Wang’s Table

He’d piped up with some question, some qualified, gutless question, a man of about forty who sat in the back in a chair so as to spare his weak knee, and Wang’s sluggish cat eyes fell on him as though before that instant the man hadn’t occupied any space in the world, that his relevance would have to be channeled, and that Wang was once again back at work managing this.

I don’t recall the question, or if he got an answer, just that then Wang asked his own question and set the man to nervously rubbing the side of his short beard. He gestured towards one of his Taiwanese followers sitting near him, in her early thirties and lovely, a woman who was always at the Tea House, but never engaged in the furious martial and meditative exercises of the others. She mostly attended the Master, brought him tea or ran errands, although often enough, as tonight, she acted as the translator for the crowd of foreigners lining the walls of his audience chamber.

“You are attracted to her, aren’t you? Would you like to date her?” Wang spoke through her, and the distinctly masculine directness of the questions found strange value in her voice as she remained as flat as ever, confronting the man as to his affections in front of some thirty people through another person’s words.

I got the feeling that there was a real backstory as she went on speaking about herself in the third person, the man shifting back and forth between hers and Wang’s doubly steady gazes. He stammered and Wang laughed airily, high-pitched, and totally alone. The entire room sat with stuffed breath transfixed by a private scene forced suddenly on them. The woman, placid, sat as ever - waiting for words from either men to translate. At length, Wang’s cold eyes unflinching, the man lowered his own and nodded that Wang was right about his affections. He clearly wasn’t certain what to do, like all of us, caught in a strange scene he didn’t want to be in, already having made the decision to follow the Master’s lead while in his house, unclear where this would go.

“Well, you should ask her out, then.”

And like that, Wang broke away from the man his terrible steady look, unpinned him and released him from the focus of the entire room.

He had been enjoying the man’s discomfort, I could tell. Throughout the exchange, he wore the supercilious grin that sometimes overcame him on festival days, when he obliged us all to ignore the five precepts and drink glass after glass of rough gaoliang sorghum liquor cut with juice, while he as a monk abstained, watching us all get drunk as monkeys and caper around his small audience room. In Chinese cultures, this is the height of generosity, and any man would rightly relish being a host of enough abundance to leave scores of foreigners stupid with wine.

There was some of this satisfaction traced on his face as the bearded man wriggled, and I wondered if Wang wasn’t being possessive of the woman. These girls that attended him, I thought silently as the next question was raised and Wang continued his brief Chinese lessons, does he fuck them? I only wondered because, after months of coming to the Tea House, I was certain they would if directed. No, it not unimaginable - he;s got a wife somewhere, and children, so celibacy’s not a concern for the Master unlike other monks, for whatever reason (who would dare ask?). For her part, she held in check throughout the encounter a sly amusement, and in her total lack of discomfort at suddenly speaking Wang’s words about herself, she’d seemed as distant as would any paramour at the suggestion another man stood a chance of having her. It amused me to think of, but more than that, it would explain the strangeness that hung so often in the air, the weirdness of their connections.

As Wang again resumed his slow gaze of roving disinterest, I considered an alternative. The bearded man, like many men in many places, almost certainly been trying to use the group’s common bond to wheedle and work at her affections. He was no serious practitioner, and wouldn’t be able to become one as long as he let himself be distracted and tempted. He’d gone long past the trial period all newcomers were given, when anyone’s presence was tolerated unconditionally as slowly they were given chances to show their dedication and worth. Masters do not teach uncommitted students, and so at the Tea House, Wang was doing something fairly revolutionary and opening wide his doors to all that would come. There wasn’t an endless welcome, however, and eventually it would be worn out. Wang’s confrontation was a standard passive-aggressive technique nearly universal in Asia (I’ve had the dubious honor of riding several such rails), so perhaps Wang wasn’t really being vindictive.

I don’t think I ever saw the bearded man again, but if so, it was only once or twice more. Wang had driven him out - either putting the lesser man in his place as he overreached at Wang’s table, or discouraging an unfit student from remaining at his school. In truth, I suspect it was both. Or rather, for Wang, the two are one in the same.