Petals from the Sky (13 page)

I leaned against one of the bookcases, and to distract myself began to read the titles. There were many volumes of Chinese philosophy and literature, all in English translations: the
Book of Changes
,
Dream of the Red Chamber, Six Records of a Floating Life, Journey to the West.
…But I also found
The Plum in the Golden Vase
—China’s most notorious erotic novel. I pulled it out from the shelf, flipped through the pages, and ran into:

The moment the young monks saw the wife of Wu Dai, their Buddha nature and Zen mind were lost. Their hearts were like unleashed monkeys and their spirits untamed horses. In disarrayed groups of seven and eight, they collapsed in her sensual aura….

When they were supposed to strike the stone chimes, their minds were so bewitched that they wrongly smashed the elder monks’ scalps. All the efforts of their meditation in the past drained into the gutter; even the Buddha’s ten thousand warrior attendants could do nothing to guard them against their desire for this woman….

This was followed by a woodblock print graphically portraying the beautiful woman coupling with a monk.

My cheeks felt hot, yet my eyes wouldn’t detach themselves. I was fascinated by the forthright description, written three hundred odd years ago, of the monks’ sexual craving for an attractive woman. The author’s courage to express the yearning of his heart without fear of condemnation by Confucian hypocrites deeply moved me. I felt a heat rising gradually in my groin. I was sure my cheeks were now the color of a monkey’s butt, but that didn’t stop my hands from impatiently turning the page to read more.

Just then I heard Michael coming from the kitchen. I pushed the book back onto the shelf.

“Meng Ning, what are you reading?”

“Oh…nothing special.” While I felt the burning sensation in my cheeks, my mind raced with scenes of our first night together behind the mound in Cheung Chau, the bold declaration of the two nuns in the Kun opera, Michael’s poem, our resumed intimacy not long ago….

Michael put the tray onto the low Chinese table, then came to embrace me from behind. I heard playfulness in his voice.

“But you look so absorbed—something sexy? Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

He reached toward the shelf for the book, but I pushed his hand away.

“Must be some kind of love story between a monk and a nun, right?” He nibbled my neck. “If you entered the empty gate to be a nun, I’d also become a monk.”

There was a long, pregnant pause. Then he released me and led me to sit down on the sofa. “Let’s have something to eat.”

Then he offered me his white-glazed cup with Iron Goddess of Mercy tea. “Want to try?”

“No. Thanks. I have my Coke.” I decided to be stubborn, like an American woman. Then I said, “Michael, I envy you living in such a lovely apartment,” expecting he’d finish the sentence with the “but no bachelor’s house is complete without a hostess” cliché I’d detested so much in the past.

Then I sensed something discordant. The
qi
in his apartment was unbalanced—almost all
yang
energy. Suddenly I felt an itch to add something
yin:
a vase of roses or daisies or carnations next to the Buddha; frilly white-laced curtains against which dangled a tinkling wind chime; lilac, cedarwood, and bay leaf potpourri on the coffee table.

But Michael was busy buttering the crackers. He handed me one and said, absentmindedly, “Oh, thank you.” Then he refreshed my Coke, which made bright, tinkling noises with the ice.

At seven-thirty, after I’d had a nap and a shower, Michael took me to La Côte Basque in midtown for dinner. The restaurant was decorated with colorful murals depicting groves of trees and cozy eighteenth-century buildings beside the Mediterranean Sea. The bold brushstrokes and vivid colors invigorated my senses, which had been dulled by jet lag. I could feel the
qi
circulating everywhere.

After we were seated, I found out that the prices on the menu were as rich in
qi
as the surroundings. Michael and I ordered Perrier, salad, then vegetarian pasta for him and bouillabaisse and lobster for me.

In a few minutes the waiter returned with our drinks, a basket of assorted bread, and spheres of butter nestled with ice in a small silver bowl. He poured us the Perrier and left. Sipping the mineral water, I looked around. The customers were all attired tastefully, men in suits and women in evening dresses, as if about to attend a concert or an elegant private party. Bathed in the pleasant aroma of gourmet food, they chatted, smiled, ate, drank deeply, and looked satisfied. The tuxedoed and silent-footed waiters moved around the white-clad tables, making delicious clinking sounds. Off in a quiet corner I noticed a distinguished-looking couple—a white man with an Asian woman—both with graying hair and elegant clothes.

Michael pointed toward them. “Meng Ning, see the couple over there? They’re a trustee at the Met and his wife.”

“You know them?”

“Yes.” Then, to my surprise, Michael rose from his chair. “Excuse me, Meng Ning, I need to say hello,” he said, then walked to the couple.

Michael shook hands with the man and engaged in a brief conversation with him. He looked eager to please; the two responded with faint smiles and slightly nodding heads.

As I was wondering what they were talking about, Michael had already come back. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” I nearly asked,
Then why didn’t you introduce me to them?
but Michael was already speaking. “Benjamin Hill has one of the best collections of Chinese paintings in the West. I’d have introduced you, but I didn’t want to interrupt their dinner. Hope you don’t mind.” He buttered a bread stick and handed it to me.

Feeling my upset wane, I asked, “You know a lot of people in the arts?”

“Just a few. Michael Fulton knows most of them, in Oriental art anyway. It’s through him that I’ve met a few. I enjoy talking about art, but most of the art collectors are not very nice unless you are at least as rich as they are.”

No wonder he hadn’t looked entirely at home when he’d talked with the trustee.

Just then the waiter came back with our food.

Michael reached to squeeze my hand. “Let’s enjoy ourselves, Meng Ning. It’s so good to have you here.”

I started to eat my soup and Michael dug his fork into his greens. He looked happy and ate with great relish. I felt touched, while also wondering: why wasn’t he acting upset that I’d turned down his proposal?

After we had finished our appetizers and were waiting for the next course, a very handsome man in a silvery gray suit and matching silk tie came over to greet Michael. Michael introduced him as Philip Noble, a dear friend, and invited him to sit with us. “Enchanté,” the stranger said—then to my surprise, bowed and brought my hand to his lips.

Michael put his hand on my shoulder. “Meng Ning, Philip has been my best friend since high school. Nice guy and a great theater talent. Used to play Romeo in our school drama club, so be prepared for his theatricality.”

Philip slapped Michael’s shoulder amicably, flicked his thatch of thick blond hair, rolled his long-lashed eyes, and flashed his perfect white teeth. “Oh, no. Michael is the genius. We used to call him ‘the professor.’ Actually he liked that. He knew he was good.” He winked. “And now, of course, he’s the best.”

Michael smiled, looking almost boyish. After the two men had exchanged a few more pleasantries, they told me bad jokes from their training at Johns Hopkins.

I could see the bond between them despite their different temperaments and physiques. Noble cut a striking figure—well over six feet, broad-shouldered and athletic, like Achilles stepping from Greek mythology into the twentieth century in a tailored suit. Next to him, Michael, quieter, with a medium build, more resembled an artist or a scholar. I didn’t understand the affinity between them, but there were surely many corners in Michael’s life still waiting for me to explore.

Watching Philip Noble’s glamorous features and manners, I almost felt I was interviewing a movie star. I was conscious of his curious, fresh blue eyes on me.

When Michael went to answer his beeper, Philip asked, “Meng Ning, how long are you going to stay in New York?”

“A few weeks,” I said, feeling a little dazed. “Can you suggest places to go?”

“Fifth Avenue, the Met, SoHo, Central Park—” He paused. “I think you’d better ask Michael. He knows all the cultural places, though he’s always so busy.”

“Are you also a neurologist?”

“Oh, no. That’s Michael’s field, takes a lot of brains. I’m a cosmetic surgeon.”

“That’s interesting.” No wonder he was so flashy.

“Oh, yes. I love it. I like to make people look beautiful. Vanity, isn’t it?” he said, then tossed his blond hair again and shot me a young Paul Newman stare.

“But if that makes people happy, why not?” I smiled.

“Exactly. God gives a woman a face, but she wants a different one—that’s where I come in. People care about themselves so much that they don’t want to be themselves. But I shouldn’t complain.” He shrugged. “I live off people’s vanity.”

“Or taste,” I added. “If faces are works of art that reflect the taste of their owners, then we should appreciate their efforts to enhance.”

Noble looked at me deeply with his sparkling, fathomless eyes. “Good. I like that, Meng Ning. But I’m afraid I’ll never see you as a patient. Not only do you not need a different face, but I’m sure many of my patients would want one as naturally beautiful as yours.”

Embarrassed by this flattery, I sipped my water, then uttered a shy “Thank you, Philip, but you’re overpraising me.”

Noble signaled with his head to an elegant, fortyish woman at the table across from us. “See the lady over there? You find her beautiful?”

I looked and exclaimed, “Oh, yes!”

He shook his head, his silky hair shifting like waves under the moonlight. “To be blunt, I find her look totally repulsive.”

I was horrified to hear this. “But why?”

“Because there’s nothing natural about her. It’s all work under a skillful knife.”

“How can you tell?”

“I’m the expert. Too bad she didn’t come to me. I could have taken another ten years off her original fiftyish face.”

“Oh, heavens!”

Philip reached to pat my hand. I noticed his gold cuff links—miniature sculptures of that Egyptian queen who may be the most beautiful and mysterious woman in history.

“Meng Ning, your naïveté is very charming.”

I studied Noble’s perfectly chiseled features. Was this beautiful Romeo’s face also the masterpiece of an adroit knife?

As if he were a mind reader, Philip smiled. “While I’m a plastic surgeon myself, I don’t trust any colleagues in my specialty. So I’d never put my face at risk in their hands, not even twenty years from now.”

I didn’t know how to respond to this.

Philip cast another glance at the fiftyish woman who looked forty before he resumed the conversation—in a different thread. “How long have you known Michael?”

“A few weeks,” I said, feeling a little tense. “And you’ve known Michael for much longer.”

“Almost twenty years,” he went on, creasing his thick brows. “Since high school, Michael has never failed to amaze me. When we all went out to movies or a bar, he’d stay in the dorm burying himself in all kinds of books. He always said life is too short to learn about all the things he’s interested in. This guy never wastes a minute and works like a dog to get what he wants. Back at Johns Hopkins, often he didn’t even bother to eat, so I’d bring him back pizzas or Chinese takeout.”

I enjoyed watching Philip’s facial expressions swim effortlessly from one emotional zone to another. How many more faces did this Romeo have?

He continued. “Michael went to Hopkins on scholarships, you know, because his parents died when he was a teenager. It was very hard for him—”

Right then Michael returned as the gray-haired waiter came with our entrees.

“Enjoying a good conversation?” Michael asked. I felt his hand warming the nape of my neck.

“Is everything OK?” Philip shifted sideways for the waiter to put down our plates.

“Fine, it was just a patient asking for a prescription.”

I smiled up at Michael. “Philip was telling me how smart you are,” I said, feeling stirred by his soft, caring touch.

Just then Philip Noble excused himself and went back to his table.

I smiled at Michael before I dug my fork into the lobster. Still so fresh and alive, it looked as if he (I liked to think the lobster was a he and the shrimp a she) was just out of the ocean. Bad karma. Both for myself and for “him,” I thought, while spearing a juicy piece and putting it into my mouth.

Was it my mother or my father?

“Good?” Michael asked.

“Couldn’t be better.” I licked my lips.

16

The Fortune-Teller

W
e arrived home at eleven. Riding up in the elevator with our bodies touching, I was aware of Michael’s desire. The floor indicator seemed to blink forever. When it finally read twenty-eight, Michael took my hand and we walked out. He found his key, opened the door, and let us in. Soundlessly he closed the door, and, without a word, led me straight into the bedroom. Knowing what he was going to do to me in a while, my heart flipped to allegro tempo.

He took off his tie and jacket and tossed them over a chair, then came over to embrace me. He nibbled my earlobe and kissed my neck while his arms closed around me, his hands reaching to unzip my dress.

“Michael”—I was still not used to being so intimate with a man—“please turn off the light.”

“But, Meng Ning—”

“Michael, please.” I insisted until he gave in.

Instantly, dimness fell over the room, with only the moonlight illuminating one side of his face. Eyes intent in the dim light, his hands worked to take off my dress and peel off my stockings. When he tried to unhook my bra, I pulled his hands away. The disappointment on his face pained me, but I felt too shy to be naked—I wasn’t even used to looking at my own nude reflection in the mirror.

“Meng Ning, let me—”

“Maybe later,” I said, disentangling from his grasp, then swiftly jumping into bed and pulling the sheet over me.

Michael’s eyes never left me while he was unbuttoning his shirt, pulling off his pants, and slipping off his underpants. Though fully covered, I felt completely exposed by his stare.

It was the first time I had seen him, or any other man, totally naked. I almost let out a cry—he had so much hair! Like a teenager scrutinizing the painting of a nude for the first time, I anxiously studied his body. My gaze consumed his profile, his broad chest, the long stretch of his thighs and legs, the pleasing curve of his hips, until it finally fell on that which I’d been avoiding looking at. Did he feel pain that it swelled so much? What would happen if it kept ballooning? I remembered the unspeakable sensation I’d experienced from this swelling under the watchful moon on the remote island of Cheung Chau. I felt my color rising and pulled my eyes away.

Bathed in the moonlight streaming in from the window, Michael’s skin appeared ivory, while his face glowed. He came toward me as if his movements were connected to roots deep under the earth. Then, swiftly, he slipped into bed next to me. I felt his cologne and body warmth filling up the air underneath the bedsheet when the honking of a car slashed the air outside the window.

I immediately turned my back to him.

“Meng Ning…” Michael’s voice was filled with desire as he again reached to unhook my bra.

A vortex of heat stirred inside me. It grew as his large hand slowly peeled off my panties.

I was now completely naked, lying in bed with my body cupping against a man’s. His hair pricked my skin while his hand sent nervous impulses from my shoulders down my hips. As he nibbled me, I could feel his lashes tickling my neck.

If Mother touched my forehead now, she’d certainly scream, “Watch out, Meng Ning! You have a high fever!”

Michael tried to pull down the bedsheet; I immediately pulled it back. “No, Michael—”

“Please.” Slowly he turned me over to face him, his voice painfully pleading and seductive, his eyes glowing like emeralds under a search light. “Let me see your body.”

“Then you have to close the blinds.”

“No. I want to see you under the moon.”

Neither did I want to keep out the moon, but I felt too shy. I begged repeatedly until he unwillingly slipped out of bed and went to the window. While my eyes traced the curves of his back and hips outlined against the moonlight, my body was subsumed with a burning sensation—almost as I’d felt when watching the fire in the Fragrant Spirit Temple.

He swiftly climbed back in. Now in the dark, with his strong body curling against mine, his invisible hands and lips went free in their adventures. I felt him cup and caress my breasts, hold my lips with his, kiss, suck, and tease my nipples. His lips were soft yet burning. His hands made me feel beautiful and sexy under their touch. Seemingly understanding well the desire of my body, they made me moan and squirm. I felt flustered, scared, pained, happy, and fascinated all at once. My mother’s comment about my father’s poems arose in my mind:

With good poems you never quite know how you feel. Sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes sweet, sometimes sour, sometimes bitter, sometimes generous. Sometimes you feel and sometimes you don’t…. When your heart is like a knocked-over shelf of condiments spilling a hundred different flavors and feelings, then the poem is a very good poem. Your father’s poems can do just that.

This was exactly how I felt now. If this lovemaking could be translated into a poem, I was sure it would surpass those put together by Father.

Now, while my body descended into agony from the overwhelming sensations, Michael seemed not the least in a hurry to further satisfy me. He savored every bit of my body, including the small area covered by black hair that I had been scared of and avoided looking at before.

“You,” he whispered while kissing ardently, “my moon enchantress.”

He took my hand, spread it open, laid himself in my small palm, then gently closed my fingers one by one. I felt it keep growing under my touch like a fluffy chick, until suddenly it fell from my hand and, as effortlessly as a fish, slipped inside me—shattering my world of nuns and goddesses and
sutras
and temples.

The sunlight was sprinkling in the room when I woke up. Lying comfortably under the covers of Michael’s bed, I watched him as he still slept. His lashes trembled slightly and his eyes fidgeted under his lids. Was he having a sweet dream or an erotic one? As I listened to him breathe and watched his chest rise and fall, my heart was filled with a tenderness and warmth I’d never felt.

I tried to touch him, but my hand stopped in midair.
Let him sleep more,
a voice at the back of my mind said. Right then, a shaft of sunlight broke through the cracks of the blind and splashed his face. Slowly he opened his eyes and reached for me; I felt my body melt like a burning candle.

Later, I sat on a stool in Michael’s small kitchen and watched his practiced fingers stir-fry eggs with mushrooms, butter toast, squeeze oranges, boil water. Many men’s hands seemed hideous and unfeeling to me, but Michael’s were graceful, like fish in water. I felt something stir inside—perhaps a sort of recognition. Surely we had met somewhere before. In a past life. Or lives. Was he the fish, and I the water?

Michael carefully planned out our first two days together in New York: today we’d go to the Asia Society, the Metropolitan Museum, walk for a while, and have dinner in Chinatown. Later in the week he’d take me to a reception at the Met and I would at last meet Professor Fulton, who, Michael told me, was recovering rapidly from his stroke.

We started by appreciating the Buddhist art at the Asia Society, but I suddenly felt very hungry from the jet lag and suggested to Michael that we skip the Met and go straight to Chinatown for dinner. When the taxi pulled to a stop at Canal Street, the distinctive Chinese cooking smells began to waft into my nostrils. After less than five minutes’ walking, I spotted a sign in Chinese:
DUMPLING HOUSE
—
ALL THE DUMPLINGS YOU WANT
. A poster in the window listed them all: mixed vegetable, pork and vegetable, shrimp and cabbage, shredded beef and scallion. Steamed, panfried, in soup, in all kinds of sauce…Feeling an irresistible pull, I grabbed Michael’s elbow and steered him inside.

Dinner was wonderful. We finished everything, scraping clean our plates until they looked like round, wisdom-reflecting mirrors. After he’d paid and we’d stepped out of the little restaurant, cool air rushed to greet us. With my satisfied stomach, all looked appealing to me: housewives bargaining with potbellied shop owners; round-cheeked children begging for Chinese pastries; girls flipping through trinkets piled into small mountains in front of a sign,
EVERYTHING HAS TO GO
; open street stalls whose crates spilled over with herbs, dried scallops, preserved fruits, candies, vegetables.

As Michael and I walked along the bustling street heading toward the subway station, I spotted a signboard in Chinese hanging from a dingy building:

I
NTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED
M
ASTER
L
IVING
B
UDDHA
A
LL REQUESTS GRANTED
PHYSIOGNOMY
,
PALMISTRY, NUMEROLOGY, ASTROLOGY,
NAMING AND NAME CHANGING, WORD ANALYSIS
,
F
ENG
S
HUI
, I C
HING

I told Michael what it was and asked him to come with me to have our fortunes told. To my surprise, he suddenly looked tense and uncomfortable, his earlier humor gone. “No, Meng Ning. I’m a scientist and I’m not going to let some charlatan tell me about my fate.”

“Why not try it? It’ll be fun.”

“No, let’s go.” He tried to steer me past the building.

But I didn’t budge. “Michael, in China, fortune-tellers are considered doctors, too. That’s why Chinese rarely need to see psychiatrists. Besides, they charge only one-tenth of what psychiatrists do.”

“Meng Ning, fortune-telling is superstition.”

“No, it’s five thousand years of Chinese wisdom!” I paused. “What about your buying the coin sword to drive away evil spirits? Wasn’t that superstition? Come on, Michael! Stop being rational for a few minutes!” Without losing a beat, I dragged him into the building—past the curious stares of several old women sitting and fanning themselves in front of a discount clothing store.

The long, steep staircase was lit only by a bare, grimy bulb swinging shakily on its thin wire. I heard my high heels clicking eerily on the scuffed wooden surface, syncopating with Michael’s heavy footsteps dragging behind. After a long climb and some twists and turns, we finally reached the third floor, found the Master Living Buddha’s office, and rang the bell.

From within, a saccharine voice piped in Cantonese, “Please come in.”

Michael yanked my sleeve. “Meng Ning, let’s go now!”

“No, let’s face our fate.”

I pushed and the door swung open with a long squeak, like a bird crunched underneath a slow truck. The unexpected blast of chilled air made me shiver as the pungent smell of Chinese medicinal soup choked my nose.

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.