12. The Nun and the Prostitute

I didn’t hear from Michael the next morning. Finally, just before eleven (his flight was scheduled to leave at two-thirty), I called the Kowloon Hotel, but the receptionist told me that he had already checked out. However, a letter had been left for me.

I got out of the taxi at the entrance to the Kowloon Hotel, hurried to the counter, took the letter from the receptionist, tore it open, and stood in the lobby to read.

Dear Meng Ning,

Professor Fulton has suddenly fallen very sick while visiting a temple in Lhasa. I had to take a flight to Sichuan at six AM, the only way I can connect to Lhasa today. I believe things will turn out fine, so please don’t worry. I’ll call you as soon as I can.

Love,

Michael

By myself in the lobby, I tried very hard to stifle tears as I watched tourists-faces beaming and laughing as if mocking my misery-whirling in and out of the hotel’s glass door.

A week had gone by and I still hadn’t heard anything from Michael. I thought again of Yi Kong and realized I had not inquired about her since my visit to her in the hospital. I decided to make a trip to the Golden Lotus Temple.

Walking down the sunny corridor lined with potted plants leading to Yi Kong’s office, I ran into a young nun clasping a stack of files in her arms and asked her about Yi Kong. She told me, with chin pressed to the folders to keep them from falling, that her mistress had flown to Shanxi to invite high monks to come to bless the Fragrant Spirit Temple after the fire.

I asked about the damage caused.

“Everything’s fine,” she said, her tone casual. “Except that the whole five thousand three hundred and twenty sutras of the Tripitaka were burnt to ashes.”

“I’m so sorry!”

A meaningful smile flashed on the nun’s face. “But doesn’t Yi Kong Shifu always teach us that everything in this world is transient?”

An awkward pause, then she said, “Miss, before you leave, please take a look at our new Tang dynasty-style temple complex, which took Yi Kong Shifu five years to achieve.” After that, she lumbered down the corridor and disappeared down the stairs.

I wandered about the temple complex, stopping here and there to try to figure out the locations of the old places I’d been familiar with before I’d left to study in Paris. Construction was going on all over the place. Half-finished buildings, surrounded by bamboo scaffoldings and green mesh, looked imposing but vulnerable, like huge bandaged animals. Thick-torsoed workmen in yellow hard hats, shorts, and soaked T-shirts or bodies bared to the waist, toiled with intense concentration-cementing a foundation, plastering a wall, hammering a beam, pushing a cart piled with bricks. Sweat dripped down their deeply tanned faces; their tightly muscled arms flexed and gleamed under the scorching sun. Judging from their solemn expressions, they must have felt honored to work for the most influential temple in Hong Kong.

The new sites under construction did not really interest me. I wanted to go to the old stone garden, hoping to see the carp in the fishpond. Before I went to Paris, I’d spent many days reading in the garden, perched on my favorite stone bench overlooking the pond. When tired, I’d walk up close and stare at the carp to abstract my spirit. Sometimes Yi Kong would join me to discourse on Buddhism, the arts, or her many charitable projects while we sat shaded from the sun, or under the bright moon and twinkling stars.

I felt relieved that the garden was not under construction, and pleased to see that the bamboo, evergreens, ferns, and moss looked more spirited than before. The air still held their fragrance and qi still flowed through plants and the pond as I stepped along the pebbles set in contrived random patterns on the ground. I smiled, remembering Yi Kong explaining to me how the spontaneity of most stone gardens is really the result of a deliberate scheme. She’d also reminded me that we should not only raise our heads to admire the trees; we should also lower our heads to appreciate the moss below. I thought she said this to remind me of the lesson of nonduality that I should have learned from my fall into the well-spirituality can be attained low down as well as high up.

Across the pond I saw an elderly woman doing qigong, energy exercise, under the shade of the bamboo trees. She was the only other person in the spacious garden, except for the occasional nun who’d pass with a straight back, quickened pace, and an I-know-what-I’m-doing expression.

Carps lazily wagged their tails amidst the entwined water plants. One with patches of gold among white scales broke the surface into concentric circles of ripples before disappearing into the murky depths of the water. Was it my favorite one that I used to feed five years ago?

A girlish voice chimed, “Good morning, miss.”

I looked up and saw Ah-po, the old woman, her face heavily wrinkled with a grin. She swayed her arms in the form of the Chinese character “eight.”

“Good morning, Ah-po.” I smiled. “What kind of exercise are you practicing?”

“Aromatic intelligence awakening qigong.” Ah-po’s breath whistled through her nearly toothless mouth, her tone parodying a master’s authoritative utterance.

“Ah, very good for your health.” I studied her leathery face and wondered how old she was.

“You bet. I’m one hundred,” she said, now flapping her ears with her puny hands.

“Wow! Is that true? Congratulations! You only look eighty.”

All the creases on Ah-po’s face deepened; she looked pleased. “Thank you. You look eighteen.” Her toothless smile stretched so wide that the distance between her nose and her lips seemed to be dissolving.

“Oh, thank you, but I’m thirty,” I said, then peeked in the pond and was startled that my reflection-among the fish, the seaweed, and the ripples-was as wrinkled as Ah-po’s. I suddenly felt very old.

Ah-po’s eyes glowed with interest. “How many children do you have?”

“I’m still single.” I stared at the empty space next to my reflection in the pond and thought of Michael. What was he doing now in Tibet? Was he used to the thin air there? Was Professor Michael Fulton all right? Why hadn’t Michael called me?

Ah-po’s tone turned disapproving, but her smile still stretched big. “Ah, single at thirty, no good. Better get a man and get married fast.” She narrowed her eyes. “Miss, any man is better than no man!”

“Why?” I asked. Of course I knew why she thought so, but I still wanted to hear it from her.

“Because even when you’re old, you’ll have someone to quarrel with. It’s still better than talking to the four bare walls!”

“How’s that?”

“At least you get some response!” Ah-po laughed, then she began to swing her elbow from left to right.

I counted the wrinkles on her face. “How many children do you have?”

“One daughter, but she died a long time ago.”

“I’m so sorry…and your husband?” I immediately regretted asking. Since she was one hundred, her husband must have already been dead a long time.

But her answer surprised me. “No husband.” She kept smiling, but her smile was now lopsided.

I wondered why, because during her generation it was inconceivable to bear a child without a husband. Right then, from the corner of my eye I saw, at the other end of the garden near a stone lantern, a cheek with a red scar gleaming under the sun. The scar belonged to a nun approaching the dormitory, her bald head shining like a bright mirror.

“Nice to talk to you, Ah-po.” I waved good-bye to the centenarian as I hurried past her to follow the nun. Behind me I heard Ah-po’s cheerful voice echo like the many ripples of the pond. “Get married soon and have children! Many, many!”