The Story of the Stone
Berkeley Fiction Review
wandered. He ended up in the land belonging to the Fairy of Disenchantment." The Taoist "snorts into his beer, "the fairy of disenchantment - that's an oxymoron." The monk waits until he stops laughing. "There was a river where the Stone liked to walk. One day he noticed the Crimson Pearl Flower. She caught his fancy, so he watered her every day." "The Crimson Pearl what?" the Taoist asks. The monk's face grows haughty. "The Crimson Pearl Flower, a blossom transformed into a fairy girl by the stone's faithful watering." "And then what?" the Taoist asks. "Well she knew she owed the stone. It was his watering that made her a fairy; she would have stayed a flower, died a flower. She couldn't water him back. What good would it do? He's a stone after all. So she decided to water him metaphorically, with the tears shed during a whole human lifetime. She's being reborn as a mortal, and the stone is going too. That's where I'm taking him, to start his life as a human man." The monk glances at his watch, "And I'm late." He throws some money on the bar and scoops up the stone. The Taoist turns back to his beer. "Is the game on?" he asks the bartender.
white. She could be anywhere. Her husband Doug kisses her cheek quickly. "I'll be home by six," he says. "We can all have dinner together." She sees their transplanted sitcom family; inside it's all the same. Husband, children, breakfast. But outside is Beijing. "Ok," she says, and glances up from the coffee maker. She had insisted it come along, a bulky carry-on. "There are Starbucks in Beijing these days," Doug had said, but she needed coffee in the mornings in her own home. She can hear the clattering sounds of her children in the back of the apartment. Doors closing, drawers closing, water running. The front door slams sharply, Doug leaving. She stirs milk into her coffee. Stephanie tumbles into the kitchen, ponytail, notebooks, lip gloss. "Good morning honey," Molly says. "Morning," her daughter replies, fishing in the fridge for orange juice. Molly had realized quickly that Beijing didn't seem to have breakfast. She couldn't feed her children dumplings and pork rolls in the mornings. Doug had put his hand on her shoulder and told her to spend whatever she needed to spend. Some things are going to be expensive here, he had said, but everything else is cheap. So she bought milk and orange juice and coffee. Ka-fay, she thinks to herself, mimicking the Chinese pronunciation. She unwraps the bread and draws a knife through it. An orange sticky substance oozes out from the center, clings to her knife. She picks up a slice, suprised, and bites into it, then discreetly spits the sweet, gelatinous fruit into a paper towel. "I'm starving," Tom says behind her. He is, like all sixteen-year-old boys, always starving. Molly stares at the loaf of bread. It was supposed to be breakfast, slices of toast with butter and jam. "Surprise," she says, turning towards her children, "have whatever you want for breakfast this morning." She dumps the loaf in the trash can and sits at the table with her coffee. She watches Tom eat leftover chicken and rice while Steph helps herself to a handful of cookiesr—-They leave the house together to catch the bus to the Beijing American school. When she is alone, she cries.
It's like a cafeteria, Molly thinks, and she doesn't know why she's there. Except she's hungry, and she doesn't feel up to the grocery store, to the complicated counters and fruit-filled breads. She stands awkwardly hovering behind the counter as people push past her to order. She watches the cooks frying heavy batches of noodles and vegetables and meat. Steam rises from the swirling black woks as they are lifted and leaned above the flames by thin, sweating men who deftly toss and sear the sizzling contents. She finally muscles her way to the front and orders jaozi: dumplings. It's a word she knows, a pronunciation she is sure of. Cha too, is easy, the syllable rising like a question. She hands the man behind the counter a bill, doesn't count her change, accepts the wide plate of twenty dumplings. Twenty dumplings! She stares until she is pushed out of the way. She sits at the end of a long table. Mandarin flaps'aTound her, quick and chirping. She eats her way slowly through the dumplings, through the jaozi. It is hot inside the cafeteria. Her hair is wet against her neck. She can feel her shirt sticking to her armpits and ribs and breasts, her bra damp with s. weat. The tea burns her tongue, the steam from her cup curls towards her nose as she sips. The heat makes her hungry. She eats her way through all twenty dumplings. In the evening, she isn't hungry. She cooks white rice and vegetables in soy sauce. She is not deft and quick like the men at the cafeteria. The wok is heavy, and she stirs one-handed with a stiff rubber spatula. She watches her husband and children scoop up the stir-fry with chopsticks. They hold the bowls to their mouths and shovel.
"This is not an ordinary stone," the monk says. The Taoist is feeling tipsy. He hasn't eaten much; the temple offerings lately have been sparse. Maybe compassion is a fading quality. He bangs on the bar and shouts for peanuts. The bartender brings over a bowl. "Obviously," says the Taoist. He thinks the monk is being pompously obscure. "This stone was created by a goddess. He's a leftover. She used all the other stones to repair the heavens. Only he was left. He was at loose ends. He 14
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