Peach Blossom Pavilion (43 page)

26

The Monk and the
Prostitute

nd so I lived with Qing Zhen. Needless to say, life with a Taoist lmonk on the mountain was totally different from Peach Blossom. There was still sex most nights, but now it was with love, and afterward I would fall into a deep, satisfied sleep in muscular, loving arms. In the morning, refreshed by the country air, I would awaken at dawn and watch Qing Zhen carry out his rituals. The small drum, bell, and clapper would smack and click in his hands, accompanied by his sonorous chanting, as he made offerings to the gods. Then it was time for a simple breakfast of congee and buns during which we'd stare into each other's eyes or look through the window at distant mountains. After that, he'd meditate, then practice the qin and calligraphy of fu-talisman.

Sometimes as it got dark, I would think: I must get ready for customers. Then I remembered that there was no all-wrinkled-oldand-dying to serve and no Mama and De to spy on me. I was free!

Yet I hadn't forgotten my resolve to find my mother. But Qing Zhen said, "Precious Orchid, I won't let you go around the mountain asking for your mother; it's too dangerous. I'll look when I'm out by myself and we'll also look together. Be patient."

I tried to be patient and calm, but a hidden part of my mind wouldn't let me. One night I dreamed that, after all these years of agony, I had finally found my mother. She was not a nun, but like me, a prostitute, and her clients were all monks. Her body, emaciated and scantily clad, shivered in a freezing snowstorm. Her cheeks were paper-white and her eyes, though sunken, gave out a luster not of pleasure, but hunger. In front of her was a vegetarian dish, but whenever she'd reach for it, the plate would recede. One time she succeeded in snatching a piece of tofu, but right after she'd stuffed it into her mouth, it immediately caught fire and turned into ashes. I desperately called out, "Ma! Ma!" but she didn't seem to hear anything. When I tried to push the food closer to her, the monks would snatch it away and gobble it down.

When I told Qing Zhen about this nightmare, he smiled meaningfully. "I've studied the Duke of Zhou's Book of Dreams. Usually bad dreams are good and good dreams foretell something bad. So I think this one is favorable. It probably means that as a nun your mother has burned off her desire for food. So because of this dream you should not worry."

So I played the qin and waited. Whenever Qing Zhen came back from gathering herbs, he'd tell me he had been asking about my mother but had heard nothing. So often my hopes would rise as I watched him walk back along the path to the hut, only to be disappointed by the lack of news.

Though my worries about my mother were never really gone from my mind, life on the mountain was otherwise untroubled. When the weather was especially fine and Qing Zhen had finished his daily tasks, sometimes we would go to the river, take off our clothes, and plunge into the jade green water. Once in a while he'd catch a fish, take it home, and roast it for dinner. Sometimes we'd go to the open field to fly kites. Watching a dragon, a phoenix, or a crane gliding high above my head would send pangs of joy to my heart. I'd imagine myself transformed into a giant butterfly borne by the wind, watching the glittering facets of the world below. When we were tired, we'd he down and fall asleep in each other's arms on the grass, waking up with the sun's warmth on our faces and a hundred pleasurable sensations tingling our bodies.

But good times rarely last long. One day when I sat musing by the window, I saw ribbons of white drifting outside and knew that winter had come. In Peach Blossom, my maid Little Rain would have set out my winter garments for me to choose: fur coats, silkcotton gowns, lamb's wool shawls. She'd also bring me snake soup sprinkled with chrysanthemum petals and the best wild ginseng root to enhance my yang energy. In the turquoise pavilion, winter brought warmth and luxury, but here on the mountain, all I had to ward off the cold was a padded jacket covered with stains and patches.

After a few weeks, it started to snow heavily and the mountain had turned completely white-like a wise old man. If it could talk, what advice would it give me? Then I thought of the poem:

Sometimes when the knife-cutting cold had let up, Qing Zhen would take me out to stroll around the neighborhood of the hut, or he'd go out by himself to look for tree funguses. But most of the time he stayed home. We'd play the qin, or I'd sing to his accompaniment. And he'd also carry out his religious activities-meditation, fu, alchemy. Many of these I could not share. Among all of Qing Zhen's practices, he took his inner alchemy of visual meditation and outer alchemy of concocting elixirs most seriously. The reason the master of Celestial Cloud Temple chose him over the other young adepts to work on the elixirs was because he deemed Qing Zhen the most intelligent and pure-minded. This was Qing Zhen's chance to prove himself. If he failed, he would end up as another insignificant monk, living out his remaining years ignored by the others, only to die in an obscure, cobwebbed corner of the temple. That was why he worried over the malodorous concoction in the altar room for so many hours each day. Although I didn't like the pungent smell emitting from the cauldron, my feet would frequently carry me toward it to keep myself from freezing.

One time, as Qing Zhen was stirring the ingredients in the pot, I asked what they were. He replied, "Minerals. Cinnabar, gold, malachite, sulfur, mica, saltpeter-"

"Gold and malachite?" These seemed better employed in making jewelry than elixirs!

"I know you find this strange. But they work. Sometimes we'll also feed a young bird with red meat and cinnabar until its feathers turn red. Then we'll cook the feathers and the meat. The concoction I'm experimenting with not only prolongs life but also rejuvenates." He smiled proudly. "I have the qi of a twenty-year-old, although I'm thirty." His grin kept stretching taut on his broad face. "That's also why I'm never bothered by the cold."

I saw it was hopeless to compete with this reeking cauldron. If I were his mistress, then this boiling pot would be his wife, whom he would never leave for me.

On days when Qing Zhen was reading his strange scrolls or reciting spells, I'd occupy myself by playing the qin-to enhance my skill and also to keep the blood circulating in my chilled fingers. Then I'd lament the loss of my own qin and all the money and jewelry inside. Though Qing Zhen and I had thoroughly searched around where I'd dropped it, we never found any trace. Sometimes I'd imagine its destiny-perhaps picked up by some mountain dweller to use for his cooking fire, or discovered by bandits who, after they'd taken all the valuables, would dump the qin to rot in the forest. But sometimes my reverie would be more optimisticmy qin would be found by another qin player who'd treasure it as he did his firstborn son.

At first I liked winter, because I could have Qing Zhen with me all the time. But as each cold day flowed into the next as inexorably as the cars snaked up to Peach Blossom every evening, I felt miserable. I didn't have warm clothes and thus could not go out. Qing Zhen would occasionally cook me special herb soups to keep the "fire" in my body, but mostly, the meals he prepared consisted of salted and pickled vegetables with some rice. I felt my body growing thinner and worried that I was becoming malnourished. But Qing Zhen kept reminding me, "The food has to last us all winter." When I complained about the cold, he'd admonish me, "We have to be very careful not to use up too much charcoal because I need to keep the cauldron boiling for my alchemy."

I'd begun to be annoyed by Qing Zhen's obsessive immersion in his alchemy. Sometimes he'd fast for several days, retire into his purity chamber-a space he'd made sacred with his rituals-and meditate. He'd take substances from the rows of drawers in his medicine cabinet-dried leaves, seeds, and brightly colored mineral powders-then pound them vigorously in the mortar. The long spells he would say over these powders could go on for hours. During these times, I was completely ignored. The tireless rituals seemed as futile to me as a loving mother's surveillance over her dead baby.

However, when night came, he would quit his other practices and concentrate on the one in which I had a part-clouds and rain. He was a good lover-gentle but also passionate and daring. He enjoyed trying out all kinds of beneficial positions recorded in the sex manual: the jumping white tiger; dark cicada cleaving to a tree; bamboo next to the altar; pulling silk ...

But sex was not always enjoyable, because some days it would be so cold that we had to do it fully clothed. Worse, although Qing Zhen and I slept together every night, ours was not a marriage bed, and could never be. However much he enjoyed sex, Qing Zhen, like other Taoists, believed in the strange practice of absorbing the yin essence from women's jade terrace while not losing his jing. Qing Zhen never ejaculated inside me, but would direct his semen back to his brain. At first I liked this, for I didn't have to clean up the sticky mess afterward. But soon I began to feel differently. While Taoists do ejaculate when they consider it's time for the woman to conceive, Qing Zhen was resolved never to plant his seed in my womb. This made me unbearably sad. No matter how many times we made love or how passionately, there'd never be any little monks or little flower girls running around to keep me company, or grandchildren to cling to my knees in my old age. Though Qing Zhen talked endlessly about how sexual union represented the cosmic interaction between yin and yang, he never mentioned the results of these endeavors-babies. But even if Qing Zhen were willing to impregnate me, I was not so sure it'd work. For all the soup I'd eaten in Peach Blossom was meant to kill any burgeoning life in me. Sometimes I'd find my childlessness so unbearable that I'd let tears fall onto my flat stomach, mourning my never-to-beborn ghost baby.

As time went by, my reflections about my life grew more somber. Not only could I not bear Qing Zhen's children, I couldn't even go out with him in public. Not that there were any parties or other social occasions on the mountain, but he always feared that if he were seen with me, he might get into trouble. So I'd gone from prostitute to kept woman, only this time my "favored guest" was not a rich merchant, an influential politician, nor the head of a powerful black society, but a penniless Taoist monk. I remembered Pearl had told me about prostitutes' ways out; now I'd found one she hadn't thought of: cohabit with a monk!