The Train to Lo Wu - Jess Row [22]
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