Amy Tan - The Bonesetter's Daughter

Art was sitting in the bar at Bruno's, a retro expanse of fifties glamour. "You're looking happy," he said.

"Am I?" She was instantly embarrassed. Lately, Wendy, Gideon, and others had been telling her what she appeared to be feeling, that she seemed bothered or upset, puzzled or surprised. And each time, Ruth had been unaware of any feelings in particular. Obviously she was showing something on her face. Yet how could she not know what she was feeling?

The maître d' seated them in a booth that had recently been redone in clubby leather. Everything in the restaurant had managed to stay as though nothing had changed for fifty years, except the prices and the in clusion of uni and octopus appetizers. As they looked over the menu, the waiter came with a bottle of champagne.

"I ordered it," Art whispered, "for our anniversary… Don't you remember? Nude yoga? Your gay buddy? We met ten years ago."

Ruth laughed. She had not remembered. As the waiter poured, she whispered back, "I thought you had nice feet for a pervert."

When they were alone, Art lifted his flute. "Here's to ten years, most of it amazing, with a few questionable parts, and the hope that we'll get back to where we should be." He pressed his hand on her thigh and said, "We should try it some time."

"What?"

"Nude yoga."

A rush of warmth flooded her. The months of living with her mother had left her feeling like a virgin.

"Hey, baby, want to come back to my place afterward?"

She was thrilled at the prospect.

The waiter stood before them again, ready to take orders. "The lady and I would like to begin with oysters," Art said. "This is our first date, so we '11 need the ones that have the best aphrodisiac effects. Which do you recommend?"

"That would be the Kumamotos," the waiter said without a change of expression.

That night, they did not make love right away. They lay in bed, Art cuddling her, the bedroom window open so they could listen to the foghorns. "In all these years we've been together," he said, "I don't think I know an important part of you. You keep secrets inside you. You hide. It's as though I've never seen you naked, and I've had to imagine what you look like behind the drapes."

"I'm not consciously hiding anything." After Ruth said that, she wondered whether it was true. Then again, who revealed everything-the irritations, the fears? How tiresome that would be. What did he mean by secrets?

"I want us to be more intimate. I want to know what you want. Not just with us, but from life. What makes you happiest? Are you doing what you want to do?"

She laughed nervously. "That's what I edit for others, that intimate-soul stuff. I can describe how to find happiness in ten chapters, but I still don't know what it is."

"Why do you keep pushing me away?"

Ruth bristled. She didn't like it when Art acted as if he knew her better than she knew herself. She felt him shaking her arm.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I don't want to make you tense. I'm just trying to get to know you. When I told the waiter this was our first date, I meant it, in a way. I want to pretend I've just met you, love at first sight, and I want to know who you are. I love you, Ruth, but I don't know you. And I want to know who this person is, this woman I love. That's all."

Ruth sank against his chest. "I don't know, I don't know," she said softly. "Sometimes I feel like I'm a pair of eyes and ears, and I'm just trying to stay safe and make sense of what's happening. I know what to avoid, what to worry about. I'm like those kids who live with gunfire going off around them. I don't want pain. I don't want to die. I don't want to see other people around me die. But I don't have anything left inside me to figure out where I fit in or what I want. If I want anything, it's to know what's possible to want."

In the first gallery of the Asian Art Museum, Ruth saw Mr. Tang kiss her mother's cheek. LuLing laughed like a shy schoolgirl, and then, hand in hand, they strolled into the next gallery.

Art nudged Ruth and crooked his arm. "Come on, I'm not about to be outdone by those guys." They caught up with LuLing and her companion, who were seated on a bench in front of a display of bronze bells hung in two rows on a gargantuan frame, about twelve feet high and twenty-five feet long.

"It's like a xylophone for the gods," Ruth whispered, taking a seat beside Mr. Tang.

"Each bell makes two distinct tones." Mr. Tang's voice was gentle yet authoritative. "The hammer hits the bell on the bottom and the right side. And when there are many musicians and the bells are struck together, the music is very complex, it creates tonal layers. I had the pleasure of hearing them played recently by Chinese musicians at a special event." He smiled in recalling this. "In my mind, I was transported back three thousand years. I heard what a person of that time heard, experiencing the same awe. I could imagine this person listening, a woman, I think, a very beautiful woman." He squeezed LuLing's hand. "And I thought to myself, in another three thousand years, perhaps another woman will hear these tones and think of me as a handsome man. Though we don't know each other, we're connected by the music. Don't you agree?" He looked at LuLing.

"Buddha-ful," she answered.

"Your mother and I think alike," he said to Ruth. She grinned back. She realized that Mr. Tang translated for LuLing, as she once had. But he knew not to be concerned with words and their precise meanings. He simply translated what was in LuLing's heart: her better intentions, her hopes.

For the past month, LuLing had been living at Mira Mar Manor, and Mr. Tang went several times a week to visit. On Saturday afternoons, he took her on outings-to matinees, to free public rehearsals of the symphony, for strolls through the arboretum. Today it was an exhibit on Chinese archaeology, and he had invited Ruth and Art to join them. "I have something interesting to show you," he had said mysteriously over the phone, "very much worth your while."

It was already worth Ruth's while to see her mother so happy. Happy. Ruth pondered the word. Until recently, she had not known what that might encompass in LuLing's case. True, her mother was still full of complaints. The food at the Mira Mar was, as predicted, "too salty," the restaurant-style service was "so slow, food already cold when come." And she hated the leather recliner Ruth had bought her. Ruth had to replace it with the old vinyl La-Z-Boy. But LuLing had let go of most worries and irritations: the tenant downstairs, the fears that someone was stealing her money, the sense that a curse loomed over her life and disaster awaited her if she was not constantly on guard. Or had she simply forgotten? Perhaps her being in love was the tonic. Or the change of scenery had removed reminders of a more sorrowful past. And yet she still recounted the past, if anything more often, only now it was constantly being revised for the better. For one, it included Mr. Tang. LuLing acted as if they had known each other many lifetimes and not just a month or so. "This same thing, he and I see long time 'go," LuLing said aloud as they all admired the bells, "only now we older."

Mr. Tang helped LuLing stand up, and they moved with Ruth and Art to another display in the middle of the room. "This next one is a cherished object of China scholars," he said. "Most visitors want to see the ritual wine vessels, the jade burial suits. But to a true scholar, this is the prize." Ruth peered into the display case. To her, the prize resembled a large wok with writing on it.

"It's a masterly work of bronze," Mr. Tang continued, "but there's also the inscription itself. It's an epic poem written by the great scholars about the great rulers who were their contemporaries. One of the emperors they praised was Zhou, yes, the same Zhou of Zhoukoudian-where your mother once lived and Peking Man was found."