The mountain was so immense, I could not see its top where the thick fog floated. Some steep, narrow stairs, covered with green moss, wound around the mountain and vanished behind towering junipers. And there, high on a cliff, perched a small building: the Buddhist monastery.
I climbed the stairs, imagining my reunion with Mother. We would embrace, we would laugh, we would cry, but most of all, we would be ourselves—a daughter and a mother. I thought of her tenderness and wisdom, and my limbs became alive with energy, and my heart pumped with happiness. Oh, how I missed her. Mother! My tree. My mountain. I should never part with her again.
I reached the monastery. It looked worse than it had in the distance. It had mud walls, a thatched roof, and the front door was a thin, wooden board where many termites crawled.
A nun with her hair wrapped in a skintight cap answered the door when I knocked. She was the abbess, she said, and she gestured to the back of the building when I told her I was there for Lady Yang, Mother’s maiden name. I passed the small courtyard and reached the kitchen door. There, I composed myself and then pushed it open.
Facing me was a small dining table, but no stools. Near it, a sliver of sparkling sunlight lit up a neat trail of dust on the dirt floor. In the corner, water bubbled in a pot. Its sonorous simmering almost soothed my nerves. Almost. Stooping under the low doorway, I held the door frame, my heart racing faster than when I had climbed the steep stairs.
I did not see Mother.
“May I be of service?” a voice asked near the cooking pit. A Buddhist nun put down a handful of dried mushrooms and walked to me.
“I’m looking for my mother. The abbess told me she was in the kitchen,” I replied, disappointed.
“We are all Buddha’s children,” the nun said.
Out of courtesy, I nodded, although I was in no mood for the religious talk. Behind the kitchen, someone dropped a bucket into a well. Perhaps Mother was fetching water. She must have worked as a kitchen helper while she sought refuge in the temple. Hardly containing my excitement, I bowed to take my leave.
“You’ve grown up to be a true gem, a woman with astounding beauty and grace,” the nun said. “Your father would be so proud.”
My head hit the door frame. “Mother?”
She looked shorter, and her long hair, into which I had often buried my face, was gone. Her face, which had refused to shed the tears of a hard life, looked leathery and bore marks of the sun and the wind. She looked so different from the graceful noblewoman I had remembered, but she was indeed my mother.
I threw my arms around her. I had been lost, and now I was home.
“It has been so long.” Mother patted my back. “Five years, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” I nodded. So many things I yearned to ask her. Why had Qing banished her? How had she come to the temple? Had she heard anything from Big Sister? “I was so worried about you, Mother. What are you doing here? Why are you dressed like this?”
“I have found profound comfort and solace in following the path of Buddha. Five years of solitude draws me closer to nature and far from the human world. I did not expect to see you again.”
“I didn’t think I’d see you again either, Mother.” I touched her cheek. “You’ve lost weight.”
“And you have grown.”
“I know.” I gazed at her, preparing for her next question. She would ask me about how I was doing at the palace. “Everything is fine,” I would say. But she did not ask. Instead, she went to a small niche above the stove where families prayed to their ancestors. Her hands pressed together, she closed her eyes and murmured.
I stared at the small figurine sitting in the niche. Tears blurred my vision. Mother had not forgotten Father; she kept his altar in the temple’s kitchen.
“I must confess something to you, Mother.” I went behind her.
She would be disappointed, but she had to know: I would not become the empress.
“To him, the true warrior for all souls.” Mother pointed at the white figurine in the niche.
It was not Father, but rather a monk, sitting underneath a tree with leaves shaped like palms. “When he returns, he’ll bring salvation and spread the true messages of Buddha. He shall deliver us all.”
The pious tone of her voice stunned me. Mother had become a devout Buddhist nun. I bit my lip.
“Buddha returns?”
“No,” Mother said. “The great monk. The warrior who broke the Tang’s law to embark on a pilgrimage to India, the birthplace of Buddha. His only companion being a horse, he will return and bring us the true words of enlightenment and nirvana. I pray for that day to come.”
I squeezed out a smile to please her. But in my heart, I wanted her to love me, not an unknown monk. “Don’t you want to know how my life is in the court, Mother?”
“You don’t remember him, do you?” she said, as if not hearing me, and her fingers busily pushed the wooden beads of her rosary. “You’ve met him. Tripitaka.”
I remembered the name. “Yes.”