Petals from the Sky (11 page)

“After the death of my brother, my mother slept by herself every night. My father rarely came home. We both knew that he spent his nights in the whorehouse. He also stopped bringing money back for the family. He said he’d rather throw his money into the gutter than squander it on me—a money-losing shrew, or my sickly mother—a medicine cauldron. Then my mother had to work as an
amah
to support me and herself. She died when I turned fourteen.

“Then my father had to take me back with him, and by that time he had already been living with the widow for more than two years. Of course the widow didn’t like me, so she made me do all the chores, not only at her house but also at her prostitution house—cooking, cleaning, scrubbing the floors, washing clothes, waiting on her favorite money-bringing prostitutes, everything except shopping, for fear that I’d cheat her of her money. I only got one meal a day of cold leftover soup or thin, meatless congee made from broken grains. She wouldn’t let my father live in her house for free either; she made him work as a guard at the prostitution house.

“Finally when I reached nineteen and thought myself strong enough, I planned my escape—to swim to Hong Kong, my dreamland of freedom. I failed seven times before I made it on the eighth attempt. In Hong Kong, I also succeeded in finding my great-aunt, who took me in, bought me a Hong Kong identity card, and enrolled me in a charitable Buddhist school. Later I attended a Buddhist college, then went to beg in Thailand. When I returned to Hong Kong, a nunnery learned about my ordeal and offered to sponsor me to write a dissertation based on my experience. That’s how I’m here.”

After she finished her account, Dai Nam’s spirit seemed to come back to the room. She sipped her tea and said after some silence, “I still have nightmares of my escape to Hong Kong…one time I was almost drowned and another time almost eaten by sharks….”

I gasped, then blurted out, “Then is…the scar on your face—”

“No, that has nothing to do with my escape; it was cut by a little boy, a neighbor’s son.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” She paused.

And I was surprised, for the first time in this terrible narration, to see sadness flicker in her eyes.

“I was ten, playing by myself in front of our house, when a neighbor boy came over, picked up a piece of broken glass from the floor and cut my face, just like that.”

“You mean you were not in a fight?”

“No, not at all. I was playing by myself, and so was he. Then he just came up and slashed me. You may not believe it. It sounds so strange, but that’s exactly what happened. His parents rushed me to the hospital, where I had a tetanus shot and eighteen stitches. Later when his parents asked him why he did this to me, he said he didn’t remember the event at all. They beat him severely anyway. Since he was only six, everyone wondered where his strength came from. As you can see, my wound was long and deep. It should have been the work of someone much older. Some neighbors said he must be possessed by a demon. So the parents hired a professional exorcist to fix him. He made the boy drink water boiled with magic figures, he scribbled
sutras
on the boy’s face with red ink, and chanted incantations for him for hours—with the result of giving him a high fever for a week.

“As Buddhism says, his deed was merely
wuming,
no reason. There’s no reason for a little boy of six…nor for an adult like my father.”

Dai Nam paused to study the submerged tea leaves. “But it seems now that my father regrets what he did to me. I received a letter a week ago written for him by his old neighbor. He said he’s in his terminal stage of lung cancer and probably won’t make it through Double Nine Festival. He wants to see me before he dies. That’s why I have to go back right away.” Dai Nam turned to look at me. “Meng Ning, if you don’t mind, can you come over here once a week to take care of the altar and make offerings to the Buddha while I’m away?”

“Of course I will.”

Dai Nam refilled my cup. Savoring the bittersweet taste of the newly brewed tea, I began to tell her about my family, the death of my little brother, and my father, who had gambled away everything. When concluding my story, I said that, unlike her father, my father had never abused me.

Dai Nam surprised me by saying, “Maybe we were sisters in our past life. It’s just that our father liked you because you’re beautiful and talented, but hated me because I’m a boor.”

Chan Lan’s loud and comical “Have children, many many!” jolted me back to the nunnery—the here and now. Now the sun had vanished and the street lights cast deep shadows. Nuns or not nuns, I thought, our lives are like shadows fleeting past the splendors of this floating world.

14

Under the Paris Sun

A
few days after my visit to Dai Nam in the Golden Lotus Temple, I received a call from the French consulate, asking me if I was ready to go back to the Sorbonne for my oral defense. I was. Besides, if I went to Paris now, I could at least leave behind my confusion for a while. As I packed, I felt pangs of sadness that Michael had never called. Maybe Yi Kong was right after all—men are not trustworthy. Nor would they feel magnanimous after being turned down and their egos wounded.

The next day, with an uneasy mind, I boarded the plane.

Paris looked as if I’d never been away. I felt a little strange that it had not changed, because I had. I had been at one time innocent, curious, and eager for life. But now I felt as if I’d been holding a lamp that had lighted many paths, but missed the one home.

It was six-thirty when I stepped from the taxi and walked to the entrance of La Maison d’Asie. The sense of strangeness grew because this was where I’d first lived when I came here to study. In the twilight, I climbed up the stairs to the entrance, silently greeted by the two stone lions standing guard before the building.

I took the key from the man at the reception desk, went to my room on the third floor, put down my luggage, then headed straight to the communal bathroom to take a shower. After fifteen minutes, refreshed from the scalding water, hot steam, and the pleasant smell of sandalwood soap, I went back to my room, changed into my pajamas, and sat in bed to prepare for my oral defense the next afternoon. I could study only halfheartedly, distracted by thoughts about Dai Nam. While I tried to imagine what had happened to her, I also could not keep from thinking about Michael and his
haiku
proposal:

These thirty-eight years

All empty now.

Can the rest be full?

I felt a rush of feelings. Did I want to fill this man’s life? I stared at my Ph.D. dissertation and could not come up with an answer.

The next morning the ringing of my alarm clock startled me awake. It was seven-thirty and my oral defense was scheduled at two. I bathed and dressed, then glanced through my dissertation one last time. At eleven, I walked to the Cité canteen and ate a small lunch of cheese, fruit, and coffee, then took the Metro to the Sorbonne.

Since my purple floral dress had survived the fire, I deemed it very lucky. So I wore it again today to bring me more luck. And it did. Not only did I pass the exam, my dissertation got an unanimous “très honorable” from the three professors. After the hour-long ordeal, they all came to shake my hand and wished me the best of luck. My supervisor, always cool, distant, and too busy to grant me more than five meetings during my five years of study with him, hugged me and whispered pleasantries. After more felicitations and small talk, they all went back to their seats to get ready to interrogate the next candidate.

Outside the exam hall, I felt sad that none of my friends had been there. In fact, I had not told any of them. Because except for Dai Nam, the others were really only casual acquaintances, and most of them had left Paris before I did.

Feeling a bit sad, nostalgic, and sentimental, I went straight to the café a few blocks from the Sorbonne’s main entrance—the same one where I’d had my first meal on my first day in Paris.

I sat down in the front row and a gray-haired waiter came to take my order. Wondering if he’d waited on me on that first day, I smiled generously and asked for an espresso and a
croque madame
—exactly what I’d had during my first visit here five years ago.

A few minutes later, the waiter came back with my order. Waiting until he’d left, I raised my glass and whispered to myself, “Congratulations, Dr. Du.”

Then I softly recited the Song dynasty poet Su Dongpo’s poem:

A cup of wine amidst colorful blossoms,

Sipping all by myself,

I raise my cup and invite the moon to join me.

With my shadow,

There are finally three parties here!”

As I was enjoying my espresso and my
croque madame,
I looked about. There was always something magical simmering in the air of Paris. Even the smallest corner seemed to wink at me and whisper, “Come, take a look; it’s fun in here.” The shop windows of the clothing stores opposite the café were decked with the colors of fall—chocolate brown, khaki, camel, cadet blue, navy, black, gravel black. As always, I was impressed by the refined French eye, which selects colors that compete and complement all at once. I watched a shapely, red-attired woman dash across the street to hail a taxi; her silver scarf lifting in the wind resembled a wisp of incense or cursive calligraphy.

I dropped two sugars into my espresso and slowly stirred it with a spoon. With pleasure, I listened to the sound of metal hitting against the rim of the ceramic cup. Then I took a lingering sip, savoring the coffee’s bittersweet taste. After that, I cut a big piece of
croque madame
and put it, slowly and sensuously, into my mouth.

Pedestrians walked, talked animatedly with friends, or window-shopped while munching crepes, nibbling sandwiches, or licking ice creams. I watched leaves shiver in the early autumnal breeze and the intense but blasé expressions of the Parisians, somehow feeling a Zen-like tranquility amidst the hustle and bustle of the city.

Scenes of my first day in Paris five years ago flashed across my mind….

The morning after my arrival, I had awakened in the dormitory of La Maison d’Asie with the sun gently touching a corner of my bed. I flicked and warmed my toes in the patch of light, then stretched, yawned, jumped off the bed, and went to look out the window. Although there was nothing much to see outside except other dormitory buildings, I still felt thrilled to be in Paris.

Bonjour, Paris! Comment allez-vous?

I took several deep breaths, inhaling as much of the Parisian morning air as my small lungs could take. Then, when I saw a young couple pass under a tree munching crepes, pangs of hunger stabbed my stomach. I flounced into my sweater, slipped on my jeans, and went out.

My feet thudded eagerly on the cobblestone street as I twisted my neck, looking in all directions, trying to take in all the scenes: a gray stone building covered with crawling vines; a window with an intricately patterned decoration in the shape of lilies; a young girl with a lavender scarf and violet boots. After passing a cigarette store, a florist, and a newspaper stand, I spotted a supermarket and plunged in.

Walking around and looking at the huge varieties of produce, I felt impelled to look for a simple meal—something cheap. With my mother back in Hong Kong for me to somehow support, plus unknown years ahead in Paris, I had to stretch my small scholarship as far as possible. I looked at the rows and rows of food arranged neatly on the shelves, until my eyes landed on a package of
craquelin
. I did not know exactly what was inside, but the cover picture looked very appetizing, with a colorful display of biscuits with shrimp, ham, cheese, sausage, lettuce, tomato, olive, pepper, onion. My eyes caressed the different items of food while my mouth watered. The price—one franc fifty—seemed unusually cheap for a hearty meal like this. I grabbed two packages, hurried to the beverage section to get some instant cocoa, then went to pay at checkout.

Back in my dormitory room, I cooked myself a cup of hot chocolate to go with the
craquelin
. I sucked back the saliva flooding my mouth. Then, with great anticipation and affection, I opened the package.

Alas! As if struck by an anti-magic wand, all the shrimp, ham, cheese, sausage, tomato, and onion were gone! What lay in front of my eyes were a few stacks of wrinkled, paperlike biscuits, completely bare, like the miserable and weathered face of an octogenarian. Anger welled up into my throat.

I was cheated by the supermarket! Or, I almost cried out in despair, somebody had opened the package and ate all the delicious toppings!

But what should I do? I didn’t think I could go back to the supermarket and complain to the checkout person. Anyway, who would care? Making a fuss over one-and-a-half francs, I would be the one who would become the laughing stock, not the checkout person nor the owner. Stuttering in my insufficient French, I would sound pathetic and ridiculous.

After a long mental struggle, I finally sat down submissively and started to nibble my first Sunday brunch in Paris, à la Zen.

Not to my surprise, the so-called
craquelin
tasted terrible. I felt like an old woman chewing on tree bark during a famine. How I missed my mother’s delicious cooking: soy-sauce chicken, steaming fish with black bean sauce, sweet and sour pork, crispy salt-and-pepper shrimp….

Then, as I was about to throw away the rest of the biscuits, I suddenly spotted a line of small letters at the bottom of the package, hidden among the pictures of shrimp, ham, cheese, sausage, tomato, and onion:
“Proposer de servir”
—serving suggestion. A joke at my expense!

Still hungry, I began to unpack.

As I was pulling out items one by one, a cockroach crawled out from the suitcase. How incredible that this little ugly thing had traveled with me six thousand miles—all the way across the Pacific Ocean from Hong Kong to Paris! Poor creature! I studied the dazed-looking brown bug for long moments. Was he starved after all these long hours in the airless dark trunk? Was he now lonely and miserable like me? Would he be able to make friends in the future? Then suddenly I realized he was at this moment my only companion in the whole world. A gust of loneliness swelled up in me.

I broke off a piece of the leftover
craquelin
and threw the crumbs onto the floor. To my surprise, he didn’t eat. Even a Hong Kong cockroach was too well fed and spoiled to have any appetite for the tasteless biscuits! Finally I used one
craquelin
to scoop him up, then went to the communal kitchen and put him on the counter. What would his fate be? Maybe he could find some better food here, or, his death. It’d all depend on his karma, his fate….

I decided to go out and get a real meal, even though it would deplete my tiny budget. I took the Metro to the Sorbonne and finally settled in a café in the little plaza in front of the university.

Barely did I have time to look around when the waiter plopped down a menu and demanded,
“Que voulez-vous manger?”

While I couldn’t answer a simple question about what I wanted to eat, he urged,
“Croque monsieur, croque madame, sandwich avec jambon et fromage?”

“Croque madame, s’il vous plaît.”
I had no idea what that was, but, feeling rushed, ordered it because the word “madame” made it sound like something special for women. The only flaw was it cost one franc more than the croque monsieur.

“Bien, quelque chose à boire?”

I hastily glanced at the menu. “Es…pres…so.” It was the cheapest kind of beverage, but the hardest to pronounce.

When the waiter put down the coffee cup, I was surprised at its diminutive size—not much bigger than the toy cup I used for pretend drinking as a child. Don’t the French get thirsty? I took a sip and involuntarily spat out the liquid, shocked by the bitterness.
Mon Dieu!
Isn’t life bitter enough for the French? Fortunately the
madame
—French toast topped with fried egg over a thick piece of ham and melted cheese—was filling and delicious.

Ah, I imagined how wonderful to be rich; even one franc could make such a big difference in life….

Some car horns snapped me back from my reverie. The café looked exactly the same as five years before, but my karma now seemed different—though just as uncertain. I had my Ph.D., but was still unsure of my future—would I take refuge as a nun or get a job in the secular world, remain single or get married? But I’d already turned down Michael’s proposal! I let out a sigh.