"I'm so sorry, Michael. Then how did you survive?"

"Philip n.o.ble. Philip's father was an ophthalmologist and comfortably off. He invited me to live with them."

"What about your other relatives?"

"My grandparents were gone. My mother had sometimes mentioned a black-sheep uncle who owned a small bar in New Jersey. But when I finally tracked down his phone number and talked to him, he was furious that I'd found him. Not only did he refuse to help, he hollered, 'Who gave a s.h.i.t about me when I was poor?'

"I spent some time with the n.o.bles, but I couldn't ask for too much from them-after all, they are not my parents. So it was really my discovery of Chinese art that changed things for me. Somehow it brought me back to life again. Both the art and Professor Fulton. I became closer to him than to Philip's father because we shared more interests. Professor Fulton should be at the Met tomorrow; I'll introduce him to you. He was very kind to me. I owe him a lot."

I reached to hold Michael's hand. "Michael, I'm so sorry about what happened, but you're fine now."

"Thanks." Some silence, then Michael said, "Now tell me more about yourself."

I sipped my coffee, then told him how my father, a disillusioned poet and scholar, had become a gambler, how he had stolen the bracelet from my mother, and how he had gambled it away on my twentieth birthday.

My mother meant to give the bracelet to me as a birthday present-the last piece of jewelry her mother had given her. When I asked Mother whether I was too young to receive Grandmother's heirloom, she said, "Silly girl, of course I don't expect you to flaunt it around. It's just when it's under your name, hopefully your father won't gloat over it like a monk over enlightenment."

One morning, to prepare for my longevity birthday dinner, Mother had gone to the market to buy a live chicken and a fish, butchered and gutted on the spot. We rarely dined out in those days, for Father had been jobless for years, and we mainly lived on Grandmother's money, which had almost all fled across the gambling table.

Dinner was ready and Father was still nowhere to be found. After waiting for an hour, Mother decided we'd go ahead without him. On the red-clothed table, Mother carefully set down five dishes: steamed fish in scallion and black bean sauce, soy-sauce chicken, stir-fried bok choy in crushed garlic, and-a must for a longevity dinner-hard-boiled eggs dyed a cheerful red, and noodles symbolizing long life. We savored the fish, relished the chicken, and chewed the noodles in silence. Although neither of us mentioned Father, we both knew he must be at that moment drowning himself in the gambling sea of samsara. samsara.

After dinner, Mother set out a cake with two candles. She lighted them, smiling. "I'll go get the bracelet."

Almost immediately, Mother screamed like the chicken slaughtered for my birthday. I dashed into the bedroom and saw her clutching the empty jewelry box on her lap. "Your father has stolen your grandmother's bracelet!"

Father didn't come home that night. That piece of jade, worth ten thousand Hong Kong dollars, could maintain his gambling habit for a long time-long enough that he'd completely forgotten the day when his only daughter was born.

Father came home the next morning with bloodshot eyes and breath smelling of alcohol. Mother started to scream at him for his gambling away the household money.

Suddenly Father began to sing, "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose..."

I almost burst into tears. "Baba, that's a secret only between you and me!"

Mother cast me a questioning glance. "What secret?"

Father laughed. "Oh, don't you remember we lost our baby boy on the gambling table?"

Mother went up to Father and slapped his face.

The air in the apartment suddenly became like that in a mortuary.

A long silence.

"Sorry," Father finally said, "it's my fault. I've lost everything." His voice rang with heroic defeat.

"Where's the money my mother sent us last month for the Mid-Autumn Festival, before she died?" Mother demanded. "There was two thousand dollars."

"Gone" was Father's reply.

"And the other jewelry in the bank safe? Then what about the stock my mother bought me several years ago?"

"Long gone," Father said, avoiding our eyes.

It was then that we found out Father owed a loan shark ten thousand dollars. And if he couldn't pay tomorrow, it would rise to fifteen thousand.

The next evening, when Father, Mother, and I came home together from a cheap dinner at a street stall, we found both our apartment door and the wall next to it splashed with characters in red paint dripping like blood.

My parents' mouths dropped open.

"The Big Ear Hole!" Father exclaimed. The loan shark.

The huge, evil characters forced themselves onto my eyes:

WARNING:.

IF WE CAN'T GET THE MONEY, WE'LL GET THE THROAT

Mother pushed Father on the shoulder. "Hurry! Let's get inside the house! Quick!"

Father fumbled in his pants pocket for several moments before he pulled out a string of keys, singled out the right one, and pushed it into the keyhole with trembling hands. "d.a.m.n!"

"What's wrong?" Mother yelled.

"They glued the keyhole!"

Just then, a thirtyish man with a boy pa.s.sed by our apartment in the long corridor. The bespectacled man peered at the graffiti, then lowered his head and dragged the boy away.

Hurrying his steps to follow his father, the little boy looked back at us and asked, "Baba, will they die?"

The man smacked his son's scalp. "Shut up and mind your own business!" After that, the two disappeared around a corner.

It took Father almost ten minutes to sc.r.a.pe clear the glue with the Swiss Army knife he always carried. Then we entered the house and locked the door. In less than five minutes, the bell rang. Father jolted up from the sofa, but Mother pushed him down.

"Let me get it," she hushed.

Mother looked through the peephole, then cleared her throat, her voice determined. "Who is it?"

"We're looking for Du Wei," said a raucous male voice. I pictured him standing right outside the thin door, his bulging muscles tattooed with a monstrous dragon and his eyes screaming murder.

Mother yelled, "No such person!"

Raucous Voice roared back, "Hey, b.i.t.c.h, don't fool with me. I know Du Wei lives here. Get him out!"

Father and I listened with our ears pressed tightly to the door. I tipped my head to peek at him and saw big beads of perspiration oozing from his forehead.

Mother hollered again through the firmly closed door, "I'm not fooling with anyone, and I've told you already there's no such person here!"

Silence-then another scratchy male voice said, "Hey, listen, b.i.t.c.h, the earlier Du Wei shows us his face the better-you understand?"

My heart plunged into a frenzied flip-flop when I heard Mother shout at the top of her voice, "Mister, I'll call the police right now if you continue to hara.s.s me!" Then she almost paralyzed me by threatening, "I'll also sue you for damaging my apartment wall!"

Yet, miraculously, after Mother's threat, the scratchy voice dropped an octave. "All right, b.i.t.c.h, I'll leave you alone now, but be careful if I find out the truth."

Some heavy breathing, followed by loud footsteps. We pressed our ears against the door and listened until they faded like the dissolving of a nightmare.

Mother, Father, and I stood holding our breath for long moments. When we were sure that the two messengers from h.e.l.l were gone, the three of us went to sit down on the sofa.

To my surprise, Mother didn't scold Father, but instead said in a whisper, "Now we have to find a way to either put the Big Ear Holes off or to avoid them."

"But how?"

Mother's voice came out low, yet firm. "I don't know, but we've got to figure out a way."

But we didn't.

A week later, I was walking back from school with my parents. As we were nearing our building, we smelled smoke. Then we saw a fire engine parked right by the entrance. A group of pedestrians, a few policemen, and firemen milled around. We immediately sensed it must be our apartment. Father, Mother, and I spat out simultaneously, "The Big Ear Hole!" The three of us pushed through the crowd and dashed up to the fourth floor, which smelled strongly of smoke. Once we jostled through our neighbors and saw our apartment, I burst out crying. Our whole home was gone! Literally. Past the door was only a black hole. Tangled bunches of wires hung down, the ceiling had fallen, and our furniture was only a few smoldering sticks. Seeing that my mother and I were crying, a policeman went up and asked whether we lived here. We said yes; then he went through the procedure of asking for our ident.i.ty cards, names, and who did we think would do this. Father told him it must be the loan shark.

The government put us in a temporary house, and two weeks later Father went into the hospital and never came back. They told us that he died of a heart attack.

To make ends meet, I tutored school kids every afternoon after I finished my cla.s.ses at college. My mother worked at home, supplying meals. One time Mother had her biggest source of business ruined. The order was for a twelve-person birthday banquet for an octogenarian. His son, who'd heard from a relative about my mother's delicious home cooking, had canceled a restaurant reservation in order to place an order with her.

The twelve-course banquet was a big thing for us, both for the money and the opportunity for my mother to show off her culinary skill. Mother spent three days planning the menu and purchasing the ingredients. She even bought a new wok. "This is a banquet dish, so I have to use a banquet wok." She smiled, weighing the huge, shiny utensil in her hand.

That day, in order to finish the dishes in time for delivery that evening, Mother woke up at five-thirty in the morning, washed, dressed, put on her new ap.r.o.n, then burned incense to whatever G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses she could conjure up in her mind to get their blessings. The whole day I stood by to help-cutting up meats and vegetables, mixing ingredients and sauces, pa.s.sing mixing bowls, oil, condiments, knives, chopsticks.

Finally, we had everything finished by six-thirty, half an hour before the old man's servant was to come to pick up the dishes. We kept staring at the clock and waiting anxiously while relishing the praise and the thought of the five hundred dollars that would mean so much to us.

The servant was an angry-looking young man with a crude face and rude manner. One by one, my mother handed him the dishes for him to put into two big baskets. Right after Mother had given him the shark fin soup, he turned around, lifted off the lid, and spat into the velvety liquid.

I caught sight of him.

"What are you doing?" I shouted, then turned to Mother. "Ma, he spat into your soup!"

"What?" Mother's eyes shot daggers. Mother's eyes shot daggers.

The young man made a face. "That's none of your business! This is for the old man. I hate him!"

"But that's my soup!" Mother yelled.

"So what?" he shot back. "He's the one who'll eat it, so why don't you mind your own business!"

"That's just what I'm doing right now!" Mother yanked his sleeve. "You dead boy, give me back my soup!"

"No! Now this is the old man's birthday soup. Ha, ha!"

Mother kept yanking his sleeve until some of the soup spilled on the floor and she slipped and fell, knocking over the young man and the baskets of food. All the dishes splashed and shattered on the floor.

"Oh, Meng Ning, "Michael exclaimed. "That's terrible."

I went on. "I helped Mother up and immediately we began to clean up the mess. When we finished, we realized the young man had already gone."

"Then what happened?" Michael asked.

"The old man's son called and we told him the truth. Furious, he hung up the phone. Three appetizers had not been packed, but we couldn't even eat them for dinner, for Mother said to eat someone else's ruined birthday meal would bring bad luck for years-not that we didn't have enough as it was. So although we felt exhausted and our stomachs ached with hunger, we threw the food away. Worse, we lost a lot of money in preparing the food and buying the wok, for the young man had left without paying us. That evening we deliberately went to bed early so as to ignore the complaints of our empty stomachs. To comfort me, Mother said, 'Maybe we'll have a wonderful dinner in our dreams.'"

After I finished, Michael reached to touch my face. "I'm sorry you had to go through that." He took my hand, kissed my palm, and ran the tip of his tongue along it. "And I'll make it all up to you, if you're willing to be my-Meng Ning, can you be my refuge, my temple?"

Yes. And I, the reincarnation of Guan Yin, would be his guardian G.o.ddess. But I swallowed my thoughts.

"Michael," I asked, "you're not upset at me that I...turned you down?"

"I was devastated. But deep down I believed you love me. I just thought something was bothering you, maybe another man in your life."

"Not a man, but a woman."

He looked at me curiously. "A woman?"

"I've always wanted to be a nun like my idol Yi Kong, and swore I wouldn't let any man into my life! Not until you...found your way there."

"How could I help falling in love with you?"

"But you looked calm when..."

"That evening after the concert, I only excused myself to the men's room to get ahold of myself. When I came out to meet you again in the lobby, I forced myself to act normal-I didn't want to feel or act like a failure."

"Is that true?" I felt tenderness rising in me.

"Meng Ning, then why did you-"

"Because I thought you were not serious about me."

"Oh, of course I am serious about you! I hope someday you'll realize how deeply I love you." Michael's eyes glistened. "Meng Ning, you looked so beautiful, so full of life when you hurried to line up at the registration counter."

I was glad to hear that, but I was pretty sure that I had also been sweating, and my hair was unkempt. Hadn't he noticed that?

"I asked you to come see me in New York because I wanted to have you near me. I also needed to do whatever I could to make you change your mind about turning me down."