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СКАЧАТЬ him a lot more to carry me. But I feared him thinking I was rich. Though I had enough money, I wasn’t sure I had enough good karma. That’s why I had come to the temple, to generate more.

      So I began a tortuous walk with the hot sun beating down on my head to keep me company. I passed stores selling all sorts of necessities such as dried plums, bags of sugar, salt, tinned biscuits, bottles of sauces: chili, black bean, XO, and more. Also on display were household utensils, such as thermos bottles, electric fans, and blankets. Interspersed were a clothing store, a shoe repair store, a barber shop, and a couple of street stalls selling such delicacies as pig’s ears and cow’s intestines in bubbling dark sauce, filling the air with pungent, yet appetizing, aromas. On benches, a few women were napping as small children dutifully fanned their mothers’, or grandmothers’, semi-exposed, protuberant bellies.

      Feeling wilted by the sun, I stepped into a small food store and paid a few cents for a soda. When I was handed the drink, the bottle was as warm as the overbearing sun.

      I protested to the vendor, a fortyish, droop-shouldered man. “It’s not cold.”

      “But you only paid three cents.”

      “So?”

      “One more cent”—he pointed to a refrigerator—“cold soda in here.”

      “All right.” I smiled and paid him the extra cent.

      Downing my cold drink and feeling much relieved from the physical and mental heat, I asked, adopting a casual tone, “You know the Pure Light Temple?”

      He cast me a curious glance. “Why would a young girl like you want to go there? It’s nothing but superstition.”

      “Aren’t all us Chinese superstitious?” I pointed to the jade pendant hanging from his scrawny neck.

      He chuckled. “You’re right, miss. This will protect me from being scared.”

      “What are you scared of?”

      “A lot of things: rich people, poor people, gangsters, ghosts, pretty women.“

      This time it was I who chuckled. “Why pretty women? I think all men love them.”

      “Because they are always making trouble. Haven’t you heard about skeleton women?”

      My heart skipped a beat. That was what people called me in Shanghai, behind my back, of course, but also in the gossip columns. And it was not something pretty. Because women like me, considered beautiful, talented, and extremely scheming, could turn men—as well as women—into skeletons under our touch, though it was as light as a petal and as tender as silk.

      I didn’t want to talk about this, so I gulped my soda, then pointed to his jade. “Does it work?”

      “Of course. Now I have no fear, even talking to a pretty woman like you.” He paused and looked curiously at me. “Where are you from? Why visit our run-down temple?”

      Rather than answer these questions, I decided, as I finished my soda, that it was time to conclude our conversation.

      “Oh, just passing by and curious to take a look. Thanks for the cold soda. Good-bye.”

      He called to my back. “Come back soon, miss. Superstitious or not, pretty girls are always welcome here!”

      Fifteen minutes later, I reached the small, red-roofed temple. As I stepped across the threshold, the faint fragrance of incense snaked its way into my nostrils. Then I noticed an altar with a gilded Buddha and a white ceramic Guan Yin statue. In front of the figures had been placed the usual offerings of flowers in vases and fruit in bowls. Incense rose from the openings in a bronze burner, curling into question marks, or so they looked to me. Except me, there were no other people in the temple, at least not that I could see.

      At the foot in front of the altar were three cushions for the faithful to kneel and pray. I took an incense stick from the burner, held it in both hands, and made wishes to the Buddha and Guan Yin—that my trip back to Shanghai would be safe and that I’d find Jinying and that our son, Jinjin, would somehow be alive. I prayed for the enlightened ones’ generous protection so that I would complete this dangerous trip of mine without losing even one strand of hair. And that heaven would decide to smile down at me and let me return with my son and his father.

      Was it too much to ask? Was I too greedy?

      When I finished praying, a gaunt, sunken-faced, fiftyish man in a gray monk’s robe emerged from a hidden door.

      He didn’t look like a monk since he had his full head of tea-and-milk hair, but I nevertheless bowed and said respectfully, “Master, I hope I am not disturbing the tranquility of the temple.”

      He smiled, revealing some long teeth. “Oh, not at all, miss. This temple has known many with troubled minds.”

      Was trouble written on my forehead like a newspaper headline?

      Instinctively, I faked my most cheerful smile. “But I’m not troubled. I just happened to pass by and decided to come in to pay my respects to the Buddha. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, ‘Whenever you arrive in a new country, follow its customs; whenever you enter a temple, make offerings to the gods’?”

      “The offering to the gods” is, of course, a donation, with cash, checks, jewelry, or even land, to be humbly offered and respectfully—but enthusiastically—accepted.

      “Ha-ha! Of course I know this saying. Anyway, good for you. I don’t mean you particularly, but all us sentient beings swimming in the sea of suffering. We are all troubled. No one can escape this karmic cycle until we attain enlightenment. That’s why we all need temples and incense.”

      And donations. I silently finished his sentence.

      He paused to give me a once-over. “So, do you want your fortune read?”

      “Excuse me?”

      “Oh, you didn’t know that our temple also provides this service? Are you ready?”

      Was I ready? Not if he would predict something bad—I had troubles enough already. I remembered what the sage Laozi said, “When things reach their peak, there is no other way to go but down.” I believed my life had already hit bottom, so according to the same theory, I hoped it meant that I was about to begin my ascent.

      But he seemed to read my mind, saying, “Don’t worry, miss, as they say, ‘If you haven’t done any wrong, you needn’t fear even knocks on your door in the middle of the night.’ ”

      Damn, but I had done wrong. In fact, my whole life in Shanghai was wrongdoing. They were not entirely my fault, yet the list of my offenses was long: I’d alerted Big Brother Wang to send his gang members to assassinate Master Lung. Not only did I have sex with Lung, I’d made love to his son, Jinying, and also his most trusted bodyguard, Gao. I’d caused my singing and knife-throwing show partner, the magician Shadow, to lose part of her little finger, just to keep her from stealing the limelight—and Master Lung—from me. As her revenge against me, she’d also ruined our much publicized show the “Great Escape” by nearly drowning in the water tank then disappearing from my life.

      Anyway, I was very bad. I knew I was referred to as a “skeleton woman,” a femme fatale СКАЧАТЬ