by Jess Row
I’m not a workaholic. She tore off a plastic bag and began filling it with broccoli rabe, inspecting each stalk carefully for flowers. A workaholic likes it.
No, he said. A workaholic can’t stop.
She turned away from him, sorting through mounds of imported lettuce: American iceberg, Australian romaine, all neatly labeled and shrink-wrapped.
Can’t you ask them for more time off? Lewis asked. Just one Saturday? I mean, it’s the same company, isn’t it? You’re in a more senior position than you were in Boston, and now you don’t have any flexibility?
Do you know what happened to the Asian markets last week? she asked. Did you even read the papers?
That isn’t the issue. That’s never been the issue. You’d be working this hard regardless.
I don’t know how to explain it, she said. Her face darkened, and she stopped in the middle of the aisle, her shoulders drooping, as if the bags of vegetables were filled with stones. It’s different here. She looked as if she would cry at any moment. A young Chinese woman passing them stared at her, then twisted her head to look at him. We have to fight for everything, she said. Clients. Market share. Out here we’re not the Big Five. Accounts don’t just fall in our laps here the way they do at home. And anyway, the whole economy’s in a goddamned meltdown. Nobody wants to open up a new account right now.
He should have taken the bags from her hands, and dropped them in the cart; he should have embraced her and said, forget about shopping, let’s get a drink. Instead, he crossed his arms and waited for her to finish, feeling impatient, irritated at her for making a scene.
And you just don’t care, do you? she said. It’s not that you want to see me, is it? You’ve just given up trying, and now you want to go home. Well, it’s not that easy. You made a promise to me, and we never said that there wasn’t a risk. Hong Kong isn’t Boston. If you can’t adapt, well, I feel sorry for you.
There was a bitter taste in his mouth. I’m glad you feel sorry for me, he said. I’m glad you feel something. He turned around and walked toward the escalator, and though she called after him, Lewis, wait, I don’t know how to get home, he ignored her and kept going.
At first he thought he would head straight back to the apartment, but he turned right on Queen’s Road, blindly, and walked in the opposite direction, into a neighborhood he’d never visited before. It seemed to him that everyone he passed—the old man selling watches from a suitcase, the young fashionable women laden with shopping bags, even the boys throwing a volleyball back and forth—had red, puffy eyes, as if the whole city had been crying. He was walking too slowly; people veered around him, or bumped him with their elbows as they tried to get by.
It would be so easy to leave: to buy a ticket for Boston tomorrow, to rent a studio in Central Square, to make a few phone calls, get some small assignments, to start making a life for himself again. She wouldn’t fight the divorce; she would give him a fair settlement, probably more than he needed. A lawyer could finish the paperwork in a few weeks. And she would stay here, getting thinner, smoking more, biding her time until her bosses realized she wasn’t going to be driven away. Whatever inertia it was that gripped her now would swallow her whole. I can’t do it, he thought. I can’t abandon her. I can’t shock her out of it. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stared up at the buildings overhead, looking for a landmark to orient himself. If I were home, he thought bitterly, someone would stop and ask if I needed directions. They wouldn’t all stare at me and think, what are you doing here in the first place?
I have a question, he says to Hae Wol as they are walking through the market, searching for the lightbulb store. What about change?
Change? The monk furrows his eyebrows. Everything is always changing. What kind of change?
Changing yourself. Trying to do better. Not making mistakes.
Mistakes are your mirror, Hae Wol says. They reflect your mind. Don’t try to slip away from them.
Enough with the Zenspeak, Lewis says. Plain English, please.
The monk shrugs, and a look of annoyance crosses his face. You have to understand cause and effect, he says. Watch yourself. When you see the patterns in how you act, you’ll begin to understand your karma. Then you won’t have to be afraid of your feelings, because they won’t control you.
I’ve been watching myself, Lewis says. But I keep wondering: even if I understand completely, can’t I still make mistakes? How do I know that when I go back to Hong Kong things will be different?
It isn’t so much a question of conscious effort. You have to give up the idea that coming here is going to get you anything.
Lewis looks around him, at the meat vendors carving enormous slabs of beef, the shoe repairmen, the grandmothers carrying babies tied to their backs with blankets. His eyes are watering.
I keep hearing that, he says, and it just sounds like a recipe for standing still.
No one ever said it was easy, Hae Wol says sharply. It’s not like a vacation for losing weight. If you come here looking for some kind of quick fix for all your problems, you’re missing the point.
There’s something different about him, Lewis thinks. I’m asking too many questions. But it’s not just that; the monk is nervous, unfocused, even a little jumpy. Every few minutes he scratches the same spot behind his right ear, automatically.
I’ll tell you a story, Hae Wol says. Once there was a famous Zen master who visited a temple and asked to see the strongest students there. The abbot said, we’ve got one young monk who does nothing but sit Zen in his room all day. He doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep, and doesn’t work. So the Zen master went to see this student. What are you trying to do by sitting so much? he asked. I’m sitting to become Buddha, the student said. So the famous master picks up a brick and starts rubbing it with his walking stick. What are you doing to that brick? the student asks. I’m trying to turn it into a mirror, the master says. You fool, the student says, that brick will never turn into a mirror, no matter how hard you rub it. Yes, says the master, and neither will you ever become Buddha by sitting this way.
You lost me.
Think of a horse and cart. Your body, your actions—they’re the cart. Your mind is the horse. If you want to move, which one do you whip, the horse or the cart?
Lewis starts to laugh, shaking his head.
I don’t even know why I ask you these questions. You’re no use.
It’s not me, Hae Wol says. The questions are no use. Nothing I can tell you will ever make you satisfied, because all you really want to know is, will everything turn out all right?
So what should I do?
The monk stops and draws his fists together in front of his stomach, his hara, the center of energy. Tell yourself, don’t know, he says to Lewis. Say it to yourself, over and over. Don’t know. Don’t know. Don’t speculate. Don’t make plans. Just accept it: I don’t know.
Lewis lets out a long sigh.
So we’re back at the beginning.
No, Hae Wol says, giving him a playful, twisting smile. Not yet. When you’re back at the beginning, then you’ll really be getting somewhere.
That night he has a dream:
They are in Melinda’s apartment in Somerville, the one she had when they met, when she was in the second year of Harvard Business School. The dream begins at their third date, just as it really happened. Late spring, twilight, the sun’s last rays streaming through her bedroom window. He is sitting on the bed, and she is standing; they are having an intense conversation about some painter she admired in college, and in the middle of it she begins unbuttoning her shirt, still talking, dropping it to the floor, unhooking her bra, unzipping her jeans. He forces himself to maintain eye contact, because he understands, somehow, that that is what is required; but when he blinks he glimpses the rest of her. The light makes her skin glow like liquid gold. Every movement, every gesture, is like some beautiful kind of dance he’s never seen before; he wishes he could see it again, from the beginning; he wants to say, stop
there, start over. He thinks he is having a religious experience. He thinks, I have just become a photographer.
Good for you, she says, still standing there. You just passed the first test.
What test? he asks, trying to look incredulous.
You’d be surprised how few men can hold a conversation with a naked woman.
Stay still, he tells her. Stop moving. Her face blurs; her body vibrates in the air. What’s happening to you?
There’s this problem with you, Lewis, she says, her voice hollow, echoing, as if they’re on opposite ends of a much larger room. You trust me too much. You believe in surfaces. Think about it this way: You could be making the biggest mistake of your life this instant and you would never know.
But that’s what love is, isn’t it? he says. You have to take that risk, don’t you?
Not me, she says. That’s the difference between us, Lewis. I’ve read your papers.
What papers, he says. What are you talking about?
A bell is ringing somewhere in the distance, heavy shoes pounding on the stairs. The monk sleeping next to him reaches up and flips the light switch, and he covers his eyes, shuddering.
The morning is cold and overcast, the mountain hidden by low-hanging clouds. In the meditation hall he sleeps, his head fallen to his chest. A monk wakes him with a jab between the shoulder blades, and he struggles to his feet, barely able to stand.
Hae Wol passes him a note scribbled on the back of an envelope. Demons are everywhere, it says. Don’t follow them. You’re not the only one.
So I ask you again, the teacher says. What is love?
Today it is cloudy.
The teacher watches him for a moment, lips pressed together, and shakes his head.
Not enough? Lewis asks.
Not enough.
Lewis passes a hand over his eyes.
Love is just coming and going. Like a bad dream.
The teacher picks up his stick and taps him on the shoulder.
I give you thirty blows, he says. You understand emptiness. But emptiness is only half the story.
It’s the most incredible thing, Lewis says. I don’t feel my legs anymore. No more pain.
You’ll want it back, the teacher says. He balances his stick on the ground and leans forward, resting his chin on his hands. Don’t linger in hell, he says. Wake up!
In the fall of their second year, with nothing else to do, he decided to write a book proposal, and began reprinting every picture he’d taken in the last six years: taking out hundreds of his best negatives and recasting them with every possible shade and filter. The third bedroom was webbed with drying lines, and the whole apartment reeked of developing fluid. He spent thousands of dollars on paper and chemicals, bought a new computer for digital editing, and still all the new work fell short somehow. In his sleep he twitched and groaned, and Melinda made him move to the couch; then he began working later and later at night, and sleeping in the afternoon. One night, in a fit of rage he kicked the side of his desk, putting his foot through the particle board, and smashed his favorite lens, a 75mm, three-thousand-dollar Leica telephoto. He collapsed into a corner, weeping like a child, and then fell asleep there, in the dim red glow, his head between his knees. Melinda woke him in the afternoon of the next day and pulled him out into the living room, where he sat on a chair with a blanket wrapped around him, trembling.
You need to leave, she said. Sitting in their narrow window seat, her arms wrapped around her chest, as if for warmth, she looked haggard and frail, as if she’d aged thirty years. Go back to Boston if you have to. Or go on one of those retreats you told me about. Two months, absolute minimum. After that we can try again.
Hong Kong isn’t the problem anymore, he said. I’m the problem. I’m useless, can’t you see that? Sending me away won’t help.
She leaned back against the window glass, resting her weight against it, as if daring it to break. Her eyes were horribly bloodshot, like blood in milk, he thought, for no good reason. I don’t know what to do with you, she said. You’ve got one more chance, Lewis. Do whatever you have to. This paralysis—whatever you want to call it—it’s temporary, can’t you see that?
I can’t, he said calmly, scratching his three-day beard. That’s why I’m finished. I can’t see.
Days pass. He sits quietly, following the course of shadows across the floor. At night he tumbles exhausted onto his bedroll and sleeps without dreams. At meals he eats what is given and takes nothing extra, hardly noticing the burning taste of kimchi, the piquant sourness of preserved spinach. He cleans his bowls with tea and drinks the dirty remains without hesitation.
On a certain bright, cloudless day, the warmest yet, the monk who sleeps next to him gives him a note. Bathe.
The men’s washroom consists of a short hallway, where clothes are left on hooks; a room with spigots protruding from the wall at waist level, low plastic stools and small mirrors, for washing and shaving; and beyond that, closed off by a door, a room with a huge bathtub that stands empty. A sign in Korean and English says, Conserving water, no use. It is the middle of the day, and no one else is there. Removing his robes, Lewis winces at the cold, then reaches for the nearest faucet and turns it to hot.
A strange sensation, looking at his nakedness for the first time in weeks. His legs are skinnier than before, his ribs showing slightly. When the water touches his shoulders and face, tears spring to his eyes, and he remembers Melinda showering him in their tiny bathtub, pouring body wash over his head, to his protests, working his shoulders with her loofah sponge. His muscles feel rubbery; he nearly slips from the plastic stool.
A few minutes later, when he turns off the water, he hears someone breathing hard, and close by. A plastic bag rustles. No one has come in, and the door to the outside is closed. He rises from his stool.
Hello?
He stands and opens the door to the cloakroom. Hae Wol looks over his shoulder and starts, dropping a white plastic bottle. Little orange tablets scatter everywhere across the tile floor.
Hey, Lewis says, Joseph—Sunim—I didn’t hear you. He moves forward and stoops, suddenly conscious of his nakedness, gathering the pills and dropping them into his palm. What are these, anyway?
Shhh. Hae Wol squats next to him and begins scooping up the pills, pulling the cotton wadding out of the bottle and dropping it on the floor in his haste. Don’t say anything about this, he says, in a high, cracking whisper, his eyes locked on the floor. I ask you as a friend, OK? You never saw me here.
All right, Lewis whispers.
After Hae Wol has left, he stands there for a moment, shivering in the blast of cold air from the corridor. Then he pulls on his robes, hardly bothering to dry himself, and leaves, keeping his eyes focused on the floor.
The next Monday they do not speak until they are almost finished loading the van.
Tell me what you’re thinking, Hae Wol says finally. Are you angry? Are you shocked?
Shocked? He smiles; he’s forgotten how conservative Joseph has always been, even a little naïve, by American standards. I’m surprised, he says. I take it those pills weren’t exactly given to you by prescription.
Percocet, Hae Wol says. Painkillers. There’s a laywoman who gets them for me. Her husband is a doctor. I went to him when I sprained my ankle last fall, and then I couldn’t stop taking them. I just tell her, I’m still having the pain. Because I’m a monk, he won’t say anything.
That isn’t your fault, Lewis says. You need to get treatment, that’s all.
Hae Wol shakes his head. No, he says. The fourth precept says no drinking, no intoxicants. It doesn’t say except when you really need it. A vow is only a vow if you keep it one hundred percent of the time. Not ninety-nine percent.
Lewis swallows hard. Like marriage, he says. And yet, here we are.
Hae Wol squints at him with a half-smile, as if it’s a joke he doesn’t quite understand; then he looks away and nods, and stoops down to lift another bag of rice. You’re right, he sa
ys, with a sharp, surprised laugh. Whip the horse, don’t whip the cart, right?
So the question is, Lewis says, folding his arms to keep them from trembling, what will you do now, Sunim?
What do you think I should do?
Oh, no, Lewis says. Don’t ask me that. Who am I to give you advice?
The monk sits down heavily on the bumper, holding out his hands to steady himself. His face is soft and slack, like a piece of rotting fruit. Who else is there, his body seems to say. And Lewis thinks, what am I worth, after all, as a human being, if I can’t do something for him right now?
Give the pills to me, he hears himself saying.
Hae Wol looks up, raising his eyebrows. Now? he says. I don’t have them. They’re in my room.
You’re lying, Lewis says fiercely, his tongue scraping the dry roof of his mouth. He holds out his hand. You want my help? he says. This is the help you get. Give them to me now.
Guilt flashes across the monk’s face, and he reaches into his pocket. Lewis reaches over and places his hand on the bottle; Hae Wol’s fingers tighten, and finally he has to pry it away. Quickly he unscrews the lid, spills the pills onto the gravel, and steps on them, grinding them into the stones.
I can always get more, Hae Wol says unhappily. That doesn’t change anything.
Listen, Lewis says. Can you get into the monastery office? Can you send a letter?
Hae Wol shrugs, and nods reluctantly.
I want you to send a letter to Melinda for me, Lewis says. Will you do that? And then you tell that woman that the pain has gone away and you don’t need any more pills.
I can’t do that. The monk scratches slowly behind his ear, staring at the orange-stained pebbles around his feet. I don’t have the strength, he says tonelessly. It isn’t going to work.
Do it anyway, Lewis says. Remember what you told me? Don’t know. Just do it that way.
Hae Wol begins to laugh, his shoulders trembling. You Americans, he says, you take everything so literally. You’re really going to force me to go through with this, aren’t you?
