Petals from the Sky (14 page)

He scrutinized Michael’s face while addressing me. “Good physiognomy.” He paused to lean closer to Michael; Michael pulled back, his cheeks flushed. But the master seemed unperturbed. “Your friend has a good face: full, straight, smooth, and lustrous. His three powers—heaven, earth, and man—are well balanced. Broad forehead which signifies honor, long and straight nose which signifies wealth, and full chin which signifies a long life. In a word, his face has the features of high-ranked people, such as emperors or ministers of state.”

I nudged and smiled to Michael, silently expressing to him the master’s praise. But Michael, curiously, looked like a boy who had done something mischievous and was now waiting to accept his karma—whatever punishments were going to fall on him.

Then, to my disappointment, the master added, “Yet your friend’s physiognomy is not without deficiency. His eyebrows are far from each other, showing that he has no karmic relationship with his relatives. Not only that, he could even be…unfavorable to them—”

“Master, what do you mean by unfavorable?”

“Meaning that 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.”

Michael was an orphan. But what about…his son? I felt a chill down my spine.

Right then the master spoke again in his composed tone. “But that’s in the past; no blame now.”

In the past—what did he mean? Was Michael hiding a son somewhere?

Just then I felt Michael’s hand on my thigh. “What did he say?”

But I had no chance to translate, for the master pointed to his forehead and continued. “See, the pale shadow hanging over your friend’s forehead also shows that he had a difficult youth. Something happened to him when he was…I think fifteen, or sixteen.” He tilted his head to get a better look at Michael under the light. “As you can see, his eyes are long and deep and his gaze spirited, signifying wealth and honor. But because sometimes his eyes are also fathomless, his love life will not be smooth.” He paused. “In fact, it’s rather troubled. He might have more than one marriage. Anyway, when he was a rich and eminent Chinese in his past life, he kept several concubines. He needed their
yin
energy.” Then he paused to scrutinize me. “Your friend also needs to build his
yin
energy, which he let run down. Too many negative
yin
”—he meant “dead”—“people in his life. They drain away his positive
yin
energy.”

I remembered the décor in Michael’s apartment, which desperately needed some positive
yin
touch—sources of female energy like crawling plants, flowers, wind chimes, colorful pictures.

“Although he’s orderly and well organized on the surface, his spirit underneath is restless. He needs more earth and water in his life to balance his fire and metal. Miss, inside you there’s a spring of young
yin
energy that you should put to good use by helping your friend. Remember: when man and woman occupy their correct places it is the great righteousness of heaven.” He paused, then added, “Your friend is starving for your
yin
energy.”

Before I had the time to absorb what he’d said, the master went on to praise Michael’s strong fingers with conical tips, which indicated intelligence and moral rectitude. And Michael’s voice, deep and sonorous like bells, signified longevity. But, he added, if a person has a bell-like voice and also a deformity like a mole underneath the eyebrow, he can still risk dying young. Like my father, I suddenly realized—and squirmed.

As if reading my mind, the master stroked his beard meditatively. “Our faces are formed by our hearts, and we can always change our hearts by accumulating merit.” He concluded his reading by motioning to Michael. “His beginning has not been good. But as long as your friend is steadfast to face his loss, his life will be long and righteous.”

He stopped, then asked, “Are you his girlfriend?”

I lowered my head and felt color rising to my cheeks.

He smiled. “Good. Then listen carefully, miss. He not only needs you, he needs the
woman
in you, not the little girl.”

“Master, what do you mean?” As I tried to make him explain more, he waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve already revealed enough of heaven’s secrets.”

The girl came and took us out of the room. After we’d paid, she walked us to the door. “
A Mi Tuo Fo
—Hail to the Merciful Buddha—and good luck.” Then she winked at me. “Your boyfriend is too thin; you should cook him more tonic soup, like I do for Master.”

I smiled, wondering what her relationship was with the fortune-teller. Then I turned to look at Michael and felt a tenderness swell in my chest.

During our taxi ride home, I told Michael about the fortune-teller’s readings: my previous incarnation as a nun, my love debt, his good physiognomy, fortune, longevity, and his bad karmic relationship with his relatives.

As I wondered whether I should tell him what had been said about his troubled love life and his lack of
yin
energy, Michael asked, his eyes intense, “Meng Ning, is that what he really said?”

“Yes.”

“Did he really say my parents, or even my…son, sacrificed for me?”

“Yes…but, Michael, this is just for fun.” I looked at his creased brows. “You’re not going to take his words seriously, are you?”

Michael’s face flushed; he didn’t respond.

“Michael, you were not”—I swallowed the words—“married before?”

Michael had already guessed my question. “Meng Ning, I’ve never been married.”

“Then the fortune-teller is wrong and you shouldn’t worry—”

“But didn’t he say anything at all about my love life?”

“He said…you might have two marriages—”

“Damn!”

“Michael, relax! Didn’t you say this is superstition?”

Right then the taxi jerked to a stop in front of a red light. A very tall truck pulled up right next to us. Michael looked up; the truck driver, his muscular, tattooed arm dangling outside the window, looked down and hollered, “What are you, some kind of asshole?”

Michael shot back, “Why don’t you go fuck yourself!”

“Why don’t you bite my ass!”

Michael yelled, “You jerk off, asshole!” and gave him the finger.

The truck driver’s eyes read murder. Then, just as he opened the door to get out, the light changed and our cab shot ahead.

Shocked, I threw him a sharp glance. “Michael!”

He didn’t respond.

“Michael, you all right?”

“I’m sorry.” His face reddened and his voice cracked. “I’m so ashamed of myself…. I…I guess I’m just tense.”

Something was troubling Michael. What was it? Were there still things that the fortune-teller had deliberately left out for fear of revealing too many secrets of heaven? As I wondered, the taxi pulled to a stop in front of his apartment building.

17

The Teenage Orphan

B
ack home, Michael brewed coffee and prepared some snacks.

When we were sipping and munching, the fortune-teller’s reading kept spinning in my mind. I eyed Michael. There was much I wanted to ask him about, but his forlorn expression made me swallow my questions.

The crunching of chips seemed to be the only sound punctuating the silence between us. Finally Michael looked up and smiled wryly. He tried to say something but stopped before he began.

“Michael”—I reached to touch his face—“please tell me what’s on your mind.”

“I’ve been thinking about my parents.”

I remembered the fortune-teller’s words:

The pale shadow hanging over your friend’s forehead also shows that he had a difficult youth. Something happened to him when he was fifteen, or sixteen.

Knowing that this was a difficult subject for him, I asked very softly, “You mind telling me about them?”

“Only briefly, for I really don’t want to bore you with the details.”

“I understand. Go ahead.”

“When I was fourteen, my mother had an unexpected pregnancy and died giving birth to my younger sister. A year later, my father remarried. The woman was his gold-digger secretary and a monster. The marriage lasted less than two years because my father died seven months after being diagnosed with cancer. After the funeral, I never heard from my stepmother again, and I’m actually very glad about that. However, my father left all his money to her and I was penniless.”

“I’m so sorry, Michael. Then how did you survive?”

“Philip Noble. Philip’s father was an ophthalmologist and comfortably off. He invited me to live with them.”

“What about your other relatives?”

“My grandparents were gone. My mother had sometimes mentioned a black-sheep uncle who owned a small bar in New Jersey. But when I finally tracked down his phone number and talked to him, he was furious that I’d found him. Not only did he refuse to help, he hollered, ‘Who gave a shit about me when I was poor?’

“I spent some time with the Nobles, but I couldn’t ask for too much from them—after all, they are not my parents. So it was really my discovery of Chinese art that changed things for me. Somehow it brought me back to life again. Both the art and Professor Fulton. I became closer to him than to Philip’s father because we shared more interests. Professor Fulton should be at the Met tomorrow; I’ll introduce him to you. He was very kind to me. I owe him a lot.”

I reached to hold Michael’s hand. “Michael, I’m so sorry about what happened, but you’re fine now.”

“Thanks.” Some silence, then Michael said, “Now tell me more about yourself.”

I sipped my coffee, then told him how my father, a disillusioned poet and scholar, had become a gambler, how he had stolen the bracelet from my mother, and how he had gambled it away on my twentieth birthday.

My mother meant to give the bracelet to me as a birthday present—the last piece of jewelry her mother had given her. When I asked Mother whether I was too young to receive Grandmother’s heirloom, she said, “Silly girl, of course I don’t expect you to flaunt it around. It’s just when it’s under your name, hopefully your father won’t gloat over it like a monk over enlightenment.”

One morning, to prepare for my longevity birthday dinner, Mother had gone to the market to buy a live chicken and a fish, butchered and gutted on the spot. We rarely dined out in those days, for Father had been jobless for years, and we mainly lived on Grandmother’s money, which had almost all fled across the gambling table.

Dinner was ready and Father was still nowhere to be found. After waiting for an hour, Mother decided we’d go ahead without him. On the red-clothed table, Mother carefully set down five dishes: steamed fish in scallion and black bean sauce, soy-sauce chicken, stir-fried bok choy in crushed garlic, and—a must for a longevity dinner—hard-boiled eggs dyed a cheerful red, and noodles symbolizing long life. We savored the fish, relished the chicken, and chewed the noodles in silence. Although neither of us mentioned Father, we both knew he must be at that moment drowning himself in the gambling sea of
samsara.

After dinner, Mother set out a cake with two candles. She lighted them, smiling. “I’ll go get the bracelet.”

Almost immediately, Mother screamed like the chicken slaughtered for my birthday. I dashed into the bedroom and saw her clutching the empty jewelry box on her lap. “Your father has stolen your grandmother’s bracelet!”

Father didn’t come home that night. That piece of jade, worth ten thousand Hong Kong dollars, could maintain his gambling habit for a long time—long enough that he’d completely forgotten the day when his only daughter was born.

Father came home the next morning with bloodshot eyes and breath smelling of alcohol. Mother started to scream at him for his gambling away the household money.

Suddenly Father began to sing, “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose…”

I almost burst into tears. “Baba, that’s a secret only between you and me!”

Mother cast me a questioning glance. “What secret?”

Father laughed. “Oh, don’t you remember we lost our baby boy on the gambling table?”

Mother went up to Father and slapped his face.

The air in the apartment suddenly became like that in a mortuary.

A long silence.

“Sorry,” Father finally said, “it’s my fault. I’ve lost everything.” His voice rang with heroic defeat.

“Where’s the money my mother sent us last month for the Mid-Autumn Festival, before she died?” Mother demanded. “There was two thousand dollars.”

“Gone” was Father’s reply.

“And the other jewelry in the bank safe? Then what about the stock my mother bought me several years ago?”

“Long gone,” Father said, avoiding our eyes.

It was then that we found out Father owed a loan shark ten thousand dollars. And if he couldn’t pay tomorrow, it would rise to fifteen thousand.

The next evening, when Father, Mother, and I came home together from a cheap dinner at a street stall, we found both our apartment door and the wall next to it splashed with characters in red paint dripping like blood.

My parents’ mouths dropped open.

“The Big Ear Hole!” Father exclaimed. The loan shark.

The huge, evil characters forced themselves onto my eyes:

WARNING:

IF WE CAN’T GET THE MONEY,
WE’LL GET THE THROAT

Mother pushed Father on the shoulder. “Hurry! Let’s get inside the house! Quick!”

Father fumbled in his pants pocket for several moments before he pulled out a string of keys, singled out the right one, and pushed it into the keyhole with trembling hands. “Damn!”

“What’s wrong?” Mother yelled.

“They glued the keyhole!”

Just then, a thirtyish man with a boy passed by our apartment in the long corridor. The bespectacled man peered at the graffiti, then lowered his head and dragged the boy away.

Hurrying his steps to follow his father, the little boy looked back at us and asked, “Baba, will they die?”

The man smacked his son’s scalp. “Shut up and mind your own business!” After that, the two disappeared around a corner.

It took Father almost ten minutes to scrape clear the glue with the Swiss Army knife he always carried. Then we entered the house and locked the door. In less than five minutes, the bell rang. Father jolted up from the sofa, but Mother pushed him down.

“Let me get it,” she hushed.

Mother looked through the peephole, then cleared her throat, her voice determined. “Who is it?”

“We’re looking for Du Wei,” said a raucous male voice. I pictured him standing right outside the thin door, his bulging muscles tattooed with a monstrous dragon and his eyes screaming murder.

Mother yelled, “No such person!”

Raucous Voice roared back, “Hey, bitch, don’t fool with me. I know Du Wei lives here. Get him out!”

Father and I listened with our ears pressed tightly to the door. I tipped my head to peek at him and saw big beads of perspiration oozing from his forehead.

Mother hollered again through the firmly closed door, “I’m not fooling with anyone, and I’ve told you already there’s no such person here!”

Silence—then another scratchy male voice said, “Hey, listen, bitch, the earlier Du Wei shows us his face the better—you understand?”

My heart plunged into a frenzied flip-flop when I heard Mother shout at the top of her voice, “Mister, I’ll call the police right now if you continue to harass me!” Then she almost paralyzed me by threatening, “I’ll also sue you for damaging my apartment wall!”

Yet, miraculously, after Mother’s threat, the scratchy voice dropped an octave. “All right, bitch, I’ll leave you alone now, but be careful if I find out the truth.”

Some heavy breathing, followed by loud footsteps. We pressed our ears against the door and listened until they faded like the dissolving of a nightmare.

Mother, Father, and I stood holding our breath for long moments. When we were sure that the two messengers from hell were gone, the three of us went to sit down on the sofa.

To my surprise, Mother didn’t scold Father, but instead said in a whisper, “Now we have to find a way to either put the Big Ear Holes off or to avoid them.”

“But how?”

Mother’s voice came out low, yet firm. “I don’t know, but we’ve got to figure out a way.”

But we didn’t.

A week later, I was walking back from school with my parents. As we were nearing our building, we smelled smoke. Then we saw a fire engine parked right by the entrance. A group of pedestrians, a few policemen, and firemen milled around. We immediately sensed it must be our apartment. Father, Mother, and I spat out simultaneously, “The Big Ear Hole!” The three of us pushed through the crowd and dashed up to the fourth floor, which smelled strongly of smoke. Once we jostled through our neighbors and saw our apartment, I burst out crying. Our whole home was gone! Literally. Past the door was only a black hole. Tangled bunches of wires hung down, the ceiling had fallen, and our furniture was only a few smoldering sticks. Seeing that my mother and I were crying, a policeman went up and asked whether we lived here. We said yes; then he went through the procedure of asking for our identity cards, names, and who did we think would do this. Father told him it must be the loan shark.

The government put us in a temporary house, and two weeks later Father went into the hospital and never came back. They told us that he died of a heart attack.

To make ends meet, I tutored school kids every afternoon after I finished my classes at college. My mother worked at home, supplying meals. One time Mother had her biggest source of business ruined. The order was for a twelve-person birthday banquet for an octogenarian. His son, who’d heard from a relative about my mother’s delicious home cooking, had canceled a restaurant reservation in order to place an order with her.

The twelve-course banquet was a big thing for us, both for the money and the opportunity for my mother to show off her culinary skill. Mother spent three days planning the menu and purchasing the ingredients. She even bought a new wok. “This is a banquet dish, so I have to use a banquet wok.” She smiled, weighing the huge, shiny utensil in her hand.

That day, in order to finish the dishes in time for delivery that evening, Mother woke up at five-thirty in the morning, washed, dressed, put on her new apron, then burned incense to whatever gods and goddesses she could conjure up in her mind to get their blessings. The whole day I stood by to help—cutting up meats and vegetables, mixing ingredients and sauces, passing mixing bowls, oil, condiments, knives, chopsticks.

Finally, we had everything finished by six-thirty, half an hour before the old man’s servant was to come to pick up the dishes. We kept staring at the clock and waiting anxiously while relishing the praise and the thought of the five hundred dollars that would mean so much to us.

The servant was an angry-looking young man with a crude face and rude manner. One by one, my mother handed him the dishes for him to put into two big baskets. Right after Mother had given him the shark fin soup, he turned around, lifted off the lid, and spat into the velvety liquid.

I caught sight of him.

“What are you doing?” I shouted, then turned to Mother. “Ma, he spat into your soup!”

“What?”
Mother’s eyes shot daggers.

The young man made a face. “That’s none of your business! This is for the old man. I hate him!”

“But that’s my soup!” Mother yelled.

“So what?” he shot back. “He’s the one who’ll eat it, so why don’t you mind your own business!”

“That’s just what I’m doing right now!” Mother yanked his sleeve. “You dead boy, give me back my soup!”

“No! Now this is the old man’s birthday soup. Ha, ha!”

Mother kept yanking his sleeve until some of the soup spilled on the floor and she slipped and fell, knocking over the young man and the baskets of food. All the dishes splashed and shattered on the floor.

“Oh, Meng Ning, “Michael exclaimed. “That’s terrible.”

I went on. “I helped Mother up and immediately we began to clean up the mess. When we finished, we realized the young man had already gone.”

“Then what happened?” Michael asked.

“The old man’s son called and we told him the truth. Furious, he hung up the phone. Three appetizers had not been packed, but we couldn’t even eat them for dinner, for Mother said to eat someone else’s ruined birthday meal would bring bad luck for years—not that we didn’t have enough as it was. So although we felt exhausted and our stomachs ached with hunger, we threw the food away. Worse, we lost a lot of money in preparing the food and buying the wok, for the young man had left without paying us. That evening we deliberately went to bed early so as to ignore the complaints of our empty stomachs. To comfort me, Mother said, ‘Maybe we’ll have a wonderful dinner in our dreams.’”

After I finished, Michael reached to touch my face. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.” He took my hand, kissed my palm, and ran the tip of his tongue along it. “And I’ll make it all up to you, if you’re willing to be my—Meng Ning, can you be my refuge, my temple?”