“Good. Sorry to inquire, but I don’t want any trouble during the retreat. It’s already so busy, and we don’t have enough workers. You understand?”
I sighed again. This time she ignored me as she scribbled out a receipt, tore it off the pad with a threatening zeeet! and handed it to me with the retreat’s schedule, then picked up the small pile of money.
I took the receipt and began to peruse the map to find where the meditation classes would be held. Immediately I was interrupted by an angry cry; I looked up and saw her fingers waving like an eagle ready to attack.
“Wait, wait! Miss, one of your five-hundred-dollar bills is fake.”
“What?”
She fluttered the note, her face pinched like a bun. “This bill is fake!”
The people behind me now seemed suddenly awake. The lanky man eyed me suspiciously. The young woman stole glances at me, while whispering to her friend. The two young girls, blushing, stared at their feet. The two teenage boys laughed uncontrollably. I imagined-despite the risk of bad karma-smacking their faces with a sharp thwack!
In order to get the most from my scanty savings, I’d asked a friend’s friend to exchange the Hong Kong dollars on the black market in Paris ’s Chinatown. But how could I tell this to the registration woman?
Now she threatened to either cancel my registration or inform the temple. She thrust a pudgy finger at the long queue. “As you can see, miss, we can’t afford to waste time with this hoax.”
“Ma’am, there’s no hoax-”
“I mean what I say, and I only tell the truth. Now the truth is that your money is fake.”
Just then the foreigner I’d noticed before stepped forward and asked in English, “You need help?”
I looked at him and hesitated.
He asked again, his voice full of concern, “Something wrong? Can I help?”
Before I’d even decided what to do, I blurted out to him in English what had happened, as well as where and why I’d obtained the money.
He pulled out his wallet, fished out a five-hundred-dollar bill and laid it down on the counter, and then, looking very stern, said to the woman, “I think this is just a misunderstanding. This lady was cheated. She’s…my friend, and I’ll pay for her.”
Seeing that he was a foreigner, the registration woman flashed an obsequious grin and said in English, her voice now full of warmth, “Thank you, sir.” Then she addressed a young nun by the counter in Cantonese. “Shifu, would you please take this miss to the dorm?”
She turned back to me. “This Shifu will take you to your room.” Her grin was still stretched wide on her face. “Miss, sorry about the misunderstanding. No hard feelings, eh?”
I ignored her while extending my hand to thank the foreigner, feeling confused yet nevertheless grateful. “I’m Du Meng Ning. Thank you so much for your kindness. I’ll pay you back as soon as the retreat is over.” I looked at his eyes and noticed they were green.
Five hundred Hong Kong dollars was sixty-five U.S. dollars; why was this green-eyed foreigner so generous?
He smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Meng Ning. I’m Michael Fuller from the United States.”
I blurted out, “Meng Ning means tranquil dream…” Then my cheeks felt hot. Why had I just offered a piece of such personal information to this stranger?
“Beautiful,” he said.
“Thank you.” I blushed more. “And I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Fuller.”
Probably sensing my embarrassment, he nodded toward the young nun while addressing me. “Meng Ning, why don’t you let her take you to the dorm? We can talk later.”
“Sure,” I said. “And thanks again.” While I was turning away to follow the nun, I felt his eyes on my back. I was still wondering, why was this foreigner so generous to a total stranger?
With rapid steps, the young nun led me out of the lobby, then through a back passageway lined with potted plants and flowers. We passed groups at work: nuns washing vegetables or preparing tea; women dusting; others lighting incense; young girls washing plates in outdoor sinks or doing laundry in large wooden buckets.
An elderly nun loaded down with plastic bags of vegetables and food lumbered toward us. I put my hands together in the prayer gesture and smiled. “Good morning, Shifu.” “Shifu” means teacher, or master, the title of respect for Buddhist nuns and monks.
She smiled back. “Good morning, miss. Here for the retreat?”
“Yes,” I said, looking at the sunlight reflecting from the big beads of perspiration on her forehead.
“Hope you enjoy it,” she said sincerely.
“Thank you, Shifu. I will,” I answered respectfully.
Once she had passed by us, the young nun said, “She’s Wonderful Voyage Shifu, supervisor of the cooking for the retreat.”
“I see.” I turned around to look at the elderly nun’s receding back.
I always wanted to live a significant life like a nun’s. But Mother once asked, when we had just finished dinner, “What kind of success is it if you have no one to share it with? Look at your grandmother. She had cash in her purse and diamonds on her fingers, but no man in her heart to love. You want that kind of life?” Then she threw a big plate of fish bones into the garbage can, where it landed with a thump. “I don’t want to see my only daughter die a lonely old woman!” I understood her warning-if I didn’t get married, my destiny would be the same as that anonymous collection of fish bones.
The nun and I continued to walk toward the dormitory. We entered a small hall and ascended a broad wooden staircase. The nun climbed fast; I had to take two steps at a time to keep up.
She smiled back at me apologetically. “Do you know you are not allowed to make conversation during the whole retreat?”
“Oh, really?” The steepness of the steps made the climb a physical ordeal.
On the stairs, the nun’s cloth slippers thudded softly, like secrets told in whispers. She lowered her voice, her tone didactic. “Unless it’s absolutely necessary, talking is not permitted after the retreat has formally started. Also, one is not supposed to make noise during meals, like smacking lips or slurping noodles. Not that we want to be mean, we just try to show respect to the Dharma.”
I was amused by the idea of this little “meanness” committed in the name of Buddha’s law or, like the registration woman, in the name of knowing the truth.
We arrived at the top of the stairs and the beginning of a long corridor leading into different rooms. She spoke again, her voice high and excited, and her face flushed. “You know, because people come here to meditate, to find peace of mind, it is important to remain silent. Since both the sound and the content of speech can be distracting. Modern people who are under a lot of stress usually talk nonstop, to vent their frustrations and fill up their minds, so they won’t feel nervous and restless. But their conversations are mostly about worldly things: TV programs, soap operas, gossip columns…”
“I see.”
She finally stopped. “Here’s your dormitory.”
The room was huge and crowded with rows of steel bunks. The walls were empty except for a large photograph of a statue of Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. Her half-closed eyes gazed down at the roomful of women. Under the picture the sweet smell of sandalwood wafted up from a bronze burner.
The nun showed me the location of the bathroom and my bunk bed. Back in the corridor, she continued, “Many people still talk even when they’re meditating. They don’t talk aloud, they chatter inside. We call this monkey mind, because it’s compulsive, like a monkey jumping from tree to tree.”
Suddenly she stopped to stick her head inside a doorway. “Ma’am, please don’t hang your underwear on the bunk. It’s not a very nice sight!”
Tired of her jabbering, I felt relieved that we’d arrived at the rows of stacked lockers. The nun handed me a key, looked at me intently, and instructed me not to lose it.