Part 3 (2/2)

”Come! Meng Ning, run!”

”What?”

”Didn't you just scream fire fire?”

”Ma, it's just a bad dream. I'm fine.” I looked at her concerned face and suddenly felt very tender.

Mother put her plump hand on my forehead. ”Meng Ning, you look tired. You need a big, healthy breakfast,” she said, then disappeared into the kitchen. Her cheerful whistle pierced through the clanking of pots and pans into my ears.

The tune was ”One Day When We were Young.”

That was my parents' love song. Before he became a gambler, Father was a poet and scholar who taught school in Hualian, a town in Taiwan. Mother, his student, was nine and Father nineteen when they first met. Mother told me the moment their eyes met, she knew their fates were linked. She always boasted how handsome Father looked with his clean white s.h.i.+rt and thick, cropped hair, how he charmed all his students with his humor and erudition, how all the girls in his cla.s.s had a crush on him, while his torchlike eyes always sought only hers. ”Tall and handsome like a Hollywood star, that's how your father's friends described him.”

A year later, Grandmother moved the whole family to Taipei. Grandfather had died, and Grandmother believed that only in a big city would she have a chance to lift herself from poverty and give her children a better future. Mother and Father lost contact with each other.

One day, eight years later, when Mother went as usual to help in Grandmother's store after school, she saw a man chatting with Grandma while choosing gold jewelry from the gla.s.s counter. The familiar voice made her heart jump.

”Oh,” she muttered to herself, ”G.o.ddess of Mercy, let this be him! him!” Then she called on all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses she'd never believed in to grant her wish.

Grandmother chided her. ”Mei Lin, what are you mumbling about over there? Come here and help.”

The man turned around and their eyes locked.

Mother screamed, ”Teacher Du!”

”Ah, so this is the Teacher Du you used to talk about all the time,” said her mother. ”Now congratulate Teacher Du, for he's getting married in three weeks. He's here to buy gold for his bride.”

Instead of congratulating Teacher Du, Mother burst into tears and ran out of the store.

”Mei Lin, let me explain!” Father chased after her out into the street where they fell into each other's arms.

At first they had no idea what to do. Finally, a week later, they thought of an easy way out of Father's engagement to the other girl-they just gathered a few belongings, some cash, and boarded a s.h.i.+p to Hong Kong. A year later, at nineteen, Mother gave birth to me. After that, Father and Mother continued to live together without ever getting married. I'd always thought this was because my parents felt guilty about the jilted girl, for her humiliation, her broken heart. Yet I'd never learned the truth, for whenever I asked what happened to the girl, they'd always avoided my question by talking about something else.

Mother never quite got over the fact that she hadn't had a fancy wedding nor gold-framed wedding pictures. Father, on the other hand, seemed quite proud of the situation. Once, when I was small, he told me, ”Ning Ning, since your mother and I were never really married, you're an illegitimate child. But you know what? That's also the reason you're exceptionally handsome and intelligent.”

”Baba, I don't understand.” I meant my being illegitimate and intelligent and handsome at the same time.

Father smiled mischievously. ”Of course you don't. You're still a child. Go ask your mother. I've already explained it to her a hundred times.”

Mother's deft hands stopped in the midst of her knitting. She measured the small red sweater against my back, lowering her voice. ”Ahhh...it's because-because when a couple makes a child in a secret way, so to speak, they're, well...ahh, more intense. They give more energy to the child when they do, well...that thing, you understand? They throw out more you understand? They throw out more qi, qi, more everything. That's why you're so beautiful and smart. Lucky child, because you got double what other people have. Double, you understand?” more everything. That's why you're so beautiful and smart. Lucky child, because you got double what other people have. Double, you understand?”

I didn't.

”Well,” Mother snapped, ”then go back to your father and ask him!” She resumed her knitting in allegro tempo, lowering her head.

Sometimes I felt glad that the other girl hadn't married Father. Because not only would she have lost face when Father cheated on her after they were married, she'd probably have also lost all the gold that he would have bought her for the wedding. Could she, like Mother, have survived merely on the memory of a song sung one wonderful morning in May? I knew Father had taught ”One Day When We Were Young” to his students in his English cla.s.s, but Mother said, ”Actually, your father wanted to teach it only to me, but he didn't want the others to know of his feelings, so he taught it to the whole cla.s.s.”

Breakfast was finally ready. I sat down to eat and Mother sat opposite me to read her newspaper. On the table, I found three boiled eggs, two thick pieces of ham, and coffee with milk.

”Ma, you seldom cook Western dishes. Why an American breakfast today?”

”Because America is rich, just like its breakfast. You need more energy,” she answered without looking up from her paper, then, ”Ai-ya! Yesterday a monastery was on fire!” Yesterday a monastery was on fire!”

I stopped chewing; she went on reading. ”Hmm...lucky n.o.body's hurt...because an American and a Chinese doctor helped people leave through windows.”

My heart raced. Mother continued, ”This gweilo gweilo doctor graduated from Zhong Hok Kin Si...and a Dr. Du...” doctor graduated from Zhong Hok Kin Si...and a Dr. Du...”

I s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper from Mother despite her protest. The headline of the article read: ”Seven-Day Buddhist Retreat in Fragrant Spirit Temple Canceled Because of Fire. People Saved by an American Buddha, n.o.body Killed, Only Slight Injuries.”

The article went on to describe the fire, the panic, and the damage. At the end, it said: The American doctor, Buddha Michael Fuller, thirty-eight, who saved many lives, is a neurologist graduated from Johns Hopkins University, and currently works in New York Hospital.A partic.i.p.ant at the retreat, Dr. Fuller took refuge as a lay Buddhist in the Shanghai Jade Buddha Temple and was given the lay Buddhist name Fangxia Zizai. Monks and nuns from the temple expressed immense thanks to Dr. Fuller and Dr. Du, a Chinese lay woman attending the retreat.

I spilled coffee on my name in the newspaper to smear the ink before I handed it back to Mother. Then I gobbled down my breakfast. It must have been the temple that had given the newspaper our names. And it must have been the gossipy newspaper that had put them together.

Memories of Michael holding the child, carrying and lifting me through the temple window, and tending my knee played slowly in my mind. Men had rarely held particular interest for me, but now when I thought of him and his Buddhist name Fangxia Zizai, which means Let-Go-and-Be-Carefree, I felt something stir inside me. And I was afraid....

8.

The Same Moon s.h.i.+nes Over Us All.

I peeked at Mother, who was still completely immersed in her gossip-column reading. Judging from the cheerful lifting of her lips, I a.s.sumed it must be something really juicy. Yet sadness engulfed me, for I knew well this had been the same expression she'd worn when she'd listened to Father's peeked at Mother, who was still completely immersed in her gossip-column reading. Judging from the cheerful lifting of her lips, I a.s.sumed it must be something really juicy. Yet sadness engulfed me, for I knew well this had been the same expression she'd worn when she'd listened to Father's tianyan miyu tianyan miyu-sugared words and honeyed language. She had willingly let Father cheat her and cheat on her, though she'd always prided herself on being extremely careful.

So careful that she'd spend an extra dollar, an extra half hour, and an extra half mile riding a tram to the particular market where, according to her, not only did the pork cost one dollar less, but also weighed one liang liang more. more.

”If you're careful, you can steer your s.h.i.+p for ten thousand years.”

”But, Ma,” I'd argue, ”what's the point of steering a s.h.i.+p for ten thousand years when we're even lucky to have eighty years to live?”

Mother's tongue would click away as if it were rolling in oil. ”Ah, insolent girl. It's the philosophy, the wisdom behind it.” Then she would pour out words while picking up her favorite dish, fatty pork, with her chopsticks. ”Let's say your grandmother taught me to be careful, and now I teach you. While in the future you'll teach your daughter, and in the far future my granddaughter will teach my great-granddaughter...then all the generations added up together will be ten thousand years of wisdom, or more, right?”

But Mother was careful only in words, not in deeds. While she would warn me not to open doors to strangers, she'd let salesmen into our apartment, serve them tea, and let herself be sweet-talked into buying expensive kitchen equipment that she'd never learn how to use, and which cost her a whole month's food money. While she'd tell me not to drink any beverage offered at a friend's house, she'd happily toss down a dollar onto a street stall and pick up a filthy gla.s.s swirling with unidentifiable liquid.

And despite her incessantly cautioning me to beware of handsome, honey-lipped, flower-hearted men, she had blindly loved Father and willingly let herself be cheated by him.

Father had charmed her, not only with his good looks, but also with the numerous love poems he had written her. In his slick calligraphy, he'd write them on fancy rice paper printed with flowers and birds or sprinkled with simulated gold flakes. Occasionally he'd also write them on photographs of himself that he had sent her. Above the poems he would add, ”To dear Mei Lin, remembering our eight years' separation”-then below, ”Forever yours, Du Wei.”

Over the years, Mother carefully pressed the poems in her diary together with the daisies or irises or roses she had bought from wet, smelly, slippery markets or picked from public parks. From time to time, she'd take the poems out to read, or recopy them with brush and ink, imitating Father's calligraphy. Although I was deeply moved by these romantic acts, they also made me sad.

For Father had never written those poems. He had plagiarized them from ancient poets.

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