Just when I was about to warn the driver, deafening honks exploded. To my horror, I saw a car speeding toward us from the opposite lane. Our taxi swerved sharply and we all skidded to the side of the road.

Our driver stuck his head out and hollered, "You son of a b.i.t.c.h! Couldn't you wait to register with the King of h.e.l.l?!"

The other driver shot him a murderous look. "You dead man!"

He shot back, "f.u.c.k your mother and stop driving like a lunatic!"

After that, he resumed driving, while casting a triumphant smile toward us in the rearview mirror.

"Jesus!" exclaimed Michael; then he patted hard on the driver's shoulder. "Would you please concentrate on the road and drive more carefully?"

The driver turned to ask me, "What did your laowai laowai friend say?" friend say?"

Before I could answer, Michael was fuming again. "Meng Ning, won't you tell him not to turn his head back, but instead look at the road ahead?!"

I told the driver and he said, "All right, all right. Miss, tell your laowai laowai friend not to worry; I'm a very experienced driver." He added with a casual air, "I talk to my pa.s.sengers all the time and nothing's ever happened." friend not to worry; I'm a very experienced driver." He added with a casual air, "I talk to my pa.s.sengers all the time and nothing's ever happened."

A brief silence followed. I took the opportunity to translate to Michael everything the driver had told me about the Buddha.

Michael listened intently, and then, to my surprise, dismissed it with a laugh. "It's not at all Buddhist. Buddhas don't kill people."

Not wanting to incur Michael's wrath by distracting the driver, I kept my mouth shut.

But not the driver; he spoke again. "Miss, you know that the Leshan Buddha always responds to people's wishes?"

"What do you mean?"

"Many years ago before it was built, boats, when sailing past this mountain, had capsized. Then the villagers decided to carve a Buddha out of the whole mountain to subdue the devils. And after the statue was built, there have been no more accidents."

I translated this to Michael. He said, "It's nice that people believe that, but I think it's just coincidence."

"Michael, you're too scientifically minded. I like the idea."

"Actually, I sort of like it, too." He smiled.

A long meditative silence followed. Then the driver spoke again, this time turning back to stare directly at me. "Miss, if you ever have a chance to look this Leshan Buddha straight in his eyes, you'll find that they'll follow you wherever you go. Besides, if you stare at him long enough, you can see that he smiles-"

"Meng Ning. Is there some way you can convince him to keep his eyes on the road?"

After I'd translated to the driver, he chuckled. "Miss, laowai laowai are famous for being nervous. Tell your friend to relax." are famous for being nervous. Tell your friend to relax."

"Why don't you pay attention-then my friend will relax," I said, then translated to Michael.

"Good," he replied.

I started to translate our earlier conversation, but our driver turned back again, with a wide grin that showed a jumble of yellowed teeth. "Oh, miss, don't you worry about me. I started to drive thirty years ago, probably before you were born-"

Suddenly Michael screamed, "Watch out!" and pulled me toward him.

I saw a tall truck, like a mountain wall, crashing toward our taxi at full speed. In a split second, I heard frenzied honks, squealing of tires...

I didn't know how long I remained unconscious, but when I opened my eyes, the whole world seemed tilted. People-like phantoms-moved, talked, and hollered around our taxi in slow motion.

The driver, his gla.s.ses cracked and his forehead cut and bleeding, turned and muttered something comforting, but his words were lost in the buzzing and bustling of the people around us. My bones felt as if they were broken. Before I had a chance to gather up my thoughts, I saw rivulets of blood streaming from underneath me onto the floor.

I shrieked, "I'm bleeding!"

The driver spoke, his hand dabbing his forehead with a blood-stained handkerchief, "It's not you, miss. I think it's your friend."

It was then that I realized the blood was not mine, but Michael's. He sprawled next to me, unconscious.

I reached to touch him with my trembling hand. "Michael..."

But he didn't answer me and his eyes remained closed. A nerdy-looking man, his body half inside and half outside the car, was trying to stop Michael's bleeding with a filthy rag. Several others milled around giving useless suggestions.

"Oh, my G.o.d, Michael, Michael..." I touched him, but soon my mind was numbed by the quickly growing group of people now hovering around the car like vultures.

The driver got out of the car and moved toward me in the backseat. "Don't worry, miss, I think your laowai laowai friend will be all right. I never hurt anyone with my driving." friend will be all right. I never hurt anyone with my driving."

"Shut up!" I yelled. "If you'd paid more attention-"

I lifted Michael's head, laid it on my lap, and gently rocked.

"Don't move him!" someone yelled as more people crowded around us to watch-as if we were animals on display.

Then I heard sirens wailing. Two policemen rolled up and got out of their car to look at us. Another police car arrived and more khaki-uniformed policemen jumped out and started to direct traffic. The crowd grew as thick and dark as the coagulating blood.

One fiftyish woman gestured wildly. "My heaven! Blood spilled out of the laowai laowai like a slaughtered pig!" like a slaughtered pig!"

A teenager slashed the air with a wide arc of his arm. "Wow! The truck driver flew up in the air just like a stuntman!"

I cried more.

Our taxi driver yelled to them, "Why don't you both shut up!"

I didn't hear the rest of the conversation. I kept holding Michael and involuntarily began to recite Guan Yin's name.

Right then the ambulance's piercing sirens overrode the crowd's noise. Several uniformed men jumped down from the vehicle and got to work. They put Michael and the truck driver on stretchers, threw blankets over them, then carried them into the ambulance. After that, they helped the taxi driver and me in. Then the ambulance sped away and brought us to the hospital.

To my great relief, Michael finally woke up. But because of all the commotion, we couldn't really hear each other talk. I felt a huge weight lifted from my chest when the doctor told me that his life was not in danger. He had a sprained ankle and a big cut on his scalp, which took twenty st.i.tches to close, but fortunately, the X-rays showed no skull fracture. Because he had been unconscious, the ER doctor decided to keep him for observation.

I only had a few bruises and sc.r.a.pes. After a wait of two hours, a young doctor in a stained, off-white coat quickly bandaged me and told me I could leave.

But I was not finished with the accident yet. Two policemen came and took me to the police station to give details of the accident and to verify both Michael's and my ident.i.ty and the purpose of our trip. After that, I went back to the hospital. Michael, though awake and lying in bed, looked very weak and ill at ease. He asked where I'd been, and when I told him, he looked both angry and touched. "Meng Ning"-he reached to grasp my hand-"I'm sorry you have to go through all this."

A silence. Then when I was about to say something comforting, he'd already fallen back to sleep. While I stared at his bandaged head and his shrunken face, I kept telling myself that now I was no longer a young girl protected inside the Golden Lotus Temple. That I was a woman responsible for Michael's recovery. That I had to be strong. Now, in China, where it was just him and me.

The hospital staff wouldn't allow me to stay overnight to keep Michael company, so I left the hospital at ten. A young nurse was kind enough to help me call for a taxi back to the hotel.

I cried my heart out in the dimness of the car. The driver, a fierce-looking man, scrutinized me in the rearview mirror and spat out, "You all right?"

I shot back, "Just let me cry in peace, will you?"

To my surprise, he shut up.

35.

The Hospital First thing next morning, I took a taxi to see Michael in the hospital. The large establishment was shabby, crowded, and stank of medicine. Beds were everywhere, not only in the wards but even along the corridors. Careful not to step on an outstretched arm or leg, I walked to the nurse's station and asked a skinny, bespectacled nurse the whereabouts of Michael.

"Bed number fifty-nine," she said after flipping through a few pages of the thick registration book; then she scrutinized me for long moments. "You're his girlfriend?"

I nodded.

"Then tell your boyfriend to be more cooperative with the doctors."

"What did he do?"

She didn't really answer my question. "Just tell him to show some respect for the second largest hospital in Chengdu."

Michael was asleep despite the noise around him. His neighbors, a fortyish man and an old woman, were engaged in a loud conversation. I went up to his bed, put down a plastic bag of fruit I'd bought at a stall in front of the hospital, then quietly pulled out a chair and sat down beside him.

While my eyes were caressing Michael's face, I was conscious of the curious glances cast in our direction.

Michael's head was bandaged and his face and chest, exposed above the white bed sheet, looked as gaunt as a chiseled bust. I watched the slight quivering of his lashes and the soft rise and fall of his chest. Seeing his masculine body now weakened almost like a child's, tears stung my eyes and rolled down my cheeks.

I'd been hearing all my life how the Buddha taught that life is uncertain. But it was different to see Michael, whom I'd blamed for always being in control of everything, now looking so fragile. Had it been just a little different, Michael would be as dead as Professor Fulton. Just as he lost his professor, I could lose him. As I was thinking, Master Detached Dust's husky voice suddenly rang loud and clear in my ear.

Eat while it's still hot.Don't wait till it gets cool!

Had the old, wrinkled sage's words been intended as a Zen lesson for me?

Then a poem emerged in my mind: Enjoy life to the full while you still can, never let the empty wine gla.s.s face the solitary moon.

But how to enjoy it to the full? It seems so clear in poems, but not in my life. Then I remembered Michael's poem, "All these thirty-eight years, all empty now, can the rest be full?"

I wiped my tears, then took off my Guan Yin pendant to hold it in my hand and, just when I was about to recite the Heart Sutra to protect Michael, the middle-aged man, who'd been watching me as had the old woman, threw me a question. "Miss, this laowai laowai your friend?" your friend?"

I nodded.

He grinned insinuatingly. "Your boyfriend?"

I nodded again, feeling annoyed.

Now the old woman chimed in: "Miss, you're lucky to have a laowai laowai boyfriend. Soon emigrate to America, huh?" boyfriend. Soon emigrate to America, huh?"

I really didn't know how to reply, so I returned a wry smile.

She went on. "Lucky you, miss, your boyfriend's handsome, too."

"Thanks," I muttered. Please leave me alone! Please leave me alone!

Now it was the man's turn. "But he's not well-behaved. He refused to take medicine last night."

"Oh, did he?"

"Yes. They were going to give him an injection, but he wouldn't let them."

I perked up my ears. "Then what happened?"

The old woman said, her cloudy eyes animated, "Your boyfriend had a big argument with the doctors and the hospital staff."

"What did they argue about?"

"I don't know." Old Woman cast a glance at her comrade. "We only understand the doctors; don't understand English."

The man's eyes brightened. "Finally the head doctor himself came, and tried to persuade your friend, but he screamed at the doctor." He looked at me to see my reaction, then went on. "Head Doctor Zhou was very mad. Just stalked out. a.s.sistant doctor upset, too. Said, 'Hai, laowai 'Hai, laowai always means headache.'" always means headache.'"

Now Old Woman looked at me and asked eagerly, "My daughter always wants to go to America-can your boyfriend give her English lessons?"

In order not to be rude, I said, "I don't know; you better ask him yourself."

"Good. Then you ask him for me when he wakes up."

Now the man cast his comrade a chiding glance. "Old Mother, I think we should stop bothering this young miss."

"All right, all right, I'll shut up." Pouting, she lay back on the bed, pulled up her blanket, and closed her eyes. Feigning sleep, I supposed.

The man unfolded his newspaper and began to read.

I took out the small book with the Heart Sutra that Yi Kong had given me and began to read it softly.

I'd been reciting and asking Guan Yin to grant Michael a quick recovery for I didn't know how long, when I heard a weak, "Meng Ning."

"Michael?" I put down my Guan Yin and the sutra on the bed.

Forehead wet with perspiration, Michael tried to sit up.

I grasped his arm. "Michael, let me help you."

He looked at me. "Meng Ning?"

"Yes, Michael." I touched his face and felt the bone. His cheeks were so sunken that it seemed to me his eyes were the only feature left on his face.