“And beyond this,” he had said when the abbot had finished, “there is the difficulty of Nirvana — the difficulty for me, at least. You tell me that Nirvana is the ultimate goal of the human spirit — or the soul, if you wish. But Nirvana is non-being, and I have no longing not to be. On the contrary, I long for all-being.”
The abbot had replied, “You mistake the meaning of Nirvana. It is not non-being. True, it is the absence of pain, the absence of sin and wrongdoing, the absence of passion, and even of temptation, but not because of non-being. Not at all! On the contrary, it is that very all-being of which you speak. It is total awareness, total comprehension, total understanding, so that we do not need words to communicate. We simply know. We know because we are. Nothing is hidden from the mind and the spirit that dwell in Nirvana. The absence of suffering, of pain, of passion, of temptation itself, is the result of already knowing and therefore understanding, aware of all that exists in this eternity which we call time.”
When the abbot spoke these words, Liang had felt a relief and release in himself, a complete peace pervading not only his mind but every part of his body. His muscles, his heart, his inner organs, all moved into a harmony which was peace. He had waited for many minutes while he assimilated this peace. Then he was ready to return to his life.
“Thank you, Father,” he said to the abbot. “What you have said is true. I feel it in my whole being. Now I understand what is meant by Nirvana. I shall know as I am known. Yet — and I hope that this will not hurt you — I do not wish to become a Buddhist.”
“Why should you be Buddhist?” the abbot replied. “In Nirvana there is neither Buddhist nor any other division. These classifications are not needed when we reach the state of total awareness and total understanding. Go in peace.”
With this the abbot had blessed him and Liang came down from the mountain and went home at once. The abbot’s words came back to him when he first saw Mariko alone. It was the evening after Japanese bombs had fallen on Pearl Harbor. He had had no intention of going to the theatre that night. The evening had been spent with others of his own age, young men from the university. They had argued and discussed the news, searching it over and over again to know what portent it held for Korea. He had been about to go back to his room in the hospital when darkness fell, and passing by the theatre on his way he had lingered, he did not know why, except that he was reluctant to return to his solitary room and was disinclined for study. His mind, usually calm, was still disturbed, for the attack on Pearl Harbor had been altogether unexpected and he had not been satisfied with the conclusions his fellow students had reached. Yet he could not reach his own. Restlessly, senselessly he had thought at the time, he had stopped at the theatre, and noticing that the beautiful dancer who had been treated at the hospital was to perform, he had bought a ticket and gone in.
The place was half empty. People had stayed at home to ponder and to talk and to guess the future. He sat in the middle of the first row, close enough to catch the scent of Mariko’s robes as she danced, close enough to see her lovely face. She was small, her face oval and pale and her eyes large and glowing with exhilaration and joy in the dance. She was as light as a bird, her shoulders moving with every movement a separate grace and elegance, and this not only of the body but of her inner being. She had a rhythm of her own, expressed with elegance, and the master drummer followed rather than led. She appeared to stand still while she moved, and yet when she was still she seemed to move with inner exhilaration. Her performance that night had been the Fairy Dance, its story that of a fairy who was bathing in a lake when a woodcutter stole her clothes, so that she was compelled to marry him and live on earth. Liang had never seen it performed with such artistry, and watching her gossamer garments floating about her like mist, he forgot for a little while the tragedy of the day. And afterwards did what he had never done before. Driven it seemed by a spirit in his feet, he had gone backstage. Although usually her door was crowded, no one was there that night, and she had opened the door herself, still in her costume, and they had stood looking at each other.
“Come in,” she said. “I saw you in the front row. It was for you I danced, after I saw you.”
He came in and she closed the door.
“I was not sure whether you saw me,” he said at last.
“You know I did,” she said simply.
“Now I know,” he had replied, and remembered what the abbot had told him. Total awareness, total understanding! This was what he and Mariko had, each of the other, from that first moment face to face.
She was leaving the stage now, and he rose before the crowd filled the aisles and walked rapidly through the lobby. There he saw Sasha making his way to the stage door, but again Sasha did not see him. He left the theatre and walked westward past the Bando Hotel for ten blocks until he came to the gate of her house. The gateman let him in and he sat in the moonlit garden until she could arrive, although the night was chill. He did not like to enter her house until she came home, lest it seem a presumption that he was her lover.
“Shall I bring your tea here, master?” the gateman asked.
“If you will,” Liang replied with courtesy.
What the two servants thought of his presence here he did not know or indeed care. He was scrupulous, leaving always within an hour after she reached home. The ritual was the same. She changed into Japanese or Chinese dress, as her mood was, preferring Chinese, and then she took a light supper which he might share or not as he pleased. They had never spent a night together, yet each knew that at some time this was inevitable although when it would be neither knew. They had discussed it only once and quietly, as they had discussed marriage, without conclusion. He supposed that in the past she had had lovers, but he was sure in the state of total awareness in which he lived, that she had no lovers now.
He heard her car at the gate, a Rolls-Royce, and he put down his tea bowl and rose as she came into the gate, still in her theatre costume but a coat of Russian sable wrapped about her. When she saw him she came to him and took his hand between both her own.
“I am late,” she said. “Sasha insisted on staying after the others were gone.”
“Sasha!” he exclaimed. She dropped his hand and laughed uncertainly and without mirth.
“It is cold in the garden tonight, is it not?”
She spoke unexpectedly in English and he was aware that she was afraid.
“Sasha has threatened to follow you,” he said.
“Yes.”
She linked her fingers in his and drew him with her toward the house. At the door her woman servant knelt to take off their shoes.
“You told him he could not come?”
“Of course. I told him I had a guest.”
“And he asked if the guest were I?”
“Yes, but I lied to him. I said it was Baron Tsushima.”
She could lie as easily as a child and confess it in the same breath. He was puzzled, for he himself could not lie, and yet he understood the necessity of lies in her complicated life, where men continually pursued her, and he did not reply to this. They went into her sitting room, the wall screens were closed, the curtains drawn, and on the low table steam rose from silver dishes of food.
“Excuse me,” she said, “and please sit down.”
She drifted out of the room so gracefully that she seemed not to walk and he waited. A maidservant entered with a Japanese robe and took off his coat and helped him to slip into the robe. He sat down then, only to rise when a moment later she came in wearing a soft French negligee of green chiffon, the full skirt floating about her.