The Beauty of Humanity Movement (13 page)

Last Christmas there was this one girl Ph
ng kept chatting about, and while T
was interested at first, the more stories about her charitable work that Ph
ng recounted, the less interested T
became. By the time Ph
ng finally introduced them, T
was expecting someone with a shaved head in a flowing saffron robe who had no interest in romance or other worldly (i.e., carnal) matters. Instead, he was introduced to a cute girl dressed as one of Santa’s helpers. She was wearing a short, fuzzy red-and-white miniskirt and her hair was tied into flirty Japanese-schoolgirl-style ponytails underneath her floppy Santa’s hat. T
suddenly felt very shy. He felt other things too, but very shy was perhaps second on the list.

It was Christmas Eve and the three of them were standing among two thousand other Buddhists facing St. Joseph’s Cathedral with its
blazing neon-blue manger. There were balloons and streamers and ribbons of fake snow floating through the air above, a rainbow of coloured lights beaming off the top of the church and music blaring over giant loudspeakers on the church steps, but all T
felt was the fuzzy warmth of the girl’s skirt as she stood wedged between them, all he smelled was her perfume beyond the plastic scent of her clothes, all he felt, suddenly, was her hand on his hand, her head on his shoulder, all he heard was her whispering in his ear, “You can kiss me, you can touch me, if you’d like.”

T
was shocked: there they were wedged together in the crowd when she turned toward him, barely an inch between their noses, and took his hand and placed it on her breast, which was like a perfect brioche from a French bakery, the nipple like a hard raisin. She then slipped her hand down between them and, although she had no room to manoeuvre, she managed to rub his penis through his jeans. In thirty seconds he erupted, making a sound like a small sneezing dog.

He never saw the girl again. He tried to call her the next day but her cellphone number didn’t even exist. It was only then that he asked Ph
ng, “That girl, she wasn’t …? Ph
ng, you didn’t … did you?”

“Merry Christmas, my friend.”

T
had been extremely embarrassed about the whole thing and wondered if this is what Ph
ng had meant when he referred to her “charitable work.” Still, he does savour the memory of it and dream of the meal that will come when he marries, because if he ever does get that close to a
real
girl, he will certainly be marrying her, although he doesn’t want to marry
that
kind of girl, he wants a quiet and traditional girl, one he can introduce with pride to everyone in his family, one who will belong among them, for she will come to live with him and his parents as tradition dictates, because T
is the first-born and only son.