White Tiger on Snow Mountain

by David Gordon

  “Please,” she said. “Help him.”

  “What should I do?”

  “He shirt.”

  While she readied the shot, I struggled with his pajama buttons, firing one into the wall. Finally, I got his top open, and there it was, tattooed on his sad, emaciated wreck of a chest, crossed with the lumpy scar of a lung repair: a dragon wrapped around a yin-yang symbol, with glinting, narrow eyes. I was so busy gaping, I got caught off guard when Liu Ping lurched forward and grabbed my sleeve, yanking me toward him with surprising strength. I panicked and began to wrestle with the poor old man, as if he were trying to pull me down with him into the grave. He clutched at my shirt, and I realized he wanted my pen, a felt-tip marker clipped in the pocket. I watched in fascination while he grabbed it and, with desperate haste, scratched something onto the back of my hand, tracing the figure until the paramedics pushed me aside.

  I waited in the kitchenette while the medics and the Spanish lady worked, but it was no use. I went downstairs and called Nina. She didn’t pick up, so I left a message on her voice mail. I thought about Durel getting the news the same way or maybe showing up for work tomorrow. I hoped my name didn’t come up. Then I walked down Broadway, cradling my marked hand, and found a Kinko’s. I xeroxed it, adjusting the contrast until it was clear.

  Then I went home.

  Over the next couple of weeks, I called Nina several more times, and just when I figured out that she was avoiding me, I got a message. She was in Miami with her producer, recording an album. She’d be back in a month or maybe two.

  Meanwhile, my own life, such as it was, demanded my attention, and I went back to my routine, running, reading, sitting in the coffee shop and staring out at space. But I did continue to visit Chinatown, to frequent the restaurants we’d found, and, in particular, to shop at the video store, where one day I purchased a DVD of a 1987 film called Rouge. Now, I generally prefer action movies to love stories, but this film starred two of my favorites, Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui. A star since childhood, and said to be the longtime lover of Jackie Chan, Anita Mui recorded forty albums and acted in dozens of films, several with her dear friend Leslie Cheung. Cheung starred in John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow I and II as well as the early Wong Karwai films—an action hero, pop music heartthrob, and perhaps the first openly gay movie star of his magnitude.

  Anyway, I took it home and watched it. The story was identical to Nina’s in almost every respect, but set in 1930s Hong Kong rather than Taipei and New York: Anita Mui plays a woefully beautiful courtesan who falls in love with equally beautiful and charming rich boy Cheung. His parents interfere. She kills herself; he does not. In the 1980s, she returns as a spirit and enlists the help of a couple, two reporters, in tracking down her supposedly reincarnated love. They find that he is still alive, of course, a broken man, addicted to opium and working as an extra at a film studio. I recall one image in particular: At the studio, when the still young and beautiful but dead Anita confronts the living but decrepit and soulless Leslie, in the background an actor, who is playing a supernatural hero in the film they are making, is swung back and forth on a cable from a crane, waving a sword at nothing, again and again.

  The film has no villains. The modern couple is simply too busy, too self-involved for that kind of melodramatic romance, in which the highest glory a woman can aspire to is victimhood. Cheung’s parents only want what’s best for him and offer to make Mui a concubine, almost respectable in their day. And Cheung himself does genuinely love her, but is simply too weak to resist his parents and too cowardly to die. To be honest, despite Nina’s outrage, I cannot think of Liu Ping as so evil after all. Who dies of love? Only Mui’s character has the courage and the purity of heart. Her name in the movie is Fleur, and indeed that’s how she falls, like a blossom overfilled with rain.

  The film Rouge is made even more haunting by the real-life fates of its stars: On April 1, 2003, Leslie Cheung jumped from the twenty-fourth floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hong Kong. Reporters speculated that he saw his career peaking or that he had quarreled with his boyfriend, but the note he pinned to his body spoke of a long depression; thanked his friends, family, and his lover; and said, “In my life I’ve done nothing bad. Why does it have to be like this?”

  The same year, Anita Mui died of cancer. She had struggled secretly for years, and when she retired from the stage, her series of farewell concerts went on for twenty-eight nights. She was working on the movie House of Flying Daggers, playing the rebel leader, when illness forced her to stop. Out of respect, the director, Zhang Yimou, removed her character from the story rather than replace Anita Mui. He dedicated the film to her. At the end of my DVD of Rouge, there is a message from the filmmaker, Stanley Kwan: “When Anita passed away, I finally learned the sadness in the saying ‘the end of an era.’ ”

  I’ve come up with a few possible explanations for this whole strange affair. If none are totally satisfying, at least they all share the virtue of being completely nonsupernatural. First, Nina simply saw the movie and then fabricated the entire thing. Maybe there never even was a channeler. Why she would go to such lengths, I can’t say. To win me back? That seems unlikely.

  Then again, the similarity to the film could well be coincidental. Chinese culture, high and low, is steeped in tragic love stories, which frequently end in suicides, double, multiple, whatever. The next, hardly shocking possibility is that the channeler was a con artist who squeezed Nina for more money than I knew and manipulated the details of her life. Perhaps she even knew of the real Liu Ping and his lost love. That may be pushing it, but I’ve certainly heard of other bogus psychics having a ready-made stock of glamorous spirits on hand. No one wants to know that in her last life she was a squirrel, or a bus driver who choked quietly at home on a cookie. Tragic courtesan who dies for love. This is very much the idealized image Nina carried of herself, and one talent psychics do have, like good shrinks and good lovers, is sensing what we long to hear.

  As for Liu Ping and his matching tattoo, I now wonder what I saw, exactly. The man’s chest was a quilt of scars, and the dragon is a common motif. Nor is he really the only Liu Ping. In Chinese they list the family name first. I forgot this and just looked under P. But if I look under the Americanized version of Ping Liu, there are more than two dozen in Manhattan alone. One thing is for sure: We did scare the hell out of him. I carried the copy of that scribble around in my wallet for months until I met someone who spoke Mandarin. What Liu Ping wrote on my hand, as if to warn me about the figure he saw standing beside me over his deathbed, as if he knew she had also been my lover, was “ghost.” Then again, I read in a book somewhere that in the olden days, the Chinese called all white people ghosts.

  I wrote Nina an email about the movie, simply suggesting that she see it. She didn’t respond. But a few months later, she came into the Hungarian with that record producer. It was autumn, and she was still wearing my sweatshirt. I put a smile on my face and started to stand, but she didn’t see me, or pretended not to, and they chose a table in front, far from my usual corner. She sat cross-legged and ate whipped cream and laughed at whatever he said. I understood. I didn’t blow her play. I kept my face hidden in the paper till they left.

  I haven’t seen her since, but once in a while she visits me in my dreams, as do Su Li-Zhen and Liu Ping. They’ve joined that host of spirits who cloud the sparkling edge of my sight. You were right about that much, Nina: I see ghosts all the time.

  I, Gentile

  “Are you a Jew?”

  A shudder ran through me. I’d been asked this question before, back in New York, by men like this: Ultra-Orthodox or Hasidic, bearded, confrontational, in dark suits and kippahs or fedoras, they accosted me like figures out of the past, returning from nineteenth-century Russia to nag me. I knew what they wanted. They wanted me to be like them, to pray with them, sometimes in the vans they called Mitzvah Mobiles and once, ominously, in the black box of a U-Haul truck. They wanted me to go to synagogue, to
become kosher, to daven every morning, to refrain from tearing toilet paper on Friday night, because every wayward, secular Jew they rescued, every lost soul they pulled in, back into Biblical time, brought the Messiah’s arrival closer.

  My first reaction when I heard him was fear. Maybe it’s genetic, five thousand years of conditioning, but when anyone, even an old rabbi, yells “Jewish man! Jewish man!” at me on the street, my instinct is to take off running. Instead, I just shook my head and scurried by. Or if it happened a lot, like when I had that temp job on Wall Street, I’d get annoyed and cocky and say things like, “Not today I’m not,” or once, staring down a guy younger than me, dressed in a velvet hat and sidelocks: “Yeah, I’m Jewish. Why? You got a problem with Jews?”

  But this was LA, and though I was living in the Fairfax District, a hot spot for old Jews, they were more familiar, modern old Jews, sun-worshipping Jews with leathery tans and bright warm-up suits, piloting huge old Caddies or standing on line with me at Canter’s Deli, buying cheesecake. In this overbright, ahistorical world, it felt especially bizarre, almost dreamlike, walking in flip-flops to the Chevron gas station for a late lunch, to be waylaid by a tiny old rebbe and asked in a high, fairy-tale voice, “Are you Jewish?”

  For one thing, nobody ever walked but me. Nothing moved on the street but cars and the occasional cat. And no one wore long black coats and hats. And no one sounded like this. Or if they did, I didn’t know it, because unlike in New York, no random stranger ever, ever spoke to me here. So the sudden appearance of this little fellow, with his twinkly brown eyes, his crinkled brown rumple of a face, like a supermarket bag balled up and then allowed to half unfold on its own, his white Santa beard and black hat, his hand tugging at my sleeve, actually touching me, well, it was like meeting a leprechaun or an elf or one of those other happy but mischievous creatures that materialized before wanderers along the path. I decided to play it safe: “No, I’m not Jewish,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he trilled, in a lilting accent from beyond the Pale. “It’s not so great, believe me.”

  I smiled and turned to go. But he didn’t let go of my sleeve. I saw that his hand was actually very fine, soft and white as a girl’s.

  “I wonder, friend,” he sang, “could you do me a little favor?”

  “What is it?” I smiled warily. How did this go wrong?

  “Do you know what means a Shabbos goy?”

  I did, but I didn’t think that as a Gentile I should. “Not really,” I said, then added cleverly, “I think I know what a goy is.”

  “So. On Shabbos, which is the Sabbath, a Jew cannot do many things. He cannot drive or handle money or use machinery. Like for instance switch on the lights or the air-conditioning, or even the oven.”

  I was going to ask, why not, but just nodded. What answer could he give that would make it any clearer? God said so.

  “So,” he continued, “for these things we have a friend, a Gentile friend, who is kind enough to help us a little. But today my friend disappears. Unfortunately, he’s a bit of a drinker.”

  “You want me to turn on your lights?”

  “No, no. We cannot ask someone else to do what we would not. But maybe if you came to shul, just to visit, and you saw it was getting dark, you might turn them on for yourself. Of course, to such a friend we also like to be nice. If he stops to visit Friday night and again Saturday morning, then later in the week we make him a present. Say fifty dollars?”

  “What time Saturday morning?”

  “Eight.”

  “I don’t know. The thing is I’m usually busy on Saturdays.”

  “Seventy-five. Plus you are doing a mitzvah.” He fixed me a gentle smile. His soft eyes seemed ready to melt, but the pinch on my sleeve tightened, suggesting I had little choice. And I was broke.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll help. This is cash, right? I have a tax thing happening.”

  “Of course.” He pressed my hand happily between his cool, plump palms. “I knew when I saw you that you were a good boy.”

  I was actually a bit reluctant to go with him, despite the money. I’d been planning to stop by Olga’s Beauty Saloon for a shampoo. That’s how the sign was spelled, and I wasn’t going to risk upsetting Olga by being pedantic. You see, my hair is a big mess, and I just trim it myself, since it’s free and what’s the difference, but for five bucks and a two-dollar tip, Olga or one of her girls would wash it, and I’d gotten into the habit of treating myself on Fridays. I told Olga it was because my place only had a tub. Actually, I only had a shower, but when I found myself feeling sad and a little vulnerable, it was nice to have a big, soft Russian lady soothe my aching head with warm water. Sometimes they’d hum a little tune while they worked in the suds. What can I say? This was my life then. I was between jobs, and trying to stay in between since I couldn’t stand working anyplace anymore. Really. By the end, just looking in the mirror when I shaved for work in the morning made me want to cry. Mercifully, I got laid off from my phone-sales job. With my unemployment money, and the cash I made tutoring Armenian high schoolers and Korean college students, I got by and tried to do some thinking.

  Sure, I ached. I was lonely. But I’d made my bed and I was going to lie in it, all day if necessary. Mostly I read. I had an old Norton anthology of English poetry and a warped stack of moldy philosophy books left by the previous tenant, an angry graduate student. I guess there’d been a flood. The wall where the books were piled was all stained. I read Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Kant, the pages decorated with delicate flowerings of mildew and the margins scrawled with his thick pencil: “Bullshit,” it said, or “Wrong,” or just “No!” When my airless box got too hot, I went out on my front steps to smoke and talk to Merv, the manager, who lived next door. Our complex, or whatever you want to call it, was a village of miniature bungalows, studios like mine and one-bedrooms, camped around a cluster of dying palms and a dirt lawn where Merv would crunch and thrust and try to talk me into lifting weights.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll spot you,” he’d say. “You’ll be ripped in no time.”

  I’d laugh it off. No kidding, ripped! Merv’s crew cut and brush-stache were almost white, but his tattooed arms were the size of my legs, and what I pictured ripping if I lifted a weight was a testicle at least, or maybe a whole arm off at the socket. His nipples were pierced, and when I first moved in he scared me, but he let me slide on the rent, and if I didn’t go over for Christmas and Thanksgiving, he’d come and pound on my door.

  The shul turned out to be just a few blocks from my place. It wasn’t what I expected. The building was plain stucco with arched doors and a few small Spanish windows. There was a tiny lawn and tinier parking lot divided into too-narrow spots. It lacked the haunted, chilly feeling I associated with holy places. In fact, I realized as I waited for the rabbi to unlock the door, I’d passed it before. It had been a Sikh yoga place then. I followed the rabbi around as he turned on the lights and air-conditioning so that when I did it later I could act like it was my idea. Apparently the deal they’d signed with God, all those centuries ago, was so harsh that the only way to get by was outwitting the boss.

  I promised to be back at ten and then rushed to Olga’s, but she was closed. That’s what I got for doing a good deed. Still missing lunch, I swung by the Chevron for a snack. I’d poured my coffee and was waiting by the microwave for my breakfast burrito (they’re good anytime) when she touched my elbow. The X.

  “Larry, my God, it’s really you.”

  “Hey, Claire. How are you?”

  She opened her arms and we hugged, stiffly, in that awkward ex-fiancé way, me holding my coffee out to avoid splashing her white T-shirt and white jeans. Her sunglasses sparkled at me, and the fluorescent light purpled her dark hair.

  “I’m good. What a coincidence. I just popped in to get some gas and some juice for the kids.”

  “Kids? Plural?”

  “Yeah, Jonah and Jack, they’re twins.” She tapped a nail on the win
dow. I saw a black Mercedes with a strong-jawed male at the wheel. I assumed the twins were in the back, like little celebrities behind the tinted glass. “What about you?”

  “Me? Triplets.”

  “Ha-ha,” she said. “I meant like, girlfriend, job?”

  “I’m kind of doing this freelance work now. For a rabbi.”

  “A rabbi?” She brightened. “That’s amazing. We’re Buddhists, but I was thinking about taking a Kabbalah class.”

  The microwave dinged. I opened the door, and she considered the ham and cheese melting from my burrito. “He’s Orthodox,” I said. “But I’m Reformed.”

  “Anyway,” she said, shifting nervously, “I’ve been wanting to call you. I want to say how bad I feel, you know. About the way things turned out with us.”

  “That’s OK,” I said. What else could I say? I took a bite of burrito to hide my sorrow. “Everything turned out for the best.”

  “That’s so true,” she said. “It really did. You know, I went into therapy. You should try it.”

  I remembered once suggesting therapy and getting a plate thrown at my head. But I let it go. “Well, you seem great,” I said and pretended to look at my watch. It said 11:20. I kept forgetting to get the battery changed. “I should go. Gotta get to temple.” I opened the door for her.

  “Larry, I want you to know”—she squeezed my wrist and let go—“you’re a great guy. And I’m so happy that you’re getting in touch with your spirituality.”

  “Thanks.” I followed her into the heat. She hustled over to the Mercedes and climbed in, talking to the rugged, sandy-haired driver. He waved and gave me a gracious winner’s smile. I toasted him with my cup. I had to admit, he did look like husband material. Joyful participation in the sufferings of the world. That was what Buddhists like Claire and Sandy believed in. I looked at my reflection in the glass door and saw through my transparent skin to the brightly colored products inside. A strand of melted cheese clung to my lip. Had I known true suffering and true joy? Maybe not enough or not at the same time. I finished the burrito and flip-flopped back to my lotus pad. I took a shower and washed my hair, but it just wasn’t the same.