单行道 [One Way Street]

– I –

Drop. Dripping droplets.

Flashing light, followed by deafening crack.

Almost an hour that night had fallen, faster than usual. The sun would probably not be seen again before tomorrow’s dawn. One hour now that this storm was hovering without a burst in the clouds which overshadowed the end of this spring afternoon? And finally the rain is coming. A soft and familiar crackling, increasing sound with each drop falling off the cloudburst.

New flashes followed by violent slapping sounds.

And still that heat, ever present.

As always, it would be impossible to catch a taxi; people will queue in front of the hotels and the large towers where the round of cars would be carried out with a resigned lassitude.

I’m still waiting a little. That’s no use to be in a hurry, all was going to be blocked very quickly. Elevators, main streets. Even the shops activity. Everyone wanted only one thing, to return at home.

Try as we want to tame them, natural elements play with us as we were rag-dolls. Who spoke about that this morning? That we were going to be able to make rain by sowing the clouds. Nina… Yes, guess it was her. It made her laugh when I said that it was like tickling the whiskers of a dragon… Still, we can’t control the dragon when it seethes with unrestrained fury. As it did every year on the coasts of the province from where I come, constantly devastated by typhoons…

A glance by the window, on top of the 27 storeys. The streets are already blocked, and rain doesn’t seem to be willing to stop.

Too bad, I’ll walk to the next subway station. It’ll be a bit longer, but at least I won’t have to wait.

— Good evening girls, I’m leaving.

— See you tomorrow! Bye bye Shannon!

— See you tomorrow.

Just have to walk down the street, turn right; and there, a few hundred meters ahead, was the main street.

I’m feeling a bit of a fool, not to have thought of taking an umbrella this morning, but in fact, I like to walk under the rain. This feeling of heavy lukewarm drops slipping on my face. My clothes will be soaked quickly, but I don’t care about my cheap blouse, and it’ll dry quickly when I’m under a roof.

Finally, the entrance of the subway is in sight, at one of the ends of the deserted place shiny as the surface of a swimming pool. I’ll need to buy an umbrella for tonight, can’t afford to arrive soaked up like this. Green neon cutting off the halo in the night.

Fortunately, convenience stores are everywhere.

Unfortunately, not always very well provided.

A customer, eating his sausages with greasy fingers on the counter, discusses the news with the cashier. Banalities seemingly exchanged, but their gestures betray more than words. Sharing of a moment without the least hind-thought, hyphen drawn between two solitudes.

Seems there is no umbrella on these poorly filled shelves.

— Ayi, do you still have umbrellas?

— No more. With all that rain, all was bought.

— Too bad, I’ll probably find one elsewhere…

— Otherwise, I must have some rain cloaks left if you want

— Rain cloaks? Oh, why not, it’ll be better than nothing.

— Here, the last two ones.

— Give me the cheapest one

— That one, with the flowers?

Yes, that’s it… The transparent one with the flowers. Will look like a fancy plastic bag, but that’ll do.

Platform of the subway station, green line. 20h14

The plasma screens that have been installed here recently broadcast a hypnotizing stream of continuous information. Date and hour, weather, local, national and world news, advertisements, stock exchange prices.

Got to detach myself from this flood, to observe.

The platform is full with people, but the cold air blown by the air-con seems to have frozen the activity.

A mother and her child, a couple of old people, a female student with ear-phones on her ears, nibbling on a brochette, workmen with tired faces, a suited-man, seeming even more tired. Anonymous faces lost in this ocean, all riveted to the screens while the minutes are count-downed between two ads.

The next subway is coming in 45 seconds.

Whistle of the platform officer. Pavlovian reflex. The scene becomes animated as if a director had howled “Action!”.

Foot-stamping, agitation. The crowd presses itself at the markings on the ground indicating the doors.

The subway is now there; its doors open in a strident shrill.

I let all these people hurry for the seated places. Absorbed by the flood, I’m now inside, almost without noticing it.

The doors finally close on the station of the Temple of Celestial Peace. The familiar voice burbles out information of the trip in the speakers, and little by little all comes back to life.

The air is so icy in the oar…

Fortunately my dress had time to dry under the cape and in the long corridors full of hot draughts from outside.

The cold is so intense that time itself seems slowed down, the scene gaining in intensity and clearness.

The mother has given a soy milk plastic pouch with a straw to her child, the student has exchanged her brochette to immerse herself in a book of economy, and the old woman has engaged the conversation with the young mother, who is observed by the man who left her the seated place…

– II –

Island of Putuo Shan, 23 years earlier.

The young girl runs on the grey sand beach. As for many children from where she comes, she has never seen the sea. Noisy to and fro of the greenish waves fascinates her, and nothing more is needed to make her forget the long journey in the crammed boat, the bad and scant food and overwhelming heat.

— Shanlin! Come back here!

Her father worries about losing her in this crowd.

The island is not very big, but with each of the two daily landing, quantities of pilgrims rush on the sacred spot. And even if the beach was of no concern to everybody, they could not risk spending the day looking for each other.

— I’m coming, I’m coming!

The concerned man, with the thin black moustache is named 缪伟 (Miao Wei).

Five years ago, almost day for day, his wife gave birth to their child. For years, they had been unsuccessful in their attempt. He had thought that staying in the countryside where they had been sent during the Cultural revolution would be beneficial for his wife. And they had remained, relatively happy in spite of misery. He worked as a teacher, while she was working in the fields.

His wife was very religious, which was better if concealed at that time, and she was wholly devoted to the Buddha Guan Yin (Kwan Yin). Thanks to the boon of this Buddha, or so she thought, they were favoured with this late child, whereas each of them had almost ceased hoping.

He tolerated these superstitions as long as they were harmless, that is, made without ostentation or proselytizing. Anyway, the inner world of his wife seemed so closed to his own comprehension sometimes that he did not see how she could have drawn attention from strangers.

The death of his woman in labour was a terrible ordeal for him. This child whom they had hoped for so much… Perhaps that in other circumstances he would have been disappointed for it being a girl, but now, all that seemed so trifling, a mere detail of no importance.

The fever had taken his wife’s frail life in a few days, but at least she had time to put her daughter on her breast while she choked on big sobs of joy that went rolling on her meagre cheeks. Knowing herself to be about to leave, she had made him swear to love this child, and gave it the name Shanlin.

He was not unaware of the reason why she had chosen that name. 缪杉林 Miao Shanlin: that was the sound of the wind in the pines groves… But whoever listened to the essence of beings could hear with only a slight difference in tonality 妙善邻 Miaoshan Lin,… “close to Miaoshan”…

Miaoshan, the young princess with legendary beauty and compassion, one of the mortal names of Guan Yin.

And when he spent his time looking at his baby sleeping so peacefully, and when he now looks at her running merrily towards him on the beach, his heart bursts with overflowing love for this being appeared in their life.

He decided to undertake this journey back to the source of the myth in remembrance of his wife. After the birth of his daughter, his brother had come from the city for his wife’s burial, bringing with him some newspapers; a welcome change from the same brown paper on the unique board of the village, and changed every two months or so. He had also brought arguments for him to return “home”. But “home” was here now, and his will was to stay here, to stay close to his wife.

Nevertheless, the presence of his brother had been comforting, and in more than one way. Leafing through the newspapers he had left him, he noticed a piece of news, so discrete at first that he had almost overlooked it. It gave him goose-bumps.

The temple on the island of Putuo Shan was going to be rebuilt.

For all he knew, Guan Yin was supposed to have reached the enlightenment at this place, and for centuries ever since the island had been regarded as one of the holiest places of China.

Signs of changing times? So, the Revolution which had led to its dismantling had came back to the end of the wheel’s turn, dharma’s wheel, the natural harmony which governed peoples as much as individuals.

Unlike Westerners who use the image of a turn of a wheel, doing strictly speaking a “revolution”, Chinese language used another metaphor, that of the moult.

In the end, both evoked the same idea of the change, but he preferred the Chinese metaphor, because there was something deeper in the animal’s moult. A movement of nature which evokes the metamorphosis of the butterfly. Nothing is more similar to a turn of wheel than another turn of wheel, especially for the clueless rodent which pedals inside². The only loophole for the rodent is immobility, like the centre of the wheel which does not move.

But that did not reflect the reality of this world, at least not on his scale. Perhaps because he was not able to remove himself from this infernal wheel… Or that he was not using it for his own moving forward…

Whereas for the snake, or the caterpillar, the moult is only one stage of a natural change, which goes on, and on, indefinitely.

As his small daughter who was growing up so quickly…

One month ago, he had had the confirmation that the temple’s rebuilding was finished, and that the Buddha’s statue was again to be seen. Something unexplainable, a joyful impulse pushed him to go over there, to perhaps honour his wife’s memory, and also to transmit to his daughter part of this heritage which had failed to disappear from the people’s memories.

And secretly, he also wished to draw nearer to this sacred dimension which he had never been able to share with his late wife, as if this projection into action had already drawn him nearer…

The voyage would be long, but he had saved enough money to do it. He had awakened his daughter who had opened her large eyes and smiled to him, still drowsy.

— 春眠不觉晓 [chūn mián bù jué xiǎo]

— What do you say A’Ba?

— That’s the beginning of a very nice poem of a Tang dynasty poet. Spring slumber lasts beyond dawn, sweetie… Did you sleep well tonight with all that rain?

— Oh yes, I love to sleep when it rains. What else the poem says?

— 处处闻啼鸟 [chù chù wén tí niǎo], he mimes to the child

— Everywhere he hears birds, that’s it?

— 夜来风雨声 [yè lái fēng yŭ shēng]

— Tonight, there was the sound of the rain and the wind?

— 花落知多少 [huā luò zhī duō shǎo]

— He does not know how much flowers have fallen…

— So, what do you think of that poem?

— It’s a sad poem, your poem…

— That’s why it’s beautiful.

He caresses the thin long black hair and his gaze lingers on the doll-like face shadowed by a cloud of sadness.

— I’ve got a gift for you, he finally says to her

— A gift?

— Yes, it’s a gift from your mom, who kept it like a treasure against her heart. She wanted that you have it.

That morning, he had given her the medallion of his wife with Guan Yin’s icon, all the while trying to explain her who was this person in whom he himself does not believe, feeling a kind of fleeting treason, like any Western parent explaining Santa Claus to their children… But he does it so [he]artfully, with almost passionate accents when he sees the small face illuminated by the knowledge that this eternal mother will always be there to hear her prayers.

It was not difficult to convince her to follow him on this pilgrimage which the neighbours would have deemed foolish. Besides he did not say the entire truth, pretending to go to see his brother, which was not totally false either since they would pass by the city. Moreover, the timing could not be better, as it was soon Spring Festival, which would be an ideal occasion to come together.

His brother worked as a cook with his wife, and had a rather happy life, that in any case he would not have yielded.

They were happy to reunite with Miao Wei and his daughter whom they had not seen since the death of his wife.

Shanlin had discovered the boiling city like a kind of strange anthill, and had not felt comfortable, holding fast to her father. But seeing her father happy, she had little by little started to smile, clutching to her heart the small medallion, hidden under her clothing.

The little provincial girl was certainly not in her element in this strange world, but she reminded herself of Guan Yin’s story who even in Hell, was filled up with compassion for the sufferings that she saw there, to the point to make a paradise there. So she tried to keep on smiling also. And among the few people who noticed her on the road, probably initially because of her clumsy look, some of them saw her smiling, and some of these people smiled to her in return.

Just like now on this unpleasant dirty dry track which led to the steps at the bottom of the temple’s hill, where some pilgrims, less absorbed than others by muttered prayers or the simple contemplation of their navel, smiled to the small girl and the man who held her hand.

– III –

Gosh, with all this fretting, I don’t have much time to get ready.

These karaoke evenings playing hostess are exhausting, but they grant a little better life… For everyone…

Mikie already left, probably with her boyfriend. At least, I will not be late for having listened to her miseries. But without her, though small, the apartment seems immensely empty.

I switch on the TV set, to have a bit of music in the background while I take my shower and get ready.

The hour of the medieval soap operas is over, and it’s time for talk-shows or the games… No MTV… No old black and white movie or foreign operas… Too bad…

Nevermind, I’ll put a CD.

Near the loudspeakers of the small portable player, a pile of CDs. New ones it seems.

Mmmh, bad quality counterfeits, Mikie is not picky; the bad prints on the jackets do not put the pretty faces in a favouring light.

Go for that one.

– IV –

On this desolated and dull island, it is hard for him to perceive what makes it sacred to the eyes of so many of his compatriots. Perhaps that the uselessness of this rock beaten by the waves, with the greyish beaches is what makes it a special and safe place… Like the tree of that fable from Zhuang Zi, which is protected from the axe because its wood is useless to the carpenter.

The climbing of the steps towards the top of the hill is long, and slowed down by the rituals of the pilgrims kneeling down. Shanlin runs in front of them, amused by the string of steps which lead them closer to a kind of dream, embellished by a kid’s imagination.

He smiles when he thinks of the legend of Miaoshan, who refused to marry to enter a convent, and who is submitted by her father to impossible tasks to make her give up, even to the point of having her executed…

If her daughter says that her desire is to stay here, he will acquiesce, even if that breaks his heart. No need to repeat the errors of the past. He foresees in her a potential which perhaps goes far beyond his grasp, but that he does not want to force on her, and nothing counts more than making her happy.

He is not even sure that it would be beneficial for her to live in the city where his brother generously proposed to have his niece stay with them.

Would it preserve her innocence and her joy in life, being in contact with this entire decline? He was not sure to want to take the risk…

– V –

Through the bay-window, the rain is still falling…

Thoughts sailing riding the music waves…

Melancholic, pessimistic perhaps…

The words dribble with the notes…

悲观 [bēiguān], pessismism, perspective of sadness, or glance on lamentation.

Sadness, 非心, opposite of the heart.

These gigantic towers invading the sight, illuminated by myriads of points of consciences.

观(觀) [guàn].

Flickers switched on and off. Blinking.

Eyes of Guanyin 观音, the careful watcher of the world’s lamentations.

观 [guàn] the tower of observation, as well, so visible in all the neighbourhoods.

She’s everywhere and looks at herself.

One small unimportant window, lost in these small enlightened windows allowing a perusal on segments of intimacies.

Hers included…

The words of the chorus drew Shannon out of her reverie…

春眠不觉晓 [chūn mián bù jué xiǎo]

The sad smile of her father at their parting. How much flowers have fallen tonight?

She feels a soft comforting presence which prevents her from being engulfed by sadness.

A one-way street?

She pushes the key.

– Appendix –

单行道 Danxing Dao, interpreted by Faye Wong. Lyrics by Lin Xi.

春眠不觉晓庸人偏自扰

走破单行道花落知多少

跑不掉

每个人都是单行道上的跳蚤

每个人皈依自己的宗教

每个人都在单行道上寻找

没有人相信其实不用找

一路上有人太早看透生命的线条命运的玄妙

有人太晚觉悟冥冥中该来则来无处可逃

一路上有人盼望缘份却不相信缘份的必要

一路上那青春小鸟掉下长不回的羽毛

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