He claimed me with his love, and then he let me go home. When I arrived in America, I realized that the love was with me, and would stay with me forever. He used to sit in my living room and talk by the hour and wave his beautiful hands in exquisite and descriptive gestures until when I think of him, I see first his hands. He was a northern Chinese, tall and classically beautiful in looks, and his hands were big and perfectly shaped and smooth as a woman’s hands. I sat in the same room with Pearl and Hsu Chih-mo. It was my home, but I felt like a ghost. Dick Lin was no longer their topic of discussion. Hsu Chih-mo was talking about a famous musician, a blind man named Ah Bing who played the erhu, a two-stringed violin. “Ah Bing is a perfect example of someone who created his art as the people.” Hsu Chih-mo’s tone was rushed, eager to get his point across. “Before Ah Bing became an artist, he was a beggar—something the critics choose to ignore. Ah Bing spent years wandering the streets of the towns of southern China.
