A Thousand Years of Good Prayers: Stories (11 page)

“An inventive way to beg, though,” another woman says.

“Why not just begging?”

“Who’d give him money? He’s a strong man. He should be able to find some work.”

“Young people don’t like to work now. They like easy money,” an old man says.

“What’s easy about hurting oneself?”

“Hey, what’s your story?” a young man asks. “Don’t you know you have to make up some really good tragedies to beg?”

People laugh. The man sits quietly in the middle of the circle, the blood dripping from his elbow onto his jeans, but he seems not to notice it. After a while, he shouts the words again.

Sansan’s mother sighs. She fumbles in her cash box and then walks to the man. “Here is ten yuan. Take it, young man, and go find a job. Don’t waste your life with this nonsense.”

“But there’s no job to find.”

“Take the money then.”

The man holds the blade between his two palms, and offers the knife handle to Sansan’s mother. “Here you go, Auntie.”

“Why? I don’t want to cut you.”

“But you have to. I can’t take your money without you cutting me. It’s written here,” the man says.

“Just take it.”

“I’m not a beggar.”

“What are you, then?” someone in the crowd asks.

“An idiot,” someone else says, and people break out laughing. The man does not move, still holding out the knife for Sansan’s mother. She shakes her head and lets the bill drop onto the cardboard. The man returns the bill to the foot of Sansan’s mother, and sits back at his spot.

Sansan picks up the bill and walks to the man. The man looks up at her, and she looks into his eyes. Without a word, he puts the knife in her hand. She studies his body, the naked skin smooth and tanned, and the wound that’s quietly bleeding. She touches his upper arm with one finger, testing and calculating, and then moves her fingertip to his shoulder. The man shivers slightly as her finger traces his flesh.

“Sansan, are you crazy?” her mother says.

The man’s muscles loosen under her caressing finger; after all these years, she finally meets someone who understands what a promise is. Crazy as they may seem to the world, they are not alone, and they will always find each other. Such is the promise of life; such is the grandeur. “Don’t worry, Mama,” Sansan says, and turns to smile at her mother before she points the knife at the man’s shoulder and slices, slowly opening his flesh with love and tenderness.

Son

HAN, THIRTY-THREE YEARS OLD, SINGLE, SOFTware engineer and recently naturalized American citizen, arrives at Beijing International Airport with a brand-new American passport and an old Chinese worry. He has asked his mother to stay at home; knowing she would not, he has feared, for the whole flight from San Francisco to Beijing, that she would be waiting at the terminal with an album of pictures, girls smiling at him out of the plastic holders, competing to please his eyes and win his heart. Han is a
zuanshi-wanglaowu,
a diamond bachelor, earning American dollars and holding American citizenship. But even when he was at lower levels—silver or gold or whatever he was—his mother never tired of matchmaking for him. At first Han said he would not consider marriage before he got his degree. Then it was a job, and then the green card. But now that Han has got his American citizenship, he is running out of excuses. He imagines the girls his mother has collected, all busy weaving sturdy nets to catch a big fish like him. Han is gay. He has no plan to marry any one of them, nor does he intend to explain this decision to his mother. Han loves his mother, but more so he loves himself. He does not want to bring unnecessary pains to his mother’s life; he does not want to make any sacrifice out of filial duty, either.

But to his surprise, what his mother presents to him is not a picture album but a gold cross on a gold chain. A miniature of Jesus is pinned to the cross. “I special-ordered it for you,” she says. “Feel it.”

Han feels the cross, his finger avoiding the crucified figure. The cross is solid and heavy in his hand. “Twenty-four-karat gold,” his mother says. “As pure as our faith.”

“That sounds like the oath we took when we joined the Communist Youth League.
Our faith in communism is as
pure and solid as gold,
” Han says.

“Han, don’t make such inappropriate jokes.”

“I’m not joking. What I’m saying is that many things are circulated and recycled. Language is one of them. Faith is another one. They are like the bills in our wallets. You can buy anything with them, but they themselves hold no meaning,” Han says. His mother tries to smile, but he sees the disappointment she cannot hide. “Sorry, Mama. Of course we can’t go on without the paper bills in our wallet.”

“You talk a lot now, Han,” his mother says.

“I’ll shut up then.”

“No, it’s good you talk more than before. You’ve always been a quiet child. Baba would be happy to know that you’ve opened up.”

“It’s not easy to shut up in America. They value you not by what’s inside you, but by what’s pouring out of your mouth,” Han says.

“Yes, of course,” Han’s mother says, quickly agreeing. “But Baba would say you have to learn to listen before you open your mouth. Baba would say the more you talk, the less you gain.”

“Mama, Baba is dead,” Han says. He watches his mother blink and try to find words to fill the vacuum arising between them, and he lets her struggle. For as long as Han remembers, his mother has always been a parrot of his father. The last time Han was on vacation, a few months after his father’s death, he was horrified to overhear his mother’s conversation with several neighbors. “Han says there’s nothing wrong for old people to wear bright colors,” his mother said of the red and orange T-shirts he had bought in bulk for his mother and her friends and neighbors. “Han says we should live for our own comforts, not others’ opinions.” It saddened him back then that his mother had to spend her life repeating her husband’s, and then her son’s, lines. But his sympathy must have been worn out by the seventeen hours in a crammed jet plane. “Mama, let’s get out of here. It’s getting late,” Han says. He picks up his bags and starts to move toward the revolving glass door.

Han’s mother catches up with him and makes a fuss taking over the biggest bag from Han. “Mama, I can handle it myself,” Han says.

“But I can’t walk empty-handedly with you. I’m your mother.”

Han lets go of the bag. They walk silently. Men in suits and women in dresses come up to them, talking to Han about the best hotel deals they have, and Han waves them away. Half a step behind him, his mother apologizes to the hawkers, explaining that they are going home. No, not too far and no need for an overnight place, she says when the hawkers do not give up their hope, and apologizes more.

It upsets Han that his mother is humble for no good reason. When they reach the end of the line at the taxi station, he says, “Mama, you don’t have to apologize to those people.”

“But they’re trying to help us.”

“They only care about the money in your pocket.”

“Han.” His mother opens her mouth, and then sighs.

“I know—I shouldn’t be thinking about people this way, and money is not everything—except it is everything,” Han says. He takes out the gold cross he has slipped into his pocket earlier. “Look, even your church encourages you to buy the twenty-four-karat-gold cross. Why? The more you spend on it, the purer your faith is.”

Han’s mother shakes her head. “Han, come to the church tomorrow with me and listen to our pastor. Ask him about his experience in the Cultural Revolution, and you would know what a great man he is.”

“What can he tell me that I don’t know?” Han says.

“Don’t be so arrogant,” his mother says, almost begging.

Han shrugs with exaggeration. They move slowly with the line. After a silent moment, Han asks, “Mama, are you still a member of the Communist Party?”

“No. I sent my membership card back before I was baptized.”

“They let you do that! You are not afraid that they’ll come back and prosecute you for giving up your communist faith? Remember, Marx, your old god, says religion is the spiritual opium.”

Han’s mother does not reply. The wind blows her gray hair into her eyes, and she looks despondent. A yellow cab drives in, and Han helps his mother into the backseat. A good son she’s got for herself, the cabbie compliments his mother, and she agrees, saying that indeed, he is a very good son.

LATER THAT NIGHT, unable to sleep from the jet lag, Han slips out of the house and goes to an Internet café nearby. He tries to connect to the several chat rooms where he usually spends his evenings in America, flirting with other men and putting on different personalities for different IDs he owns, but after several failed trials, he realizes that the Internet police have blocked such sites in China. It’s daytime in America, and people are busy working anyway. Han sits there for a moment, opening randomly any sites that are available. He feels sorry to have upset his mother earlier, even though she acted as if nothing unpleasant ever happened, and cooked a whole table of dishes for his homecoming. She did not mention the service for tomorrow, and he did not mention the gold cross, which he slipped into his suitcase, ready to forget.

Han is not surprised that his mother has become this devout person. In her letters to him after his father’s death, she writes mostly about her newly discovered faith. What bothers Han is that his mother would have never thought of going to the church if his father were still alive. His father wouldn’t have allowed anyone, be it a man or a god, to take a slice of her attention away; she wouldn’t have had the time for someone else, either, his father always requiring more than she could give. His father’s death should be a relief for his mother. She should have started to enjoy her life instead of putting on another set of shackles for herself. Besides, what kind of church does she go to, and what god does she worship, if the whole thing exists in broad daylight in this country? Han remembers reading, in
The New York Times
once, a report about the underground churches in China. He decides to find the article and translate it for his mother. If she wants to be a Christian, she had better believe in the right god. She needs to know these people, who risk their freedom and lives going to shacks and caves for their faith. Han remembers the pictures from the report, those believers’ eyes squinting at the reporter’s camera, dispassionate and fearless. Han respects anybody leading an underground life; he himself, being gay, is one of them.

But of course the website of
The New York Times
is blocked, Han realizes a minute later. He searches for the seminaries and organizations referred to in the article, and almost laughs out loud when he finds a report about the Chinese Christian Patriots Association, the official leader of all the state-licensed churches. The association is coordinating several seminars for a national conference, focusing on the role of Christian teachings in the latest theories of communist development in the new millennium. God on the mission to help revive Marxism, Han thinks.

AFTER TWO HOURS of sleep, Han wakes up, and is happy to find the printed article in his pocket, black words on white paper. He walks into his father’s study. His mother, sitting at the desk, looks up from behind her bifocals. “Did you have a good sleep?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“I’ve got breakfast ready,” his mother says, and puts down a brochure she is reading. Han takes it up, reads a few pages, and tosses it back to his mother’s side of the desk. It’s a collection of poems written by different generations of believers in mainland China over the past century.

“In your spare time—I know you’re busy in America— but if you have some time to spare, I have some good books for you to read,” his mother says.

Han says nothing and goes into the kitchen. He has accepted, in the past ten years, handouts and brochures and several pocket-sized Bibles from people standing in the streets. He lets the young men from the Mormon Church into his kitchen and listens to them for an hour or two. He stands in the parking lots of shopping centers and allows the Korean ladies to preach to him in broken English. He goes to the picnics of the local Chinese church when he is invited, and he does not hang up when people from the church spend a long time trying to convert him. He is never bothered by the inconvenience caused by these people. Once he was stopped outside a fast food restaurant in Cincinnati by a middle-aged woman who insisted on holding both his hands in hers and praying for his soul. He listened and watched a traffic cop write a ticket for his expired meter; even then he did not protest. Han finds it hard to turn away from these people, their concerns for his soul so genuine and urgent that it moves him. Other times, when he sees people standing in the street with handwritten signs that condemn, among many other sinners, homosexuals, he cannot help laughing in their faces. These people, who love or hate him for reasons only good to themselves, amuse Han, but it’s because they are irrelevant people, and their passion won’t harm him in any way. He imagines his mother being one of them; the mere thought of it irritates him.

She follows him to the kitchen. “You can always start with reading the Bible,” she says and puts a steaming bowl of porridge in front of Han. “Purple rice porridge, your favorite.”

“Thanks, Mama.”

“It’s good for you,” Han’s mother says. Han does not know if she is talking about food, or religion. She sits down on the other side of the table and watches him eat. “I’ve talked to many people,” she says. “Some of them didn’t believe me at first, but after they came to the church with me, and read the Bible, their lives were changed.”

“My life’s good enough. I don’t need a change,” Han mumbles.

“It’s never too late to know the truth. Confucius said: If one gets to know the truth in the morning, he can die in the evening without regret.”

“Confucius said: When one reaches fifty, he is no longer deceived by the world. Mama, you are sixty already, and you still let yourself be deceived. Wasn’t your communist faith enough of an example?” Han says. “Look here, Mama, I have printed out this lovely message for you. Read it yourself. The church you go to, the god you talk about—it’s all made up so people like you can be tricked. Don’t you know that all the state-licensed churches recognize the Communist Party as their only leader? Maybe someday you will even come up with the old conclusion that God and Marx are the same.”

Han’s mother takes the sheet of paper. She seems not surprised, or disappointed. When she finishes reading, she puts the printout carefully in the trash can by the desk, and says, “No cloud will conceal the sunshine forever.”

“Mama, I did not come home to listen to you preach. I’ve been in America for ten years, and enough people have tried to convert me, but I’m sitting here the same person as ten years ago. What does that tell you?”

“But you’re my son. I have to help you even if they’ve failed.”

“You could have helped me before. Remember, you burned my Bible,” Han says, and watches her body freeze. He knows that she has forgotten the incident, but he has chosen not to. The Bible was a gift from his best friend when they were thirteen. They were in love without realizing it; innocent boys they were then, their hands never touching. Han did not know what made the boy seek out the Bible, a tightly controlled publication that one could never see in a bookstore or anywhere he knew, as a birthday gift for him. He did not know what trouble the boy had gone through to get the Bible, but he knew, at the time, that it was the most precious gift he had ever got. It would have remained so, well kept and carried along to each city he moved to, a souvenir of the first love, except that his mother made a fire with the Bible and dumped the ashes into the toilet bowl. She did not know the hours he had spent with his best friend after school, sitting together and reading the Bible, finding a haven in the book while their classmates were competing to join the Communist Youth League. They had loved the stories, the bigness of the book that made their worries tiny and transient. When their classmates criticized them for being indifferent to political activities, they laughed it off secretly, both knowing that the Bible allowed them to live in a different, bigger world.