Petals from the Sky Read Online Free PDF Page A

instructed me not to lose it.
    As she turned to leave, I called, “Shifu, what’s your name?”
    She turned back. “Miao Ci.”
    Compassionate Speech.
    “Thank you very much, Miao Ci Shifu.” I tried my key in the locker while pondering the contrast between the symbolism of her name and her persistent chatter.
    Irritated, I pushed hard on the locker door; it shut with a loud clang.
    The nun startled, flashing an embarrassed grin. “Miss, I think you’re all set now.”
    Sorry for my rudeness, I put my hands together and bowed deeply to her.
    After she disappeared down the stairs, I sighed with relief—my first moment alone to find peace of mind since I’d entered the temple.

4
    The Scarred Nun
    A t ten o’clock, refreshed from a nap in the dormitory, I ambled back to the Meditation Hall. In the throng ahead of me, a couple gestured in sign language, making Eh! Eh! sounds with their throats. I wondered how it would feel to be unable to give voice to thoughts. The mute couple turned around to let an elderly man behind them pass. When I saw their faces, the truth clicked—they were the silently loving couple I’d seen gazing into each other’s eyes. It saddened me that they had not voluntarily chosen silence over speech. I felt even sadder that sometimes even seeing and believing could still fail me in trying to find the truth. If I became a nun, would that help me to perceive things better?
    At the door, a monk handed out books for chanting and programs for the opening ceremony. Inside, trails of heavy incense paled the peoples’ black robes while emitting a sweet, drowsy fragrance. Stripes of red embroidered streamers fluttered in the artificial currents generated by slowly revolving fans. Monks, nuns, workers, and volunteers shuffled here and there, arranging the flowers, the fruit, the cushions, the musical instruments.
    I settled down on a cushion a few rows from the front. I looked around and saw a woman whose features reminded me of my longtime nun friend Yi Kong. I’d heard her disciples describe her with a Chinese saying, that the fish sink to the bottom of the pond and the geese descend to the sandbank in despair at competing with her beauty.
    Yi Kong was that beautiful. Besides, she was a gifted painter, calligrapher, photographer, and connoisseur of art. No one understood why, at the age of eighteen when most girls’ deepest concerns are boyfriends and pimples, she had chosen to shave her head to become a nun. Some said she had been jilted by her childhood sweetheart. Some said she had a rare form of cancer and would have lost all her waist-length hair anyway. Some said she rebelled against her wealthy, overpowering father, who had forced her into an arranged marriage with a crude businessman twenty years older than she. Others said she had a gangster boyfriend who had been killed in a street fight, and she’d become the target of the opposing gang. She had no place to hide but within the empty gate.
    Although my mother knew about Yi Kong, she had no idea that the nun was my close friend and guide, nor that she had such a mysterious background. Once, when Mother saw Yi Kong on TV talking about the illusory nature of life and the transience of human passion, she pointed to the scars scorched into Yi Kong’s scalp by incense during her initiation into nunhood and exclaimed, “So pretty, what a waste to enter the empty gate!”
    I believed Mother had a split personality, for although she disliked nuns, she was fascinated by Yi Kong. Another time she said, her eyes glued to the nun on the screen, “No Name, deserted by her handsome fiancé, was just as pretty.” She motioned her head toward Yi Kong. “This one must also have been rejected by someone very handsome.”
    Mother believed all women’s unhappiness was caused by men in one way or another. So she would never have believed the reason I wanted to be a nun had nothing to do with a man, but with a woman. I wanted to be like Yi Kong, to be free