Peach Blossom Pavilion (51 page)

Mr. Ouyang and I put our hands together and bowed in response.

One of the nuns, who had a pinched expression under two thin brows, cast me an inquisitive glance, as if asking: Who's this heavily made-up and flashily dressed woman? My cheeks felt hot. I knew that were I not standing right next to the military chief of Peking, I'd never have been allowed in here. I had no real status-less even than Ouyang's seventh or eighth concubine. My position, if any, was dependent on this powerful man's whim. I knew he'd brought me here less from affection than from his conviction that I brought him luck.

Now the nun stopped her scrutiny of me and turned to address my favored guest respectfully, "Mr. Ouyang, the ceremony of purification will begin right away, now please follow us to join your family."

"Infinite Emptiness shzfu," Ouyang said to the young nun, who had remained deferentially silent in the presence of the older ones, "can you please take Miss Dream Pearl to the other side?"

I knew I wouldn't be allowed to sit with Mr. Ouyang during the official ceremony, but I could not help feeling hurt when I heard this. Nevertheless, as a kept woman, I obeyed my master and followed the nun. My heels' loud tappings seemed intrusive beside the soft rubbings of the nun's cloth slippers. Then my eyes caught the hollow glance of an emaciated, fiftyish woman in a corner. Behind her sat a small group of younger women. There were three of them, all dressed in matching haiqing-the black robes of lay Buddhists-and sharing the same sour expression. I knew they must be Ouyang's family. Carefully I scrutinized the un-made-up faces. The two older women-probably in their late thirties-might once have been beauties. But now the contours of their figures were slack elastic bands, and their sagging faces like empty rice bags. The youngest one was pretty but not attractive. With pale face and nervously darting eyes, she looked mousy and frightened-like a bird hopping hopelessly in a small cage. Seated behind the women were Ouyang's children. There were about ten of them, from toddlers to teens, also all wrapped in black. As the littlest ones squirmed to get loose, two women, no doubt maids, were trying desperately to restrain them.

Now all the women's eyes were riveted on me-their mutual enemy. If the first wife's hands were not languorously moving a strand of prayer beads, I might have mistaken her-with her ashcolored face and dead-fish eyes-for an abandoned statue. The youngest concubine, head lowered, cast me inquisitive, upward glances with her timorous eyes. The two older "rice bags" scanned me from head to toe and then back from toe to head, while talking to each other in intense, suppressed whispers. From their jealous expressions, I knew they had guessed who I was. I smiled to myself. I should be the one who felt jealous-of their status as the lawful first wife and concubines, their position in society as decent women under the protection of a rich, powerful man.

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?