"

  "Same as those on my head, as offerings to the Buddha."

  I searched her face. "It must have hurt."

  "Not if you're enlightened."

  Enlightened. What would that be like?

  I sighed inside, then looked at her and blinked hard-once, twice, three times, hoping that after each blink she'd be transformed back to the mother I'd known-young, beautiful, smoothfaced, scarless.

  But after endless blinks, what I saw in front of me was still the same thin, bald-headed, scarred nun that I'd encountered in Pure Lotus Temple a few days-or an entire incarnation-ago.

  My eyes misty and my mind confused, I fell asleep again.

  When I woke up, sounds of clanking pots drifted into my ears together with my mother's voice. "Xiang Xiang, I've cooked some simple vegetable dishes; they'll be ready in a minute."

  I looked out the window. The sky had turned completely dark. The snow and wind were still howling like hungry ghosts searching for food. Listening to the water dripping from the eaves, I thought of life draining from an hourglass and felt an unspeakable sadness. But soon it was replaced by a small joy when I heard the wind through the trees calling my name cheerily, "Xiang Xiang! Xiang Xiang!" Swiftly I slipped off the bed, left my room, and went into the small hall. It was practically empty except for an altar bearing a wooden Buddha statue. In front of the Enlightened One rested several miniature bowls of rice and vegetables, still steaming. Two candles burning high on the altar cast pools of warm, cozy light into the room's four corners.

  This remote place must have been neglected for a long, long time. But now the floors were swept clean as a polished mirror. With my mother's silhouette flickering in the kitchen next door, the familiar sound of her setting the table, and the aroma of food, this lonely temple actually gave the illusion of a home. Home! For how few years had I a real home to go back to!

  Big Master Fung's image flashed across my mind. It was this shredded-by-thousand-knives monster who had pulled our whole family from paradise and sent it plunging to hell! I felt my entire being consumed by a burning sensation. "Sha!" Kill. I said to myself in a heated whisper, imagining Fung's head being hit by a bullet and spurting with blood, or chopped off by a cleaver and falling on the ground, bouncing away.

  But Mother was calling my name gently, "Xiang Xiang, come sit at the table, dinner is ready."

  I sat across from my mother. As I looked at the dishes, my heart felt a happiness mixed with pain. Our reunion dinner. On Chinese New Year. Finally.

  "Ma," I asked, "do you know it's Chinese New Year?"

  "We nuns don't pay much attention to secular festivals."

  I watched Mother's serious countenance and remembered how my parents, unlike most Confucian couples, would pat and touch each other in front of me. While most men, believing their wives inferior and their bodies contaminated, would stay away from the women's quarters except to have sex, Baba had been more than happy to help Mother with her makeup and wardrobe.

  The burning sensation again overcame me. I'd changed from an innocent child to a scheming-hearted ming ji, my mother from an attractive woman to a sexless nun, and my father from a famous actor and fiddler to a wandering ghost. All as a result of Fung.

  Oblivious of my boiling emotion, Mother said, "Eat more, Xiang Xiang, even if you find vegetarian food tasteless," and began to pile food into my bowl.

  "Ma, you're a wonderful cook. Nothing that you prepare is tasteless." I gobbled down chunks of food and drained cup after cup of fragrant tea. My chopsticks kept flicking onto the different plates and scraping rice into my mouth. Suddenly I noticed my mother was not eating but watching me with sad eyes.

  "Ma," I said, putting down my chopsticks, "please eat, too."

  I thought I saw tears in her eyes, but I was not sure. Without a single hair on her scalp nor a single word from her lips, she picked up some rice, put it into her mouth, and chewed, slowly, as if she were doing some kind of eating meditation.

  Finally we finished our meal and I helped Mother clear away the table. After that, she brewed more tea, then, holding the steaming cups in our hands, we sat opposite each other. We both knew the time had come when we had to reach into the darkest corners of our minds, drag out our secrets, and toss them under each other's light.

  Mother wanted to know at once where I'd been and what I'd done, but I insisted that she tell me about herself first.

  In a neutral tone, Mother began to recount her life from the first day she had entered Pure Lotus. Every day, besides chanting and meditation, she, as a novice, had to clean and cook, and labor outdoors. Seeing that the Mother Abbess was old and frail, she also nursed her, even willingly helping her with her nature's calls and emptying her chamber pot. It was this good Karma that led to her later success. Gradually the abbess developed such fondness for her that she trusted no other nun but my mother. Therefore, before she passed away, she'd named my mother her Dharma heir. Since then Mother had worked hard to transform Pure Lotus from a modest neighborhood temple to the most influential nunnery in the city of Peking.

  When finished, Mother said, "Though I had no choice but to be a nun, I have done my best to advance the Dharma." She paused to sip her tea, then, "Because I understand suffering."

  I sighed inside. I also understood suffering, but that hadn't led me to become a successful nun, but a prestigious prostitute. However, according to Buddhism's ultimate point of view, there is no difference between the beautiful and the ugly, the wise and the foolish, the good and the evil. So under the same logic, did it mean that my nun mother was ultimately also a prostitute and I, a nun?

  We quietly sipped our tea and listened to the wailing of the hungry ghosts outside.

  Finally I pressed Mother for more details of her life as a nun. But she insisted that a nun should not dwell too much on her past, and that it was now my turn to tell her about myself.
And since she'd already guessed my occupation, she asked me to be honest with her and tell her everything which had happened since our separation in 1918.

  Painfully, I unfolded my story, starting from the moment I'd been taken away in the rickshaw by Fang Rong. Finally I told Mother how I'd found out from Teng Xiong that the ex-warlord who had been my big-shot customer was also the person who had Baba executed.

  I told my mother everything-almost. I left out being raped, once by Wu Qiang and the other time by one of the bandits. And I described Teng Xiong simply as a woman friend.

  After I'd finished, tears rolled down Mother's sunken cheeks. "Xiang Xiang," she sighed, reaching to touch my hand.

  I felt a jolt. This was the first time Mother, as a nun, had displayed her affection for me so directly.

  Her tight, self-contained voice rose in the air. "As a nun, I can only say all that happened to you is the result of some past, inexplicable Karma. While as a mother, I can only say I'm sorry and ask for your forgiveness."