A very young and voluptuous Chinese girl came up to us and asked whether we had an appointment. When I told her no, she flashed an obsequious grin. “It’s all right,” she said, sizing up Michael and me from head to toe and then back from toe to head. “Since you’re tourists, Master will squeeze you in. Please wait.” After she’d asked our dates of birth and I’d told her that we wanted kanxiang, physiognomy, she went toward a corner and disappeared.
I looked around. There were no other people in the room, but its four walls were cluttered with photographs. Michael and I stepped close to look. A shriveled, sixtyish man wearing a goatee and a loose Chinese robe appeared in every picture: painting the eyes of a lion to bring the beast to life before its dance performance; making offerings to a huge Buddha; performing feng shui for the Hong Kong Bank in Chinatown.
Michael said, “Meng Ning, do you trust these people?”
“Michael, relax-”
Just then the voluptuous girl appeared again and asked us to follow her. My heart thudded as we passed rooms and turned corners. What would our fates be-Michael’s? Mine? Ours?
The master looked older, yet handsomer, than in the pictures. He waved the white-cuffed sleeve of his Chinese suit to signal Michael and me to sit in the chairs across from his large desk. Then, like a connoisseur examining rare art objects with a magnifying glass, he carefully studied us through his thick, tortoiseshell glasses. Michael turned to smile at me nervously and squeezed my hand underneath the desk. I smiled back, feeling the moistness of his palm.
The master asked me in Chinese who’d go first. After I told him I would, he plunged right in. “You were a nun in your past life.”
That startled me. Yet before I had the chance to say anything, he went on. “But because you hadn’t meditated enough to extinguish your worldly desires and pacify your six senses, you fell in love with a man and broke the monastic rule. That’s why you were cast out from the religious order and become a lay person in this life.” He paused to look me in the eyes. “Since you have to pay back this love debt you owed in your previous life, your love life in this incarnation will not be smooth.”
As I opened my mouth, he waved his bony, jade-bangled hand to stop me from talking. “You have a smooth and high forehead, which shows you’re very intelligent. Your big, glistening eyes are considered beautiful, but they’re not a good sign for your love life.”
“What do you mean?”
“You attract men, but…”
When I asked him to explain more, he said, stroking his white beard with his long-nailed fingers, “There’s some confusion along your path of romance, but it’s a mystery that heaven will not divulge to me.” Then he smiled. “Don’t worry too much, miss, just remember the Chinese saying: ‘With absolute sincerity of the heart, even stone and metal can be opened.’” I knew this old Chinese saying that means lovers will break any barriers and overcome any obstacles to be together if their love is sincere and undying.
Toward the end, he summed up my life as long, auspicious, and full of adventures. “Soon very favorable to cross the great water,” he said.
Did it mean crossing the Pacific Ocean? To be with Michael? Or going back to stay in Hong Kong?
Overall, even if some pronouncements were still obscure, I was quite happy with the reading.
But not Michael. While listening to our conversation and not understanding a word of Cantonese, he had the anxious look of someone watching a foreign movie with no subtitles. Barely had the master finished with me when Michael asked me to translate, but the fortune-teller had already gone on to start his reading.
He scrutinized Michael’s face while addressing me. “Good physiognomy.” He paused to lean closer to Michael; Michael pulled back, his cheeks flushed. But the master seemed unperturbed. “Your friend has a good face: full, straight, smooth, and lustrous. His three powers-heaven, earth, and man-are well balanced. Broad forehead which signifies honor, long and straight nose which signifies wealth, and full chin which signifies a long life. In a word, his face has the features of high-ranked people, such as emperors or ministers of state.”
I nudged and smiled to Michael, silently expressing to him the master’s praise. But Michael, curiously, looked like a boy who had done something mischievous and was now waiting to accept his karma-whatever punishments were going to fall on him.
Then, to my disappointment, the master added, “Yet your friend’s physiognomy is not without deficiency. His eyebrows are far from each other, showing that he has no karmic relationship with his relatives. Not only that, he could even be…unfavorable to them-”
“Master, what do you mean by unfavorable?”
“Meaning that some of his relatives, like his mother, father, or even son, will sacrifice their lives for him so that he can live a good life in this incarnation.”
Michael was an orphan. But what about…his son? I felt a chill down my spine.
Right then the master spoke again in his composed tone. “But that’s in the past; no blame now.”
In the past-what did he mean? Was Michael hiding a son somewhere?
Just then I felt Michael’s hand on my thigh. “What did he say?”
But I had no chance to translate, for the master pointed to his forehead and continued. “See, the pale shadow hanging over your friend’s forehead also shows that he had a difficult youth. Something happened to him when he was…I think fifteen, or sixteen.” He tilted his head to get a better look at Michael under the light. “As you can see, his eyes are long and deep and his gaze spirited, signifying wealth and honor. But because sometimes his eyes are also fathomless, his love life will not be smooth.” He paused. “In fact, it’s rather troubled. He might have more than one marriage. Anyway, when he was a rich and eminent Chinese in his past life, he kept several concubines. He needed their yin energy.” Then he paused to scrutinize me. “Your friend also needs to build his yin energy, which he let run down. Too many negative yin”-he meant “dead”-“people in his life. They drain away his positive yin energy.”
I remembered the décor in Michael’s apartment, which desperately needed some positive yin touch-sources of female energy like crawling plants, flowers, wind chimes, colorful pictures.
“Although he’s orderly and well organized on the surface, his spirit underneath is restless. He needs more earth and water in his life to balance his fire and metal. Miss, inside you there’s a spring of young yin energy that you should put to good use by helping your friend. Remember: when man and woman occupy their correct places it is the great righteousness of heaven.” He paused, then added, “Your friend is starving for your yin energy.”
Before I had the time to absorb what he’d said, the master went on to praise Michael’s strong fingers with conical tips, which indicated intelligence and moral rectitude. And Michael’s voice, deep and sonorous like bells, signified longevity. But, he added, if a person has a bell-like voice and also a deformity like a mole underneath the eyebrow, he can still risk dying young. Like my father, I suddenly realized-and squirmed.
As if reading my mind, the master stroked his beard meditatively. “Our faces are formed by our hearts, and we can always change our hearts by accumulating merit.” He concluded his reading by motioning to Michael. “His beginning has not been good. But as long as your friend is steadfast to face his loss, his life will be long and righteous.”
He stopped, then asked, “Are you his girlfriend?”
I lowered my head and felt color rising to my cheeks.
He smiled. “Good. Then listen carefully, miss. He not only needs you, he needs the woman in you, not the little girl.”