Part 16 (2/2)

Lisa asked, ”So Michael is your boyfriend?”

The question took me by surprise. I carefully sipped my rum-soaked c.o.ke, lowered my voice, and changed to a whispery tone, as if I were about to reveal the deepest secret. ”Fiance.”

She didn't say anything, but kept squinting at me and blowing more clouds of smoke. ”How did you meet?”

I sipped more of my rum and c.o.ke, and before I'd decided what to say, began blurting out everything: how Michael and I had met in the Fragrant Spirit Temple; how he'd saved my life in the fire; my fall into the well when I was thirteen; my earlier contempt for men as well as my aspiration to be a nun; my friends.h.i.+p with Yi Kong and Dai Nam.

After I'd told her about myself, it seemed a new intimacy of sorts existed between us.

Lisa listened with a fascinated expression. ”Incredible,” she said at last, raising her eyes to the ceiling and releasing a long, slow stream of smoke, then dropping her head and looking me in the eyes. ”You called men 'stupid piece of meat,' 'monk head,' 'four-eyed monster,' 'stinking testosterone,' 'walking garbage'? I love that!”

As if pulled by some magnetic force, I found myself s.h.i.+fting closer to her. She asked our ”waitress” for another round of drinks.

Delicately she sipped her fresh martini, leaving a ring of her silvery lipstick on the gla.s.s. ”Michael must be very fond of you.”

I nodded.

”Wonderful,” Lisa said, then she took a deep gulp of her drink and soundlessly laid down her gla.s.s. Next she picked up a few nuts and popped them into her mouth, chewing noisily with lips closed.

Suddenly the warmth in her eyes was gone and her voice was cold. ”So when are you getting married?”

”He wants to soon, but I'm not sure I want it so quickly.”

”So you're still not sure whether you want to marry him?”

”Not that-I love Michael. But I've spent most of my life hanging around nuns, so theirs is the world I'm comfortable in. Also, when you're told over and over for fifteen years how human pa.s.sion is illusory and how men are untrustworthy, it's confusing. And I'm even more confused since I don't feel that way with Michael. He seems as centered as a rock, and never bothered-”

”n.o.body is not bothered by anything, Meng Ning.”

She sipped more of her martini and inhaled deeply her cigarette. ”Now let me tell you another story. It's j.a.panese, about a lighthouse watchman living on an island. He fell in love with a beautiful pearl diver who lived on the island opposite his. Every evening he turned on the light so his lover could see the way when she swam across the sea to meet him. Then he fell in love with another girl. One stormy night, when the pearl diver was swimming toward his lighthouse, he put out the light-”

”So what happened?”

”She drowned. Of course.” Lisa squashed her cigarette in the ash tray.

”Why do you tell such a terrible story?”

”That man was my fiance.”

”Oh...”

Lisa seemed to wrestle with her emotions. ”I use the story as a metaphor.” She paused, then said, ”He dumped me...for someone else.” She bit her lips, her eyes darting around. ”But I'm still in love with him.” She paused to stare into her gla.s.s, now quite empty. ”You can't a.n.a.lyze love, can you?”

Yi Kong could. Love is illusory. It's the cause of suffering.

Lisa's voice, mingled with the tobacco, wafted bittersweet toward me. ”That fiance was Michael. We were engaged.”

Back home, I felt dizzy and had a terrible headache. I paced back and forth in Michael's apartment, waiting for the click click of the door to bring his face. of the door to bring his face.

Michael finally came home at 11:00 PM PM. Before he even had a chance to take off his jacket, I told him that I had spent the evening with Lisa and that we needed to talk-right here and now.

”All right. I'll explain. Let's sit down.” He led me to sit on the sofa. ”Meng Ning, yes, Lisa and I were engaged-a few years ago.”

”For how long?”

He hesitated, then said, ”Five.”

”Five years? You were engaged for so many years and didn't marry her?”

Michael didn't answer my question. He continued on a different track. ”After I'd become Professor Fulton's student and gotten to know Lisa, he'd take us together to museums and concerts. In the beginning I did feel affection for her...she seemed interesting and intelligent.” He paused. ”But then it turned out she has a personality disorder-”

”What do you mean?”

”She has frequent nervous breakdowns. When I told her I was going to break the engagement, she tried to slash her wrists.... Meng Ning, this was all in the past-can we just not talk about it now?”

Then the fortune-teller's reading poured into my mind: 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...his love life will not be smooth. In fact, it's rather troubled. He might have more than one marriage.

I blurted, ”So you also have a son with Lisa?”

Michael looked stunned. ”Did she tell you that?”

”No. Remember, the Master of Living Buddha said you'll have two marriages, and your son-” Now I understood Michael's nervousness about his reading.

”Did you have a son with her?”

”Yes.”

”Oh, heavens, then where is he now?”

”He never lived. She aborted him during her fourth month of pregnancy.”

”You didn't try to stop her?”

”She only told me after the abortion.”

”Is it because of your guilt that you stayed with her for so long?”

”Meng Ning, I'm too exhausted to go into this and I have another very hectic day tomorrow. Can we talk about this some other time?”

Through the night, though Michael slept as if comatose, I flipped and tossed by his side, imagining his wild past with Lisa. I also couldn't help but imagine how he'd done it with her her. Had he cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as tenderly as he cupped mine? Had he whispered into her ears the same endearing phrases he whispered into mine? Had he slipped his tongue into her mouth and let it indulge itself in all kinds of decadent pleasures as it did in mine?

20.

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