The Red Thread by Nicholas Jose

Author:Nicholas Jose [Jose Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2000-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

4.

THE WHEEL OF EXISTENCE

They dismantled the antique bed and left it in the attic with some other furniture, planning to deal with it later. Then they packed up Shen’s other things, carrying the most precious ones with them, stuffing the porcelain pieces in Ruth’s backpack. Shen noticed that his yellow bowl was missing. His suspicion fell on Han but he didn’t say anything. At this stage he did not want any more trouble.

In that whirlwind period Shen neglected his reading of Six Chapters. He carried the book with him at all times, but he preferred to wait and read it in a leisurely fashion, taking time to decipher its obscure references and oblique hints. Ruth was impatient. She urgently wanted to know what happened next. She was uncomfortable about letting the story go in midstream. Han, on the other hand, was quite indifferent to the book and her friends’ interest in it. She was even a little resentful. Shen said she was intimidated by knowledge, even as she hungered for it. She replied that the book was nothing but a smelly old thing from a dead world. Why should she care about those people? They had not made a success of their lives, as far as she could see.

Together they made the journey to the island of Mount Putuo to pay homage to Guanyin, the Goddess of Compassion, at her legendary birthplace. In the temple dormitory during that trip Ruth started to embroider the Chinese text of the Heart Sutra on a piece of cloth. When Han lit a bunch of incense sticks to hold up before the altar and ask for blessing, the flame flickered so violently in a gust of wind, in the very moment before it burned out, that Ruth took it as an omen and was overwhelmed with desolation.

To ward off any evil consequences Han and Ruth decided to climb the thousand stone steps to the island’s peak, prostrating on their knees to Guanyin every second step. They stopped two-thirds of the way at a teahouse to view the silver sea and watch squirrels scampering among the pines. Shen went up to the top of the stairs by the road and met them there. He teased them about their exhausting and incomplete devotions.

Shen was happy traveling in the company of the two women. Wherever they went, they shared one room if they could. Ruth said it would be too lonely for one of them otherwise. They took delight in each other, in the things of the world around them, and in the free, unformed life they found themselves leading, as if their individual existences were merely separate harmonies in a piece of music that was being improvised along the way. They pushed out of their minds the problems and responsibilities they had left behind. It was very easy to do so, as long as they still had a few pieces to sell.

At last they returned by boat to the little canal town of Tianzhou and took up residence in Mrs.

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