One Man's Bible Read Online Free PDF Page B

without a trace. However, he clearly remembered that on the wall of the visitors’ hall in the temple there was a long scroll painting of Zhu Yuanzhang with a pockmarked face. The temple, it was said, was founded in the Ming Dynasty and, before becoming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang was said to have sought refuge there. Something as concrete and complex as this could not have emerged from a child’s imagination. Moreover, a few years ago, among the treasures of the Palace Museum in Taipei, he saw the scroll painting of Zhu Yuanzhang with a pockmarked face. So this temple had actually existed, and the memory had not been imagined, and the old monk’s prediction had, in fact, come true. The old monk had warned in a loud voice: “This little one will suffer many disasters and hardships. It will be hard for him to survive!” The old monk even slapped him hard on the forehead. It gave him a fright but he didn’t cry. He remembered this because he had always been spoiled and had never been slapped.
    Many years later, he developed an interest in Chan Buddhism, and on rereading those Chan conundrums, he realized that the old monk had probably given him his first lesson in life.
    He did have another sort of life, only afterward he simply forgot about it.

2
    The curtain is partly open. Against the black shadow of the mountain, blocks of lit apartments loom. The sky above the mountain is gray, and the brilliant mass of lights from the night market shines onto the ledge of the window. The insides of the transparent postmodernist building opposite can be seen distinctly, and as the elevator slowly rises in its tubular frame to the level of your room you can even make out the figures of the people in it. With a long-range lens, from over there, it would certainly be possible to photograph the inside of your room, even how you make love with her could be photographed.
    However, you do not have to hide, and there is nothing you must avoid doing. You are not a movie star or a television star, or an important politician, or a local Hong Kong magnate who’s afraid of being exposed in the newspapers. You hold French travel documents as a political refugee and have been invited for this visit, your room has been booked and paid for by someone else. You presented your documents on checking into this big hotel, bought by the Mainland government, so your name has been entered into the computer at the reception desk in the lobby. On hearing your Beijing accent, thesupervisor and the girl at the desk looked embarrassed but, in a few months, after Hong Kong is returned to China, they will also have to speak with a Beijing accent, and are probably taking lessons right now. It is their duty to keep tabs on what guests are doing, now that the proprietor is the government, so this episode of lovemaking in the nude that you have just indulged in will certainly have been videotaped. Also, for security reasons, in a big hotel, installing a few more video cameras would not be money wasted. Sitting on the bed, you have stopped sweating, feel cold, and want to turn off the buzzing air-conditioner.
    “What are you thinking?” she asks.
    “Nothing.”
    “Then what are you looking at?”
    “The elevator going up and down in the building opposite. You can see the people inside the elevator, there’s a couple kissing.”
    “I can’t see them,” she sits up in the bed.
    You’re talking about using a long-range lens.
    “Close the curtains.”
    She is lying on her back, her white body completely bare except for the luxuriant clump of downy hair between her legs.
    “They wanted to make a video but the hairs were too stark,” you tease.
    “Who are you talking about? Here? Who’s making videos?”
    You say it’s a machine, that it’s automatic.
    “Impossible, this isn’t China.”
    You say that the Mainland authorities have bought the hotel.
    She sighs softly, sits up, and says: “You’ve got a phobia.” She puts out her arm and runs her fingers