Stealing Buddha's Dinner (21 page)

On that first day of school, before we got our uniforms, Anh wore her favorite dress. It was my favorite, too: a beautiful emerald-green polyester that I called silk, with covered buttons and a sash. At recess—she never had a problem making friends—I watched her from my solitary spot on a wooden jungle gym. She and a group of girls were playing basketball. Her skirt swished as she dribbled the ball, the fabric shining in the sunlight. The next day we had stiff, pleated navy jumpers, plaid blouses, white knee socks. Even though the uniform was scratchy and uncomfortable, I liked that having it meant one less thing to worry about. If everyone dressed the same, I reasoned, everyone would fit in the same. But when I walked into the classroom and all of the students swiveled their heads to stare at me, I remembered that a uniform could not hide my skin or my face. I didn't know then that many Vietnamese were actually Catholics and that some of the refugees in Grand Rapids had been sponsored by local Catholic churches. I didn't know there was any tension between Catholics and Reformed Christians. All such subtleties escaped me; I was still trying to figure out who God was supposed to be.

At lunchtime, everyone ate right at their desks. There was no cafeteria at St. Joseph's and no talking among the students. All morning my gaze had returned to the crucifix pinned above the chalkboard in the center of the room. Sister Wendy informed us that we would take turns saying the lunchtime prayer, and she called on a wispy girl named Lindsay to go first. Lindsay stood up and launched an effortless speech having something to do with gratefulness and Mary, holy mother of God. I copied the other students by lowering my head and pretending to keep my eyes closed, but I was wondering how Mary could be the mother of God. Plus, wasn't she supposed to be a virgin? I knew well the images of Mary with her tranquil expression and blue robe. I pictured her gently chastising God, whom I pictured as Zeus-like, sporting a great flowing beard.

When everyone said “Amen” I repeated it softly. I spent the rest of the lunch hour realizing that I, too, would be called on at some point to say the prayer. There were a little over a dozen of us in the class, which meant that everyone would be praying out loud many times over the course of the year. I wondered if people would simply repeat themselves, and if they did, if they would get in trouble. Were there points for originality? Creativity? Expression? This was public speaking of a terrifying kind, and I knew I could not surmount it. How could I utter words that I had dismissed to Jennifer Vander Wal? I could not give thanks, or bow my head legitimately, or declare
Amen.

At home I told Rosa about the prayers. She sat down at once to write notes for me and Anh, informing our teachers that we were Buddhist and not Catholic, and therefore not allowed to lead the prayer, ever. The next day Sister Wendy read the note with a somber face. I could see the disapproval in her eyes, and when she put the paper away she glanced at me as if I were some strange, unsightly specimen that she did not know how to treat.

Because St. Joseph's started a full week ahead of public school, I finally got to celebrate my end-of-August birthday during the school year. Birthdays, everyone knew, could only be celebrated appropriately if the birthday kid brought candy for the whole class. Rosa surprised me by buying exactly the kind I wanted: Hershey's miniatures, the variety pack with mini Mr. Goodbars, Krackles, regular Hershey's, and my beloved Special Dark. My classmates regarded me with frank assessment as I handed out the candy. Word had gotten around that I was excused from prayer, which maybe explained why I hadn't yet made any friends. Possibly I was aligned with Satan, someone come to test their faith. Or I was someone to be approached with care, the way missionaries' subjects have to be won over and then broken down. But perhaps they also felt pity, a kind of danger as they unwrapped the chocolates and pressed them into their mouths.

Two days later Rosa pulled Anh and me out of St. Joseph's. She chalked it up to the reality of tuition fees, the chore of keeping our uniforms clean, and having to drive us to and from school every day. The fact was that Ken-O-Sha was an easy three blocks from our house, walkable in any weather. Rosa didn't mention religion, but I knew that was one of the reasons. She had abandoned Catholicism—though a few years later she would reconsider it— and she preferred to keep our household that way, too. Each December my siblings and I would help Rosa unfold the trusty artificial Christmas tree and trim it with the ornaments we had made out of metallic ribbons and Styrofoam balls, thinking only of the gifts we might get to unwrap. In school, we sang "O Come All Ye Faithful” and “Joy to the World” and failed to connect the words to the religion. Rosa once mentioned that her best friend Shirley didn't celebrate Christmas because she was Jewish. When I asked her what that was she said it meant that Jewish people couldn't eat any ham or pork. I figured she was referring to the honey-baked ham we got every holiday. “What about Chu Anh and David and Joseph?” I asked. Every year we sent Christmas cards and gifts to my uncle, Shirley, and their two sons in Atlanta. “Oh, it's just Christmas,” my stepmother said. “Nobody has to think about religion until they're grown up.”

But of course I did think about it, especially when I moved into my grandmother's room to get away from my sisters. Noi couldn't read my diary, and she didn't mind if I used her closet as my own hideaway. For a while we shared her double bed until Rosa bought me a convertible chair that unfolded into a single bed.

Every evening Noi meditated, sitting on her bedroom floor in front of the family altar and Buddha statue, her back perfectly straight. She didn't stir at all, not even when I barged in, forgetting the hour. When we settled into bed we always slept with our heads facing Buddha as a sign of respect. It wouldn't do to stick our feet out to him. With such a figure looming above me, I thought a lot about reincarnation. I had always vaguely accepted it as the answer to the question of what would happen after death. It made sense to me that one could return and live again. “You get better and better lives,” Rosa explained to me, “depending on what kind of person you are in your life now.” She talked about reincarnation as something positive, and didn't mention nirvana at all. My father never said anything to correct her.

I took this view of reincarnation on literal terms. I began to guess at the lives I had had. I became convinced that I had once been a sad and lonely blond girl who lived in a cold mansion isolated on a moor in England. I saw myself sitting close to the fireplace in my bedroom, looking out the window at a bleak, gray landscape. No visitors. I had died young there. Then I began to worry about my next life. In terms of being a good person, I had to admit that I wasn't much of one. I often wished Jennifer Vander Wal might fall in mud and spoil her clothes or that Anh and Crissy might receive electric shocks when they tried to read my diary. I harbored hateful feelings toward Rosa and my father— for not letting me join the class trip to Kellogg's cereal factory, for not getting me the backpack I wanted, for yelling at me when they thought I looked at them askance. With such vengeance churning in my mind, I worried I was already doomed to a much worse life the next time around. I began imagining horrible possibilities that lay in wait for me: I could be a street urchin, a burglar, a starving farmer. I pictured myself imprisoned and a chill went through me as if to confirm the truth of the premonition. I was a criminal in the making. Next life's lifer.

During this time,
2001: A Space Odyssey
was shown on network television and my whole family gathered to watch it. The movie's eerie images, the stark white mother ship drifting through all that black space, gripped me with the same anxiety I sometimes felt when I looked up into the night sky. I shivered to think about life before humans, when, I imagined, the world was a vast tundra littered with animal carcasses. For months after the movie, my dreams were filled with visions of an ominous obelisk and a red glaring button, a voice intoning,
Dave, Dave,
then wavering into a wail of mournful electronica. I had nightmares of floating within an amniotic sac. Was this heaven, hell, nirvana? It all boiled down to the same thing: complete aloneness. I developed insomnia, a fear of dreaming. I never told anyone about it, but my grandmother must have guessed, for she sometimes caught me sitting in the living room by myself at two or three in the morning, staring out the window at our empty unlit street.

Slowly, Noi brought me back. In the evenings, after dinner, she served fruit in her room rather than in the kitchen. So we would sit on her bed or on the floor, a plate of tangerine slices between us. She didn't mind if I left the television on, and the glow of her lamps seemed to cast circles of warmth upon us as we listened to the theme song of
Love Boat
or
The Greatest American Hero.
On the best winter nights, we ate pomegranates. Anh liked them as much as I did, and only Noi could referee the fights between us as we each tried to grab a bigger portion. We loved to watch Noi crack open the fruit, revealing the embedded seeds without bursting even one. An opened pomegranate reminded me of a map—rows of close-fitted houses with red roofs as seen from far above. We helped Noi pick out each kernel, laying them out in piles. Glittering rubies, I thought. We loved to crush them between our teeth, the tart juice staining our mouths.

In the early years in Grand Rapids, my grandmother attended Buddhist temple in a rented house on the south side of town. She was one of the leaders of this makeshift community, and when she stepped out of my father's car on Sunday mornings, wearing her dark
ao dai
and jade pearls, everyone nodded at her with deference. Slowly, she and her friends gathered donations to purchase a vacant church. It sat on a barren plot of land in a section of town that in twenty years would be overrun with strip malls and nail salons. My father helped renovate the church, removing all of the pews to create one open room, refinishing the wood floors to a high gleam, carting in a Buddha statue for the altar. The Buddha stood ten feet tall, a golden presence among masses of flowers and candles.

On Sundays, monks in mustard-colored robes led the prayers and I remember watching Noi join the rows of people already prostrating themselves, all chanting the same chant. I wanted to join, too, but my old shyness kept me hesitating at the door. I worried that I would slip in my socks and fall, causing a scene. In this environment Noi seemed almost unknown to me. She wasn't my grandmother then, but a spiritual being. I backed away and headed to the basement, where women were setting up
cha gio
and sweet bean pastries. My father, who mostly came to temple to socialize with his friends, was already laughing with them in a circle. I felt so out of place—too American, not truly Buddhist— that I never did muster the nerve to enter the prayer room, let alone approach the imposing statue of Buddha.

I decided to practice at home. Here, Buddha was a lot smaller and more familiar to me. He sat on his old shelf, cross-legged, his robe draping in his lap as he held his hands together, palms up. He wore a finely pebbled cap. He had closed eyes and droopy earlobes, which my father said signified his princely origins. It amused Noi to see me taking notes on when to light the candles and incense. She clasped her hands at her chest, rocking them to a repeated singsong chant, every so often stepping forward to tap the little copper bell that lay on the altar. When she bowed and prostrated herself I did the same, trying to pick up the meaning of the movements. Once, when I asked, my father tried to explain the nature of Buddhist prayer to me. “It's not like when the people in church pray to God,” he said.

Noi didn't talk about Buddhism; it was simply a part of her, like her silvery knee-length hair she unrolled from its bun every night. I didn't know what kinds of questions I could ask her, and with no formal training in Vietnamese to bolster what I learned at home, my grasp of the language began slipping away. Large chunks of syntax dissolved overnight. It was as though the more English I read and took in from the TV and radio, the less space I had for Vietnamese. By third grade, I could actually feel the words hovering out of reach. I hoped I could learn from Noi by being near her. That if I had an affinity for Buddhism it would happen here. So I watched and followed and jotted notes as she murmured the prayer songs and bowed to the floor. After a while she switched off the light and blew out the candles, and we sat together on the carpet, a royal blue textured in whorls and curlicues that resembled tidal waves. I tried to make as little sound as possible.

My father said that when Noi meditated she emptied her mind of all thoughts. He claimed that once, in Vietnam, she did it so completely that she began to levitate, her body becoming as weightless as her mind.

As I meditated, I kept my back straight. Noi was strict about that; if she came across one of us kids slouching in front of the TV or at the table she'd give our backs a good hard poke with her finger. After a while, the posture did become habitual, but it didn't help keep my mind from wandering. I thought about ways to empty my mind of all thoughts.
Empty empty empty,
I thought, then chastised myself for thinking it. The more I tried to clear my head, the more cluttered it became. I thought about how Blair Warner on
The Facts of Life
kept her hair so beautifully wavy. I thought about the Rick Springfield record I wanted for my birthday, remembering the tension of the “Jessie's Girl” video—Rick staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, then smashing it with his guitar.
I wanna tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot.
I thought about Noi's room: the blue comforter, the little TV that gave us
Days of Our Lives
and
Silver Spoons;
the stereo system and stack of Vietnamese opera and folk song cassettes. Over the two windows, one looking out on Florence Street and the other facing the Harrisons' house, vinyl shades hung beneath gauzy white curtains. Behind me, Noi's cultivated plants grew and grew.