Chinese Tale
The day he finally went there, he had few intentions, but he had some.
He had postponed that visit for quite some time, giving him excuses profiting from his recent appointments and explorations as alleged reasons for his absence. And then the message came, it just asked for his latest news, or rather for a sole specific datum: “Had he already finished with his last chore”. It shocked him. The lunar year was about to end and he was wondering whether his visit would wait for the time when holidays would be over or if it was more suitable to make the journey to the mountain before, and so express his best wishes for the new year, and take a sneak to the temple while doing so.
He send a note before him, announcing his arrival, made his little bag and departed. He stood off the car at the foot of the mountain, walked for some minutes and got in a big collective car to climb to the temple. He inspected the rest of the passengers, like he usually did, and saw them getting on and off the car as it made its way up the mountain road. The warm sunlight caressed the chilly winter breeze and the sky was bright blue, he was in a particular good mood while he walked towards the gate. As he saluted the guards and exchanged some polite comments with them, I understood later that his heart was beginning to fill with unexpected fuzzy hopes. His pace was discretely jolly when he jumped up the steps to salute his dear correspondent.
Since his prior message arrived well, she was already expecting him in the midst of a bad disguised chaos: something was happening, but the nervous riot could easily be attributed to the coming holidays. A group of familiar faces was surrounding her worktable, appreciated colleagues of yore, some teachers and even some other who grew to become teachers. He didn't even have the time to greet them all. They said hello to each other with a very warm hug (even maybe a kiss, that makes me smile as I remember the early years when he didn't dare to step anywhere away from the strictest norms of respect and politeness in that mountain); then they exchanged some personal news before she kindly asked him to wait for a moment while she attended her duties. He spend those minutes saying hello to some of the people around but, of course, was unaware of most of the movement around him, as she later told him privately. The chambers where swarming indeed, a lot more than he realised at the moment: some titles were threatened, some authorities put in question and, poor little innocent he was – standing in the eye of the hurricane – as everybody, quietly, wondered about his being there.
Such a long journey for such a short visit. There was in fact some information required, that he swiftly provided. He was hoping to regain some chance at the safety of the mountain ,but in that very day it looked as dangerous as he actually remembered. “Memory can play some bad jokes, and safety is relative” —he admonished himself as he caressed the beads of his mala...
End of part 1
