Peach Blossom Pavilion (54 page)

Mother wanted to know at once where I'd been and what I'd done, but I insisted that she tell me about herself first.

In a neutral tone, Mother began to recount her life from the first day she had entered Pure Lotus. Every day, besides chanting and meditation, she, as a novice, had to clean and cook, and labor outdoors. Seeing that the Mother Abbess was old and frail, she also nursed her, even willingly helping her with her nature's calls and emptying her chamber pot. It was this good Karma that led to her later success. Gradually the abbess developed such fondness for her that she trusted no other nun but my mother. Therefore, before she passed away, she'd named my mother her Dharma heir. Since then Mother had worked hard to transform Pure Lotus from a modest neighborhood temple to the most influential nunnery in the city of Peking.

When finished, Mother said, "Though I had no choice but to be a nun, I have done my best to advance the Dharma." She paused to sip her tea, then, "Because I understand suffering."

I sighed inside. I also understood suffering, but that hadn't led me to become a successful nun, but a prestigious prostitute. However, according to Buddhism's ultimate point of view, there is no difference between the beautiful and the ugly, the wise and the foolish, the good and the evil. So under the same logic, did it mean that my nun mother was ultimately also a prostitute and I, a nun?

We quietly sipped our tea and listened to the wailing of the hungry ghosts outside.

Finally I pressed Mother for more details of her life as a nun. But she insisted that a nun should not dwell too much on her past, and that it was now my turn to tell her about myself. And since she'd already guessed my occupation, she asked me to be honest with her and tell her everything which had happened since our separation in 1918.

Painfully, I unfolded my story, starting from the moment I'd been taken away in the rickshaw by Fang Rong. Finally I told Mother how I'd found out from Teng Xiong that the ex-warlord who had been my big-shot customer was also the person who had Baba executed.

I told my mother everything-almost. I left out being raped, once by Wu Qiang and the other time by one of the bandits. And I described Teng Xiong simply as a woman friend.

After I'd finished, tears rolled down Mother's sunken cheeks. "Xiang Xiang," she sighed, reaching to touch my hand.

I felt a jolt. This was the first time Mother, as a nun, had displayed her affection for me so directly.

Her tight, self-contained voice rose in the air. "As a nun, I can only say all that happened to you is the result of some past, inexplicable Karma. While as a mother, I can only say I'm sorry and ask for your forgiveness."

"But Ma, it's just bad luck on my part, you didn't do anything wrong!"

"Xiang Xiang, I understand that you're trying to be kind. But I have to face my mistakes-I shouldn't have listened to Fang Rong. I should have checked her background carefully before I put you into her hands."

"Ma-" I was about to say that this was all in the past, but then I realized it wasn't. My favored guest, Mr. Ouyang, was still waiting for me to come back to his luxurious apartment to warm his bed.

Mother spoke again. "Xiang Xiang, the only thing I can blame is your Karma, something bad you did in a past life that caused your sufferings in this one."

I found this Buddhist idea of past lives quite ridiculous. I didn't even know who I'd been in my past life, so why should I be responsible for my supposed former bad deeds?

Mother cast me a long, meaningful glance. "But Xiang Xiang, there's a way to eliminate your bad Karma."

"How?" I thought of Pearl's similar saying: There was always a way to solve any problem in a turquoise pavilion. But then she'd hanged herself.

"Xiang Xiang," Mother searched me intently, "like me, you can take refuge in the three jewels and be a nun."

Her words exploded in my ears like gunshots. But rather than attaining sudden enlightenment, I struggled to digest this prepos terous suggestion. After I willed myself to calm down, I said mat- ter-of-factly, "But Ma, I am a prostitute."

"Do you like being a prostitute, and prefer to stay one?"

"Of course not, Ma, but I have no choice! "

"Now you have. From now on, let Buddha take care of you."

"But Ma, ten years ago at the train station, I asked you to take me with you, but you said the Mother Abbess feared my beauty would bring bad luck to the temple. You remember that?"

"Yes. But the Mother Abbess hadn't said anything like that. I made it up."

"Why?"

"So that you wouldn't come with me. Because then I didn't want you to be a nun and waste your youth."

"But then why do you want me to be one now?"

"Things have changed, Xiang Xiang. Because although you're still very beautiful, now there's no more bright future waiting for you in the red dust."

I felt so confused that I didn't know what to say.

She spoke again, firmly, "Now that I am the Mother Abbess, you can certainly enter the temple. Xiang Xiang, taking refuge in the sangha is your only future."

I kept staring at my beloved mother now turned a nun and a stranger. Tears pooled in my eyes. Through my blurred vision, my mother seemed to change into a pinch-faced, mean-spirited, stubborn old woman like one imprisoned in a gloomy portrait above the altar of an ancestral hall ...

"Xiang Xiang," her dry voice rose again, "let me ask you again. Do you like being a prostitute?"

Did I like being a prostitute? I opened my mouth, then realized this was an extremely complicated question to answer. Obviously I hated putting on a smiling face and serving those stinking males. I hated the way their eyes threw me licentious glances while their hands wandered to squeeze my breasts and pinch my bottom. I also hated the way they thrust their jade stalk into my golden gate even when I was guarding my yin days. The flopping sound they made when they sucked my tongue and tasted my saliva disgusted me. Even thinking of them now made my stomach churn.

And yet, I'd gotten used to the most delicate foods and the sensuous feeling of elegant silk on my body. Hardly a day went by without a gift from one of my admirers. I slept late every morning and had food brought to me in my room while I practiced the pipa or wrote a poem. I was appreciated for my refinements. But of course, I knew deep down that the reason all these men adored me like a goddess was because they knew I was but a captive, whose limbs could be twisted to adopt the most obsequious posture in life as well as in bed.

Though I'd been fortunate to run into a man like Qing Zhen whom I could love, it had meant giving up all the luxuries that life as a ming ji had brought me. With him I was free but, ironically, only because he could not satisfy my deepest needs as a womanfor a family and children.

I had no idea what a nun's life would be like. Could a lifetime of meditation and sutra chanting really pacify my soul and heal my wounds? Yet, if Mother had obtained the ultimate goal of nonattachment, why had she looked so upset when she'd spotted me in the Water and Land Ceremony? She must have feared that her name might appear in the newspapers' gossip columns and become a laughingstock. Worse, she might even lose all her important clients-those da hufa, big protectors of the Dharma-who donated huge chunks of money to her temple. But it was exactly these protectors of the Buddha Dharma, so judgmental and morally superior while in the temple, who made secret visits to the turquoise pavilions to protect the sexual Dharma.

I stared hard at Mother's pale face. "Ma, why did you stop me from acknowledging you the other day?"

"Hai, Xiang Xiang," she sighed heavily, then wiped a few more tears from her eyes, "I know you'll never forgive me for that. I'm sorry that we had to reunite under such circumstances. But of course, as a nun, I do everything for a reason." She paused, then went on, "Xiang Xiang, in my eyes, prostitute or not, you're my daughter and you'll always be. However, I'm sure you know that if we'd acknowledged each other during the ceremony, the whole temple would have been shocked. Those rich people in the inner hall are extremely selfish. They only sponsor the ceremony to accu mulate merit for themselves. So they'd be horrified to find out not only that the abbess has a daughter, but that she works behind the dark door. Believe me, Xiang Xiang, I wouldn't mind this at all. But as a nun, I am thinking not for myself, but for the well-being of my temple. You understand?"

Of course, I knew exactly what it took to get money from these rich men; I did it myself all the time. My eyes started to fill with tears again. It seemed that, though a nun, Mother was, after all, still living in this secular world, and had not escaped its smoke and dust. After she'd climbed her way to become the abbess of the most influential nunnery in Peking, she was still flopping in the sea of suffering.

"Ma, are you happy being a nun?"

"Xiang Xiang, the first noble truth of Buddhism says: Life is suffering. We don't think of happiness, just enlightenment."

I really did not know what to think about this.

Mother went on, "If we accumulate merit in this incarnation, the next one will be better." She paused to cast me a penetrating look. "Xiang Xiang, I believe good Karma has finally arrived because now you have the chance to become a nun. So please take refuge in my temple. Then we'll be together, always, until the day we enter nirvana."

I remembered ten years ago just as she put me into the hands of Fang Rong, she said something similar: that I was lucky to have a roof over my head. But Mother looked sad, which broke my heart. "Xiang Xiang, although being a nun is not easy, you'll gain merit and be greatly respected. Please, Xiang Xiang, take refuge in the sangha."

I wanted to tell her that, as a ming ji, I was also respected. My poems had been passed around and eagerly read. Peach Blossom's door had been knocked on constantly by people who'd come to beg for my paintings and calligraphy. Some even searched the garbage pails to see if they could find any shreds of my drafts to take home to be glued back together ...

But I said instead, "Ma, I can't predict the future, but now is not the right time for me to consider this."

"Xiang Xiang, now is the only time that you can consider anything."

"But I have to go back to Shanghai to find Big Master Fung."

Mother looked horrified. "Xiang Xiang, what for?"

"Ma, it's said that one does not live under the same sky as his parent's murderer. Now that I know who he is, I'll kill him as soon as I can."

"Xiang Xiang! It's very bad Karma even to think of killing, let alone do it. Do you want to be reborn as a snake, or a rat? If you kill the warlord, do you think you'll be happy? Please meditate with me to clear your mind of such violent thoughts."

"Ma, you know what kept me going all these years selling my skin and smile in Peach Blossom? The hope of finding you and revenging Baba! "

"Xiang Xiang, you've found me now." She paused, then went on, "I know you loved your father very much, and so did I. But he's dead, so stop poisoning your mind and let go of revenge. Please take refuge as a nun and stay with me in Pure Lotus."

My mother had become so obstinate that I saw no point in trying to explain any further. To appease her, I said that I wouldn't revenge Baba, but made no promise to become a nun.

She didn't respond. I took her silence as acceptance.

Then suddenly I remembered something and blurted out, "Ma, why didn't you write to me all these years?"

"Xiang Xiang, but I did, almost every week! But then two months after I arrived in Peking, I received a letter from Fang Rong telling me that you'd run away and no one knew where you were. She said you'd left Shanghai."

She reached her hand inside her robe and took out a piece of torn, stained paper. Carefully she handed it to me. "This was your address, right?"

I nodded, tears swelling in my eyes. "Then where have all the letters gone?"

Mother answered my question with another one. "It doesn't matter now, does it?"

32

Back to Shanghai

j other and I had been reunited for only a week when Karma . lonce again thrust us on separate paths. I told her that I had promised Mr. Ouyang that I'd be back soon and could not risk offending him. Mother would continue to meditate on the mountain until she decided it was time for her to go back to Pure Lotus. Now that my first goal-finding my mother-had been fulfilled, I set about accomplishing my second-avenging Baba. Telling Mother that I'd go back temporarily to Ouyang was not a complete lie, for sooner or later I would have to go back to my favored guest, if not to offer my breasts as his pillows and my lips as his delicacies, then at least to bid him farewell.