Parishioners and Other Stories. Joseph Dylan

began spending the night in his upscale apartment in the heart of the city. In bed, for his age, he wasn’t without undue endurance as a lover.

      One winter’s night, as the rain poured in Shanghai, they lay in bed, amongst the ruffled sheets of their love-making. Heng could hear the rain beating on the panes of the bedroom windows of Rosenthal’s apartment. In the dark silence, she wondered whether she really loved Rosenthal. She wondered whether it truly mattered. She was happy, she was content with the ways things were. At least for the moment. She wondered just what sort of commitment she was willing to make to him; she wondered what sort of commitment he was willing to make for her. “Are you ever going back to

      Canada?” she asked him.

      “Not in the winter. Not if I can help it,” he replied. She turned towards him in bed. He began running his hand up and down her naked flank, lingering over her hip.

      “Take me with you.”

      “You mean take you to Canada?”

      “Yes, take me to Canada. I’ve always wanted to see it. I’m so weary of China. I’m so weary of Shanghai. I’ve got to get out of this place.”

      “Well, I have no problems taking you to Toronto next time I go, but for God’s sake let it be anytime but winter. You have no idea how cold it gets there in the winter.” He laughed.

      “You promise you’ll take me.”

      “I’ll take you,” he said, kissing her gently on the forehead.

      “Take me there and don’t bring me back.”

      In the darkness, Rosenthal laughed again. “Well, that might be a different matter. Yes, sir, that might just be a different matter.

      Disheartened, but not yet defeated, she dropped the matter.

      That winter, Joshua Rosenthal began walking Zhang Heng to work. He would walk her to the vast complex that the International Medical Centre was in; he would take the elevator with her to the third floor; he would get off the elevator and, at the front door of the clinic, he would kiss her good-bye. With each week, she arrived in more and more revealing designer clothes that Levinson would buy her at exclusive boutiques in Shanghai. One day, she appeared in a sheer dress at the clinic before she changed into her nurses’s uniform. It became a scandal to those she worked with. Her demeanor, to some, was an affront to the propriety of the clinic. First, the nurses and receptionists gossiped about it. Then, Abrahim and the rest of the doctors talked about it. Abrahim even mentioned it to Tony Ng, the manager of the clinic. The both of them seemed to be immune to all the gossip that swirled around them. Heng found herself more and more alienated from the rest of the staff, while Rosenthal just beamed at the nurses and receptionists after he kissed Heng good-bye each day. He would beam at them like an innocent schoolboy and then wish them all well.

      One day in January, when the sun was hidden behind the clouds and rain was threatening in Shanghai, Xiao Chen took Zhang Heng aside. She took her into the nurses’s room. No one else was inside. Chen indicated for her to sit down in a chair next to her desk. “I don’t know how to approach this,” she said after the two of them had sat down. “It’s all very awkward. It’s all very embarrassing. But still we have to discuss it. Dr. Abrahim came to me. He doesn’t think it’s appropriate that you’re seeing one of the clinic’s patients. Joshua Rosenthal. He doesn’t think that it’s appropriate that you’ve been seeing Joshua Rosenthal because he’s one of his patients.”

      “It’s none of Dr. Abrahim’s business who I see now is it?” Zhang Heng felt the anger rise within her. She started to stand up.

      “Now Heng,” Xiao Chen pleaded. “Please sit down...Sit down, please.” Zhang Heng slowly eased herself back into the chair in front of Chen’s desk. In order to keep her hands from trembling, she folded them together on her lap. Xiao Chen paused. Then she said, “There are a few people who don’t think that it’s appropriate for you to be seeing one of the patients. Maybe it’s none of their business, but they talk. They talk a lot.”

      “Talk is cheap.”

      “Talk may be cheap, but there are a lot of people here who don’t feel that it’s right for you to be seeing Mr. Levinson. They feel there’s something improper about all of it.”

      “What do you think,” Heng said, her eyes moist with anger and resentment.

      “It doesn’t matter what I think...”

      “You didn’t answer my question.”

      “Personally, I don’t care who you see. I do, though, care, that Mr. Levinson drops you off every morning and gives you a kiss good-bye. I think you could be much more discreet.”

      “So if I were more discreet, it would be okay?”

      “I didn’t say that,” said Chen. There are no rules that you can or can’t see a patient on your own town. There are no regulations. There might be ethical considerations, but there are no rules. For now, do what you want. I can’t prevent you from seeing Mr. Levinson. I wouldn’t want to, no matter what Dr. Abrahim thinks. I would recommend, however, that you say your good-byes somewhere besides the main entrance to the clinic. Dr. Abrahim has already gone to Mr. Ng about all this. If this keeps on, they might just let you go. I’d hate to see that. I’d hate to see you dismissed over such a minor matter.”

      “So you agree that it’s none of their business?”

      “I didn’t say that either. I’m just asking you to be more discreet. Do we understand each other.”

      Zhang Heng nodded her head. “Can I go now?”

      “I’ve said just about all I was going to say,” said Chen. “You may go. Let me just add one other thing. These late middle-aged men who come to China wanting young Chinese women. They’re just taking advantage of them. They meet them, they may marry them, but they suck the life right out of them.”

      “May I go?” said Heng.

      “Go, go,” said Chen, waving her hand.

      Later, that evening, Heng told Levinson over dinner about her conversation with Xiao Chen. She was curious if Levinson would get angry; she was curious if Levinson would get resentful. He did neither. Chewing on a lobster at one of the better fish food restaurants in Shanghai, he just said, “Well, we’ll have to be more discreet.” Then he laughed.

      Beginning the next day, Zhang Heng had nothing further to do with Joshua Rosenthal in the clinic. She didn’t draw his blood. She didn’t allow him past the elevators on the first floor when she kissed him good-bye in the morning. She no longer allowed him to pick her up when she was finished for the day. No one said anything further to her about her relationship with Rosenthal.

      t night, in the damp chill that was Shanghai in the winter, she would meet Levinson on the street in front of the clinic at six every night when she was finished. Every night, he would kiss her on the mouth and then laugh, beaming as they walked down the sidewalk to one of the surrounding restaurants.

      Soon, spring arrived. The dampness and the chill that one found even indoors in Shanghai gradually disappeared. The cherry blossoms bloomed. The heaviness of spirit that consumed people during the winter in Shanghai was lifted. Zhang Heng took longer and longer walks with Joshua Rosenthal down the Bund of the other boulevards of the city. Zhang Heng, after all this time together, was falling in love with Joshua Rosenthal. She was falling in love with him despite herself. Like all young women, she seemed to be more in love with the idea of being in love than being in love itself. But if her affections for the man seemed to be growing, his seemed to be diminishing. He didn’t laugh as much when they were together. He began to brood more. This, she first took as a reflection in the downturn of some of his business adventures. Then she wondered if it was her. She kept bringing up the matter of moving to Canada. He continued to ignore her pleas.

      On a lovely evening night in May, she strolled hand in hand with Rosenthal down the Bund. He was laughing; he was joking; he seemed in a better mood than he had been for the last couple of weeks.