“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
Back 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.